Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast with host Darren Sheer, an initiative of the RTW Dunham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. You can get more information about HBU 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.
SPEAKER_01On this episode, we're joined by Gary Smith. Gary is the founder and chief sharpening officer of Iron Forums, which is a Christian business owners forum. He founded and led Data Formation Incorporated and then sold 75% of this company in 1995 and took that 25% and rebranded as the Transform Group and sold that in 2018 at its peak revenue, $8.3 million. So he's got a great experience in corporate America and is running a men's ministry. Actually, he did that concurrently for probably uh I guess about 16 years, which really gave him a unique insight and perspective into the lives of the men that he was helping. And they are specifically uh serving men and in these roundtable groups. You can learn more at ironforums.org. Ironforums.org, I'll have that in the show notes. Gary, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast. Thanks, Darren.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01So what is Iron Forums and why did you start it?
SPEAKER_02Iron Forums started uh it evolved out of a 2001-2002 experience with me wanting to get involved with um CEO peer groups. We actually uh actually formed a group and um and it didn't quite fit what we were looking for. And um the guys that were um were in our original forum said, let's stay together, but let's do a little bit different model. So iron forums evolved out of something that was already in the market, but it didn't fit what we were looking for. And um that was about 16 years ago.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And and so from starting 2002, when you started it, you were also running a company. What kind of insight did that give you into the men that you were serving around these tables?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, about that same time, I I read a book um called Halftime by Bob Buford, and it really started me uh being sensitive to the possibility of my business um was uh possibly shifting gears, and I was being pushed more toward uh kingdom work in that Bob Buford success versus significance uh phrase. And um but but what I was led to do was kind of test the waters, and um I actually kept my business versus selling and going full-time kingdom work. Um, and we started this group, and I ran it for uh three years, and in the process, I really felt clarity on I was actually not to go into full-time kingdom work yet. And I went back to uh running the business full-time and uh kind of re-engaged in a new vision for the company after being in Iron Forums for three years. We hired a facilitator to kind of take over the leadership, and everything started kind of changing at that point and continued until uh really um in 2018 when we felt um again the the spirit giving clarity on where to start franchising, and I used a franchise word um more from a uh duplication rather than an official business structure because we were 501c3. But we felt like we had a model that could be transferred to any any community. And um in 2018, it kind of a new um season for Iron Forum started, and we we went from one to five, and we see that that five could go to 15 to 50 to 500 to 5,000, if that's God's will. So that's what we're engaged in now is this process of um expanding, and um we're excited about that.
SPEAKER_01And and so with these men, did you start the group kind of this was a a need that you had as a Christian business owner, just looking for that that sharpening from other men business owners? Yes, yeah, it can't it came out of a place that basically developed a model that was kind of scratching your own edge, right?
SPEAKER_02Yes, there was um again, there's there's there's been CEO peer groups in the market for 25, 30 years. Um and uh again, we I had experienced a couple of those personally and and looked at others, and we just felt like um they were they were good, but they didn't meet every business owner's needs. So we moved to the other end of the spectrum, and we are much more relationship focused, and a lot of the CEO peer groups that are in the market are content driven. We're more relationship driven. So we kind of built out uh what that looks like um within the the spectrum of CEO peer groups, and um what we ended up with was uh something that I think wasn't in the market, but it's now entering the market, and we see that it can expand pretty pretty rapidly in that it does offer an alternative to to business owners that they don't fit into some of the older models that are that are out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um so what did you learn from your your personal uh what would be a specific lesson, maybe even a story example from your personal experience as a business owner that you baked right into your model?
SPEAKER_02Well, you know, the the primary driving force was pain. It was just pain and misery. Um most business owners discover fairly quickly that they can get isolated real quick, they can get um they can get uh you know misdirected real quick in that the world tells us, you know, they define success a certain way. And just being a man, our nature is is once we start something, especially if you're a business owner, you're you're usually a type A personality, um you you go full steam into running that business. And um and most small businesses don't have the resources that they need, that's why many of them fail within five years. Um but you realize real quick that you get over your head, you have to wear so many different hats. Um isolation is is your is is one of the big enemies of a business owner. And um we were trying to combat that by coming together um and and stopping the isolation and beginning a discussion with peers that was relationship-driven, that had um a biblical, strong biblical foundation that actually promoted full truth and that our businesses are important, but also our relationship with Christ, our marriage and family are more important, but you have to deal with all of these. So that's how we developed out of the pain of uh some stressful marriages, some painful parenting, um, some shallow walks with Christ, and too much focus on the business in a way that is just not the way it should be and can be run. And that's kind of how we evolved. It was out of those realities.
SPEAKER_01So from 1985 to 2002, before you started the group, did you feel like you were one of those isolated business owners?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, in different seasons. Um, my wife and I uh were married in '82. I started the business in '85. Between 88 and 94, we had four children, three sons and a daughter. And life was crazy. I mean, it it was it was nuts. Um, and then you you you know filter in you know what was going on with the economy in those time frames, uh, how the industries were changing with technology. Um it it was um it was a wild west as far as being a business owner, uh having a wonderful wife and a full house with four kids, and then just trying to run a business. It it was crazy.
SPEAKER_01So, from some of the testimonies I've I've heard from guys that have been in and are in the group presently, this snapshot model is something that really is resonating and is causing a lot of introspection in this area to kind of bring these men out of isolation and and just addressing some of the uh the challenges that they're facing. What is this snapshot model? Why do you think it's so effective?
SPEAKER_02Well, the the snapshot, let me put it in the context of what the day looks like. So we we start at 7:20, we run till 1.30. We have uh 25 to 35 men in the room that start the day off together at table top, we have tables of five. From um the first session, we do provide uh content that we process um at the tables and in the room. So we're we're getting material that will help give us tools for three areas uh our walk with Christ, our our being the spiritual leader of our family and marriage, and then being stewards of the business. So we spend um about two hours dealing with content. Then we shift for the rest of the day, we do the snapshots, and the men are in a closed group of five men. The men they started out with always rotate for the morning, the first session. Session two, they go into a you know a closed group of men that they're always with each month, and and there to bring their own snapshot. The snapshot is uh is a one eight and a half by eleven sheet of paper, and they're to answer uh the following questions and rate themselves on the last 30 days. You know, give yourself a rating from one to ten, your intimacy with with Jesus, uh rate your marriage, and you and there's two blanks. One is your perspective, and the other one is ask your wife. So you automatically get brownie points, your marriage improves just by asking your wife, how are we doing? And then you're also rating yourself on your parenting. And then we have another section of the snapshot, which is the business elements, and we say rate yourself with your staff, your sales, your marketing, your operations, finance, and leadership. And the last part of the snapshot is what's your major issue that you need to discuss today. So the guys bring this, they bring uh four copies, and they have an opportunity to be heard for 30 to 45 minutes, and that is why we say it's relationship driven versus content driven, because we spend 80% of our day with these men in a group of five, and they're they're drilling down on key elements of the man's life that affect the business, that affect the home life, that affect his faith.
SPEAKER_01Which of those, maybe like the the top two, would you say tend to uh uh cause you guys to have to devote the most time to where they're just really opening up the most that really occupy a lot of that discussion?
SPEAKER_02Sure. When a man has his 30 to 45 minutes, uh it's it's been clear over time. 50% of the time, um, 100% of the time he's dealing with relationship issues. 50% of the time it's it's family, 50% of the time it's business. Um, I think the the biggest challenge in running a business uh is the people. If if you you know you're dealing with staff relationships, you're dealing with um vendor relationships, you're dealing with um client relationships. So there's always a lot of issues around staff uh HR, around sales and marketing to get clients. All this is relationships, operations. You know, where do we have holes? And most of those holes are driven by you know problems with we didn't hire the right people to begin with. Uh and then there's always your own personal leadership what comes out of your own personality. Um so 50% of it is dealing with um stresses at home, which affect the business, and 50% of the time we're dealing with with uh issues from the business. And and they again, it's a holistic experience versus um other peer groups are just talking about business, and we feel like that's a very limited um results or ROI if you if you're not dealing with the whole um of the entire element, all the elements of a man's life.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Can you give an example maybe um you know of a of an aha moment that you had from one of your own snapshots? And you do these monthly, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're what we do is we we ref we we we we come together each month, same day of the month, and we reflect back on the last 30 days.
SPEAKER_01So in in your discussions with with these men, what is there an example that stands out to you from your own snapshot where uh some of the guys or one of the guys helped you to think about something differently that really was a game changer for you?
SPEAKER_02Yes. I mean, it I mean, really, it's a matter of which one do I do I pick. Um, I would say probably one of the the ones that comes to mind first is actually um dealing with just again the the relationships with with staff and um and and dealing with hiring and training and managing, um, and understanding that um through my group, I came to the realization that I have to really delegate um a lot of things um in that my background experience and personality limits me in trying to do some of the things that I thought I wanted to do, but I really wasn't very good at it. And like what? Um for me personally, I'm a visionary and I had to hire an integrator or a second number two guy to run the day-to-day. Um that's that became very obvious as my group helped me um see my blind spots and reminded me that I needed to really be focusing on my strengths and delegating my weaknesses. And um that has served me well. Um, and we were able to do a lot of things that we would never have been able to do if I had not um been willing to delegate and hire and invest in um people that um were in the right seats on the bus for our organization.
SPEAKER_01What's an example of how bringing on that that integrator, as you said, uh, was um something that really helped to activate some of your company?
SPEAKER_02Well, an integrator is managing the day-to-day and primarily the operations of the company.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, I was able to focus on the sales and marketing, that was my strength. So with being able to focus in my strength area, the company grew because sales grew, but the company also grew because the integrator, he had the expertise to be able to manage the growth. The biggest danger to a to a to a to a company that's growing is you overload it and you lose your reputation, and then you you lose your position and and you start going downhill quick. If you're growing, you've got to be able to manage the growth to keep your reputation and man and keep the clients. So having that awareness and that truth of the visionary and the integrator working together and knowing my place was the visionary. And within that, I had a subset of I was good at sales and relationships, and I had to delegate the management of the day-to-day, huge.
SPEAKER_01And before you hired that person, how many people were in the company at that time?
SPEAKER_02Oh, we were probably in the um, you know, 7 to 12 range.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you're, and that's probably a pretty typical um scenario of small businesses where you know you it's like if we're gonna bring on anybody, it's gonna be somebody that's gonna get out and sell something, you know, not necessarily or somebody that's actually going to do the work. Yes, and not realizing how much of your time as a CEO is getting eaten up by the COO responsibilities when you're all the hats.
SPEAKER_02All the hats, yeah. Yeah, all the hats. You have to be able to manage what the hats require. And most people can't wear all the hats and get to where we need to be. The thing that we focus on at Iron Forums is growth. The people that come and stay, the men that are there, they are oriented toward growth. And it's about growing their business, and it's about growing their family in a way that you know is the right way to do it. Um, growing their marriage to excellence, growing their kids to be able to grow in the responsible adults, growing their business to where you know it's maximizing what it's supposed to be. But again, we put all that within the filter of the base of that is you got to grow your relationship with Christ. If you're not growing your relationship with Christ, the foundation's not firm.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and you're also hearing from the wives, right? They're they're kind of weighing in on the impact that's being made. What are they saying?
SPEAKER_02Well, the wives, um, we keep members because the wives say you're not gonna, I mean, everybody goes through seasons where, you know, I've been doing iron forms for three or four or five years. I'd like to try something different, or we don't have the money right now. It's kind of a it's kind of a you know difficult season uh with cash flow. And we've heard um several stories where the wife is also involved with the business and says, no, this is a good investment, you need to keep going and staying focused and not dropping this um out of the budget. And and some guys just get restless and want change, and and the wives uh encourage them to know this this is kind of an anchor organization for you. You you need to stay tethered to it and and you know, go do something else as far as change. And we have um Iron Couples that's evolved where um we meet with our wives uh in our homes, and um, so we're doing a twice-a-month couples um uh meeting where we have dinner and we have a couple hours together, and we're dealing with subjects that relate to being uh a couple, that the business is a part of our lifestyle, and the wife is stuck with a business owner type A. And so the wives are very involved with with iron forms and that they have their their own meeting uh possibility if they want to do that. And then um last year we did a a couple's retreat where we had 30 couples that and brought in a uh you know a trained speaker for for enriching marriages and uh parenting, and uh that was very well attended and successful. So again, the holistic approach is if things aren't good at the at the at the home front, they're not gonna be good at the office for long.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no doubt. And and I'm sure some of our uh ladies who are listening may be wondering, you know, why why the focus just on men? Uh and and certainly there are many uh women's groups that focus on business women, you know, like uh maybe not many, they're definitely growing. I mean, one that comes to mind is uh you know forward women and and there are other great ones as well. Um what what could you just list off some of the issues that are unique to business owners who are men that you are addressing through iron forums that just wouldn't really be all of that? Uh it just wouldn't be all. That not that they're not relevant to women, but they're just uh a different um, they affect them in a less direct way.
SPEAKER_02That's a great question. And again, we are very inclusive of women. Um, it's it's just our wives. Um, and we're we're geared up to really deal with issues. The the the entire focus of the snapshot is really to get to core issues that we have to deal with. Um and the goal is to discover the the the priority issue that we have to deal with at this time. And discovering that um through the snapshot and and looking at all of the key areas, we usually end up focusing on one at a time. And then that issue is not solved at the forum. It is just started to be dealt with because there's a lot of work we do outside the forum where there's networking and lunch meetings and and uh professionals come in. If we've got issues with our our cash flow, you know, we suggest well you you know get a better CPA or hire CFO. If there's issues at the at the home front, maybe you need some counseling or your child needs some special attention with his learning disability. But um specifically, we we're we're we're staying focused on the men because the the um the ability to get an ROI for these guys that are paying to be there um is because we're focused. And some of our some of our peers and friends that do these things, they have mixed groups. So if somebody wanted to be in a mixed group, it's in the marketplace and and you can go join that. If you want something that's more focused on the filters that we have up, um we're we're just right now working with the men. I I think that a women's group could evolve out of this in the future with our model. Uh, if anybody listening to this is interested, I would be glad to help her do anything in that area. But I think there's very important lessons learned when men are dealing with things through the male challenges and women are dealing with their issues through the female challenge because a woman running a business has different issues than a man running a business.
SPEAKER_01What are some of those issues for specifically for the men?
SPEAKER_02I think for the men, um, you know, where do we um where do we fall short as far as I would say the first thing that comes to mind is how does a man keep score? Versus how does what is a how does a man see himself as as am I successful or am a failure? And a man keeps score differently than a woman, and rightfully so. Uh even in in in the business sense. Um but I would say the I think just the metrics for a man um through a male filter is is we have a tendency to value uh different definitions of success that a woman would maybe disagree with and say, Oh, I value this. And it again, it's just the filter of how God, the DNA of how God made a man and how he made a woman. I know there's this is a very interesting topic these days, in that this whole area is upside down and twisted and turned. And you probably could do uh many hours of this discussion, but we're focusing on men. That's what we're called to do, that's where we have uh experience, and we encourage all men and women to get in a peer group, and there's those available for for both uh men and women, and we're just focusing on the men.
SPEAKER_01Sure. All right. Well, ironforums.org is the website. Uh, anything else you want to say about uh how people can get involved with ironforums, Gary?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, in today's world, you just go to the website um and then all the contact information is there. But I think we're as far as your listeners, we're hopefully talking to some people that uh are business owners that feel like they need to be members, but we're also part of our formula is is some of your listeners may already have uh cycled out of the business and are in ministry uh and have a business background or leading organizations. We're looking for facilitators. They do not have to have owned businesses to be a facilitator. Um, we've got facilitators that are in ministry and doing facilitating one Iron Forms event uh a month and it helps them and it helps us. We're also looking for advisors who men that come to the table that are retired, but they still have so much to give uh as far as mentoring and helping disciple uh male business owners. So we're looking for men that um that would like to participate as advisors. So we're looking for any geographic area where there's a member possibility, an advisor possibility, uh, or a facilitator. So in your realm of listeners, um, we want to address all three of those, and there are no bounds as far as geographics or people that have different levels of interest.
SPEAKER_01Excellent. All right. Ironforums.org is a website. Gary, what would be a parting piece of advice? Uh, anything else you'd like to leave our listeners with?
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Darren, for letting me kind of wrap this thing up. I would just encourage uh any business owner, entrepreneur, male or female, to get involved with some type of a of a of a peer group forum. There's there's some great ones out there. Um that will help you grow your business. And um, and then I would challenge each person that is running a business to also understand that this is part of uh the evolving plan that God has for your life, and that you've got to include a relationship with with Jesus in that. The plan is a part of that relationship. And there don't live a compartmentalized life and and go and get involved with other people that are uh are on this road with you, and amazing things can happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well said. Gary, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing your wisdom and your passion for helping uh business owners in the marketplace to uh win on all fronts, you know, in the family and the marketplace and beyond. And we sure appreciate you. May God continue to bless uh the work you're doing with Iron Forums. Thanks, Darren.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.