When David started working on a radio frequency welder in 2009, he got so absorbed in the work that his supervisor had to remind him to take breaks.

That's passion. But for many employees today, work feels transactional—they're just cogs in a machine with a care meter at zero. 

The difference? Leadership and culture. They always go hand in hand, either good or bad. 

Today's guest, Dustin Rogers, knows this firsthand. As owner of DB Rogers and host of Your Impact Story podcast, Dustin has spent his career studying what makes people passionate about their work versus what turns them into clock-watchers. 

Dustin has traveled the world in the equipment and auction space, witnessing companies decline when new leadership makes changes without honoring what came before. 

In this conversation, Dustin shares practical wisdom on building culture from the ground up. It applies whether you're launching a startup or revitalizing an established business. 

Dustin discusses the power of core values that guide decisions when you can't be everywhere. He highlights the importance of seeking feedback from the right people, and why working on yourself as a leader is the foundation of a healthy culture. 

In this episode, you'll learn: 

• Why your identity as a leader should be in God's purpose, not your work performance 
• How to honor the past while building for the future  
• The critical role of core values in empowering your team to make aligned decisions 
• How to discern helpful feedback from noise (and why "three times" matters) 
• Simple questions that will help you find what your team really needs to succeed 
• How showing your team you're working on yourself inspires them to bring their best 

Redeem Your Business Today 

How can we honor God in our business? 

We honor God by leading ourselves well before we lead others. Dustin reminds us that our identity isn't found in what we accomplish at work but in fulfilling God's purposes through the talents He's given us.  

One challenge from today: 

Ask yourself: Are you running a race God asked you to run, or one you decided to run on your own? 

Then ask your team this week: "What tools or resources do you need to do your job better?"

That simple question, asked genuinely, might reveal something your team has needed for years but never felt they could ask for.  

More About Dustin Rogers

Podcast: Your Impact Story 

LinkedIn

Instagram

More About David Schmidt

Free E-Book: What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for the Modern Business

Subscribe to the RBT Weekly Newsletter for weekly simple, practical, and Biblical steps to help you build a thriving business in a way that honors God.

Newsletter also comes with Bible verses for business success for you to read, apply, and be inspired by.

Book a call: Get Unstuck and Move Forward

Website: redeemingbusinesstoday.com

LinkedIn

Donate to the Show

Mentioned in this episode:

What God Says About Business: 5 Uncommon Truths for Modern Business

If you want to go deeper in your walk with God and integrate your faith and business this is the tool to make it happen. God has laid out the path to success without the regrets and emptiness that come with success the world's way. Download your FREE e-booklet today. A 10-minute investment of your time will return a lifetime of transformation.

What God Says About Business

Leadership GPS: Christian Business Coaching

Are you looking to integrate your faith and business but don't know where to start, book a time to discover if Christian business coaching and training might be right for you. If you are dissatisfied with your current rate of improvement, desire a clearer vision of what God says about business, or even what those first steps may look like, let's talk.

Initial GPS Coaching Call

In 2009, I was given a new position to work on a radio frequency welder and was a machine was the first. I was the first person in our facility to learn it. And so I was really excited to learn it. And I remember being so into it that my manager occasionally or my supervisor would have to tell me and remind me to go take a break because I would kind of work through my breaks because I was I'm a fixture and I like.

Hmm.

fix things up. But that's kind of a picture of being passionate about one's work, where I just want to continue working and didn't care about breaks. But that's a far cry from some people who have a transactional business where we feel like we're just cogs in a big machine and that our care meter has gone down to zero. And we really don't care what happens to the business after we leave for the day. Leadership and culture go hand in hand.

Either they're both good or both bad or somewhere in between, but they always align leadership and the culture. And so today I brought on Dustin Rogers to talk about culture a little bit. He is the owner of Arby Rogers, manages his business and does some business consulting. And he's also host of Your Impact Story podcast, which you would like to go out and take a look at later on. But basically talking about why working for yourself is the first step on working on your culture as a business leader.

But Dustin, welcome. Welcome to Redeeming Business Today podcast. To start off with, one question I'd like to ask is, what is one thing God has taught you about business that you would like to share with my audience?

You bet. Thank you, David. Thanks for having me on the show today. So, um, I spent a lot of my career really thinking about, putting my identity and who I was as a person around my work, my work. And one thing that I really came to realize that, that God has shown me, especially over the last five years,

Is that, that who I am and who I want to be is not so much in what I do or how I make a living, but it's, that I'm fulfilling his purposes for my life and, using his work, through, through the talents that he's given me. I think that's the biggest thing that he's taught me. I thought I knew a lot of that, right? All along. Like I, I had lots of prayers of, I'm.

You know, God, let me, let me glorify you today. Let me make sure that I'm doing your will. And a lot of times I was living in, some ways in his will, but I was running a race a lot of days by myself that he wasn't asking me to run, or in directions that maybe I thought, Hey, this door's open. Therefore I should go.

but maybe that's not exactly what God had planned or he knew, right? He knew the path that I would take and there was a reason I was there, but, he's taught me that my identity, is not in my work and that I can do so much more if I just allow him to work through me.

Very good. I like that. Your identity is in who God is, not in who your work is. Very good. yeah, life's a learning experience. anyway, very good. Give me a little background of where you've come from and how God's led you to the business you are today. When we talked earlier, you talked about being a company that bled orange and then went to frozen blue, about being passionate about your work to transactional work. And I kind of like to...

Absolutely.

talk a little bit about that as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been blessed in my career to literally travel all over the world. Most of my life has been in and around the equipment and auction space. And so I had the opportunity to travel the world for a few of the largest companies in that space. One of them was an outstanding experience, learned so much, had so many opportunities.

But where I really started studying company culture, not at the time realizing that I wanted to be a student of company culture and great work life experience, but just trying to be a sponge everywhere I went and making the most of everywhere I went. And I noticed that this company, their color was orange. And some people listening, if they know the space, they're going to know the company that we're talking about, which is okay.

They, they can't new leadership team came in and, we always deep history in this company, orange had been the company color back to the founding days of the business. Some people joked and said, we look like a bowling team coming in because on, on certain days we wore orange shirts and black pants and we did kind of look like a bowling team. But that was just the, that was the company culture, right? That is, that's how we represented, you knew when you saw those colors in that industry.

who it was, who it represented and what the company represented. And so as an employee, we were taught to bleed orange and then over, you know, as, as you had tenure there, you did, you truly bled orange. You bled for what the company represented and what we did. New leadership team came in with, obviously with great intentions, right? They're, changing things up with every changing of the guard is, is change in leadership and also change in,

processes and systems and how we go about things. One of the things that they implemented early on was they, the comment was made about the bowling, Hey, you guys look like a bowling team, and in certain ways. And so we're going to, we're going to mix that up a little bit. So they changed the company color, the corporate colors of the company. And that was just a, you know, literally a representation. was literally just a change.

Right. It's a change and you get new shirts, you're getting new, you know, different things, but over time, so much changed within the organization. So much change. And there was, I think that one, one of the best culture things I've learned in, in working in the business and also working with lots of other businesses is that.

You have to find that balance of respecting and honoring the past where a company's been no matter how big or small, but I think the smaller the company, the more impact it has. Right. If it, if you're, do a lot of work with family businesses and you have to make sure that you're respecting and honoring that first or second generation that you you're never taken for granted what work they put into that business to get it to where it is today.

And then obviously there's change and there's transition, but you, you, you honor and respect the past. We do what you can in the present to make the future the best you can. And, and what was interesting was the, the, changes they were making were all for good, for the good of the future, but they came in somewhat of an abrupt way and the change was fast and it came hard. And in some ways it.

disconnected the, I'm going to call it legacy employees and some of the legacy customers from the brand. It disassociated what the brand had been in the past for what it could be. And the company continues to grow. They're doing great. know, they, they have, they have changed that course a little bit. They've fine tuned some of that, but it was just interesting to me. It was an observation that I made when I left.

Like, Hey, this is, you know, it was time for me to transition. left on my own. but I just said, you know, this, we, used to bleed orange and now our colors are blue. And so it's, it's time for me to change, to make a change and a pivot in my career. but like I said, we have to make sure, as leaders that we're going in and we're doing the right things and that we don't, with the best of intentions.

have a miss that is hurts that core of the company and what the company is in the market.

Yeah, very good. Very interesting story. yeah, being there long enough to see that change. That's very interesting because other people coming in, they're going to be like, it's a great company. And they didn't see the bowling team before. That's fine. That's fine. So you study culture a little bit in your own business, helping other people. What do you see as one of the keys in getting people lying and passionate about their work? Because that's

Right? That's right.

Mm-hmm.

That's what a lot of people want. It's like we've got employees, but they're not into it. How do we get them into it and passionate about the work that we do?

You bet. Um, one of my, love to read one of my favorite books is the first 90 days. Um, that book, I would look over here and refer to my bookshelf, but it's actually on my upstairs, uh, in where I read because I'm going back through that book and sharing some tidbits with, with a client right now. But, um, the first 90 days talks about going in and establishing early wins just right out of the gate. What do you do in that initial 90 days? And.

So there's lots of takeaways, even if you've been in a company for a long time, there's lots of takeaways from that book, but finding and aligning, building alliances with the right people, right? Making sure you really understand who the movers and shakers are in a business and then finding what works for them. Getting, getting feedback. That is one of the biggest things that helped me find success was just saying, Hey, what can I do better? What can I do different?

Right. But as we, it, when, when you're in a business and you're trying to, I'm looking at it from a perspective of a leader, but this is as a leader and employee in developing, because employees make culture, right? Everybody on the team has an impact on the company culture. And sometimes that, that weakest link is the one that makes the most impact on the company culture. Maybe not in a positive way.

So we have to, we have to support the whole team and find ways. But for me, feedback top to bottom, is always critical. Just going in and saying, Hey, what's working, what's not working. And, and what you hear at the top and what you hear at the bottom, if you will, if on the corporate ladder, I found the best takeaways and the best ways to implement and make changes come from really listening and understanding what's needed.

from the people that are moving the needle every day, whether it's unloading pallets on a dock, whether, know, whatever it is, I'm a big believer in Kaizen and continuous improvement. And when you get into really understanding and trying to make things better, whether you're in a manufacturing setting or you're in a corporate office, that continuous improvement.

Everybody has to buy into it. It's a lifestyle. Everybody has to just be completely committed. But that feedback that you get from the people that are working on the dock and that say, Hey, you know, we could save time, which also equals saving money. If we did this instead of this, I know that the process says this, but this works better. Those kinds of things I think are really important in developing that company culture.

Mm-hmm.

And now you talk about essentially coming into an established culture then, right? Not necessarily building a company up from scratch.

So both, both, continuous improvement. So I'm currently working with a startup right now that is brand new, started in, let's see, it's November. They started the 1st of October, going to open their doors to the public December, the 1st of December. We're constantly building and creating that company culture from day one with, with processes and you know.

Who opens the door? What time do you open the door? How do you go about it? and, so that's, people say, well, that's not company culture. That's just, that's your systems, that's your processes. But I think it, those are the things that, that foundation of a startup, those just implementing all the right pieces of the puzzle. Cause I've also been part of startup where we said, Hey, this is what we're going to do. You go do this, you go do this, you go do this, ready, set, go. And then.

90 days, six months down the road, you're all really going in different directions because you're just trying to check the boxes of your daily task list. And then you, you know, some of them succeed, but we know that statistics say that a lot of businesses, a lot of startups, a of small businesses don't make it through that first three years. So just putting the right pieces of the puzzle together in the beginning and then defining core values. That's something that I'm a firm believer in.

is just really stepping back. If you're, if you're a business owner and this applies, whether you're a startup, you're brand new, getting ready to launch this business that you've been drawing out on napkins for a long time and finally ready to take that step or, or you're, know, you're long time in the business, but you're trying to figure out how to make it better in your, in your final chapters, or maybe before you start to plan your transition, and exit strategy.

The core, establishing core values is so critical, right? Like why do you do what you do and what do you really believe in and what feeds and makes up this company culture? Define it literally on paper. And then you can build from there and on the days where things are flying at you in a lot of different directions and you're not sure which way is up, you can just sometimes just take that step back and say, okay.

This is, this is why we do what we do. I always tell people if your core values are right or, they're, they're aligned with you as a leader and the company as a whole. Then as a leader, if my team makes a decision that aligns with our core values, I can always have their back. No matter what the decision was, no matter what the impact of that decision was on the company or the customer or both.

I can always have the back of my team if they said, yes, this, you know, let's say we have five core values and it checks all five. No problem. I've got your back. I support why you did it. understand why you did it. And, and I have your, I'm here to help navigate. if, if there's a, if there's a, well, it, checks this, this, and this on our core values and yeah, I'm not sure about this one. That's the one that we need to pay the most attention to and maybe.

try to redirect or reframe our decision in a way that better aligns. think that's where company cultures are made, is that everybody on the team plays by the same rules, goes in the same direction every day, and is there for the same reason, right? For the greater good of all involved.

Absolutely. yeah, core values do guide decisions because you as an owner can't be everywhere. And that's where when you make a decision, this is the guiding values you go down. I thought it was interesting you're talking about continuous improvement, the Kaizen and all that stuff. They also have another word called the Gemba walk, where you go out and you look. And that's essentially what you're doing when you go asking these people, what do you think? What can we make this better? And it's listening to people.

Absolutely.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

And I've been in that position before too. And I've found that there's three different kinds of people, especially when you try to do new things. There's people who complain about everything, even when it's good. There are people who never complain about anything, even when it's bad. And there's a select few that actually give you really good input that they can tell you when it's not working. They tell you when it's working. And when I was a mechanical technician, those are the people I found and those are the people I sought input from because they actually told me if

the new fixture I made worked or not. So yeah, it was good to figure those people out.

One, one of the things

not, not to carry that too far, but the, one of the things that one of my mentors and a previous boss, vice president of a company I worked for, for a few years, he told me very early on as a leader, as a new leader in their organization, he said, you're going to get feedback from everybody, whether you ask for it or not. If you hear something three times.

three different times from different places, there's something there that's worth unpacking and really digging into. You're going to get feedback from some people that just want to hear themselves talk and give you feedback. And, and you're going to get feed, you're going to, you're going to try to get feedback from some people that are going to give you nothing. Exactly. mean, like exactly what you just said, those, those people, and you learn them early on, right? I, I tell everybody, I go into.

Sure.

Whether it's in my, in a consulting role, a management role, I go in and everybody has a blank slate with me. Right? Even if, even if in a handoff, somebody says, well, here's what you need to know about this person, this, this and this. I went into a, into a job once into a management role and in the handoff, they said, Hey, the paperwork's done. You can fire this person today if you'd like. And I said, well, no, you could have, clearly you could have done that for some time.

And it didn't happen and that's okay, but everybody gets a blank slate with me for, for 90 days, that first 90 days. Now there's some times where something needs to happen in less than 30 and you address that accordingly. But that's only happens because in the first week you realize, we have a real problem here. Right. but I think that that just being able to decipher, right.

The feedback, it's important to ask for feedback. It's important to get feedback, but if you take feedback from the wrong people, not everybody's out to help you succeed. Even if they're your employee, even if they're on your team, there's some people that'll just intentionally try to set you up for failure. And, and so you have to watch for that. But, I think, I think you've, you've dialed in.

greatly the three categories of yes, you're going to get lots of feedback from some, no feedback from others. But then that core group there, you know that you're getting feedback that's worth unpacking and digging deeper on. That's great.

That's interesting that he brought in the three testimonies basically, know, talks about that in the Bible. On the testimony of two or three witnesses, every fact will be confirmed. And yeah, that makes sense. If a lot of people are talking about it, that's good. That's good that people are talking to you about it. Because when they don't, that's a problem as well.

That's right.

That's right.

So we talked earlier and you talked about how working on yourself as an owner is a key to a good business culture. Can you expand a little bit more on that?

You bet. back to the, back to continuous improvement. worked for a great organization for three and a half years that in their onboarding, they talked about Kaizen and continuous improvement. And they said, Hey, we as a company are fully invested in furthering the career of everybody here. And I was, I was really impressed with, they meant it. Like they lived that out with.

from entry level team to the highest executives in the senior leadership team. everybody was if you so desire, right? You could say, no, I'm good. but I said, think I said earlier, I'm, I was a sponge in every opportunity that I've been given. And, and so investing in yourself and, then

taking advantage of the resources that a great company offers you. whether that is internal resources or external classes, trainings, some people go into a training and they say, man, companies paid for this sales training. can't wait to go hear this guy who knows nothing. I've heard those things, right. And, set in the room and, and, and heard the team around, you know, with that. But I think that.

The leadership and personal development, one, we gain self-awareness that is so helpful to our own success, right? We, you know, I can drink my own Kool-Aid as good as anybody and just know that, or think that what I'm doing and what effort I'm putting in is just, it's all great. Cause it's me, right? My ideas are great cause they're mine, but that self-awareness to be able to step back and evaluate.

myself and evaluate where I am and where I'm going. I think that's critical and it ties back to the company culture, right? That if everybody is working on themselves and bringing their best self every day, that is a huge component of company culture. it's not even, you know, it's hard. We don't always bring our best selves.

There's, there's all kinds of life flying at each and every one of us every day. I had an owner of a company asked me once, Hey, what, what do you, how do you come to the table on a bad day? How do you come to work on a bad day? Never been asked that question. There's a good interview question. and, I, I stepped back and just said, you know, I try to compartmentalize to some degree and, and I know that I need to be all in.

where I am and that's easy. That's much easier said than done. Right. If you have hard things in life that you're navigating, but that self-awareness to just know where you are. Right. Cause sometimes if you've got the self-awareness, you can have great feedback. You can have great relationships and rapport with your manager, with your owner. If it's a small business with your team, I think it's okay to just say, today I'm

I'm not bringing my best self to the table. so give me grace, cause I'm here and I'm going to give you everything I've got, but I've got some things going on in the background that are kind of taking up a little bit of my, my mental capacity at the moment. And so, but I think that the, I mean, that, that goes along with that's employee wellbeing, right? And company culture, I think that's critical self self improvement.

It fosters that overall employee wellbeing and hey, how can we make your life better in our company culture?

That reminds me of, I remember in grade school, every once in while the teacher would come in and it's like, I got a headache today or I'm tired. Just take it easy on me today. And it's like, we're always like, okay, whatever, you know, but I've never seen that happen in business, but that would be a good thing. And I know, cause sometimes we are distracted with life outside of work. One more thing, Dustin, is there any, we've been talking about culture and about,

Yeah.

and helping people, like you said, show up as their best self and working on themselves. And that's part of the problem that people don't. What are some simple or practical steps we can take as owners to help our people want to show up or help them show up in their best self and wanted to do better?

You bet. So I think that, one of the, one of the best things that we just, we just kind of hit on it is, is just showing up as an owner, showing up as a leader and then showing your team that you're constantly working on yourself. You're constantly working to be the best owner manager person that you can be. and I think that when we do that, just that natural.

that naturally flows that our team wants to buy in. That's what we, we follow people that we want to be led by, right? And, that we want to learn from. And so when, when we're, you know, if, if you're an owner, if you're a manager and you're showing your team that you're investing in yourself to be better, to be healthier, to be whatever it may be, right? You're taking classes.

I have literally taken classes before or, or taken a course based on feedback from the team. Right? Here's, here's something. Okay. Hey, I hear you. That's great feedback. And, I'm going to go find a way to lean into that and, and work on it, but just listening to the feedback, getting the feedback, self-improvement is critical. but then just telling the team you care and, and asking.

Ask him what tools and resources, just right out of the gate, simple questions, right? I do this in every conversation that I have with my team. And I do this every time I'm in a consulting role is what, what tools or resources do you need to do your job better? What, what tools and resources do you need to succeed in this role? Those are simple questions. And sometimes the answers you get seem like they're completely out of left field, right? But.

But it may, that may be something that's just, they're never going to come ask for it. Right. That person that you mentioned earlier that they're even in there, even no matter how bad things are, they're not going to say anything. But, but when you tee that up and open it up for that conversation, there's something they may say, Hey, you know what? I've been needing this to do my job better for, I've been here for 20 years and I've needed this for all 20 of them.

And, and this would make my life so much easier. Sometimes it's really simple things that an owner, a leader, a manager can, can make a simple change, right? That has a huge impact on the productivity of that, of that team member. And so just, just being open to feedback. Yep. Absolutely.

Sure, those are two, yeah.

Yeah, those are two really good things. Basically, you're saying, being an example of learning, of growing, changing, and then you're coming to them as like, basically, I want to help you too. So what can I help you? What tools do you need to do it? So those are two really good, simple, practical ways we can increase our culture there. Dustin, is there any final parting words that you have to challenge my audience? Any final thing that you'd to challenge with?

That's right. That's right.

Exactly.

Well, I think we've, we've covered a lot of great things today, David, and I appreciate you having me on the show. Um, what I always tell everybody is, is they're, they're writing the, I'm writing the book of Dustin, right? One day at a time, you're writing the book of you. And so just take the steps today, take the steps tomorrow to make that book be written the way that you want it to be. You have the power to change your life. Uh, and it starts with just simple steps. So just.

Just write the book the way that you want it and enjoy the ride.

Very good, write the book the way you want, that's great. Dustin, thank you so much for your encouragement today. And friends, next steps to put in practice what you've heard, check the show notes. We're gonna provide some links and sites where you can get in contact with Dustin and learn more about his consulting business and his podcasts and all the good things that he has to offer. And go ahead and sign up for our newsletter to receive Bible verses for business success, for you to read and apply, deliver straight to your inbox. And remember, finally, your business represents the God you serve. So build a business worthy of God's great name.

and in a way that honors him. Bye for now.