Welcome to the Christianity in Business Podcast with host Barren Sheer, an initiative of the RTW Denham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders integrate biblical values into business. You can get more information about the HBU Center for Christianity in Business and sign up to receive free access to all pages of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityInbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_02On this episode, we're joined by Bobby Albert. With Bobby as its CEO, Albert Companies grew revenues and profits by 500% between 2005 and 2011. And that was the year he sold his business to a publicly traded company. And of course, those years from 05 to 2011 were a pretty uh pretty hairy time for the economy. So it makes it all the more impressive to grow by 500%. And using a values-driven approach, Bobby created a unique and special workplace culture of the best 100 companies to work for in Texas, awarded their coveted designation to the Albert team for the first uh two years they applied for uh consideration. And he is currently the president of Values Driven Leadership LLC, through which he helped other leaders build inspiring workplace cultures through values-driven leadership. And he's a regular contributor on Fox News Radio and the author of the book Principled Profits Outward Success is an inside job. You can learn more about him at BobbyAlbert.com. We'll repeat that at the end of the episode. Bobby, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Man, I'm glad to be here today. Thank you for inviting me.
SPEAKER_02We're excited to have you. So you say that your life's purpose is to be a model Christian businessman. What does that look like?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, it's a very good question to ask. Uh the uh that occurred from let's maybe start with in 1982, September 1st of 1982. And prior to that September 1st of 1982, I was one of those people that I knew a lot about God, but I didn't know God. And uh through a divine appointment of a friend uh that uh that he ended up leading me to know Jesus Christ as my personal savior and the Lord of my life. And that's when I started this spiritual journey, uh, but something uh very significant happened in uh the spring of 1987, you know, just five five years later. And that was that I started having uh daily quiet time. Now, what I'm about ready to share with you, I'm I'm I'm not sharing it so you can pat me on the back or congratulate me or anything, but I've never missed a day except for one day when I was traveling since the spring of 1987. So all these years the Lord has been pouring into me and pouring into me and pouring into me. And uh it's uh when that happened, is I started seeing uh God's working in my life. One of the things that happened also that spring, I started to see in my work as a ministry and not a job that I went to. And that had a, you know, we had a pretty strong culture within our organization, a workplace culture, but that took uh to another level and uh how to minister to our employees. That was our main focus. Well, uh one thing that took uh place uh during uh the that was in the spring of 1987, but in uh in December of 1987, I was faced with perhaps at that time one of the biggest decisions in my whole life at that time. And I'm I'm just a very impatient person. I mean, if I could have it done two days ago, I would have had it done. And so, I mean, I'm in a big hurry because the deadline was coming up, and you know how the Christmas holidays, you know, where uh, you know, people just get focused on a lot of different things. So I was in a big hurry to get this decision resolved. And was I gonna do something or not, or whatever it was. Well, on a Monday morning in my quiet time, I was reading um uh Psalms 27 and got to verse 14, and it said, The be patient and wait on the Lord. In fact, it said it twice, be patient and wait on the Lord. And you know, I didn't hear any voice or anything like that, but I clearly knew the Lord was speaking to. In fact, it it was so clear to me, it it it flat out scared me. So I I belonged to a fairly large church, and and I called my pastor to see if I could get in uh to talk to him. And fortunately, I got in to talk to him that afternoon. And I was telling me about this big decision I was faced with, and I'm in a big hurry to make a decision. And before I told him what occurred to me that morning, he he put his hand up for just you know to for me to pause for a moment, and once you know it, he shared that verse with me.
unknownWow.
SPEAKER_00Now, you if you just think about it, out of all the verses in the Bible, what's the chances of him uh using that verse? Uh that he didn't even know yet that I was there for that purpose on that verse. He hadn't I hadn't told him that yet.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00And so uh that uh that really that was a big thing for me to see God's uh word uh working with me. Well, you know, fast forwarding a little bit more in uh in 1992 is where the Lord helped me understand what my life purpose was, and that was to be a model Christian businessman. And uh that took my whole thinking to even to another level uh of what I was the Lord had put me on on this earth to be and why I exist. Uh one other thing that occurred, uh keeping in mind about this model Christian businessman, is you know, I'm I'm maturing along, you know, in my spiritual walk with the Lord. And in the mid-90s, uh I we had uh an event in in our business that I had invested four million dollars in. It was another division in our company, and it it didn't take off. Uh and you know, it it failed. And so boy, I was searching scripture, I was searching my life, you know. Um, and but one thing that helped me at that time, and this is an expensive lesson that I learned, is that God owned the company and not me. And uh, you know, I was thinking, hey, I own the company, you know, but God helped me understand that he owned the the company and I was to be his steward. Well, that took my uh journey, my spiritual journey, even to another level. And one a few years later, uh we uh brought in uh marketplace chaplains. Uh they're located in Dallas. And uh when I sold the company, we had four uh chaplains assigned to our company. So uh one of one of the other things uh is there in when I was understood that my life purpose was to be a model Christian businessman, is uh was the verse of Colossians 3, 23 and 24. And what what says is that whatever you do, and to me that means exactly whatever you do, if if it's in your business, with your family, you know, with your friends, uh if you're at the soccer field, uh or if you're at the convenience store or at Walmart or you know, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart. In other words, uh to do it at a level of excellence, uh, as working for the Lord, not men. And since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord Christ you're serving. And one thing that our employees, and when I sold a company, we had over 150 employees, and uh our employees heard from me often is that when they came to work, they came to work not to serve Bobby Albert, but to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and in other words, they came to work for a higher purpose uh than uh just to please Bobby Albert.
SPEAKER_02How do you communicate Colossians 3:23 and 24 as the driving ethos for every employee? And I assume this is regardless of the person's um you know faith persuasion. Uh um I mean, you is that the kind of thing that you put like in a plaque in the uh in the company, or how did you drive that home?
SPEAKER_00You know, that's a very good question. Uh it, you know, I you know, I verbally communicated for so many for very several years, and even back in the early 90s, our employees clearly understood um what our business purpose, why we exist, and our vision, where we were going. But one thing that kept stirring in me uh for years, and I never could figure it out. It was like something is missing, something is missing, something is missing here. And that's when you mentioned, you know, about our company from 2005 to 2011. Uh and it took me two and a half years to figure out who I was. That's what was missing, our core values. And so uh it, you know, I had to ask myself some very deep, uh tough questions uh about who I was. It was things like, Bobby, you know, what do you stand for? Uh what are you all about? Uh why did you say what you just said? Why do you why did you do what you just did? And why was it even important for you to say and do what you just said and did? And so I had to go through some very tough, that's the reason why it took me so long. But once I, it was like one Sunday after church, it was like, you know what? I think uh the Lord had been preparing me. It's like I'm ready to figure out who I who I am. So I sat down and did a little T chart, and uh I put some words, you know, on one side, uh, you know, like the uh you know, the things that I have a passion for. On the other side of the T chart was things that when they're not gone done, I get upset, I get angry, you know, I it's uh it tears me up when they're not done. And then I noticed on both sides of the T chart was the same, there was a group of words, there were six words that were the same on both sides. And when I the more I looked at it, I finally figured out that's who I am. So when I introduce our core values to our company, we actually put just like you had mentioned, um, I mean, it was uh the Colossians 3.23-24 was the foundation of our core values when we introduced them. And and people, you know, again, they had heard me talk about Colossians 3.23-24 for many years, but actually now it was all connecting, and um uh and so of course those core values, they were always in our organization. I just finally figured out how to express them because uh the core values are typically uh driven by the founder of the organization.
SPEAKER_02So um and you were so committed to honoring God with your company and meeting the spiritual, emotional needs of your people that you had to hire somebody to manage what some might consider the spiritual care, you know, but really it's more holistic uh care of the in of the individuals in the company. Um, what were some of those initiatives that really made this these core values practical that made the most significant impact in the company?
SPEAKER_00Well, the uh as you said, we looked at uh in our human resource aspect, um we uh looked at things, as you said, uh in a holistic way. And in other words, we were talking about mind, body, spirit, and I added emotions, uh, which is dealing heavily on the relationship side. Now, you know, the mind, uh what we would do there is uh it, you know, we had a very one of my personal goals is to, I'm I'm sorry, one of my core values is to pursue uh personal growth. So uh I was heavily involved, I mean, me personally, in developing the people. We had managers who were better at training people on the skills, but I was very focused in how to help people be uh uh the best person they know how to be, because I knew if I could help the person uh in any way, you know, mind, body, spirit, and emotions, um, they were gonna be a not only a better employee, but they were gonna be a better dad, a better mom, a greater, better uh, you know, granddad, or you know, a better, you know, uh grandma, you know, grandmother or something like that. Uh, they were just gonna be better and their family was gonna be stronger because of that. And so uh we spent our business uh had peak and non-peak season during, especially during non-peak season, we conducted a lot of uh uh training and development uh people, but in a part of the development of person is this goes back to when I finally declared that I saw my work as a ministry and not a job, is I I kept asking myself, okay, so all right, well, all right, I've declared it. So what do I do now? Well, uh I for years uh I've been teaching um um like 12 query boys in my Sunday school. So I thought, you know, this Bible study applies to adults. So I started a weekly Bible study in our company. That's how our ministry, our workplace ministry began. Uh and so I uh so that's how I started that in uh having as far as the mind is concerned, um and the body, uh we would have uh real uh we would have uh we had a very strong wellness program. Uh we would do things, you know, provide gym memberships, uh, we had a weight loss program, we call it Move It and Lose It. Um and we would actually have a wellness fair uh a couple of times during the year. And so those are just some things that we would do on a on a regular uh basis. Now, if I can go back to uh seeing, you know, our work as a ministry and and not a just a job in this holistic way, we eventually broke it up between our workplace ministry, which is dealing with the employees, and then dealing in the marketplace, which is dealing with customers and suppliers. But if I can maybe, before I go into the marketplace, is perhaps uh I can share a little bit more, you know, on the spiritual side. You know, I already mentioned about the Bible study and the marketplace chaplains, but we also have prayer teams where people could submit uh prayer requests. We would uh uh pay for all the expenses for the women to attend a women of faith conference. Uh, and we also provided, you know, like a man that's employed. If his spouse wanted to go, we would pay for their expense. Uh there was all sorts of uh uh Christian concert tickets, uh financial and marriage enrichment workshops that we would buy the tickets, you know, we pay all the expense. We even had things like uh, you know, kids going to uh church camp during the summer, we would pay all those kind of things. Now, let me just kind of share this so that you might have a context of all of this. Is that people, you know, people often when I tell them these kind of things, they would say, Bobby, uh, is this legal to do all this? Well, the answer is yes. Uh, you know, we have, thank goodness, you know, we're very fortunate that we've got uh, you know, the First Amendment uh in in the Bill of Rights that you know that provides this freedom. But also there's a Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is a federal law that makes provisions for us to be able to do these things. And there's also a religious freedom uh restoration act of 93, that's federal law. But let me just share this. I'm to oh I'm I realize this may be oversimplifying what I'm trying to say, but it it may give you the flavor that what we're doing is is uh is okay, is that uh is basically you know, the owner or the leader of the of a business, you can do just about anything you want to do. You can spend your money on anything you want to do. The exception is you cannot, uh, as a condition of an employee's uh being employed, that they have to attend a Bible study. And I'd be honest with you, I wouldn't want it that way anyway. Uh I mean, I want them to feel like this is where they want, you know, what they want to do. And um uh so and one of the other things by these laws is that uh you it's called you know accommodation. In other words, let's say if an employee that had a workstation that wanted to, you know, they they've got you know, they want to put up a picture of Jesus in their workstation and some crosses and things like that, you are by law, you're required to accommodate uh those people. So one of the things it is uh, you know, I really never knew uh if somebody was a Christian or not. We didn't hire on that because I felt like the Lord was gonna bring even. non-Christians would bring in you know to us. The the uh it was always amazing to me um and I want to come back you know about the emotions kind of a thing but uh with their employees but it always amazed me is how many of these people didn't have a church home but they would be one of the first ones that would grab a ticket to you know a Christian concert or you know like I mentioned about the women of faith they would you know attend one of those conferences and we would pay it always amazed me but our ministry was so strong within our company is this ended up I wouldn't it wasn't by intention but it ended up being their church. Would they say that uh I never heard anybody say it but I think uh I actually uh it wasn't until after I sold the company I started thinking man what was people so you know fired up about where they were working at and what we were doing and all those kind of things and that was the only conclusion I could come to is that it ended up being their church because I kept be honest with you even uh you know after I sold the company I kept scratching my head what you know why did some of these people that didn't even have a church home you know would be you know grabbing these tickets and attend Bible studies and you know just on and on and on but I never you know it wasn't our intention to replace the church but I guess they didn't feel like comfortable in attending a church.
SPEAKER_02But then as well I mean when you take a look an honest look at the impact and what local churches are doing by and large, you know, with uh uh a service once or twice a week and then hopefully we're gonna be able to get people to at least every other service, you know, that's pretty much considered regular church attendance is if you go at least twice a month and that's a less than 20% of the US population. But you what you're able to do is really meet the the physical emotional spiritual needs of the you know financial needs just the the sense of being able to have a purpose in life and to make a livelihood and to um find meaning in your job. I mean do you ever look at the local church and think I think something something's really missing here in terms of the impact and and the way that it seems like the the typical pastor is kind of oblivious to what is happening in a company like yours to meet the spiritual needs of people in a way that goes far beyond what that pastor is is able to do through a traditional church uh service model.
SPEAKER_00Yeah uh you know I I think uh maybe I I because I never did ask anyone that perhaps uh they saw their church as religious you know uh not that they were spirit spiritually uh growing uh I find uh some pastors uh you know with good intentions uh that they are definitely teaching God's word definitely teaching God's word but when the people leave the church uh you know let's say on Sunday they leave the church well then they go right back to how they were living before they went to church on Sunday yeah and and they live uh you know they live their lives in compartments uh you know they they and and for me when I look at the Bible I I don't see the Bible separating our life between the sacred and the secular it's all sacred uh to God and uh if I might share a story uh this is several years ago but uh I I went to visit with 50 business people uh in in my city and they were people I it didn't bother me what church they went to and they just about all of them went to different churches uh but they had a reputation as a Christian and uh they were very active in their church but I went to talk to them about hey uh how would you like to see your work as a ministry and not a job you went to and and let me just share with you all this stuff we're doing and one thing that you may want to sign up is this marketplace chaplains well I this was the surprise I got and is just about a hundred percent of these business people uh had this was the under message this was the undercurrent of the message Bobby what I do at church is at church what I do in business is business the the message they were sending me they didn't I didn't hear anybody say this but it was like Bobby you you you own a company you understand that you have to lie cheat and steal from your customers suppliers and your employees just to survive well for me it's just like I don't understand that you know um and it it it really broke my heart it it really signaled to me how important having a a work as worship workplace was so important for the employees and you know all this kind of stuff we did you know if we maybe pick up on the the emotion stuff all this stuff you know they cost money but I didn't look at it I I looked at it investing in God's kingdom I I didn't look at uh how much did it bother me about affecting the bottom line or anything like that. You know it goes back to the thing about that God owned the company and I was a steward just long as I was being a good steward uh is that uh we went to work to worship the Lord in whatever we do and uh uh but you know on some of these emotional things uh you know I mentioned about our business being uh we had a peak season and a non-peak season during our peak season I mean our people worked hard I mean it was always stressful for them our leadership team we would uh uh uh talk about well who's gonna cry first you know it was just that stressful so you know I'm thinking about you know how can we minister our people during this very stressful time they work extra hours you know it's just it's hard well these are just some things to throw out uh to help them deal with their emotions is we uh we would usually in July we bring some um massage therapists for a couple days in the company well the people really enjoyed that uh at the end of our peak season typically was uh end of August is uh I bring in two wrecked cars and give people sledgehammers to just go beat the heck out of those cars. Sadly some of those cars got a customer name on the side you know I mean you know sometimes we mess up and and uh and also sometimes customers are not very nice you know so uh uh and usually coming out of the summer uh in September we would have we I'd shut down the whole company for uh during the noon hour and take all employees we call it bowling and burgers and we had silly prizes I mean flat out silly like who had the biggest shoe uh who had the best gutter ball you know it just you know silly but it I knew if people were able to laugh at themselves and have fun and it would release some of the emotional uh stress that they've been experiencing uh one of the other things during our peak season uh we would have these happy Fridays and uh one of my favorite was uh you know I would live in Texas you know Darren you you live here in Texas too so you know it's hot and so uh uh one of my favorite was going outside and giving everybody water guns and having water gun fights yeah so uh if all this uh you know including our workplace uh chaplains all of this was to constantly in a holistic way constantly signal to our people I care for you I care for you I care for you I care for you and we carried that over uh into uh if I might you know talking about customers and suppliers uh you know we had business not only in a national sense but we also did uh international business uh but uh we I was I mean I wasn't in a glamorous business uh it was a moving and storage business and 99% of our business was moving people like from uh California to Illinois from Florida to Virginia from the uh state of Worceston the state of Connecticut and uh so we had to deal with customers not only you know communicating by phone uh but also electronically you know with emails and things like that but when we would send a document to a customer electronically we had a place on there for them to submit uh prayer requests and we had a prayer team to pray over those requests. We also partnered with marketplace chaplains in that uh uh let's say we're removing from Los Angeles to Chicago most of the time it's a job change if people moving long distance and there's often where maybe it's let's use an example like the husband went ahead to start his job and his wife is left in in Los Angeles with you know two or three kids that are you know it's and she's taking care getting the household you know everything wrapped up in LA and uh she's stressed out so if it was okay with a customer uh because marketplace chaplains uh I think they're over in over a thousand cities now even internationally uh if it's okay with a customer we would pay the expense uh for a chaplain to go to that customer's home to minister to them uh at their origin city if they would like for us to do it again at the destination city we would do that again uh we didn't worry about how much it was going to cost or anything we just saw it as a chance to minister to customers one of the other things and these are examples you know for you know business leaders that are listening uh to this is uh I created in my city what I call Christian Business Leaders Forum and I had out-of-town speakers come in and we I had a luncheon and uh invite people to come we we uh had a very large attendance uh to those uh and I took that same model I started thinking you know this works so well here um I uh you know like I said I was in the moving and storage business and so at national and state trade associations uh meetings uh conferences uh I created what we call movers for Christ prayer practices and so uh the event planners of those organizations uh would work with me in a room and we would have uh these breakfasts uh and I would use those same you know out of town speakers to come in and speak at that and I paid for all those expenses I didn't you know people register for the cost of the breakfast but I paid for all the other expenses and things so that's kind of gives a flavor of you know how you can administer to customers and suppliers when I mentioned suppliers in my business because I had to you know you have your normal suppliers like the person to take care of the coffee machine or computers and things but for suppliers us we had so much business we had to use another moving company in other markets and uh sometimes I come across let's say an owner at that moving company has an employee in the hospital they're real concerned about well if that's the case if it's okay with them we would send a a chaplain to that uh hospital to visit with that employee and we pay for the expense of that so beautiful well these are some of the things that have led to Albert companies growing revenues and profits by 500% uh over just six years.
SPEAKER_02Uh obviously there are many more things that uh Bobby could share with us but I want to encourage people to go check out your website at bobbyalbert.com and uh also check out your book uh Principled Profits Outward Success is an in inside job uh Bobby thank you for sharing these uh these best practices through uh and and you've really you've really done this and you are living out this uh this calling to become a model Christian businessman we certainly need more and more model Christian businessmen and business women and um we're definitely better for having you on the show today so thank you thank you it's been a pleasure to be with you we 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.
SPEAKER_01You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness dot com. Thanks for listening and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business