Revving Up Business: Ren Flickinger's Path from the Ground Up

Revving Up Business: Ren Flickinger's Path from the Ground Up

Ren Flickinger: Scaling to $120M, Building Culture, and Making Better Leadership Decisions Ren Flickinger shares how a career change from phone sales and Apple to a fast-growing, faith-based construction company in Omaha helped shift his focus from raw sales talent to building repeatable processes and leadership systems that scaled revenue from about $18M to over $120M in seven years. He describes working on acquisitions by traveling to new locations to install sales, production, and operating systems, and explains how Apple’s obsession with consistent customer experience shaped his thinking. The conversation also covers his racing-family background, lessons from becoming Best Buy’s youngest mobile store manager, and how Thrasher created a coaching role that fit his strengths. Ren discusses protecting culture through a few core principles, leadership-team alignment on “yes/no” decisions, avoiding cookie-cutter operating models, and why developing leaders drives predictable business growth.

Building South Carolina: A Conversation with Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette

Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette on Running for Governor, Keeping SC Open, and Making South Carolina #1 for BusinessIn this episode, the hosts interview South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette alongside CEO Matt Kelly after she tours their manufacturing shop. Evette discusses her campaign for governor, her background as an accountant and former CEO who built a home-based payroll/HR business into a national company, and why she entered politics after frustration with growing government. She explains how she works with the General Assembly through relationships and shared goals, highlights achievements from the past eight years including major tax cuts, keeping the state open during COVID, and support for teacher pay and universal school choice. Evette emphasizes expanding technical colleges, workforce readiness, and youth employment, outlines plans to cut regulations, modernize government with technology, eliminate state income tax, and better connect small businesses to large OEMs and new industry. She also shares personal stories about family, parenting, and hunting.

Iron Sharpens Iron: The PK Journey

From Clemson Walk-Ons to PK Capital: Greg & Christian on Partnership, Pressure, and Building with Trust In this episode, the hosts sit down with Greg and Christian in their studio to discuss the origin of PK—named for their shared background as Clemson placekickers—and how lessons from competing daily in a high-level program translated into business. They share where they’re from, how early work ethic and entrepreneurial habits formed, and why their partnership works through mutual respect, brutal honesty, and an “iron sharpens iron” mindset. Greg recounts the grind of becoming a walk-on and the commitment required to play at Clemson, while both explain how stress management, time discipline, and focusing on inputs over outputs shape their leadership. They describe launching PK Capital and PK Legacy Builders about 18–19 months ago, growing to 9–10 employees, exceeding first-year goals through relationships and referrals, and staying mission-driven by focusing on community impact and doing what they say they’ll do.

Exploring the Unique Path of Bnice: Basketball, Sumo, and Beyond

From Clemson Forward to Harlem Globetrotter to Sumo Founder: Bryan “B-Nice” Narcisse at Death Valley In this out-of-studio episode filmed at Clemson’s Death Valley, Bryan shares his journey from being a three-sport high school athlete to earning a late Clemson basketball scholarship after initially signing with Western Kentucky. He explains the time demands of college athletics and contrasts pre-NIL restrictions with today’s name, image, and likeness opportunities. Bryan recounts winning Clemson’s Rock the John dunk contest, competing in the College Slam Dunk Contest, and being drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters, including intense training camp and a demanding travel schedule. After leaving the Globetrotters, he worked with FCA as a mentor and chaplain. He also reveals a long-standing passion for sumo wrestling, how bullying led him to it, and how he founded South Carolina’s only sumo club, emphasizing strategy, discipline, and perspective.

Cultivating a Construction Legacy: Insights from Joel Davis

From Farm Fences to 163 Employees: Joel Davis on Growing J Davis Construction & Leading with Purpose Joel Davis joins the podcast to share the 29-year growth of J Davis and its four divisions, operating from offices in Westminster, Anderson, Spartanburg, and Charleston with about 163 employees, plus an equipment rental company and a cattle operation of 200 mama cows. He explains how he started at 17 building fences and barns, learned post-frame and pre-engineered metal buildings through mentors, and grew through word of mouth, signage, and self-performing work to control quality, schedule, and cost—helping the company compete during the 2008 recession. Davis discusses the shift into industrial services (JDI Industrial) and grading (New Terrain Grading) as separate brands, the importance of relationships and trust over low bids, mentorship and board service, hiring for values and culture, empowering COOs, safety standards that raised company-wide performance, and how defining purpose, faith, and family reshaped his leadership and work-life balance.