The inaugural Greater Perimeter Chamber Annual Meeting celebrated the launch of a new era in business leadership across Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, and the broader Perimeter region. This pivotal event unveiled their bold vision for the future and clarified what the Chamber stands FOR: business growth, innovation, and collaboration.
Troy Fountain, keynote speaker with The FOR Company, is an experienced Chief Operating Officer with a demonstrated history of working in the religious institutions industry.
Skilled in Leadership Development, Strategic Planning, Leadership, Organizational Theory, and Public Speaking.
Strong operations professional with a Masters focused in Bible/Biblical Studies from Dallas Theological Seminary. 
Connect with Troy on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the greater perimeter. It’s time for greater perimeter chamber spotlight. Now, here’s your host.
Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Broadcasting live from the Greater Perimeter Chamber inaugural annual meeting. So excited to be talking to our first guest, Troy Fountain. He is with the FOR company. He’s a keynote speaker. Welcome.
Troy Fountain: It’s good to be here, Lee. And thanks for having me.
Lee Kantor: Well, I’m asking every guest today. Why are you for the greater perimeter chamber?
Troy Fountain: The biggest reason I’m for the greater perimeter chamber is it is a true picture of what collaboration looks like when two organizations come together to better serve the community. That that is always something I would want to be behind. Love to get behind. And it’s really the essence of what being for the greater area is all about.
Lee Kantor: And then let’s talk a little bit about your firm, the four company. Tell us a little bit about what you’re up to.
Troy Fountain: Yeah. So we started the four company in 2018. My partner Jeff Henderson wrote a book called Know What You’re For. And the basic premise is, in a world that’s known for what it’s against, we can be known for what we’re for. And the contrast of that is can be very illuminating. Primarily did consulting work with organizations, churches and businesses, did some speaking as well. And like much of the world, the pandemic changed that in 2020. And as we came out of that and evolved, we really found a better market for speaking engagements, talking with different groups, from nonprofits to businesses and everyone in between.
Lee Kantor: So who is the ideal client for your firm?
Troy Fountain: The ideal client is really anyone who wants to change the culture and mindset of their organization. Whether, again, we work with nonprofits, United Ways, Businesses. Some sports teams really all over the map and even individually. We do have a coaching practice as well, where people who are interested in getting personal coaching or coaching for their organization, we can work with them and help implement this culture.
Lee Kantor: So what’s the pain your ideal client is having right before they contact you or somebody on your team?
Troy Fountain: I think the biggest pain point that people have is the reality of the changing culture. As these new generations of, you know, millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha come through, they have a different mindset and a different outlook on what they’re looking for, both in an organization that they want to be a part of and products they want to purchase. They’re oftentimes more interested in purpose than they are in profit. And that is something that is a mind shift change for a lot of companies and organizations.
Lee Kantor: Now is the thing that’s actually happening in these companies that they’re having a difficult time recruiting or they have high turnover. Is that kind of the signal that, hey, maybe we need a culture shift and we’ve got to bring Troy on?
Troy Fountain: Yes, I think it was the answer to that as both of those questions.
Troy Fountain: It is about employee recruitment. I think it is in the heart of every person to want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. And, you know, the four movement really started out of church, the church world. Jeff Henderson and I are both former pastors, and even the church, which should be a beacon of light for its community, oftentimes is known for what it’s against. And we started to shift that mindset. If we can let churches know that their communities are for them. And then that message really resonated with the business community as well. And again, it reflects back to whether it’s recruitment, retention of employees, and then even sales go up. But people want to do business with something that’s bigger than just profit, that they feel like they’re making a difference when they buy their loaf of bread or whatever.
Lee Kantor: Is there an action that our listener can take right now. That would help them kind of be better in this area.
Troy Fountain: Yeah. The whole premise runs around two questions and they’re very simple, but it’s not easy. Like many things in life. And the two questions are simply this what are you known for and what do you want to be known for? When you think about your organization, yourself as an individual, as a, as a, as a parent, as a spouse, as a company, as an organization, what do you want to be known for? And that’s a question you can answer.
Troy Fountain: And then what do you want? I’m sorry. What are you known for? And that’s a question that’s not yours to answer. So you have to do the work to figure out what’s the word on the street about your organization. But when you can close the gap between those two questions of what the answers are, you really start to make a difference. And we believe that there is profit and purpose.
Lee Kantor: And is there a story you can share where somebody came to you with? Maybe they thought they were for something, and then the world thought differently and you were able to help them kind of bridge that gap.
Troy Fountain: Yeah.
Lee Kantor: You don’t have to name the name of the company, but maybe the challenge and then how you were able to help them.
Troy Fountain: Yeah, I’ll relate it to more of my background has to do with Church World. Excuse me. And, um, we were working with the church in Alabama, and the church was plugging along and doing okay. But when they changed the mindset and this is interesting, they use the word with rather than the word for.
Troy Fountain: And that’s an important piece of information because it’s really not about the word. It’s not a program. It’s not t shirts. It’s not a poster you put on the wall. It’s truly a cultural shift. And when that church started really thinking through, um, how can we be for our community? So everything became defined as what are we for? Rather than what are we against? And instead of saying, oh, we’re against that, we just they just began to emphasize, oh, this is what we’re for. And that Mindshift really changed the culture of that church and their attendance. Over the next year went through the roof and it was just a shift of mindset. And when you would interview, um, you know, the parishioners that would come into the church and say, what changed? Why are you here? And they couldn’t define it. They would just say, it just feels different. And that’s often hard in the business world. Uh, feeling is, um, definitely something that is not always point A to point B, but, um, I can I can guarantee you this. We’ve never dealt with a client or a church that saw declines in their either their bottom line or their attendance after adopting this mindset. Because once you have that true north, then every decision becomes a lot easier, right? It really is a framework for everything you do.
Troy Fountain: Because once you define what you’re for and it’s got to be simple, memorable and repeatable, but once you know that, it helps guide your decisions. It helps answer questions about the type of people you want to hire for your organization. It really defines everything you do. And it’s really all about businesses are notorious for being if they were a person, they would be narcissists. Everything is about the business, right? And what we really want to do is change the mindset. We want to say to the business, get off the field and get in the stands and be a cheerleader for your customer, for your team, for the community. Rather than saying, look at us, look at us, look at us.
Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?
Troy Fountain: The best way to connect would be the for company. Just Google it. It’ll it’ll come up. Um, and then also there’s the the book is really the, the foundation for the whole movement. It’s Know What You’re For by Jeff Henderson. And it can be found on bookshop.org.
Lee Kantor: Well, Troy, thank you so much for sharing your story.
Troy Fountain: Thanks for having me, Lee. You guys have a great day.
