Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So people are motivated and driven by what pushes them. So. And then incentivizing people is the pull theory. So you want to connect your incentives to their motivation. So I said what you could have done is ask three questions of yourself or anybody that works with you. What do you want to do, where do you want to go and how can I help you get there? Because what I'm telling the employee is the door of access to me is service. There's only two things that give you access in life. Faith and service.
Faith gives you access to God. Service gives you access to people.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Thank you for joining us today for the Wealth Builders podcast. We have got a very special guest. David Briggs has joined us today. David, thank you so much for being a part of this.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: I'm glad to be here.
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you, if you don't know David's story and all that he does, this is really going to be a blessing to you. He is involved in so many things. He has got such wisdom, and he's been friends with Billy and Becky for how long?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Oh, probably, I want to say 47 years. Something like, wow, I've known. I kid people all the time. So Billy and I have known each other back when the sun was the size of quarter and there wasn't any moon, you know, in a long time.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: But anyway, yeah, you guys have been together for a long time. And I, like, he's just, I don't know, you guys are really close and so much when you and Billy are together, I love it because there's a lot of laughing. They know each other so well. I was just saying, like, it's the DNA, right? It's the wealth builder's DNA here. And I do want to tell you that this guy, it just kind of comes out. But he's got all these one liners that are absolutely amazing. So I would encourage you, if you can, to get a notebook out and a pen and take some notes. And when those one liners, they just kind of fly out, David, I know that you don't plan them, but they just kind of come out that you can capture them because they truly are full of wisdom. And they're funny. They're so funny.
So, David, you do so many things. And so let's start with, maybe what we could do is start with tricord.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: And just a little bit of history about that. If you've been with wealth builders for a while, you've heard of it, but really the story behind it and why you and Billy started it would be really interesting for people.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Sure. Well, Billy and I, we've known each other even back in college days, so we've known each other for a long time. And our relationships always ebbed and flowed. There's always been times when, you know, Billy's poured into my life and made such a difference in my life and the things that come by him naturally and spiritually and his gifting. And then there's times I've been able to add to his life kind of relationship, kind of a give and take, helping one another, but only so, not only in our, in our relationship personally, but I was involved a lot in the early years. I always kind of had 1ft in business doing something and 1ft in the ministry. Billy's kind of the same, but more the same in business. But what happened was I had been traveling and doing a lot of consulting and work with, with missionaries and nonprofits overseas and things, and I always had it in my heart to, I just believed in city and nation transformation. I used to sit around and dream, and I'd say, what would I do if I was a benevolent dictator?
How could I change the infrastructure of a country and lift it up out of, if it's a developing country? If I really had that in my heart to do, what would I do? So I did that a lot. And I didn't realize that Billy, on the other hand, he was being stirred about missions in a different way. How does business relate to missions? How do you really transform the nation? He went through an airport. I can't remember if it was in South Africa or somewhere, but anyway, in the airport, he got to book billion bootstraps. And he was reading that, and it really just struck a chord and a note in his heart.
And so he was looking at, this was probably back in 2007, something like that. And Billy, he was living in Houston at the time, and he was talking to, he was intrigued about the microfinance industry and micro enterprise. And looking at that back then, there wasn't a whole lot out there you could just Google. It would just.
And so I called him, or he called me. We're talking. He's telling me what was on his heart, and he didn't realize what I had on my heart about city and nation transformation. I didn't realize how much he was really interested in how do you take business and really change people's lives around the world? So we got together. He's a little bit frustrated with the gentleman he was talking with, because he was trying to, you know how Billy is. What are the operations manual how do you make it work? He's always been a, how to, how do you apply things? You know, how do you do it? What do you do? And so he was talking to me, and I was talking. I said, well, he said, I really need an operations manual to look how we're going to do this. And I said, well, I'll see what I can do. So that night, I stayed up and went through some things. And so the next day I came, and it was a thin one, but I came and I threw it on his desk, and I said, here. Here you go. Here's an operations manual.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Oh, good.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: So what came out of that conversation? And Billy began to say, I tell him what was in my heart and his about that. And so we said, well, why don't we just do some things together? We really feel like there's a synergy here. You know, talking about, how do you relate to people? Find, how do you build a team? How do you connect to people that. What are those divine connections and divine appointments? So even though we'd known each other a long time, so we started in 2008, we began to look at it, and we started with taking some investment capital and putting it into building our own captive mfis, or ones that we were building from the ground up.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: What's an mfis?
[00:06:04] Speaker A: I'm sorry. Microfinance institution.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: So you have microfinance, micro enterprise. Micro enterprise is the actual small businesses they do. You know, micro enterprises is the banking system, or how do you finance those businesses, and how do you train and equip people? And so we went on that journey. To make a long story short, in 2010, we kind of beta tested from 2000, 820 ten what we were doing. And then 2014, we had a real strong pivot into Uganda. And that's really where we began to formulate the bank. And so at this current fast forward, at this time, we take. It's a system where we take people who are.
They're either in poverty or they're small business and how, you know, making them economically active, training them in business, financing that business, and coaching them through their first couple of years of business. And some businesses scale and grow. Some. Some don't, you know this, but yet how to be profitable, and then how do they become influencers in the. In their community? Like. Like, for a quick example, one lady who was in Nache Fuma, Uganda, who was. She was Muslim, actually, and she started doing. She got a few small loans and went through the program, and now she's got, like, three boutiques I believe the last count, and employs a lot of young ladies, in fact, kind of like a county commissioner type lady. She has major influence in the community with young ladies in the community. So it's. We believe that christian business people who know how to do business, that have a purpose in the kingdom, that they become the major influencers in their communities because they're civically responsible as they give back. And at some point there's a tipping point. How do you change a village one person at a time?
How do you change a nation one village at a time? How do you change the world one nation at a time? And so that was the concept.
So how do we take people, lift them out of poverty, set them among princes, find their purpose and become influencers? Then, like Lance walnut teaches in the seven mountains, in the seven areas. So that's. So we've had, we've trained probably a little over 10,000 clients and we have two branches in the bank there. And the bank is growing. And that's kind of where all that. Where all that is. That's a quick synopsis.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really good. Because in Uganda you borrow them or lend them money would be the right way to say that so that they can start, you mentioned for christian businesses, yet the woman you described was a Muslim.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And how she got born again was they have business ethics teaching, which really, christians would call discipleship. But some businesses fail. Like one lady, her business was failing because she had an anger problem. She was running off clients. She almost went under. Well, we took her through, you know, temperance and control, which is really a biblical discipleship.
But when she got, she actually just got delivered from her anger and her business began to flourish again. And so it's that. So in the process of the business ethics teaching, we have clients that come to know Christ or improve their relationship with Christ. And then if they get born again, then we point them to a local church where they can have fellowship and have a christian community to be a part of.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: So people that receive funding from the banks in Uganda through this microfinance program, do they have to go through that training? They have to, you know, hit the bar as far as requirements?
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah, they come in economically inactive or maybe they are active, but at a small level. And then what they do, they go through pre loan training, which is you take, you take them to economic activity where they. And we have like five curriculums or better, where they understand. We teach on debt management, banking, savings negotiation, just basic, real basic fundamentals. Take them through six to nine weeks, whatever that training loop is, and then that's when they get their loans and they've vetted their business, they've done business modeling, they've done their business plan, and then they're usually at that level. And the sackles are in small groups, and in that small group, they're really collateralized by peer pressure more than anything else. So you loan money to the group, the group loans to the individuals, and that way they're cross collateralized. So they have a responsibility to one another to help each other succeed.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: That is brilliant.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: And then they go through, then they go through co op meetings once every week or two weeks. That's where they problem solve in their business. They get their training, ongoing training, and then we have loan utilization checks where they go in and make sure their money's going where they say it's going, go out to their businesses. And so it's a real tedium, but it's a learning curve. The time they get through two cycles of loans, usually they can do business well. And part of the requirement of the loan is that not only do they get a loan to do business, not only do they pay back their loan, but they have to get something out of their business to improve their lives. So whether that's sending their kids to school, paying for their education, roofing their house, whatever it might be, so they're personally being improved in their life and in their skill set.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: David, did you and Billy build all this curriculum?
[00:11:32] Speaker A: Yes and no. There's some of it we have built. Some of it was already out there through World bank, had some curriculum, and we took it and we adapted it to what we believe.
But some of the basic fundamentals were there and we took it and just adapted it to our program because World bank is strong in financing education.
And so we've, you know, I don't think there's anything any of us do that, you know, by the time I think I've had original thought in life, I found out, well, I've got this real somebody else already thought of. Even the Bible, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. So there's no new information under the sun. It's being able to take that and utilize it and apply it and make it apply it work.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: And too many of you know that if been a part of the wealth builders family. But tricord, we actually do capital raises, and I think the next capital raise is in July of this year, 2024. And that really helps to fund these loans, is that correct?
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's the whole back end system is that we, we have people that invest in tricord in their regular, you know, tricord debt notes and, and they, they get their money. They get four to six to 8% interest depending on how long it's there and how much they're putting in. Our median investor, I think is about $100,000. And so we take it and onward, lend it through the bank in Uganda and they lend it at a 2.5% monthly rate, simple interest. So the spread in the interest that's earned, the banks, banks pay us back and we are able to pay our investors through the spreads of those interests. And that's capital they couldn't get from banks over there. They can't be serviced. And it's really low, it's really low interest for all that they get. And so that's kind of the cycle of, we have investors who are changing nations through their money. They're getting money back on their investment and we're able to run the program and the banking and all that. And it's sustainable.
We thank the Lord that we've never defaulted on the note in all the years we've been doing it. And, you know, any kind of investment has risk involved, but the proven track record has been that it's been managed very well.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: That's so good. And if somebody wants to inquire on how to invest in tricord, how do they get ahold of it?
[00:14:01] Speaker A: The best way to do that is to go to wealth builders. Wealth builders. Infoealthbuilders.org dot.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Yes, infoealthbuilders.org dot.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: And when they go there, they can be directed to Caleb and some of the team that do that during the Capitol race and they can just email.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Infoealthbuilders.Org and we've got a great team that is behind the scenes. They'll get you to the right person. I just know we'll get that question in. Yeah, so I thought we would.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: And they'll get, we have circulars, you know, like a PPM circulars and everything. So there, it's, they can drill down their information, their ia can, you know, drill down into it. So it's all, it's all transparent and vedable.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: That's great. So that in itself, David, I would say that would really keep you busy, but there's more.
So you also work at Charis and this is something that you've been doing. Is it over a year now?
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Yeah, not quite. Not quite a year. As far as actually in the job, what I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be in life. I'm still trying to grow up. But no, what. We've consulted nonprofits for years, Karen, and both christian nonprofits and businesses and other. Not just christian, but other organizations. So Charis asked us to come in, AWM cares to come in and do some consulting for their world outreach, operational consulting. So we did that for about a year, and then they asked if I'd extend the contract for another year. And about halfway through, they just asked me if I would take the executive directors for their international office of World Outreach. So we've been engaged in that, trying to, you know, Charis is an incredible vision and ministry with Andrew Wommack, Jamie and them. And they've grown so fast, so quick, organically, that it's like there's this living, breathing organism, this vision that, you know, that they have, that they're the custodian of. But it's like having a great big, beautiful jellyfish and you're trying to shove structure in it without killing the jellyfish is being able to bring some operational structure to help them flourish and grow and be more efficient at what they're.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: And just to give perspective on that, there is how many AWM offices and how many care schools in world outreach?
[00:16:23] Speaker A: Yes, internationally, in world outreach, because they also have us schools, but internationally, the one that I'm working with, there's 21 AWM offices around the world and 31 schools, care schools. And it's growing. They're launching new schools and programs. And so it's a growing concern. I'm really impressed with it. I'm just along for the ride.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: So much experience and expertise in international, and it's different. You know, dealing on an international level is way different than dealing with things in the United States only. And so you bring so much of that perspective and experience. I know you're a huge blessing. Then. In addition to that, if that's not enough. Oh, my goodness. You do consulting?
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Yeah, we.
For years, we kind of fell into that, in a way. You know, it's just by the nature. You know, we used to say even. Even a blind dog can find a bone every once in a while. But it's going into nonprofits like we've done nursing international missionaries, churches, businesses, and go in and actually do operational consulting. Most of that came from people would have pain points.
If I had a graph here, it's like we'd draw graphs like, well, here you have this dream, right? And in this dream, you're down here and you're trying to reach this vision that you have taken the dream, and you've translated into a vision, and so you're trying to get to that vision and accomplish that. And along that pathway, there's things that you do well, and there's things that you don't do as well or you need to improve.
And so what happens when you have the things that you do well? Let's say you have four things you're doing really great and four things you don't do so well. You hit a bar of resistance to where you will flatline or you'll flatten. And so what happens is, sometimes people get frustrated when they're trying to grow or they're trying to expand or build a team or understanding their whole enterprise. What happens is they get to that point to where in that resistance, and they get frustrated because they want to change everything at once. But big doors swing on small hinges. And so what happens? You take the one identifying the one or two things that you do that you need improved, begin to improve those things, and then you create the energy to begin to move forward and not let that resistance stop you. So how do you break through different levels of resistance in your growth to expand, or how do you finance your growth?
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a big one.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Those are, how do you scale. So scale. You scale vertically and you scale horizontally. And so vertical scale is how you really increase your money quicker than horizontal scale, because when you scale horizontally, what happens is you're doing another store or another job. You're replicating yourself, but you're also replicating how much it costs to operate. Vertical scale is, how can I do more without increasing my, you know, how can I increase my operational capacity without increasing my expense line to make that happen?
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Wow. So how do you, this is fascinating. And so how do you go in? First of all, how do you identify those, those areas of resistance? Like, what are some things that you look for that actually helps you locate those?
[00:19:59] Speaker A: One of the main things I've found over the years is that. Cause there's different pockets of areas, but I'll go into a place, and they don't understand their enterprise. So they're hiring to solve problems. So what happens is they can get overstaffed.
They can market to the wrong things. They can. There's, you know, operationally they can then. So what I do is take them in. Usually they'll show me they're really proud of their departmental.org chart. So they'll, they'll bring up their departmental.org chart, and I'll say, okay, usually they have somebody's name in there and they'll have a title to that little box that really isn't a functional title. It's just a title they've given them. And I said, well, yeah, but what, you know, what do you, you do? And I've had people that do a lot of things. This happened just recently, and I had one of the people that was managing an area, and I said, well, what do you do? And I had all the administrators in the room and everything, and they said they were just like crickets. She couldn't answer, what do you do? So one of the administrators came in to her rescue and said, well, they do a lot. And she started listening all things, and I'm listening. I said, well, that's great. That's wonderful. Then I turned to that person again. I said, now tell me, what do you, you do?
And she couldn't tell me, even though it would stump her. It's because they, I said, well, if you don't understand your full enterprise and you don't understand how things relate, you're not hiring to the enterprise. You're hiring to fix problems. So you get over staffed, and now you're, you're at like 50% of your gross income. You're, you're, you're hired people when you should be at 35% of your gross income. So positioning people, you know, let you know if, understanding what all that you do. So if you're going to move from your house today, Karen, and you said you had a three bedroom, two bath house. There are certain things that affect every room of your house, like electricity. You have a light switch everywhere, a plug in everywhere. But there's other things that are limited, like plumbing. You don't have, you don't have water in every room. You have in your kitchen, your bathroom. It's like your policies and procedures. Some are overarching global policies that affect every area of your business or your work. Others are just in the vertical that you're working. Like your kitchen would be a vertical in your house. So if you're going to move your house, what would you do? You'd go into each room, you would take everything and box it up and you would list everything in the box and you would label it and you'd say, kitchen, bedroom. So it's, how do you understand if you ever moved, you know, you can accumulate a lot of junk for a move. I always kidding my wife when we move, I said, you know, one man's junk's another man's treasure. You know, I try to get rid of some of her things. No, I got to keep them. She tried to get rid of some of mine. It's kind of funny, but so what you're doing when you say what's in the house. So in your business, you know, you have certain things like, you know, legal, finance, you know, volunteers, whatever. You have those, these big boxes of work, and then you list everything in that room. So good if, whether you're sharpening pencils, changing toilet paper, or signing major contracts. In other words, in this vertical, what do you do? So when you, when you begin to list that out, what you, if you could put it up on the wall, you're going to get a picture of everything your organization does. And what you find out usually is that you do lot of things that you didn't know you do. You do some things over here that really belong over here. So you're beginning to organize what you do, understanding your enterprise. So now you're solving problems that advantage the enterprise. So if I'm hiring somebody, I'm not hiring somebody just to do this task.
How do I hire them in the enterprise to where they're more efficient? How do I understand their skills? Skill set? So those are some of the back end things that we do. And so then you have global policy, Virgo policy. How do you do Sla's? You know, all the things we talk about. What is an SLA? We know, what is an SLA? Some people want me to know what an SLA is.
For example, I was in Indiana, and I was at actually at a meeting that I was just in the foyer of the, or the lobby of the hotel and had a gentleman sit down at a break time, and he had a little business, about $180 million a year business.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: So it, you know, middle business.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: And so he was a Christian. And he sat there and we began to talk. And he told me, he said, he said, dave, man, he said, I'm frustrated. I said, well, what are you frustrated about? And he said, well, he said, I believe in the great transfer of wealth. And I said, well, praise the Lord. What does that mean? And he said, well, I made a lot of money. And so I gave every one of my employees $30,000 apiece. And I thought, well, that's impressive, you know? And I said, well, why are you frustrated? He says, because nothing's changed in my business.
And I said, oh, so your problem is you have this contract, you're coming up and you're having inventory problems. And he said, yeah. And I said, you thought that money was a motivator that was your first mistake. I said, because money is great leverage, but a lousy motivator. I said, because you thought it would change people's loyalty, change their performance, change their skills. And I said, you could have just given them a turkey or a bottle of wine and done the same thing with it. I said, because people quit jobs all the time for less money to touch their passion and their purpose and their skill set.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Wow. That's gold, David.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: And so I said, here's what you got to understand. You don't motivate people. You incentivize them. You motivate. It's called the push pull theory. Your motivations come from within. Your motivators are from within. So people are motivated and driven by what pushes them. So. And then incentivizing people is the pull theory. So you want to connect your incentives, incentives to their motivation. So I said, what you could have done is ask three questions of yourself or anybody that works with you. What do you want to do, where do you want to go, and how can I help you get there? Because what I'm telling the employee is the door of access to me is service. There's only two things that give you access in life. Faith and service. Faith gives you access to God. Service gives you access to people. So when you come in, you're coming in, you're going to serve me as an employee. You're going to serve this organization, but you're trying to find in the picture of the organization, where do you fit, where do you flourish and how do you touch, improve your life. So I have a responsibility as a boss to connect to your passion, purposes, and skills to improve your life. So you might, instead of giving someone $30,000, let's say that you had a single mom that didn't have a good daycare.
You could have started a daycare for less money than you gave all that money away, made it profitable for your business, and provided good, moral, christian daycare for your employees, would have made them loyal, because the driver that motivates her is caring for her children. Not 30 grand in her pocket. That spins up quick.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:27:20] Speaker A: It's like, say that you wanted to, you had kids and they need to go to college. You could, instead of giving that person $30,000, you could have started a college fund for $5,000, touch their passion, because so how are you really incentivizing to their motivation to pull them where you want to take them? Now, that's worth the price of the ticket if you learn that and then how you translate that in your workforce is this way is you say you study people's hobbies, their habits. This is the people skill set of it, where they want to go. So, you know, if you're pointing to, like, if you pay them goats pay. So maybe they want to learn how to do business.
Pay your employees way to a wealth builders business seminar. That's a lot less than 30 grand. I said you'd have had enough to take care of your inventory, and you could have invested in them in something that brought them along, that would have created a lot more loyalty because you're incentivizing to their motivation instead of trying to motivate them to do something.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: So how that translates, Karen, is this, is that when your workforce, people want about four basic things. I won't go through all of them, but they want to know that they have autonomy. People need to feel like they have certain controls in their life and that they're bringing something to the table that has value, and then they're wanting to know that they bring that what they do has value, because if they believe it has value for them, they'll work hard not to disappoint you. They don't want to disappoint themselves.
So there's like four different things you look at. So it's just those back end things. You learn the art part of dealing with people, and you layer that over on the skill set part, the hard skill sets like policies, process, procedures. Sometimes we get caught in the minutia of the science part of it. We don't onboard people to that because it hasn't elevated to a place of priority or importance to them.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: So I don't know. Anyway, that's just one little thing that we try to do.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: I feel like this is, this should be an hours long podcast with the wealth of information that you're bringing. I mean, just these nuggets on how to look at a business from that perspective. What was the guy's reaction when you shared that with him?
[00:29:38] Speaker A: He was excited about it, and I thought I should have charged him for that ten minutes. But what it did, he realized that he could have re appropriated his money. So now he can still bless his people like he wants to, but strategically places money in the enterprise where it works best. It's just like you're an expert in marketing as far as I'm concerned. How do you know toothpaste is toothpaste? Why do people buy, Colgate or crest? What drives them? And so a lot of people try to go to a, to a client or a customer, and they try to tell them what they need, you know, and they're trying to convince them that you need this. So they're trying to offer pills where people don't even know they're sick. You know, it's like, here, here's the gain for your pain. Oh, I didn't know I even had pain there. So I think you, what you do artfully that I'm impressed with is teaching people how to not just find the niche in the market, but how do you discover what the customer needs? So you're actually bringing things to their need. That set that solves an issue for them. Because this whole thing about consulting, marketing, you don't mind, we say, I say this all the time. You don't mind paying a nickel to me if you know you're going to make a quarter out of it, right? You know, and so that's, that's, that's, that part of it is, is how are you allocating, allocating your time, your energy, your talents, your money, you know, how you getting the most bang for the buck?
[00:31:07] Speaker B: You know, that's, wow, that is so good. You know, you touched on something earlier where you were talking about when you go into organizations, they end up just hiring employees to solve a problem. And it puts, you didn't say it like this, but just use my words. It puts a crunch on their cash flow and their finances. How do you begin to solve that problem for people?
[00:31:32] Speaker A: First thing we do, just like we said, that with the enterprise, you dig into their finances and find out what they're allocating funds toward.
And then you match that with like, sewn up the bottom of the bag.
You know, understanding how money works, sometimes people are, I know one, certain people are very entrepreneurial, but they don't know how to manage their, their money. They can grow something. But I know one businessman that my wife was helping out of her business. It was really funny. We were talking and he was, had real bad cash flow. And I was looking at what they were doing and she told me, she said she went in and found about $120,000 worth of billables that weren't being paid. And so he had money there that he wasn't collecting.
And so he's great entrepreneur growing, but he was cash, he was cash flow poor because he didn't know how to manage his billables. So the management side of those things, I think hiring key people are outsourcing.
Don't be intimidated by your weaknesses. Be realistic with yourself. Find out where your gaps are. So to answer your question, I'm sorry, I went around the horn there, but to answer that question in my mind is you have to go in and look at what in your staffing.
Are they 30% producers?
Are they 20 or 30% producers? Are they 50%? Are they 60% producers? Being realistic with attrition and reticulation and what I mean by that is a healthy body puts off waste. Right. Some people just got to let go. Best thing you can do for them and you is to let them go. Some people are the kings and queens of repositioning. They never fire anybody. They just reposition them. So they just trade one dysfunction for another. They never. So they never, they're afraid to fire people.
Really, the true test of a CEO is not how you hire, but how you fire. But that sounds whatever. If someone goes in and takes over a company, usually the first person that goes is the CEO.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: And so, you know, that's.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: So that responsibility as an executive leader, what do you think about how you grow in your company? So you go in there and you look at how you're allocating your money toward the staffing. What is the staff producing? Are your job descriptions, enterprise job descriptions? And so are you allocating money in areas that are, you know, you talk about your KPI's and all that. Are you, what, what are you getting out of that action or that function? So do you merge certain departments? Do you merge certain jobs? Do you reposition people? So, you know, when they're, when they're, when you're growing people and they're dysfunctional, mate, what you do is you can reticulate them. Attrition means you're putting them out. Reticulation is like you're seeing the wine glasses that are stacked up and you're pouring water and it spills down. So in that funnel of growth, you're bringing somebody, maybe you're trying to bring them up to a position they just can't, they don't have a skill set to manage.
So one, do you just attrition them out or do you reticulate them back into your organization where their passion and their skill sets match and let them know that that is a promotion, it's not a demotion, because now they're touching their passion. So the art of that is you can, if people are doing your skills, but they're not touching something they're passionate about or have, you know, able to do, then they atrophy. Because if you don't touch your passion or your purpose, regardless of your loyalty and your work ethic, you will atrophy away and you'll lose life and energy because it's not just doing a task, but you've lost where you're connected to flourish.
So if you can articulate them back to where they can be successful, but they're also touching a skill set. Like me. I can type, but you can teach a monkey to type, you know, but I'm not going to be proficient at it, so I could limp along.
But for me to be satisfied, you need to put me in a position to where typing is not, maybe I have a skill set that can really advantage. So not being afraid to move people around and reposition them because they'll feel like it's a promotion if they begin to be successful at it.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: That is so good. Wow. David, this has just been incredible. I know that all of you listening and watching this, you've already just gotten so many nuggets like I have, and I wanted just to take a moment, David, and just share a little bit about your family and your amazing wife, Melta. And just a little of the story, if you wouldn't mind, of how you met, connected, just to give us a little insight into.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: Well, we'll be married 50 years this year.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: And she still, she still cranks my tractor. I mean, you know, I love her.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: She is adorable. I just have to say.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: Adorable. So. But how we met, we met back in college. This is fast forward and backwards is that she walked through the door. At that point, I wasn't living off campus. I just went there in the summertime before I moved off campus. Malta walks in the room, and I'll never forget, she walked in and there was men on this side door, women on the side, and they had this foyer area. And I was doing something real spiritual. I was playing rookie cards, I was playing rook, you know. And Melta walked through the door. She's wearing pink plaid pants, a pink top, we had blue star sapphire ring and these gorgeous brown eyes. Right? But she walked in and I had come out of a bad relationship before. I'd gotten saved. I was really raised american heathen. And then I got born again. I didn't have a religious background, but when she walked in, I heard this, what I called the voice of my conscience back then. Rise up and said, david, there's your wife. And so I was being Christian. I said, satan, I bind you in Jesus name.
And I went off to another room to pray. And I said, God, if this is true, if this is real, then you need to prove it to me, because I'm not interested in getting in a relationship or whatever. And Melta on her side, she was sitting there. She was wondering, well, all these guys here, which one? Is there anyone that I have relationship with? Is it this one, Lord? Is it this one? We call them. Getting your PhD degree, put your hubby through.
She looked at me. She said, no, I know it's not him. And so she was safe to build a relationship together.
But what happened way back was the Wednesday night that I received Christ as my savior. And I did that in a church that coming down to answering an altar call like so many people have. Mel, I was in Texas. Melta was in Arkansas that Wednesday night at that same time in her church. And she walked outside the church, and she was praying and asking God for her husband. So the night that she was praying for her husband is the night I got born again. Now, she didn't know before I got born again. She wouldn't have nothing to do with me because she'd been a good girl, you know, and I told her. So I tell her all the time, if you don't like what you got, you should have been more specific when you prayed.
But so we. So we gets amazing how God can take. Talk about divine connection. It's amazing how God can take two people from across the world and bring them to that one point or that moment where they can meet. And so we built a friendship first, and we knew each other. This is not good. This is not good. I wouldn't use this as counseling somebody how to have a relationship.
We met that about August, I guess, that summer. We had one date. It was a group date. Went to an Andre Crouch concert, and then we came back to the campus on college, and we walk around the front of the college, we get a little mushy here, you know, we shared one kiss, and she started talking about our life and our children together. And I thought, oh, my God, what?
Should have shook her hand. But.
But so we. We ended up getting married in December that same year. Yeah, so we knew. And so, but it. We're believing it's going to work. We've been together for 50 years.
[00:40:06] Speaker B: I think it's gonna work.
[00:40:08] Speaker A: And we couldn't have children when we first got married, and the Lord healed us, and now we've got four children and ten grandchildren, and she's the brains of the family.
So we've walked our life out together in our parenting. That's kind of how we got connected and got married. She loved the Lord and always wanted to serve him. And I had to. I had the lord find me. I was lost as a goose in a hailstorm.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: Oh, David, thanks for sharing that. I just think it gives such great insight into you and Melta, your relationship, your journey. There's so much more to share and I want you please to come back. We've asked you to come on like every three months just because you have so much to impart. I know you're busy, but thank you, David, for taking this time with us.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Oh, you're welcome. I trade everything I know for everything I don't know. So you know that. You know what an expert is?
[00:41:04] Speaker B: Oh, tell it.
[00:41:05] Speaker A: It's a drip under pressure. An ex expert.
And if you see a turtle on a fence post when you're driving down the road, just remember this. He didn't get there by himself.
[00:41:16] Speaker B: That is so awesome.
Wow, what a blessing. This has been so much fun. I just. I know you'll be all enjoyed it and I just want to encourage you, if you've got friends and family that need to hear this, please share these podcasts with them. We'll have David back. And I just want to let you know how much Billy and Becky love and appreciate you. They pray for you every day and we really are a family and you are all a part of it. So, David, any final words you want to share with people today?
[00:41:49] Speaker A: People just, you know, enjoy life and the journey. But I do want to say something about Bill and Becky and about wealth builders and the environment.
Because the Bible says that it's the garden that causes the things that are put in it to grow.
It's not that the life is in the seed, but it's the environment that you get into. I've known Bill and Becky for a long, long time. One thing I can tell you about Bill and Becky is they.
They don't want people to live and die in a non growth environment.
They are about growth.
They will give their lives to anybody that's willing to grow and improve their life. The how to's mean more than anything. Now, if someone's not interested in improving their life, they're going to be quite miserable because you can't get around the wealth builder environment or Bill and Becky or the team because they purposely done with intention, created a growth environment of how do you do things? How do you get there, how do you do business, how do you grow up, how do you parent? And that's been their lifespan. I've watched them since college days and I've watched them interact with people and put them in an environment where it was true ministry to where when they came and they left, the people were always better off because they were lifted from a lower state to a higher state. So I just want to encourage you, not just to elevate a man, but in the wealth builder family and environment, the coaching, everything's designed for one thing in mind, and that is for people to have their life improved and to reach their goals and to be better off than when they came in.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Amen. That is awesome. We're so blessed to be a part of it, and we're so glad to have you a part of it as well. David, thank, thank you so much. Thanks, all of you, for joining us today. God bless you and make it a great rest of the day.
