Dustin Gebers

COO

Frontier Foundation and Crawl Space Repair

Joelton, Tenn.

Projected 2023 Revenue: $27.7 million

On growth: When I took over six years ago, our revenue was around $6.4 million, so we have seen enormous growth. One thing we did was look at the infrastructure and identify the problems and what they were. Is it a process problem? A people problem? A training problem? Then we set goals around fixing those issues. We made some changes as quickly as possible, and then zoomed out to look far enough in advance to know what were going to need as we grew. We are constantly upgrading things to make sure that we’ve got the infrastructure, not only for today, but for five years from now. 

On training: We train managers to be managers, but we also train managers to be leaders. When you’re managing, you’re handling KPIs and managing people on things like showing up on time. But when you train someone to be a leader, you’re giving that person the tools to coach and mentor others. Sometimes company owners take the best people and promote them, but just because you’re really good at your job doesn’t mean you’re going to be a great manager or leader. For me, leadership is about our people. Do they know what it looks like to win? Do they know what the next steps are? We meet with our people quarterly and yearly to be able to sit down and explain, “Here’s what you’re doing really well. This is the next step for you.” Treating our people well, training them, and pouring our resources into them is how the company wins.

 Recommendation: Larry Janesky’s School of Entrepreneurship

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