10/2/24 - 2062: A Conversation on Biblical Scaling

Jim: You've tuned into iWork4Him, the voice of collaboration for the faith and work movement.

Martha: We are your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg, and our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian into a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: Every business owner wants to grow their business. Some grow the easy way and some grow the hard way and some don't grow at all and they go away. Either your business is growing or it's disappearing. But as a follower of Jesus who runs a business, is growing your business okay?

How do you grow your business and honor God? Is there a kingdom way to grow your business while making sure your business is still a blessing to you and your family, your employees and their families, your customers, your vendors, and the communities you operate within? How do you take all that into consideration?

I have no idea. Strategy is not my thing, but it is Todd Hopkins' thing. Decades ago Todd started a janitorial business in Indiana. Today, his Office Pride franchises over 150 different franchises, successfully operating on kingdom principles all over the country. So Todd knows how to do it. He knows how to scale and keep it all in perspective.

So we brought Todd in to share a little bit about where God has him on his journey, and how he can help you scale. Todd, thank you for your support of iWork4Him for almost a decade. And thank you for your godly example, how to grow a business for God's glory. Todd Hopkins, welcome back to iWork4Him.

Todd Hopkins: Hey, thanks for having me guys. Good to see you.

Jim: Todd, you started out as a small business owner. What led you to start your janitorial business?

Todd Hopkins: That was by default because one, I didn't have a lot of capital to invest, but I had a lot of willingness and desire and I wanted to find an industry that would reward me for my hard work. I wanted to find an industry that was recession resistant and would be one that I truly could scale. And I met a lady that had a cleaning business who was going out of business. And I just heard her story and I thought about how I would do it differently.

So I ended up starting a commercial cleaning company, Office Pride, and with a business plan to franchise it. So really my first love was to get into franchising. And then I wanted to find a business or an industry that I believed I could build a great system and could scale it.

Jim: You knew right from the start, though, that your business was going to be in ministry, didn't you?

Todd Hopkins: The goal was to honor God from the beginning, but it evolved over time just in terms of including the biblical principles and how to operate a business with the franchise training. As we started to grow, it, it really developed more of that Christ centered, Christ focused type of a business.

It was always there, but in the first few years I was just working my butt off and trying to survive. But then as we started to add people, that's when it becomes more valuable to talk about your why around the people that, as you build your team and you build your organization, you don't want to skip talking about the why.

Martha: And I love talking with you, Todd, because number one, you started the company saying, I want to honor God. But as God worked more and more in your life, you then have kept incorporating that growth, not only in your personal life, but in your business and with all of the people that you influence and so each one of us should be growing every day, right? So that journey is never going to look exactly the same. So at what point did you know that you were successful enough to start expanding the business?

Todd Hopkins: I wanted to franchise from the beginning. I just had to build a model that somebody would want to copy. So People don't want to buy a franchise for something that hasn't proven itself, isn't making money. So it took 3 years to do that. So I started 1992 and began the franchise model building in 1995, sold the first two in February 96. So it was, those guys are guys that I prayed with before they came in. They were really strong Christians. So I started off with some really great people. One of them was going to the church that I was going to.

And it just grew from there. It was really like they expected it of me, right? I would say right from survival, once I reached survival, of course, I was doing a lot of praying myself. I just didn't have a lot of people to talk to it about, talk with it about. But once I made this survival point, started adding franchisees, then we were all in it together.

We could share, we could pray together, we talk about building a business that would glorify God. And I just enjoyed helping them do that. Actually, that's what was fun, was helping them achieve their God given potential in the marketplace.

Jim: Yeah. Most business owners would grow and scale their business so they can keep it all to themselves. Why did you decide to franchise your business instead and share your success with lots of other people?

Todd Hopkins: It was a quicker way for me to scale because when you franchise, they're using their money to buy a franchise and grow their business. And then I had the model and the system created to help them do that. So it was a good way to scale the business, but then to help them achieve their dreams. So I was more motivated by helping franchisees achieve their dreams and build a business that would honor God in the marketplace than I was say, cleaning buildings, providing the end service to customers, which, was very necessary. That's what we did.

But I enjoy teaching. What I like to do is teach and I always enjoy teaching the franchisees. I feel like God called me to teach, right? I just think that was the way he wired me.

Jim: What about that call to radio? Remember that first time you went on the radio to take over for us when we went on vacation? The call to radio was always a call on your heart as well, wasn't it?

Todd Hopkins: It was, I had a radio station, a fake one set up in my closet when I was a small kid. And I used to call it WHOP, and I would record a show on a cassette tape. And I'm a pack rat, so it's a wonder I don't still have one of those.

Jim: You probably do somewhere.

Todd Hopkins: When I had the opportunity to substitute for you guys when you guys were hosting a marriage cruise and actually be a real radio host for iWork4Him, I can still remember that. And so that was like a dream come true. I got to check that off the bucket list - live radio.

Martha: Yeah, that was so great. So for people that have not been listening to us since the very beginning, We used to be on live radio on a radio station in tampa bay and then podcast the results of that live radio show. So Todd was a guest host and just one of the things I want to point out,

Todd, I've always loved this about you. You're like, you were talking about how God created you to teach, but you are a systems person. You figure things out and then you say, I want to show you this because it works. And so in that, You're very generous because you're like, you don't need to reinvent the wheel, which really speaks to Jim and I. God told us don't reinvent the wheel, help people to see kingdom economies. And I just love that about you. Of course. I love systems. I love organization and you are like the epitome of all of that. So I hope people enjoy this conversation as we dig in a little bit more.

Jim: And if you want to hear any of those archives just type in Todd Hopkins hosts on iWork4Him and they're out there. Those are out there. Absolutely.

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Martha: So Todd, a fun question to always ask is was Office Pride an overnight success?

Todd Hopkins: No, there was a whole lot of overnights, I can tell you that.

 (laughter)

Martha: That's true.

Todd Hopkins: I was just talking to a guy this week and telling him that there were times where I cleaned all night long and I just had to sit down in the hallway of the customer's building to let my legs rest. And so a lot of long hours, a lot of overnights because we're cleaning in the evenings but - just like the music guy that plays in Nashville, right? For 20 years. And then somebody, the right person hears him and they say it's an overnight success. So it took a lot of work. It took a lot of prayer, a lot of favor from God, a lot of different people over the years contributed and probably rested their legs in those hallways with me.

So it took many years. It seemed like it was, the first 15 years I was still out there in the grind, right? And so I think it's important that when God puts something on your heart and then you really have a passion and desire to build it, just to stick with it. Most people give up too soon.

Martha: Yes. So in fact, as you were growing the business one franchise at a time, I'm sure it was often grueling and necessary in order for you to be able to serve them well, figure out the systems, fine tune your process. Did you ever just get to a point where you said, okay, this is enough and I just want to level off and coast?

Todd Hopkins: No, for me, we never were growing enough. We were a double digit growth company on an annual basis, but I always wanted to grow more. So I like growing. I like to learn and if I'm not growing, I get bored. And in fact, part of what drives systems creation and processes creation is boredom, right?

If I have to do the same thing four times I'm bored. So I like to create and I like to grow and if I'm not growing then I'm going crazy.

Jim: So besides the hey if I franchise this other people can help me grow because I'm using their money as investors, what really made you decide to scale? Because you've scaled now a lot over the last 32 years. What made you decide to scale? This became something that really was a passion of yours.

Todd Hopkins: Ultimately, you're impacting more people. You're growing this. There's thousands of reasons to scale. Everything gets easier with size and business. That's what I teach people. You just end up with more and more layers of organization. And especially if you are, you have the systems and processes in place, and then you're plugging people into those and you get people to join you in that leadership effort, for me it just made sense. Those guys now as they go and honor God in their market, they're doing things in their community. They're making a difference.

But all the franchisees, they're a little different. Some of them like to focus on missions. Others would focus on something local. Some of them are fostering kids. They're all making difference in their church. But we would come together as a retreat and it would be like a big church reunion almost. We would, we have Phil Wickham, you guys have been there and seen some of the worship that we would have and the speakers we would have. So that was always a lot of fun for me.

Jim: The retreats are just an amazing idea, an idea of bringing together your franchisees and really having a three day worship time and talk about how to do great business. It was phenomenal. Love being a part of those. We've been a part of a couple in the past.

Martha: So as you talk about scaling, where does kingdom fall into all of that? How did you determine what was a godly kingdom model for scaling?

Todd Hopkins: I believe God created me and that I should pursue the potential that he put in me and then let him work through me. So if God is working through me, he's not going to underachieve.

 Keep talking about the word scaling, but for me, my drive was, I don't want to leave anything on the table. I live on this earth one time. God's put me here one time. I don't know how long that's going to be. But while I'm here, I don't want to leave anything on the table. I'm going to pursue that full potential.

And so far at this point in my life, I can measure the pursuit of that by growing and scaling. And how can I impact more people? Or how can we grow the business bigger? Now his ways are higher. It didn't say his ways are bigger. His ways are higher. So they're more purposeful, right? I was just going through a study on that this week.

And I've said bigger a lot of times and I shouldn't have done that. I said, so his ways are higher. Of course, he has a higher purpose than what we have. And so I'm in the pursuit of that potential. And so far for Todd Hopkins, that's been about growing in the marketplace and the impact on marketplace leaders.

And that's just business. They expect it more when they see you growing. If you're growing, they want to tap into that. And so it, you talk about kingdom, talk about business. I like the combination of the two.

Jim: And it's not just marketplace leaders you're investing in. Its future marketplace leaders through the CBMC YP program. If you're a young, up and coming professional, you gotta check out the CBMC Young Professionals Program. Todd developed that in Tampa Bay and then it scaled across the country with CBMC.

Martha: I'll make sure to put those links in the show notes. Todd, I just love hearing about your kingdom model for scaling. And when a company allows their focus to be on the kingdom of God, it is a game changer. And I just want to highlight that all of our sponsors are focused on Kingdom. So I just want to encourage all of you to take a moment, navigate to our sponsor page and find out who they are at iWork4Him.com/sponsors. And you will find Office Pride listed there and, just know that they are a Kingdom company. And that's why we're having this conversation today.

Jim: Yeah. If you want an opportunity to start your business on your own, Office Pride is a great place to look. Commercial cleaning services, there's all kinds of places that need to be cleaned and you could do it to the glory of God and Office Pride can show you how to do it and make money.

Martha: We're big believers.

Jim: We are absolutely big believers. There's one in Jacksonville, Florida that started because of this show.

All right, Todd, you've seen your business grow and now you're a sizable national commercial cleaning brand. What's next for Todd Hopkins?

Todd Hopkins: I'm transitioning from Office Pride, I'm still on the board for Office Pride and a mentor and a part owner of all that, but my focus right now is on creating systems and processes to teach entrepreneurs and business owners of any brand - independents, anybody, entrepreneurs, business owners, high achieving sales professionals, how to scale their business and their kingdom impact.

And so right now, and I'm doing some CEO coaching. So I'm enjoying that and we're experiencing some breakthroughs, but where God's really calling me right now is to create these quarterly workshops that entrepreneurs can attend. And I'm calling this strategic thinking network, that's the name of the organization. So the people can join the strategic thinking network that attend these quarterly workshops. And then we're just doing high level business development, high levels spiritual development.

So my tagline is going to be, this starts in January, by the way, so the first workshop is January 28th. And it'll be quarterly, but my tagline is where business and spiritual breakthroughs happen. So the idea is, just think about it. Martha, you talking about what drives scale? I'll tell you what kills scale is distractions, right?

So like right now I'm working on like, how do we tap into immeasurably more? And so I started this considerations filter, and I was doing this for myself. Like all the things I was thinking about doing or considering doing, well, if we were to list all those on a sheet of paper, and then we just made a second column that said on a scale one to 10, what's the likelihood this is from God? And I did that with all the things that I've heard, lately, have found myself involved in, or even considering,. and it just added clarity to what was really a distraction and then what was a potential calling?

Jim: So you said your considerations filter. So give us an example. So you're saying things you're considering doing and whether there's things you should be considering to do or not, give us an example, something that you were wrestling with.

Todd Hopkins: This is going to sound crazy but for 30 something years, I've wanted to own a donut business. I'm just, I always would joke around, Oh, when I retire, I'm going to own a Dunkin Donut. But I've looked at donut businesses for sale and I was actually looking at one recently, and I just I wrote in there donut business acquisition, and then I wrote strategic thinking network quarterly workshops, and I would write down a few other things.

So the donut business, why am I interested in that? And I put on scale one to 10. What's the likelihood this is from God? I put one nothing against donut business but for me, it would have been a distraction from what God has called me to do. If I lost my manager, I'd be in there making donuts at night. It could create bondage for me, right? If I step into something for a business reason, that is not what God's calling me to do. So then I put next action was tomorrow I need to email and tell them I'm going to pass on the opportunity.

I was obedient to what I was discovering in this form. So this is business and spiritual development. It's possible. These aren't mutually exclusive. Then I got the strategic thinking network workshops because I've been wrestling with this. Am I willing to commit to the time and so forth? And I put nine and why? It's cause I just believe this is what God has prepared me to do over the last 34 years, right? It leverages the things that I'm good at. I like teaching, I like creating, I like systems and processes. I like to help marketplace leaders pursue their potential. So that's what this does. And then what was my next action? I'm describing to you verbally what one of these tools look like. My next action is I need to go all in on this.

And so later that week I booked the meeting place at a hotel that we're going to have. I started making some commitments. So it's things like that. Entrepreneurs are wrestling with these things all the time and it, and Satan, he'll throw something good in front of us if it can distract us from what God's plan is for us. And so any kind of tool that could help uncover that. Help somebody get super focused on what they need to do to succeed in the business God's called them to. To me, that's a good thing and I like helping people try to figure that out.

Jim: There's a lot of donut businesses north of Tampa Bay that are breathing a sigh of relief that Todd Hopkins isn't going to the donuts because you would have all been in trouble. That's for sure. (laughter)

Todd Hopkins: Still may do it someday, Jim, if I have a weak moment because I just, for whatever reason, I've always had a burning desire to scale a donut business.

Martha: So do you love donuts? Are you a donut Connoisseur?

Todd Hopkins: I'll have one. Yeah, I do like donuts.

Martha: It's a weakness .

Jim: Yeah, but I'm built more like the guy that likes donuts. You're not. You've always been pretty healthy. What I love about what you've demonstrated, we've known each other a little over a decade now, is that you've been pouring your life into others. You've been pouring your life into others that are franchisees. And then you started that Young Professionals program within the CBMC in Tampa Bay and started pouring your life into Young Professionals, which now it's been, I'm guessing dozens or more of people that you poured in your life and do over the last 10 years.

And now what you're saying is that with the strategic network, we're going to talk about doing what you say is strategic what network? Strategic thinking. okay. I want to make sure you got to say it yourself. Strategic thinking network. It's really like business mentoring, but it's discipleship business mentoring on a whole nother scale, isn't it? A whole nother flavor.

Todd Hopkins: It's tools. This is business education on how to scale your business that's grounded in biblical principles. It's a nine a. m. to four p. m. day with breakfast and lunch. But it's not a day long Bible study. This is scaling your business, but we're going to, we are going to talk about if you, we look at our strength finders assessment, why did God give you those strengths and are you leveraging them?

We're going to talk about what that God given potential might look like, but then there's going to be business tools to help bring that out and help you apply it to your business. So it's mostly business, but it's rooted in biblical principles. I like talking about the immeasurably more. I like talking about, are we back in alignment with our original intent? We're God's handiwork, God's craftsmanship.

He created us for a purpose and the immeasurably more that he wants to accomplish through us is probably related to his intent for us, not by asking him to do more of what we created. So there's a whole lot of ways we can go with this, but my goal is just to help people try to hear the voice of God and let's do our part. Let's be willing to do what's required to pursue the potential God has for us.

Martha: Okay, so you know, I'm always the nuts and bolts person. Is this something where you envision every quarter the same people coming back and learning something new? Are you hoping to churn it in new people every time? Like just what does that look like?

Todd Hopkins: Right now, so 30 people will be in this first class and they'll be in that class together each quarter.

Martha: Okay.

Todd Hopkins: So right now I'm asking God to bring me 30 people. We're starting in January. What he does with that is up to him. I'm going to do my best. And I'm going to give them everything I've learned over the last 30 plus years. And then what does God want to do with it? If everybody absolutely loves it and say let's go for another year, we'll have a year two and year three with the same group.

We may start a class, a different class with another group of 30 people. And there's a lot of things that could happen right now. I'm just trying to follow Jesus. And I'm not, I can't see around him. I'm not putting my vision on this. With Office Pride, I always had Todd's vision. And I would ask God for clarity on Todd's vision. But right now, I'm like, I'm not, I'm just not even trying to look around.

Martha: Alright, but if people's interest is peaked, and they want to know more, or they want to stay in touch to know what this is really gonna, how it's gonna play out. Todd, have you created a website, a landing page, something that we can send people to?

Todd Hopkins: Yes, StrategicThinkingNetwork. com.

Martha: Awesome. We'll make sure that's in the show notes. All right.

Todd Hopkins: Yeah. That'll go to a certain page on my website that's related to this.

Martha: Yep.

Jim: And that's ToddHopkins. com. So it's very pretty easy.

Todd Hopkins: And there's an annual fee. So it's marketplace, but it's an annual fee to participate in the four classes. We had a hotel by the Tampa airport so it's easy for people to fly in, attend and get out easily or somebody local.

Martha: Jim, I don't know if you caught it, Todd said, everything I've learned through Office Pride. So I think you better come ready to drink from a fire hose, but no, I know that you're going to have a, an amazing time, Todd, and I love your heart towards seeing other people grow and become the full potential that God has created them to be. And he's using you as a vessel to do that. So that's exciting.

Jim: Imagine being in a room with Todd Hopkins and 30 other people that want Exactly kingdom scaling. What does it look like to do a biblical, I have a biblical basis for scaling in your business and being surrounded by other people that have the exact same desire, studying together, hanging together for a whole year. That's a privilege not many will have taught. I love it.

Make sure you check out online, the strategic thinking network. com and find out more information on it. Todd, I love it. It's fantastic. Any final words? You're a guy that could be retiring and just checking out living on the beach if that's what you wanted to do. But you're decided the next stage is to pour out more into people. Is there any final words for people before we go?

Todd Hopkins: I would just invite you to check it out. And if you want to grow and you want to just focus on being who God created you to be then think about it. It could be a fit. It may not be a fit. It's not going to be a fit for everybody. But I'm enjoying putting it together and the creation phase of it. And I've been able to meet a lot of new people through this. So it's been a real blessing for me. And Jim and Martha, I appreciate what you guys are doing too. And thanks for having me on the show.

And I'm just glad to be able to do something, right. And be used by God. That he would even like consider us or this and right now the world needs what we have more than ever. That's for sure. That's my final word.

Jim: There you go. Todd hopkins, thanks for being on iWork4Him today. You've been listening to iWork4Him with your host Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers. Our workplace, It's our mission field, but ultimately iWork4Him!