When Andy Baker purchased his father’s firm in Mountain View, Arkansas, he didn’t simply take over a blacksmithing enterprise. He stepped into an organization tradition that was struggling.
City Forge, a maker of hand-forged iron furnishings and lighting, was identified for its stunning craftsmanship. However contained in the store, Andy noticed one thing deeply damaged.
“It simply felt like we had a really sort of scratch-and-claw mentality,” Andy remembers. “We weren’t actually thriving.”
As a lifelong craftsman turned CEO, Andy didn’t lack imaginative and prescient to carry the tradition—he lacked instruments and readability to guide individuals there. He longed to be the sort of entrepreneur who might “construct a enterprise that’s life-giving for others, that’s debt-free, that’s healthful, that’s hopeful, that’s purposeful, that’s intentional, and that’s constructed on a foundation of religion.”
And he was keen to rebuild from the within out to make it actual.
Enter EntreLeadership Grasp Sequence.
What began with a Platinum ticket to Grasp Sequence (a five-day occasion for growth-minded small-business house owners) sparked a change—for his enterprise, household and group.
This case research follows Andy’s path by way of seven distinct seasons in his enterprise and the toughest, most significant work of his life.
Season 1: Craftsmanship With out Tradition
Andy grew up working along with his fingers.
“I’ve been a serial entrepreneur so long as I can bear in mind,” he says. “My household, my grandfathers, my dad even had a craftsmanship gene that I inherited. I beloved woodworking and constructing issues and making issues, designing issues and watching them come to life.”
In 2021, after working at City Forge for 15 years and studying the enterprise from the bottom up, Andy purchased out his father’s fairness within the firm. However entering into possession revealed laborious truths. The tradition was brittle, turnover was excessive, and other people didn’t love their work.
“There have been loads of issues that I noticed that have been working nice. There have been some basic bones within the enterprise,” Andy remembers. “We made stunning issues, and our prospects have been very pleased with these issues, however we appeared to repeatedly hit this limiting issue. . . . We weren’t actually rising.”
Extra troubling was how individuals have been handled.
“The financial efficiency of the enterprise was a very powerful factor, and other people have been secondary, or possibly even decrease down the stack of priorities than that,” he remembers. “That basically bothered me.”
Andy wished extra. “I wished one thing that we might come to day-after-day, that we might be part of, that we have been pleased with, that we wished the remainder of the world to see.”
He believed his group’s work was extra than simply craftsmanship. And he wished his individuals to make use of their God-given creativity to forge heirloom items that mirrored the fantastic thing about the Ozarks—and the delight of the artisans who made them.
Season 2: Leaping Into the Deep Finish
“Proudly owning this enterprise and constructing it has not been a dash for positive,” Andy says. “It has been a marathon.”
And a few stretches early on have been particularly brutal.
“I simply barely had my nostril above water,” he says. “I knew easy methods to make issues. . . . We knew easy methods to take these issues to market. We knew easy methods to . . . promote them to shoppers. . . . However I didn’t actually know, how do I lead individuals successfully?”
The burden of management compelled Andy to ask himself:
- How do I join with individuals and lead them properly?
- How do I unify individuals so we’re pulling in the identical path?
- How do I be sure that this imaginative and prescient is filled with hope and keenness?
So he began studying.
“I started studying ferociously. . . . I turned a loopy fanatic for self-development,” Andy says.
That pursuit led him to EntreLeadership.
“I learn the EntreLeadership guide as shortly as I might—and I learn it just a few occasions,” he says.
What stood out most was Dave Ramsey’s integrity in how he led. “I assumed, I need to do issues that approach. That’s what I need to be identified for,” Andy says.
So, simply weeks earlier than finalizing the enterprise buy, he made a daring transfer: He purchased a Platinum ticket to EntreLeadership Grasp Sequence in Amelia Island, Florida.
“I made a major funding in that as a result of I wished it to be a major funding in my life.”
That call modified the whole lot.
Season 3: EntreLeadership Grasp Sequence Sparks a Mindset Shift
“I wished [the investment] to harm,” Andy explains. He wanted one thing that will change the way in which he thought and led.
Grasp Sequence delivered.
Andy drank from a fireplace hose of tactical, difficult management classes and spent his breaks calling his group to obtain his revelations and wanting to share a lot extra.
“I had the sensation of treading water … however in such a great way. There was this wealth of data filling a void that I did not know easy methods to fill every other approach,” Andy says.
One matter particularly flipped a swap: recognition.
“That was a lacking ingredient for us,” Andy says. “I had loads of reminiscences that got here to thoughts about alternatives that had been missed to acknowledge individuals on our group through the years. I simply thought to myself, Man, if I had been doing that . . . would possibly which have helped us develop?”
He wrote down concepts like:
- What if we acknowledged individuals at an all-hands assembly?
- What if we made {that a} common factor?
- What if it was about uniting the group, creating shared momentum, and constructing a spot the place individuals felt seen and valued?
“It was a major push on a flywheel,” he says. Why? As a result of he was starting to kind a plan to construct a wholesome group, shifting in the identical path and that cared concerning the individuals they labored beside day-after-day.
Season 4: From Chilly Iron to Heat Tradition
Considered one of Andy’s first modifications when he returned dwelling was introducing weekly all-hands conferences, one thing new and unfamiliar to the group. In a single assembly, a group member was gone on a job, so Andy shot a selfie video with the group shouting encouragement.
“Sure, it was bizarre and awkward,” Andy says with amusing. “However I despatched that video to them, and the influence was profound.”
Moments like that sparked actual change within the firm tradition.
Subsequent, he centered on core values—14 of them, rolled out one after the other. The primary? Excellence.
“Not simply within the merchandise that we ship out the door,” Andy says, “however in how we deal with one another.”
At first, his group was skeptical.
“You say the phrase tradition, and the response is sort of like, ‘Properly, that appears sort of bizarre or superficial or touchy-feely.’” Andy admits.
However readability and consistency paid off. At some point, in the midst of a rushed shopper venture, a frontrunner on Andy’s group spoke up and requested, “Are we working in excellence right here?”
The group slowed all the way down to get it proper.
“It was a lightbulb second,” Andy remembers. “[Our values] aren’t simply phrases. This really works. This really helps heart us round issues that we imagine very deeply.”
Season 5: Techniques, Construction and Sustained Momentum
With tradition bettering, Andy turned to construction. EntreLeadership launched instruments just like the Desired Future Dashboard (DFD), Weekly Stories, and one-on-one conferences. It was time to strive them out.
At first, solely senior leaders used Weekly Stories to share wins, challenges and any points with Andy. However the behavior unfold to different group members.
“Now we glance by way of these Weekly Stories throughout in all probability 70% of our group,” Andy says. “I’m at all times shocked by the data that’s there.”
One upkeep supervisor used a Weekly Report back to flag a security concern. He was by no means the kind of man to talk up, Andy says. However the report gave him a voice.
Paired with one-on-one conferences, these instruments constructed belief and stronger connections.
“Earlier than, the sentiment was go away your issues on the door,” he says.
Now, group members are valued as individuals, not simply producers.
Strategic planning off-site conferences adopted. There, Andy laid out a imaginative and prescient for the sort of enterprise they’re constructing and the way they’re going to do it.
“One of many greatest pitfalls in all probability for many entrepreneurs is, you have got this thrilling thought that you just need to chase after, and it feels nice within the second, however then what occurs? . . . The subsequent factor , six months have passed by, and also you haven’t recentered across the plan.”
The Desired Future Dashboard helped them stick with their plan and begin to scale the enterprise.
Season 6: A Staff Aligned With Objective, a Chief Grounded in Peace
As highly effective because the instruments have been, Andy’s greatest breakthroughs got here from Government Teaching, the place he started to determine blind spots.
One main blind spot: communication.
As a high-D particular person on the DISC profile, Andy favored bullet factors and velocity over particulars. Teaching helped him notice management isn’t about what works for you, it’s about what connects with group members. Now he listens and leads with readability and intention.
One other blind spot he found was holding again the final 10% of reality, aka not being utterly clear concerning the enterprise. At the moment, his group makes use of phrases like “genuine” and “approachable” to explain him.
“Placing within the work and the trouble and the self-discipline after which getting the total circle impact of that suggestions out of your group . . . it is only a cloud-nine expertise.”
Season 7: Outcomes That Converse for Themselves
Andy’s development hasn’t simply improved the office. It’s delivered bottom-line outcomes. City Forge’s income grew 47% yr over yr in 2024 alone. That momentum allowed for brand spanking new hires, management growth and long-term considering.
“Not that we have been chasing a particular quantity,” Andy says. “But it surely was superb to see the income development as a byproduct of the work that we have been doing on the inspiration of the corporate.”
Past the monetary rewards, Andy’s favourite return is deeply private: being current at dwelling.
“It’s one factor to be disciplined and to use new issues for the good thing about my group and my prospects and the imaginative and prescient of this place. But when my children and my spouse, my household cannot be part of that desired future, then what’s all of it for?”
In a world that usually calls for the whole lot from its leaders, Andy’s selecting a special path—one which makes room for religion, household and group.
The Work Forward: A Legacy That Lasts
Andy and his spouse talked deeply earlier than shopping for the enterprise, as a result of in the event that they have been going to take the danger, they wished it to have an enduring influence.
They knew that was no small want working out of one of many Arkansas’s most financially strained counties. There, many worry their children must go away the world to seek out higher job alternatives.
“I imagine that we’ve been planted right here to vary that,” Andy says. “It’s a giant, lofty imaginative and prescient. It’s not one thing that occurs in a single day, however that is what will get me away from bed within the morning.”
By way of City Forge, his eyes are mounted on constructing objective, dignity and alternative proper within the coronary heart of the Ozarks.
“We are saying on a regular basis, we’re not right here to construct short-term worth. . . . We’re right here to construct one thing long-term, one thing that outlasts me . . . and that may serve the subsequent technology.”
It’s Your Flip
Andy’s story is a strong reminder that instruments alone don’t remodel a enterprise—leaders do.
“There are such a lot of moments as a small-business chief when you will get honed in on an issue that simply feels insurmountable,” Andy says. “To have somebody to have the ability to name . . . and simply pour out no matter it’s and type by way of it’s unimaginable. I don’t know the place else you would go to exchange that or to seek out it.”
He had the braveness to confront the tradition, spend money on his group, and lead himself first. Grasp Sequence gave him the instruments and inspiration to do it.
For those who’re the place Andy was—captivated with your enterprise however uncertain easy methods to transfer ahead—it’s time to spend money on your development.
