LeaderImpact Podcast
LeaderImpact Podcast
Ep. 98 - Greg Richmond - Keeping The Main Thing
What if ROI could guide more than budgets and software investments? We sat down with Greg Richmond—VP of Value Advisory Services at an Atlanta-based supply chain software company—to unpack how a metric-heavy mindset can deepen relationships, sharpen focus, and shape a faith-filled legacy. Greg’s story moves from Texas blue-collar roots to white-collar leadership, and along the way he reveals why he swapped “doing everything” for “doing the essential” and how that shift changed his family and career.
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Welcome to the Leader Impact Podcast. We are a community of leaders with a network in over 350 cities around the world dedicated to optimizing our personal, professional, and spiritual lives to have impact. This show is where we have a chance to listen and engage with leaders who are living this out. We love talking with leaders, so if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions to make this show even better, please let us know. The best way to stay connected in Canada is through our newsletter at leaderimpact.ca or on social at LeaderImpact. And if you're listening from outside of Canada, check out our website at leaderimpact.com. I'm your host, Lisa Peters, and our guest today is Greg Richmond. Greg is a vice is the vice president of Value Advisory Services for Ketacu, an Atlanta-based supply chain software provider. Greg has been involved with Leader Impact since 2015 when he participated in a global exchange to Ecuador. He is a Leader Impact Group leader in Atlanta and part of the Leader Impact Atlanta leadership team. Greg is a graduate of Baylor University and a native Texan, but he has lived happily in the Atlanta area since 2001. Greg is married, has four children, four grandchildren living in Georgia and Florida. Greg loves to play golf, but doesn't get as much as he wants. Instead, he's picked up Pilates and plays pickleball, both with Monica. Welcome to the show, Greg.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you very much. So I need to change that bio. I don't play pickleball as much anymore.
SPEAKER_00:Oh. Does Monica? If if our guests remember, we interviewed Monica a few weeks ago. Does Monica still play?
SPEAKER_01:She doesn't play either. Both of us have think are thinking that might not be a good idea.
SPEAKER_00:Have you played over on an ankle? Is it getting too aggressive?
SPEAKER_01:Yep, it's just a little bit too aggressive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So my husband and I have just bought like the titanium, like we're getting, just getting into it. So once I sprain an ankle, we'll be done. Um but thanks, thanks for joining us. It was wonderful to meet your wife, Monica, a few weeks ago. So we are excited to have you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. So we always start uh our podcast looking for a little bit more of info about you and really the journey of how you got to where you are from where you are today, or to where you are today, but really those that pivotal moment or moments that you have that got you where you are.
SPEAKER_01:If you could share one. Well, I appreciate it. So I, you know, I was um I I grew up um in Texas and um somewhat of a blue-collar family. And my family uh was uh did me the good fortune of of sending me off to college where I decided to uh study accounting and I did that and became a CPA. So I had a big transition in my life family-wise, from a somewhat of a blue-collar to a white-collar type of profession. Uh, and so I started out being an auditor and a controller, but um I discovered that my what I enjoyed most was being with people, so kind of more out in front than uh you know handling the bookkeeping. So um I started, you know, selling and and moving towards computers uh and selling accounting systems. Um so that's kind of one big turning point. But then there was a guy in my life that um that was a good friend of mine, and I kind of kept following him following him around, you know, one job after another. And so I followed him to one and then a next and then a next. And that second one I got into was in the field that I'm in today, which is uh value advisory services. I I help people understand the value of uh buying enterprise software and what a business case would be like for using that software in their business.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. And this man that you have followed, where is this person in your life now?
SPEAKER_01:Well, um he's he's still in my life. I meet with him regularly, uh every week at least, uh, several times a month. Uh he's a good personal friend.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You mentioned um the going from blue collar, being raised blue collar, to uh white collar.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Tell me a little bit about what that was like. I mean, is it hard to let go? Is it hard to join in? Is, you know, that transition.
SPEAKER_01:Well, um, you know, I think my parents were always just very encouraging. My mom mostly was a stay-at-home mom, but uh off and on she would do various jobs. One of her biggest ones was working in a school district. But my dad was, my dad is construction entrepreneur, uh, getting out uh in the field, um, making things happen. Every neither one of them had a college education. And when I was a when I was a senior in high school, we were, you know, working for an HBAC company putting in uh air conditioning gun uh uh vents uh for apartment complexes. And uh we were at the company and I said, Dad, what do you think? What do you think maybe I should do for a career? And he said, Well, I think you'd be a good tax attorney. And I went, okay. So um, you know, I went from being out driving around a pickup, you know, installing air conditioning vents and apartments to going to school, uh, you know, to have a have a licensed uh degree, you know, which was which was really cool.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think that's um it's it's nice when the parents are, you know, you can be who you want to be. I think you should be a tax attorney, but be who you want to be, right? Don't don't stay here driving truck or what, you know, just yeah, sit out there and be be who you need to be, who God wants you to be. Um we talk a lot about principles of success, and I'm wondering if you have one and if you have an example of um or what illustrates that, your best principle.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I um this this might not be surprising, but I think one of the biggest things that I pay attention to is focusing on ROI. And you may be familiar with it, some may not, but ROI stands for return on investment. Um, so you know I apply that to every aspect of my life professional, personal, and spiritual. Um you mentioned in my opening that I'm married and have four kids. I also have four grandkids, and I've got three spouses that go along with the kids, and I have another grandkid on the way. So that's that's 13 people uh in my immediate circle. And building into the lives of 13 people requires you know a significant amount of time. So how I spend my time uh will determine what type of ROI I'm gonna get in my life and in the lives of those 13 very unique people. Um so one of the things that I decided to do, this is the story part for that, is I just found myself with so many different competing interests for my time that I better put some time in my calendar to prioritize the relationships with my children and grandchildren. So what I did is, you know, I'm getting to the grandchildren through the children. I I said, I want to have a meal with you every month. And since I have four kids and there's generally four weeks in every month, I set up a weekly meal with each kid so that so that I have it on my calendar to spend time with a meal. That's one per week, four per month, 48 per year, 480 meals over 10 years. And who knows, you know, if I maybe get 400 meals over the next, you know, 10 years, then I kind of think that there's going to be a good ROI on that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay, I've had some great principles of success, but that one has just hit me. And you know, as as we're in the new year and you think of goals, and I have friends who, you know, goal setting, and ROI is such a business term to me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:It's like I just didn't put it to my like, what's the return of investment on my children, my family? Like, what am I doing? Well, how am I investing? Oh, great one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you for sharing that. Um well, we learn, we all know, we learn more from our failures and mistakes than our own successes. And I'm wondering if you're willing to share a failure, a failure, or a mistake, um, and what you learned from it.
SPEAKER_01:No, I don't really want to. I don't I don't really don't I really don't want to do that. But but since you asked and you've been kind enough to give me a microphone for a minute, I I guess I'll go ahead and tell one. Um one of my job moves was bigger than I was ready to handle, quite honestly. Um, this work that I do, um I had been doing for at least a decade, 10 years or so, and the and the man that I was working for, the VP of sales, moved on to another company, and he wanted to build that same type of practice into the software company that he moved to. So he reached out to me and said, Greg, I'd love for you to join me. And if you come over here, help me figure this out, uh, get it in place at this company, then you can also do these couple of other things for me. So he hired me to do not only my core skill, uh, but also to branch out and do some other things as well. And I loved it. It was a I love the idea. It was a great opportunity for me to grow a little bit more, advance up the company ladder. But what happened is that what was easy for me and what I was hired for uh became secondary. And it was harder for me to do the other things that he was asked or he asked me to do or put on my plate. And what ended up happening is that I didn't do good at any of them. And the worst thing that could have happened is that the thing that he hired me for, I didn't focus on it enough. I didn't get it up and going and um productive for the company uh like it needed. I remember I was sitting on a, this was a public company, it was small, but a public company, and I was sitting on a uh quarterly earnings call, and one of the analysts asked the CEO, uh, you told us about adding this uh new value advisory services program into your business, and we're wondering what kind of positive impact you're seeing from that. And the CEO said without blinking, without thinking about it, nah, not much. And that was like a huge gulp. It was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I just, you know, what I do for this company just raised to, you know, Wall Street and the world listening to this company and you know, how it's performing. And I'm the guy that was responsible for making sure that the answer to that question was positive. And I failed, you know, bottom line, I failed from that. So, you know, the the big picture for me and what I learned the most from that is to keep the main thing the main thing. And uh in that situation, I should have been keeping my eye on the main thing and not getting distracted by something else just because I thought it would be good for my career. It almost, you know, ended my career there, you know, to be quite honest. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think you're alone in that. I think people uh many times we take on too much and then we just we're good at nothing. Like, you know, we we I think that's a great story. And and it hard to remember though, right? Because we all want to do more and and then we don't do enough and we forgot what we were came in for. Gosh.
SPEAKER_01:Life can um yeah, um, throw a rope around us and pull us into things that we really shouldn't be doing. That happens all the time. It's not going to be hard for me to remember that earnings call and the fact that um, you know, I was kind of you know outed, you know, on the spot without using my name. So that has been a a huge, a huge reminder for me in my life.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We have to have those sometimes to remember, not to do it again.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. That's why they're good. That's why um lessons learned are some of the best lessons.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's easy to read about or hear about someone else's lessons, but sometimes until they happen to you.
SPEAKER_01:That's right. That's right. I I'm not wishing it on anybody, that's for sure. That's why we're sharing to me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:We share it so you can learn. Um well, you've been involved in leader impact for many years. And as you know, we want to grow personally, professionally, and spiritually for increasing impact. So I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share an example of how the spiritual makes a practical difference in your life as a leader.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, you know, it's it is honestly the spiritual is the thing I enjoy talking about the most, the thing I look for opportunities to talk about. It it literally underpins uh my entire life. And but I'm gonna I want to pick um or you know, I'm gonna say that, you know, it means to me that I just try to stay present in every relationship I have, both relationships I have internally, you know, inside the company I work for, and also externally, the um prospects that we talk to, the uh friends that I have, etc. I believe, I believe people are eternal. And I believe we can all decide for ourselves whether heaven and hell are real. And so for this reason, I just try to be salt and light in every aspect of my life. If what I have looks tasty uh and true, it's honest, um there's a a realness to it, then maybe somebody who doesn't personally know God um will want to give it a try and give me an opportunity to talk about my own story with them.
SPEAKER_00:I think I I wonder if people listening um and like myself, it it's difficult to because I mean all you're saying is be present, uh, you know, uh allow them to trust you first, share your story, maybe they'll ask. Because I think sometimes we think, no, we got to go in there and say, you know, and um be a little more pushy, but we don't have to be.
SPEAKER_01:And no, it's better not. I don't think Jesus was pushy. Yeah. You know, I think people he Jesus loved people where right where they were, and he wanted to come, he wanted them to come to him in the easiest way possible for them. And and that way is completely unique uh for every person on the planet. So I just uh seek to be kind and considerate uh to everybody I meet, quite frankly.
SPEAKER_00:And do you have a lot of people ever bring up faith with you?
SPEAKER_01:You know, um it doesn't happen all the time. I can't say all the time, absolutely. No. But uh there's a there's a couple of there's a couple of key scriptures um that I rely on in this regard. And one of them is 1 Peter 3.15, which is always be prepared uh to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have and to do this with gentleness and respect. So, you know, to me, and you know, what what I'll do is, you know, I'll invite somebody to a meal or I'll invite somebody to a conference. And and and a lot of times, not most, a lot of times they just say yes, and I'll say, Oh, great, okay, well, let's go. And then after that, I just I just want to meet with them. How'd you like it? What'd you think? Was it interesting to you? Why not? You know, okay. Uh, or why was it? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Right. Good advice.
SPEAKER_01:I try to keep the barrier pretty low to have a conversation with me.
SPEAKER_00:Good. Oh, I love it. I think a lot of people struggle with how we are how we are to make disciples of all nations. We, you know, so so thanks. You made it easy. I I appreciate that. Yeah. Um, I've got uh two more questions for you, and but we're gonna we're gonna ask you first, what brings you the greatest joy?
SPEAKER_01:Well, um I'm gonna say it's my quiet time with God. Um you know, it's not golf. I love to play golf. Golf is is maddening. You can never be a good enough golfer. You know, I love playing golf, I love getting outside, but here's why my time with my time with God brings me the most joy. It's because He knows me better than anybody else knows me. And, you know, I my wife is my best friend. Uh, she is the one who I go to most when I'm struggling, or she comes to me when I'm struggling. It's you know, there's there's that, you know, being in the flesh and that one anothering thing um happens easiest there. But she doesn't know me inside, and when I mess up, I can upset her. And I I don't remember a time ever that I feel like that God was upset with me, that I screwed up in a way that He just said, Well, that's it. You know, we're gonna have an argument right here and now, and you're gonna, you know, change it. You know, that's that's never happened. It's it's always been more of a, okay, let me write to you about this and talk to you about this, and let you speak to me through prayer, prayer, and through jer the journaling process. And when it happens that I know that I am hearing from God, or his words are showing up on the paper, you know, to me, um it makes me cry. It just makes me cry. I just go, the creator of the universe, the one that's holding all of this together in his hands, or just by a word or a thought, knows me well enough to correspond with me, to communicate with me and remind me who I am. That is a that is a deepness um of understanding, of being received, of being loved, which is just without parallel. There's just there's nothing that that compares to it. That's deep, deep joy to me.
SPEAKER_00:I so I have recently, not recently, but really picked up my journaling. So in the morning I read scripture and I'll journal about it, and then I'll do a deep dive, and wherever God takes that conversation, it blows my mind. So at listening to, I'm like, I get such joy in the morning with and I've got getting up earlier just so I can do it. But for people that are very new and listening to you, I think the Bible, they it's it's sometimes a struggle to read, to understand what God's saying to you. I don't know if you have any advice. Um, my husband has uh like a Bible where it kind of explains this is what it's saying. So I don't know, you know, or maybe you're just so good at it.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, no, no, I'm not good at it. Um, but I I'm repetitive at it. Uh, you know, everybody knows, uh maybe not everybody, but most people know about the the Bible app uh now. And a cool thing about the Bible app is that it just it just announced just in the last month or two that it's been installed one billion times in the world. So one of the things that the Bible app has in it is reading plans, read through the Bible in a year. And it's got a bunch of different reading plans. One is start at the beginning, you know, in Genesis and then in Revelation. Well, you got to make your way through Leviticus, you know, and Deuteronomy to do all that. And you numbers, all of those, those last three books of the pivotal. They're they're kind of tough. But there's other kinds of plans where you read a little bit of Old Testament, a little bit of New Testament, read some Psalms and Proverbs, and kind of mix it all up. So, you know, when you're in Leviticus, you go, that's over. Now I get to go, you know, read some New Testament, you know, and that's that's a lot easier, much easier to understand. So that's what I do. And, you know, at this point, I'm not bragging at all, but I'm six years into it reading the Bible every year. Um, you know, I'm into my sixth year, my sixth time now. And what is fascinating about that is some of those names and kings and in the Old Testament that I just read over and I didn't make sense, I'm starting to remember them and who they were and what the big picture of their story was and how that story fits into the big story of the Bible. And I didn't get it at first. I didn't, but just continuing to kind of, you know, be with it, spend time with it, let it seep into me, let me pick up on things. That is that has been highly valuable. Big ROI on that.
SPEAKER_00:Big ROI. I love it. Thanks for sharing that. Because I think sometimes it's difficult and I want to hear other people's views on because the Bible app, it's accessible 24-7 everywhere. You when you're you know, if you're sitting in an office, a doctor's office, you could, you know. It's accessible.
SPEAKER_01:I'll tell you one more thing about it. Uh uh, you know, a lot of people say, well, when do you have your quiet time? When do you read the Bible? And um, you know, some people may remember the Left Behind series um by Tim LaHaye, and I can't remember the other guy, but uh I remember I remember there was a character in the Bible who was talking about his quiet time, and he said that I do it in the evening because I always go to bed. But in the morning, something can happen, you know, just kind of shocks you and makes you wake up and derails you and gets you off into the another part of your life and you haven't had a chance to spend any time uh with the Lord, either reading the Bible or having a quiet time or whatever, but but you're always going to bed, you know. So at the end of the day, just before you go to sleep, you can always, you know, say a prayer, or you can always open up the Bible app and read a few verses, you know, before you nod off. Actually, you know, praying and reading the Bible is a good way to go to sleep. You gotta go to sleep really fast. But I don't have any guilt about that, I promise. I'm thinking, oh, I'm in your presence, God. I love that. You know, if you want me to go to sleep, I think I'll just go to sleep.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it's just time. Yeah, I I'm actually a morning person because it's like coffee in the Bible. Like nothing's gonna derail that. But I do get it. I mean things can happen in the morning. All right. Well, my last question is just about um leader impact is dedicated to leaders having a lasting impact. So as you continue to move through this journey of your own life, what do you want your faith legacy to be when you leave this world?
SPEAKER_01:Well, um, some of what I've talked about today um you know talks about this. I I live a what I call a reproducing life. Um and all of that started uh when I became a Christian, which was before I got married and started having children. Um I thought about my faith. I like talking to other people about my faith. I like talking to people about Jesus and, you know, hopefully leading people to Christ and things like that. That's reproducing. But but now, you know, you know, I'm married and I have these children, and my children are having children. And now I get to be both a father and a grandfather. And how I go about being a leader in my family is is critically very, very important to me. I take it seriously and I want to do it uh very well. Um, there's another Bible verse that 2 Timothy 2.2 that um that I picked up along the way, which says, the things which you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to other reliable people, so they may be qualified to teach others. So I I reproduce, you know, legacy is not what I do and what's left behind. Legacy to me is what people think about you after you're gone. You know, and what memories do they have for you? How did they build into your life? How did you treat them as special and and recognize the importance of who they are? That's what I want my legacy to be for people to think about Greg and that he thought I was important and special.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it it sounds like your 48 dinners, no, 52, no, how many dinners a year that you have with your dinner?
SPEAKER_01:480 dinners, 480 dinners in 10 years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds like you are getting your ROI right and you're spending time, and it sounds like there is a legacy that you are reproducing.
SPEAKER_01:So I hope so. Yeah, I hope so.
SPEAKER_00:Greg, I want to thank you for just taking this uh just this time with us and sharing. We I think it's important to share our stories. Um people may look at at faith and it's scary. Uh and I, you know, if they some people didn't grow up in faith and uh um or some people may have lost it and it may be coming back. So all these stories are so important, and I love showing up for them. So I just want to thank you. Um Lisa. If anybody wants to connect with you, find you, what is the best place?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, LinkedIn. Uh LinkedIn is the best way to go. Uh it's Greg Richmond Atlanta, uh, I think, something like that. But Greg Richmond in Atlanta working for Ketacue. I'll pop up. You can message me there.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. Thank you, Greg, for spending the time with us.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, if you're part of Leader Impact, you can always discuss or share this podcast with your group. And if you're not yet part of Leader Impact and would like to find out more and grow your own leadership, find our podcast page on our website at leaderimpact.ca. And you can also check out groups available in Canada at LeaderImpact.ca or if you're listening from anywhere else in the world, check out LeaderImpact.com or get in touch with us by email. Info at LeaderImpact.ca and we will connect you. And if you like this podcast, please leave us a comment, give us a rating or review. This will help other global leaders find our podcast. Thank you for engaging with us. And remember, impact starts with you.
