9/2/26 - 2162: You’re Not Meant to Lead Alone

Jim: This is iWork4Him

Martha: Where faith meets work and believers unleash their calling.

Jim: Hey, over the last 13 years we've explored and discovered many business owner discipleship programs that serve the needs of a wide ranging size and shape and focus of a business.

Jim: The newer one on the map is Kingdom Factor. Launched out of Indiana, Kingdom Factor has spread all over the country. Today we're going to talk with Greg Ballard from Kingdom Factor in the DC area. Greg is growing Kingdom Factor in one of the most influential areas of our country and the world. We better be praying for him.

Jim: Greg is here to share his powerful story, share maybe a little bit of frustration, and to share what God is saying to him. Greg Ballard, welcome to iWork4Him.

Greg Ballard: Thank you. Glad to be here today, Jim and Martha.

Jim: Hey, Greg, we do this with every first-time guest on iWork4Him. Tell us how you became a follower of Jesus.

Greg Ballard: Ah, one of my favorite stories. So I'm gonna start early and, but I'll get to that point quickly, and I think the early part adds to the context. So I was born and raised in upstate New York around Albany, the Albany area. Troy boy, if you will. Troy, Cohoes, Watervliet, that was my stomping grounds.

Greg Ballard: And I was born into my, my mother was a teenager when I was born, and my father was probably in his very early 20s. So very young parents. And my mom was one of 10 in a Catholic home, and my father was one of seven in a Protestant home, Methodist. And I was basically raised Catholic, but then as I got a little older, my dad was like, "We need to show you Protestant, what that looks like."

Greg Ballard: And so they, for one year they sent me to Sunday school at the Protestant church, and I got to see the differences, right? And the big thing for me was is the Protestants' priests were married and the Catholics' priests were not. That was kinda the big deal. But we had a parish within a stone's throw of my house.

Greg Ballard: Literally, if there wasn't a three-story building, I could throw a rock and hit the parish. So I became an altar boy very young, and I would walk there and walk back. And my parents didn't come, but I was an altar boy. I wore the, the gown, I poured the holy water, I snuffed the candles, and I got to ring the little chimes.

Greg Ballard: And, as they were kinda exposing me to these two different things, they were like when you're 16, you get to choose," okay? And in their mind it was binary. You either become a Catholic or you'll become a Protestant. And I was like I didn't know left from right either. But what they did not know is that they would end up, the marriage would end up dissolving, right?

Greg Ballard: So the, they divorced when I was about 13. And my sister and I stayed, we lived with my dad for a couple more years 'cause that's our community, that's where we grew up. And my mom she found another place, and within a couple years she actually met somebody and remarried. And immediately my sister and I, we're gonna go live with her.

Greg Ballard: So we moved west almost an hour into another city in upstate New York And the first year I was there things were fine. I stayed with my faith, I went to school, I got decent grades, and everything was fine. But I ended up connecting with some other people, and, my mom was like, " you need to go make some friends."

Greg Ballard: I made the wrong friends, if you could put it that way. And I found myself living out on the streets way more than I should've been, and my grades slipped. I ended up taking biology and started hearing about evolution, and I shifted, my faith shifted from a Christian Catholic worldview to more of an agnostic worldview.

Greg Ballard: And I was also getting a little arrogant, and I was also hurt by the divorce, things I didn't quite understand then. And so I decided to run away from a perfectly good home at the age of 16. And to survive on the streets of this small city in Upstate New York I became a herbal entrepreneur, if you will.

Greg Ballard: And that's how I made money. But I would go to parties, I would drink, I would do things. I was basically a reckless teenager for about two years, and I could tell you tons of harebrained stories that would make parents stay up at night. And eventually, doors closed on me there, and I had to remove back to my hometown.

Greg Ballard: And it was while I was there I ended up getting my HSED D. I got a job here, I got a job there. And then one of those jobs, there was somebody working, I was working in a restaurant, and he began to share the gospel with me. So I was about 18 years of age at this time, and I argued, and I would debate until... I was just that kinda kid.

Greg Ballard: And then one day, it was in Easter of '95, and the church that he had attended was launching their new building. Now, I was familiar with this church because I would take road trips with my friends out into the country, and we saw this construction site, pretty regularly.

Greg Ballard: And so he's like, "Hey, Greg, I want to invite you to come." So I took my girlfriend at the time, and we went to this church service. And this is a Baptist church, okay? And so here's my Catholic upbringing, my Protestant upbringing with stations of the cross, very ornate, very ceremonious. I went in, I think I genuflected.

Greg Ballard: I couldn't find the holy water, but I genuflected before I got in the row of this Baptist church with about 800 seats, and there's nothing on the walls. It's completely bare. Tons of sunlight, which is very different, right?

Greg Ballard: No stained glass. And then there's this pastor He was a fully bearded, full suit, 1970s former hippie named Duke. And he preached, and he used a 26-foot platform back and forth, running and jumping and screaming, and he shared his story. And I connected with him because he talked about his days getting high, getting stoned, using LSD. I related to all of that stuff. And there was such a movement, a moment in that experience. Something shifted for me.

Greg Ballard: And then a, a week or two later, I don't know what it was, this guy who had been sharing the gospel with me called me, and I was living-- So I'll back up a little bit. My dad had always told me, "I'm gonna throw you out when you're 18," right? He kept threatening that. He actually did it. We got in a physical altercation. A couple doors broke, window broke, and he literally threw me out, physically. And so my h- car had broken down on the side of the highway. I had really no place to live, and I finally kinda put it two and two together, "I need to get my own place."

Greg Ballard: And in our small town, we had a tenement building, so it was three stories. These two older sisters lived in their home on the first floor, and the second and third floor was basically rooms and a hallway with just rooms, and then there was a, a, a restroom and a shower room that were shared in each floor.

Greg Ballard: The smell of bacon and marijuana every morning. I had gotten a room. I was able to pay for it. I was in the second floor all the way in the back. And so I had this, this room I was in. I got a phone call, and it was this guy who had been sharing the gospel with me, and he just said, "Greg, do you realize that if you don't accept Christ, you're going to be condemned to hell?"

Greg Ballard: And I was like, "Yeah, I do believe that." I don't know what was going on, but I believed it. And he said, "Would you like to ask Christ to be your savior?" I said, "Yes, I would." And he led me in a prayer. And we hung up the phone, and 15 minutes later, him and his roommate were, like, all giddy. They showed up at my place.

Greg Ballard: They're sitting on my bed. They brought a microwaved hamburger in Tupperware, and I was like, "You guys are weirded out. You're weirding me out. I don't know what's going on." But something shifted for me. I end up going to church. The relationship I was within, I was in was very, carnal, if I can put it that way.

Greg Ballard: That changed. The dynamic changed in such a way that within a matter of a couple weeks or months, that relationship dissolved. And people I would spend time with, I can now sense being in their presence, I sensed evil. So where a month before I could hang out with this guy and we do stuff, whatever and no issues, now just walking past him I could sense evil.

Greg Ballard: And so God began to shift my social, the people I was around. And in less than two years, within two years of that decision, May 5th, 1995 I moved across state lines into Boston. I went into Bible college in Boston, and I spent four years there earning an undergrad degree. And so that's a long way of sharing that story of how God gave me a darkness to light conversion experience and really transformed who I am.

Martha: It's so good for our listeners to hear that because at some point they might relate to some of it, Greg. And to hear how God just used different people that entered your life, we never know where those seeds are gonna go. And here you are today. So thank you for sharing that. So where in your life did business enter in?

Greg Ballard: So I think that's a really great question. I could say it started, in those teen years when I was, buy low, sell high. But it was not ethical, it was not moral, it was not legal . And I just knew that I could do that. And then when I came to faith and I came out of college I think it was probably Robert Kiyosaki's book Rich Dad Poor Dad, that made a huge shift for me into thinking I could take a different approach.

Greg Ballard: But I do know that watching my parents work the common job, I knew internally I didn't wanna do that. I wanted something that provided more, that gave me more freedom. So I had already had from a childhood formation made some decisions about how I wanted to approach work. And so in my 20s, I started a contracting business.

Greg Ballard: I did a couple jobs. I had done some multi-level marketing things. And then I got into youth transportation, and that's another whole kinda segment. But parents with at-risk kids would need their kids to be moved sometimes from A to B. And I end up building a business around that and then that became successful for a short time until I went into full-time ministry.

Greg Ballard: But I've always had this idea of business is probably one of the better ways to create wealth and to serve the community. And so that's been something that's, I think, been internal for a while.

Martha: Awesome.

Jim: All right. So but you've moved from being a business owner, then you went into full-time ministry, which we can have that conversation, (chuckles) because you are- ... you're still in full-time ministry as a business owner. And everybody listening, you already have heard, if you've listened to the show one time, you know that full-time ministry is right where you're at. If you're working somewhere, you are surrounded by lost and hopeless people. It's your mission field and your assigned place of ministry.

Jim: Greg, how did you get transitioned then into this Kingdom Factor thing where you're now discipling business owners? How did God move you there?

Greg Ballard: Yeah. So we'll back up for a little bit. I came out of college. I took on some side jobs, but my passion from that moment of coming to faith in Christ and starting to work through what my purpose was and how I wanted to invest time and energy and effort, and being in a Bible college environment my passion for the local church really took shape and grew.

Greg Ballard: And it was just as simple as what better use of my time and energy and talent than building his kingdom? Than investing in his church? And sometimes I would say, if I was gonna ever get caught in an affair, it'd be with the church, not someone in it, but with it itself, right? Because I would just give so much.

Greg Ballard: And so I basically had a tent-making philosophy. I would work two or three side jobs just to volunteer, just to be at the church when the doors were open, just to serve wherever I could. And so I did that for a couple years in the church that I had come to Christ in.

Greg Ballard: And then my pastor sat down and was like, "Greg, we love you. There are other places you can serve, and you can actually grow." And so I ended up starting to attend and getting involved in another church, one of the larger ones in our region, and it turned into a volunteer this, volunteer that, and then I met the staff, and then essentially I got hired full time overseeing probably about 50 different volunteers and a couple of other operations.

Greg Ballard: And year over year, they invested in me, and I grew. So about eight years I worked full time for a local church, and the last thing that I did there after being married is we founded a campus, right? They were doing a multi-site outreach. And so I got to pastorally lead, and that was really what I wanted to do, and I was loving it.

Greg Ballard: Young, growing, trying to figure things out but that ended, okay? That ended in an unceremonious way, if I could say. And it delivered a bit of a wound, honestly. It hurt all of us because of the way it was handled, and we ended up at that point in time relocating. We were like, "Okay. Hey, we're young. We just have... We got two kids. We can go wherever we want."

Greg Ballard: And the opportunity to pick where we wanted to live was in our hands, and so we moved here to Northern Virginia, and that's when I started thinking, "I want the church opportunity, serving in the church." I had candidated around for a few months, and I had this sense of no matter where I go, I'm gonna feel like a hired shepherd because I had no real connection to these places, to these communities, and I did not want to do that.

Greg Ballard: And so I was like, "What if I go into business and I can create value in the marketplace and I can use that value to advance the kingdom?" And that's really what started it.

Jim: So Greg, then how did that lead you to Kingdom Factor?

Greg Ballard: Yeah. So that's a 10-year journey. So we started, and plan A fell apart in about 30 to 45 days, and then we ended up going with plan B. And so I really, I bootstrapped the idea of starting a business in a place we'd never lived, had no network, no connections.

Greg Ballard: And my goal was I wanted to go wherever I could go and kinda get, quote-unquote, "behind enemy lines." So I created a business model that wasn't faith forward, right? I wasn't a Christian consultant, I wasn't a Christian business leader, but my faith and my values were driven by everything that I did. And so for about 10 years, I did coaching, consulting, working with different agencies.

Greg Ballard: And essentially what happened was I built up a bit of a business, and then with the most recent presidential election, we had DOGE come through. And DOGE-- Because I was selling to the federal government in many ways in 2024, we had our banner year for sales and support to services and products into the federal government.

Greg Ballard: I started thinking, "We need to press into this." And then in early 2025 we got the notice that basically every vendor that, every buyer we had relationship with was either told not to buy, retired, or was riffed. And so we had a massive loss, a pretty significant loss, I should say, of business revenue through that.

Greg Ballard: And that became a forcing function, right? So here I am in February, March of 2025 thinking, "What am I gonna do?" And throughout this whole process, I've been wanting to get back tointegrating my faith with my work. I did not think it would take 10 years to get to a point where we could do this.

Greg Ballard: And I started researching, I started looking around, and I found this program called Kingdom Factor. And so April 2025, I was meeting them, they were meeting me. We had this conversation. I got a great conversation with the owner, and he said, "Greg, let's try something." And so he hosted a call for me, and my job was just to see who I could get there.

Greg Ballard: And within 10 days, I had 16, 17 people show up on that one call, and he was like, "Greg, I was-- I'd be impressed if you had three. You had 16." So I had my first paying member before I signed the licensing agreement. And we got our first community up and running in eight weeks, which I didn't realize, but that was abnormally fast.

Greg Ballard: And so when I came out of my training and I was meeting other coaches, I was like, "Okay, something-- God's done something here." So now we're a year in, and we're continuing the-- My introduction to marketplace ministry has been pretty quick in the last 15 months. And yeah, so that's how we got to where we are.

Martha: I would love to hear just a little bit, kinda high level, what Kingdom Factor is and what sets you apart as a Kingdom Factor coach.

Greg Ballard: Yeah. So Kingdom Factor is a community for... is a peer advisory community for Christian business leaders. And so there are other models out there, but Kingdom Factor, I think, is unique in one it's not a franchise.It's not like a Vistage franchise or a Convene franchise or a C12 franchise where the chair or the forum speaker is kinda locked into the content, the format, the formula in their territory. So as a licensed operator, I can support people around the world. In fact, I have some international people in my online community.

Greg Ballard: And number two, I can bring my own content, or I can modify existing content. And the goal really is to solve a few problems for Christian business leaders, which, one of which is isolation. Many people are doing their thing on their own. And what I mean by on your own, I mean you are surrounded by people.

Greg Ballard: You have a spouse. You have employees. You have maybe partners. But they all have a stake. They have their own stake in what's going on. And so where do you get around people that don't have a stake in what's going on, in the decisions you make? And where do you get godly people around that?

Greg Ballard: And so we meet for a half day a month, about four hours once a month, and we basically are an elaborate, committed small group where we have accountability. We open and we look at God's godly principles. We solve real problems. Yeah, so we do what we call a crucial conversation where one member will-- they'll give, they'll answer, they'll write about a page and a half document in advance, and we'll spend 45, 50 minutes diving into that member's challenge for that month.

Greg Ballard: And then, so there's other components to it. But essentially it is a intentional community of Christian business leaders that share like-minded faith, share entrepreneurship, and want to see each other succeed. And we just offer that peer advisory council. And so you're getting input from people that hold your worldview.

Martha: Yeah. I love that so much, but I wanna pause here just for a second because what Greg is talking about is exactly why this podcast exists. We believe that our work is not separate from our faith. It's one of the primary places that God has put each one of us, and stories like this one are proof of that.

Martha: We make this show so that more people can hear them. If you wanna help more people hear these stories, you can become a monthly supporter for as little as $5 a month. That's iwork4him.com/donate. We'll say it again at the end of the show and also have it in the show notes.

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Jim: Greg, you work a lot with kingdom business owners, Christian business owners, and a lot of them don't really understand the significance of the ministry that they've been given, the biznisty - to give Chuck Proudfit out of Cincinnati, Ohio, a little credit - the biznistry that God has entrusted them with. How does Kingdom Factor help them understand the significance of that call?

Greg Ballard: Yeah, that's a great question, Jim. So we have three main pillars of content, right? And I believe it's Psalm 72, 73, and David shepherded them, and with integrity of heart, he guided them. And with skillful hands, he guided them. So David shepherded. He led, right? So there's a sense of personal leadership. How do you operate as an individual? How has God designed you? What has he equipped you with? And how do you get clarity around that so that you can make good, effective decisions?

Greg Ballard: So we set up personal vision.We do a lifeline. We look at your, we do a personal, a personality inventory and core values. So we spend some content, probably six months, just going through what is your personal operating system. And then two, we get into what we call business integrity. What does it mean to run and operate a business that aligns with biblical values, right?

Greg Ballard: How do we-- you know, and it's really about stewardship, recognizing that we're not the owners, we are the stewards. And then third, we get into operational excellence. How do we show efficiencies and improve our business model so that we can advance the kingdom of Christ?

Martha: So what do you see as some of the common struggles that your members are really struggling with?

Greg Ballard: So it all depends on where they are in their business. So we serve a lot of different stages. But if you're at that owner/operator, you're just getting started, it's mostly about getting a very clear offering. What do you offer and who do you serve? So avatar offering, and then two, how do you get people to know you? Do enough people know what you have to offer? Do you have some social proof that what you have to offer is desired in the market and that you can perform it?

Greg Ballard: In other contexts, if you already are established, it could be growing. Like, how do we scale this? Or finding employees. So I've supported a number of businesses on getting clear on how you onboard and select employees, and getting them equipped so that you can scale your business.

Jim: You mentioned something earlier, though, isolation. You're giving community. You're providing an opportunity for community for these business owners, because isolation, whether somebody's a leader in a corporation, a leader of a small business, a pastor of a church, isolation is a thing in leadership, because leaders really struggle being transparent with the people that report to them, no matter what the context.

Jim: How do you help leaders with isolation? Because this is... Again, you're trying to get leaders in a group to actually share what they're struggling with in order to be able to overcome this business issue. Isolation's a powerful tool of the enemy to take people out. How are you helping overcome that?

Greg Ballard: Yeah, absolutely. We have some agreements in our communities, right? So one, everybody has confidentiality agreement with what was discussed inside our groups. Two, we promote transparency and radical honesty. So part of my job is creating an environment where someone is comfortable to share things in a space that they may not feel comfortable sharing in other places. And so that's part of the thing that we offer.

Jim: Nice.

Martha: So good.

Jim: Good. And what I love about the fact is that Greg's one of those guys working from home, and today his kids, they all had sugar cereal for breakfast. And we get to hear a little bit of that. Greg, how many kids you got?

Greg Ballard: Pardon me, there is some background going on.

Jim: It's all right. It's all right. How many kids do you have, Greg?

Greg Ballard: We have four kids. 13, 11, 9, and about to be 8. Three boys and one girl.

Jim: Listen, I just wanna make sure everybody understands, when you work at home, sometimes you have noise in the background.I don't want Greg to feel bad about it. Let's celebrate. You got three boys. There's noise. And a girl. The girl's probably the quiet one.

Greg Ballard: Sometimes.

Martha: You never know. Yes.

Jim: We need to finish up, but we really wanna make sure people check out Kingdom Factor.If you're a business owner, what's the sweet spot for Kingdom Factor as far as size, for being a member in Kingdom Factor, right there in the DC area?

Greg Ballard: Yeah and I would say it may shift a little bit depending on which, who you're working with, but I've found that we're seeing some real value with businesses that are operating and they have some team, right?

Greg Ballard: So they have an operational... They have revenue. They have an operation, they have some team and they're able to get value because they're getting in a space without - that doesn't include their spouse and their other employees.

Jim: So they're in the scale. They've established. Now they're scaling.

Martha: Yeah. And we are gonna put those links in the show notes, Greg, so that people can reach out to you directly and get a chance to ask the questions. Say, "Hey, am I a good fit? Can we work on this together?" Whatever that might be, whatever the next step is.

Martha: Listeners, we're gonna put those links in the show notes for you so you can take that next step if this is something that, you're leaning into. You're like, "been looking for something a little bit different to help me in this area." So Greg, thank you so much for that.

Jim: Final word to you, Greg. What kind of word of encouragement do you have for that Christian business owner listening today that goes, " I need a community"?

Greg Ballard: So sometimes you don't realize it, right? And if you, what I would say is if you don't have a space where you can go and be radically honest about what's going on in your life, your faith, or your business, or all three of those, then you need to find something, or I would highly recommend you do find something because I think you're missing out on some opportunities for God to support you, to encourage you.

Greg Ballard: AndI'll share a quick story. And this is a story from another Kingdom Factor group. One of the members was ... the economics of their business had completely shifted, and he called his coach and he said, "Look, I'm ready to shut down. I think I'm done. I'm not gonna come back. My business is done." And the coach was like, "Hey, look, you're up for a crucial conversation. Why don't you come in, tell us what's going on, and let's see what we can do?"

Greg Ballard: And so he assented. He's like, "Okay, fine. I'll do it." And he went in, and they spoke about this for a bit of time, and then finally something clicked.And one of the, one of the other members said, "Why don't you try X?" And I forgot exactly, I think that this was an executive search firm, and the large companies were no longer needing the services. And so they decided to shift it to the small or midsize market, and they revamped the model, and it took.

Greg Ballard: It went hugely successful, ended up selling the business at a multiples figure. And that was because he got in a room with other people that cared about him, cared about his business, and allowed him to think in a way that he wouldn't have been able to do on his own. And I think that's kind of the example of being in community, is you have a perspective.You have your lane. You have what you're focusing on. But who's asking you the hard questions? Who's asking to say, "Hey, have you looked at this? Have you checked under that rock? Have you considered that resource?"

Greg Ballard: And when you can get into a community of people that can provide that, typically windows are opened and doors are opened that could not have been opened any other way.And so if you are operating a business and you don't have something like that, then set it up. Find a Kingdom Factor coach. Find another community. We have a virtual community. My passion is to build community around Christian entrepreneurism. And I, I just think there's so much value in that.

Greg Ballard: The other piece of this is so many businesses struggle, and so many business owners and operators are trying to say, "Hey, is this what God's calling me to do?" And if you don't have a sounding board, somebody that can speak or pray with you about it, it can be really difficult to know whether to go left or right.

Greg Ballard: And the people around you, whether that's your spouse, your partner in business, your employees, your vendors, they all have a stake in the decision that you're trying to make. And so they - great input, but they have self-interest in what you decide to do. So how do you get out of that? How do you get out of, and in a room of people that whatever you decide isn't gonna impact them, they're just gonna generally wanna serve you?And so that's what I would offer.

Martha: That's so good.

Jim: I love it. Make sure you guys check out Kingdom Factor online at kingdomfactor.us. And if you wanna talk to Greg, just look up Greg Ballard when you're on that website. Greg Ballard, thanks so much for being on iWork4Him today.

Greg Ballard: Thank you, Jim and Martha.Appreciate it.

Jim: You've been listening to iWork4Him with your hosts, Jim and Martha Brangenberg. We're Christ followers, and our workplace, it's our mission field. But ultimately, iWork4Him.