From the Beginning - A Petrus Development Show Episode on the History of Petrus

This week's episode of the Petrus Development Show is a unique one.  Join Rhen as he interviews Andrew Robison, owner and president of Petrus, about the history of Petrus and Andrew's role in making Petrus what it is today.  If you've ever wondered how Petrus got its start and became what it is today, this is the episode for you! 

Show Notes:

Andrew shares his journey with Petrus, detailing his progression from part-time consultant to full-time staff member, from president to owner.  He offers a unique perspective into Petrus's development over the past decade. 

In addition to outlining the history of the organization, Andrew highlights the joys and the challenges that come with owning and building a successful business.  He shares pieces of his vision for Petrus's future, and he offers testimony to how remaining grounded in prayer, scripture, and life outside of business has kept him sane and moving Petrus forward boldly and faithfully.  

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

03:18.73
aggierobison
Well, howdy everybody. Welcome back to the Petrus Development Show. My name is Rhen Hoehn from Petrus Development. And today he's back. It's Andrew Robison, owner and president of Petrus joining me. How's it going, Andrew?

03:30.29
AROB
It's going great, Rhen. How about yourself? Thanks for being here and sorry, that was a lot of... I totally screwed that up. How are you doing?

03:37.24
aggierobison
Living the dream.

03:38.69
AROB
Okay, good.

03:39.50
aggierobison
It's fall in the air. The trees are changing colors. Ah, this is my favorite time of year. It's great.

03:46.99
AROB
Are true. Our trees go from green to brown in Texas and then they just fall off. There's very little color change.

03:54.54
aggierobison
We get the full shebang, all the oranges and yellows and reds, and I love it.

03:56.16
AROB
I don't know.

03:59.09
aggierobison
I love it. But also, it becomes a rush to get lots of projects done before the snow falls. And so that's where I am now.

04:04.83
AROB
Yeah.

04:06.43
aggierobison
Get what's left of the garden out, get all the animals ready. Get chickens and such, get them ready for snow.

04:11.64
AROB
It's crazy.

04:12.12
aggierobison
Make sure the snowblower is ready to go. I know you've been working on some big projects around your house, though, too, even though you don't have to worry about the snow coming soon.

04:20.18
AROB
No, which I guess on the one hand, you know, deadlines make the world go around, right? So I do appreciate that you have snow that is kind of motivating you to action. I started working on a project. I actually started probably about a month ago.

04:38.94
AROB
Went and bought the wood. So I've got four kids. And just over the course of the last year, all of them have changed rooms into various configurations. And it's kind of been annoying. And we're trying to get kids back where they're supposed to be. It's really kind of the end of it.

04:59.75
AROB
So two of my kids have been asking for bunk beds for a long time.

05:02.56
aggierobison
Yeah.

05:04.80
AROB
So I told my wife, I said, "I can build a bunk bed. We don't need to go buy a bunk bed. That's silly." So I built a... it's technically a loft. And then she has low ceilings in that room.

05:17.88
AROB
So anyway, all of that to say I built a loft for the kids. Finally got it painted, sanded, and put together this weekend. They slept in it last night and everybody loved it.

05:29.13
aggierobison
Hey, excellent.

05:31.62
AROB
Yeah.

05:31.78
aggierobison
You have a long history of woodworking projects and other kind of hands-on building like that, eh?

05:38.12
AROB
I do. I love woodworking. I love building furniture. We've built... I built a dining room table. I've built cabinets, have built toy boxes, bookshelves, all of that kind of stuff. And I love it because you can, well, just like the joy of seeing, you know, a pile of wood turn into something that's usable is great.

06:01.35
AROB
But then also there's a lot of... you can customize your pieces, make them the right size, the right color, the right tone, all of that. But then it's just like the creative juices that go into it. I'm not like a super creative person. And I tell people all the time, if I can build these things, literally anybody can figure this out. It's really not that complicated, but it is like a set of problems. So like, for example, this loft, I didn't

06:27.40
AROB
buy plans, which they sell plans for things like that. And then, you know, it has your cut list and your measurements and everything. I just saw some pictures, kind of measured out the space in the room, measured out the mattresses, and then just started building. And so that's the part that I really love to do is to kind of figure out the pieces, put them all together, and then end up with the final project.

06:47.86
AROB
project

06:49.17
aggierobison
Love that. You've definitely become quite good at it. You've gained some of the knowledge. I remember once we were talking about a project you were working on, you got some exotic wood that you were working with and you said, "Yeah, I got to wear a special mask.

06:59.47
aggierobison
If you breathe this dust, it'll kill you" or something.

07:01.71
AROB
Yeah.

07:02.60
aggierobison
I'd be toast if that was up to me. I'm glad you know what you're doing there.

07:06.33
AROB
Yeah, a lot of trial and error, a lot of mistakes. Every project that I do ends up with something unsightly that I then have to go and either throw that piece of wood away and repair it and replace it or paint over it or something. But to me, that's kind of like, you know, that's the... that's just like that customization. That's that, you know, personal touch is, you know, the Kreg jig holes are on the wrong side or, you know, I cut this piece a little too long.

07:33.93
AROB
So there's a gap and I have to sand it down like, yeah, you know, it is what it is. I figured it out and I'm fine with it.

07:40.46
aggierobison
Personality, I think is what we call that, right?

07:42.07
AROB
There you go.

07:42.30
aggierobison
It's got personality.

07:43.64
AROB
Exactly.

07:43.90
aggierobison
There we go.

07:43.99
AROB
Yeah.

07:44.20
aggierobison
So another thing I know you like building, which we kind of want to talk about on today's episode, is business, right?

07:49.24
AROB
Yeah.

07:49.45
aggierobison
So you've been president, owner of Petrus for a number of years here now. We wanted to go back to kind of the beginning of Petrus and talk about where that came from, because not many people may know this or assume this at this point, but you did not start and found Petrus in the beginning.

08:04.54
AROB
That's correct. So I joined the Petrus team part-time in 2012 as a consultant, as a contract consultant, full-time in 2017 as the president, and full-time as the owner in 2020. But well before all of my involvement, Peter De Keratry and John Flynn

08:27.92
AROB
launched Petrus back in 2005, really as a way to teach Catholic organizations how to fundraise. They had both been successful fundraisers in their own careers. John had been at the Kansas KU Catholic Center for 13 years or so.

08:45.18
AROB
And then Peter had been in a number of places, including St. Mary's, Texas A&M, the Citadel, he'd worked for another consulting firm. And they both were very good, are still very good fundraisers.

08:57.46
AROB
And so everybody was asking them, "How do we do what you're doing?" And after a while, you get asked enough times and you think, well, you know, should we turn this into what we do is to teach other people?

09:08.57
AROB
And so ultimately that's what they did in 2005. They launched Petrus and now we've kept the company going for close to 20 years, kind of crazy. Next year it'll be 20 years.

09:17.67
aggierobison
Yeah.

09:20.59
aggierobison
Yeah. If you go way, way back in our podcast archives, you can kind of hear their stories. I believe Peter was on episode five off the top of my head. And I love his story of getting involved in fundraising. He was a student at Texas A&M and went up to the priest at St.

09:34.27
aggierobison
Mary's at the college centers. "Hey, you got this dumpy little building. Why don't you fundraise and build something nicer?" And the priest said, "Well, why don't you help me do it?" And he said, "Fine." And that's kind of how he got started. Right. And they went and picked up some books in the library and learned fundraising from there.

09:43.35
AROB
Right.

09:47.24
aggierobison
And, you know, years later, he found Petrus. So you said it was about 2005 when Petrus started.

09:53.68
AROB
Right.

09:54.25
aggierobison
Do you kind of know the trajectory for the first few years there, how it grew and built?

09:59.83
AROB
Yeah, so Peter and John were both excellent fundraisers and fortunately excellent consultants. So they were able to, which is, I say fortunately because that's not always the case, right? It is a skill set to be, excuse me. So I say that,

10:19.09
AROB
I say that fortunately because it's not always the case. Right? You can be a really good fundraiser and not be able to teach other people how to fundraise. You can be a really great football player and not be able to teach other people or coach other people on how to play football.

10:27.90
aggierobison
Right.

10:32.15
AROB
And so they were both very good consultants and built up quite a bit of portfolio of organizations that really wanted help fundraising. They brought on Mike Perkins, who is another really great stalwart of the Catholic fundraising world. He's now at St. Kevin's Foundation, raising money in a different way to support Catholic organizations. But really the three of them were the three fundraising consultants for Petrus. And they had some others. They had Mary Pat Beals, they had Mary McHugh, they had Sarah Rose for a while. They had a lot of, you know, kind of people that came in for projects, but it was really

11:12.28
AROB
the three of them, they took on every project and they grew. They worked with Catholic parishes, they did some diocesan work, they worked with campus ministries, they worked with schools. And it was really, if your organization wants to learn how to fundraise, call Petrus and we will come in and we will teach you. We'll help you hire staff, we'll help you put plans in place, we'll help you identify the people that you are needing to go and ask for major gifts, we'll do it all. And that was really how it started.

11:40.42
aggierobison
So how did you get involved? What was the kind of lead up there and how did you get connected in Petrus? There's clearly a St. Mary's connection with Texas A&M. How did that all work out?

11:49.61
AROB
So yep, when Petrus was just launching, Peter called up Greg Gorman, my boss at St. Mary's at Texas A&M and said, "Do you need any help fundraising?" And Greg said, well, I think he always said, "I ask you all the time for advice. Now that you have this company, I guess we should pay you to ask you for that advice." So technically, St. Mary's at A&M was a client of Petrus early on. This would have been in that 2005, 2006 time.

12:15.68
AROB
And so fortunately for me, that was how I got to know Peter. Whenever I moved up to Ohio State to work at the Newman Center at Ohio State, Peter was actually very influential in helping me to do that. He said, "Andrew, I love you here at A&M. I love you here at St. Mary's. Greg has got it under control though. If you want to be a director somewhere, let me know and I'll help you kind of lay the groundwork for you."

12:39.94
AROB
And so Peter was great, helped me to get that job at Ohio State at the Newman Center. And then again, we were clients at that time. The Newman Center had hired Petrus, was actually working with Mike Perkins to start fundraising. They brought me in. And so then we continued to build the program with Mike's help at the time. And then I moved back to

13:04.75
AROB
College Station to work at the foundation at A&M and we were clients of Petrus but we were still, you know, at that point I knew Peter, I knew Mike, I had met John, I had spoken at a number of CCMA and Petrus conferences and so around 2012 Peter called me up and said, "Hey, you're doing fundraising now for the university. Would they let you take on a client as a contractor for Petrus?" And so I asked my boss and the boss was, you know, very benevolent. And he said, "Yes, you could do it because that way I don't have to give you a raise." So no, it was very, uh, he was very gracious and he let me do that. So my first client in 2012

13:50.64
AROB
was the Blessed John XXIII Catholic Center at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. And so I learned how to be a consultant at that time and then, you know, kind of just continued to move in over the years.

14:04.88
aggierobison
So you were making it in conjunction with your job at the university, right? Like kind of taking vacation days and going up to Colorado.

14:11.59
AROB
Yeah, in fact, I didn't take a true vacation day for probably about three or four years because I used all my PTO, all of my, you know, kind of lunch breaks, all of that to be able to do Petrus work. And it was great. I traveled up to Fort Collins about every six weeks. I spent two days on site working with Father Rocco and with Laura and really helped them build a great fundraising operation.

14:40.14
AROB
They were going through a transition at that time at their Catholic Center, needed fundraising to fill the void of some parishioner giving that had vacated, and so they really took it. And then I worked with them for about 18 months, and then we finished up our engagement, and they kept growing. In fact, they have continued to grow and we're doing a really large campaign at one point. So, yeah, that was my first introduction into fundraising. Couldn't have been at a better place. I love Colorado. I love the mountains. I was able to go, you know, and experience that, but then also cut my teeth on consulting with great people like Father Rocco and with Laura.

15:26.95
aggierobison
Editorial note here. Do you want to talk about like the fact that it was just major gifts consulting face-to-face at that time?

15:32.64
AROB
Sure.

15:35.59
aggierobison
Okay. So you said you were going to Colorado for all of these. Now Petrus has a bunch of different kinds of virtual options for training, but as I understand it back then, it was all face-to-face one-on-one kind of training in that way. Is that right?

15:54.23
AROB
Yeah. So for about the first 13 years of our history, Petrus had really one model of consulting. You hired Petrus, you got Peter, John, Mike, Andrew, whoever it was, and they were your consultant. And we would come on site for a couple of days every, you know, on some rhythm, usually every six to eight weeks. And we would help you to identify what you need to do for your annual fund, put that stuff in place,

16:21.72
AROB
how you need to grow your database, talk with you about strategies for that, coach you on how to go out and ask for major gifts, and then actually kind of go on major gift asks with you. And so it was a great model. But that allows you to kind of advance everything at one time, but there were some limitations there, right?

16:43.01
AROB
That travel, that kind of in-depth time made it cost prohibitive for smaller organizations that, you know, for many organizations, they weren't ready to dive into major gifts because they had literally no database or, you know, a hundred names in their Excel spreadsheet.

16:58.50
AROB
And so, you know, you run through those in the first three months and then it's kind of like, all right, well, I guess we'll spend the next nine months learning how to do Major Gifts without really a pool of Major Gift prospects. So we identified some ways that we could make our services better and have shifted, yeah, like you said, significantly over the last, what, seven, eight years. But for the first 13 or so, it was very much, here's the program, and we'll work with you in this way.

17:27.83
aggierobison
Great, so maybe this brings us to what I assume was your favorite client. That'd be St. Albert the Great University Parish at Michigan Tech.

17:36.31
AROB
Yeah.

17:37.05
aggierobison
So I was hired there and Petrus helped hire me. Dan Mocharski zoomed into the meetings, the interviews, and asked me questions and terrified me, but I got the job. And Peter worked with me for the first year. He was my consultant. He was still running Petrus. And so he had been working at the Archdiocese of Chicago, took a new job in Oklahoma City. It was Oklahoma City, right? Not Tulsa. It was Oklahoma City.

18:04.53
aggierobison
Took a new job in Oklahoma City. And about that time, you started working with me at that point, became my consultant. And around that time is when you became the president of Petrus. So what was that process like?

18:17.01
AROB
Yeah, so like I said, I was working full time for the university, the foundation. I was raising money for the medical school and had kind of been moving into different roles. Peter and Dan had come to me and said, would you be interested in taking on this role as president? You know Petrus, you know the work. And, you know, it was a tough decision, right? I traveled some for my job, but not nationally. I worked for a multi-million dollar, you know, billion-dollar university that had plenty of stability, you know, to move into a business that wasn't at that level, right, yet. And so it was, you know, I wrestled with it a lot. I prayed with it. Cheryl and I talked about it.

19:02.98
AROB
And eventually Dan, who was the president at the time, he lined up about four, maybe five new clients, all to come on right about the same time in 2017. And he said, "Andrew, I've got everything queued up. It's ready for you. All we need from you is commitment." And so I said, okay. So I prayed about it again, talked with my boss, who was great. And he said, "Look, you know, we love you here at the foundation. But, you know, this is clearly what you want to do. Sounds like a great opportunity. Go do it. And know that you'll always have a friend here at the foundation." So I said, Okay, great. So that was how we switched in kind of that made that shift in leadership from

19:47.94
AROB
Peter and John originally to Dan who took over around 2009 to myself in 2017. So I came in as president, Dan stayed on as the kind of number two director of operations and was great. This was my first time running a company. I had started a couple of smaller businesses with some friends earlier.

20:12.58
AROB
But nothing at this scale and, you know, kind of that required this level of professionalism and commitment and foresight and, you know, strategy and all of that. And so having Dan around for that first year was great. I learned a lot. I made some pretty big blunders that, you know, we were able to overcome, thankfully. But then after about a year, Dan kind of, you know,

20:36.09
AROB
reduced his involvement, continued on as a consultant and still does consult with us, you know, seven years later. But I really kind of took the helm as the president.

20:47.57
aggierobison
And right after that is when you kind of started that foray into the more virtual training, right? The Annual Manual program started up in, I think, 2018.

20:55.60
AROB
Yeah, so it was working with you and the UP that we really kind of put the bones around this idea of our first non-"go on site every six to eight weeks, work with a client on everything." We really focused on how do we build up somebody's annual fund with a plan that allows them to grow over time and then focus on those foundational elements.

21:25.02
AROB
And so it was in conversations with you, probably on the trails of the UP, that we put the pieces together for the Annual Manual. So that was our first kind of foray into virtual consulting. And I would say that it has led us into more innovative and exploratory methods of consulting that we probably never would have gone to had we not had that initial shift.

21:52.43
aggierobison
Exactly. And I think it's opened up, you know, Petrus' knowledge base and everything to those smaller organizations that couldn't afford to bring on a full-time, you know, somebody in every six or eight weeks and get their program started, get in buildings.

22:05.08
aggierobison
So right after that, early 2020, pretty quiet time in history.

22:05.50
AROB
Yeah.

22:10.16
aggierobison
That's around the time when you bought Petrus, it kind of became, you became the owner of the company, right?

22:13.35
AROB
Yeah.

22:16.13
AROB
Yeah, yes. So if you're seeing the video, you're seeing me, you know, bang my head against my fist. Yeah, it was a great time. So a lot of people asked me, you know, "How did you come to be the owner of Petrus, right? And you didn't start it, you didn't own it." And this is, you know, a lot of other business owners asked me this question. So when I joined in 2017 as president,

22:40.69
AROB
I had an option, it was owned by Peter and Dan, and I had an option to accrue equity in the company annually as I worked in that role, but then it capped. I think at 20% is where it capped.

22:56.72
AROB
But I had the option of buying more at kind of market rate, whatever the company was valued at. And so, you know, I said, I don't know, you know, I don't know how this is going to work full-time. I don't, you know, I'm not ready to commit to that. So I took that slow approach. You know, I earned a little bit of equity those first two years.

23:16.29
AROB
Well, after that first year, we went through the process to value the company because, you know, those shares had to be bought from somebody. And so the company had to buy them from, I don't remember if it was Peter or Dan, and then award them to me. And so we had to have a value for that for what we could pay for those shares. And the way that we valued the company, it made it clear to me that as we continued to grow, the company, the cost for me to kind of buy those extra shares, if that's what I wanted to do, I was,

23:45.27
AROB
by being successful and growing, I was kind of working myself out of the ability to afford to buy the company. You know what I mean?

23:53.83
aggierobison
Yeah, that's a conundrum. Yeah.

24:00.02
AROB
And then all of a sudden it was like, wait a minute, you know, if I'm going to build this company, again, build it, right? I didn't found it, right? We were in a little bit of a low period in terms of revenue, sales, staffing, all of that in 2017 when I took over. But I knew what was potential. And I thought, if we're going to get back to that point and even exceed, you know, what had been done before, like,

24:23.39
AROB
as a partial owner, I'd love to own more of it. And so 2019, I kind of started on this journey of buying a company, which again, had never done that, didn't prepare for that, you know, be asking those questions. But I guess we had, well, Nora was born in 2018. That's not right. God, Nora was born in 2015, sorry.

24:47.84
AROB
Luke was born in 2019. So I was like, you know, we had two kids, you know, expecting a baby and I was like, all right, you know, we can manage this. You want to prepare for the future, all of that kind of stuff. So I initially started looking at government loans, because it was enough money to be able to buy them out that,

25:08.20
AROB
And you know there were options of owner finance or seller financed. But I knew that I just had in my mind, like once I bought the company from Peter and Dan, I wanted that process, that transaction to be done and I didn't want it to linger over time because I like both of them and I didn't want, you know, kind of this underlying, like, you know, but how's the company doing? Can I pay you? All of this kind of stuff.

25:33.56
AROB
And so I wanted to have the cash to be able to pay them and I didn't have that much cash. And so I started looking at government loans and the Small Business Administration actually provides loans specifically for this purpose. They're called SBA 7A loans and they serve other purposes as well, but they are loans that a small business owner can get to buy out other owners or to buy a company.

26:00.79
AROB
And so I was like, this is perfect. You know, they're government backed, it was like a seven or 10 year payment period. You know, the loan, the interest rate was fixed and I thought, you know, this is perfect. I'll do this. So I went to, you got to go through a bank. So I went through the first bank and the banker was like, this is fine. Cut and dry. You know, you meet all the criteria. We'll get this process. Well, then I didn't hear from him. And then I was like, all right, well, I guess it's, you know, taking longer. And I thought, so I check in, he's like, yeah, we're just checking on things. We'll keep you posted.

26:31.08
AROB
Well, like two months go by and I still don't know if this is going to get funded. And finally I get the guy on the phone and he was like, "Yeah, your application was denied." And I said, "Application was denied? I met all the criteria. What do you mean?" He says, "Well, you guys are a faith-based organization. And as the US government backing these loans, they can't be involved in loaning to or for this purpose for the, you know, the whole separation of church and state, you know, supporting faith-based organizations."

27:02.88
AROB
I was like, "What are you talking about?" So anyways, that was tough. And then I actually tried it with another bank to go, you know, kind of, well, maybe it was the banker, you know, so I went with another bank and same result, you know, nope, you're denied. This one thankfully got back with me in, you know, about four days, which is, you know, how long it took for them to know. And so then I was like, all right, well, you know, where am I going to come up with this much money now that my, you know, I kind of put all my eggs in that basket. And then I thought, well, now that basket, you know, had a hole in the bottom. So what do I do now?

27:37.59
aggierobison
What did you do next?

27:41.25
aggierobison
Clearly it worked out, right? Because you did become the owner.

27:43.57
AROB
Yeah.

27:44.75
aggierobison
So, yeah, that must've been a frustrating process.

27:47.82
AROB
Yeah. So, um, this was probably about, uh, I dunno, June or July of 2019, um, and doing all this, you know, while still running the company and trying to grow. And then Luke was born in June of 2019. So it was, uh, you know, some stressful kind of time in there. Um, but I wanted to get this done before the end of the year. And I had told Peter and Dan of my intentions and they were kind of like, "Yeah, all right, look, you do it and we'll honor it," and kind of a "believe it when we see it" kind of deal. Um, and so I ended up making some calls to some people that I knew, family, friends, um, people that I had actually met through my work at the A&M Foundation that I had become good friends with. And um, so just to back up, there was a matching gift campaign that I had done when I was at the Newman Center at Ohio State. We wanted to gather $25,000 in matching funds for a matching week collection weekend.

28:50.87
AROB
And I couldn't find anybody that could do 25,000. So we ended up cobbling together, not 25, but 21,000 in kind of 5,000, 1,000, 2,500, about five families um did that.

29:01.84
aggierobison
Yeah.

29:02.72
AROB
We ended up running with that. Huge success. So somewhere in the back of my mind, I was like, well, I can't come up with all the money for one person, but what if I could find five, you know, four, five, six lenders to make this happen?

29:19.00
aggierobison
Yeah.

29:19.04
AROB
And so that's what I did. Um, so Cheryl and I put in a big chunk of our money. Um, I was able to secure enough from family, friends, um, and everybody, you know, I had this kind of, "This is what the terms I would get if I borrowed it from the SBA, would you do those same terms?"

29:38.46
AROB
And some of them did, some of them wanted different terms. And so I ended up kind of crafting different contracts with five different um entities, people um to get the money.

29:52.64
AROB
So ended up, ah yeah, came up with the money, have different terms, set it all on ah you know kind of autopilot to make sure that everybody gets paid.

29:53.33
aggierobison
Wow.

30:01.36
AROB
Um, and ah at the end of 2019, and then we had to start working on the kind of legal paperwork to buy the company. Got all that done by the end of 2019.

30:12.39
AROB
Um, in January of 2020, Peter and Dan and I met at the SEEK conference in, how far was it then? Um, not San Antonio. I remember where it was in 2019, uh, or 2020. Oh, it was Phoenix, I think. Um, so we met at, uh, the conference and then, uh, I gave each of them a check. And I said, "Thank you very much." Uh, and they said, "Thank you very much." And that was how Petrus became mine.

30:40.60
AROB
Um, three months later, the world shut down.

30:41.65
aggierobison
Ah yeah. How would you compare that process of going to those families to ask to invest in this business to going and asking, you know, a donor for a potential gift to a nonprofit?

30:42.65
AROB
I just about lost my mind. Ah, you know, weeping into my, ah, um, weeping into my loan payment documents. I felt but really good about it at the time.

31:08.80
AROB
Yeah, that's a really good question. You know, we tell people all the time, their biggest fear about asking for money is, "I don't want people to tell me no," right? And so what we coach our development people and the executive directors and priests and everything else is you're not asking on behalf of yourself, you're asking on behalf of the organization. So if they say no, they're not saying, "No, I don't like you." They're saying, "No, I can't do this for that organization at this time," whatever it is.

31:35.71
AROB
Um, that wasn't really the case, right? Like these, I needed these people to like me as much as they liked the mission, which was Petrus.

31:38.38
aggierobison
Yeah, it's opposite.

31:45.25
AROB
So, uh, I had to be a lot more prepared, a lot more thorough. Um, was able to put together, uh, I came up with a PowerPoint that showed you know, history of the company, kind of projections, where trend lines, financial information, um, you know, mission, organization strategies, ideas, you know, what we were planning on doing for the future. Um, and so it was kind of like alright, you know, I met with people that said, "Andrew, I like you enough and if you can convince me that the company is a good bet, then I'll say yes." And that was ultimately what happened. Um, you know, we had to, like I said, work out that everybody has a little bit different terms. Um, and so that was a, you know, a little bit, not frustrating anyway, but certainly, like, you know, had to solve each person's individual requests separately and still appreciate every, you know, all the dollars that came in.

32:45.55
AROB
So it was similar, but there were definitely differences.

32:47.17
aggierobison
Great.

32:49.63
aggierobison
Yeah, I could see that. So you clearly, Petrus made it through COVID, all of that. Ah, all kinds of things have happened in the last few years. You want to kind of touch on how the company has grown and the things that have been added in these last few years?

33:03.79
AROB
Yeah. Yeah. So 2018 was when we first started with that virtual consulting, don't have to be onsite to teach you how to fundraise. And so we were, but it was going well and we had been talking about how can we lean into that for other types of um consulting, coaching, teaching, education, all of that. So in fact, in 2019, we had switched our website over to what it the platform is on right now called Kajabi, which is um, it has the ability to load classes, courses, people can use your website to buy classes, go through the classes, all of that.

33:45.00
AROB
I don't think we had any courses on there yet, but we were kind of preparing for that. So when the world shut down, we couldn't travel, everything had to be virtual. We were doing so much teaching in 2020. I think I logged ah personally 160 hours of webinars in 2020. I mean, it was unreal. And, but we had, I wouldn't say that we were prepared for that because I don't know that anybody was prepared for it, but we were definitely already in a mindset where this is where we're going to end up down the road. And it just accelerated some of that shift. Um, so we turned those webinars into courses, you know, or made them available. I mean, just a lot of um ah a lot of shifting and just, you know, shifting and praying, right? It was like, all right, I don't know how this is all gonna end up five years from now, but right now we have to survive. So right now let's figure out how we make this. And and the clients that we're working with, they have to survive. And so how do we help them in whatever way we can?

34:47.04
aggierobison
Yeah, I think the very first webinar Petrus ever did was either January or February of 2020.

34:51.94
AROB
You

34:52.49
aggierobison
So we were kind of, we were hitting, it was on red teaming, if I remember correctly, kind of getting things prepared just in time.

34:59.64
aggierobison
And then there's a whole lunch and learn series or in COVID. The conference that year went virtual for whatever, 85 straight hours or something, day and night.

35:08.26
AROB
Yep, it's crazy.

35:09.37
aggierobison
So yeah, lots of good pivoting there.

35:12.17
AROB
Yeah.

35:12.50
aggierobison
And then, go ahead.

35:13.88
AROB
Oh, sorry. And then after 2020, um you know ah we didn't know how things were – how fundraising was. We knew kind of business model, what we needed to do. But then you know, it's like selling ice to Eskimos, right? If you're, if nobody wants to buy what you're offering, then it doesn't matter how functional you are as a business. And so that was kind of how we felt in 2021. We just, nonprofits of all sorts, weren't ready to invest in growing their fundraising operation because you didn't really know what fundraising looked like. Um, and we're all trying to figure it out and, you know, offering our thoughts and taking in other thoughts, but it,

35:54.13
AROB
It was very grey at the time and um so we continued ah thankfully you know the company from a revenue standpoint had grown 2017 big jump 2018 big jump 2019 big jump and then 2020 straight across 2021 straight across so we were happy with that because the alternative was you know to crater. Um, and so we were happy that we were able to shift, ah but still also like waiting for the time that we weren't just going to keep maintaining. Um, and 2022, that's what happened. Between ah nonprofits starting to come back.

36:31.92
AROB
And what we really saw is a drive to do more capital campaigns. 2022 and 23 to some extent was like the year of the campaign. All of the churches, all of the schools, all of the organizations that had been talking about growing before COVID put all their plans on hold. And then in 2022, it was like, all right, we can still fundraise. Let's go do all the stuff that we were talking about. And now it needs to be done even more because we took two years deferring.

36:59.10
AROB
So 2022 is when we really shifted into doing more capital campaigns and 23 continued and then 24 continued as well. So we still do all the things that we did before, but now kind of layer on a lot more campaign work.

37:12.52
aggierobison
And I want to finish up with one topic, but one thing that we kind of skipped over or glazed over there is the name Petrus.

37:18.47
AROB
Yeah.

37:19.14
aggierobison
Where did that even come from? What does it mean?

37:21.44
AROB
So I, again, I'm not the founder, so all I have is the founder's stories for how this all developed. But um the founder, one of the founders is Peter, right? Peter and John. And Peter was really the driver. He wanted to start the business. He knew he needed a partner, so he ended up um finding John, bringing him into the role, which was fantastic. Um, but it was really kind of Peter who was driving it. And he was good friends. He'd worked with Father Mike Sis at St. Mary's at A&M.

37:48.91
AROB
And, ah you know, so he's telling Father Mike about this and ah Father Mike is saying, you know, this is a great idea, you know, go do it. You know, the church needs this and church needs you and everything else. And Peter's like, okay, I think I got it all figured out. I just don't know the name. I want it to sound smart. You know, something Latin would be really great. I just don't know what it is. And Father Mike, this is again, Peter telling the story. Father Mike says, well, your name's Peter. Why don't you just name the company Petrus? And Peter said,

38:17.03
AROB
Oh yeah, we could do that. Okay, so that was how the company was named. Uh, you know, there's certainly kind of parallels to uh you know uh Saint Peter, right? Being the first pope and this is the rock on which I'm building the church and you know he reaches into the fish and pulls the coins out, right? Like there's biblical kind of justification that we make now but you know at the end of the day it was named because the founder was named Peter and he wanted a ah Latin-sounding name so that was how he ended up with Petrus. If John had started the company, who knows what the name would be.

38:45.31
aggierobison
Yeah, exactly.

38:48.77
AROB
You know? But Peter was the one with the idea. He got it rolling, and that was how he ended up with Petrus.

38:54.31
aggierobison
And we do still take a lot of inspiration from St. Peter, right? In terms of he was a fisherman. We like to say Petrus is a Teach2Fish company, right? Like it is possible to have somebody come in and do fundraising for you and leave, but that doesn't leave your organization in a better spot necessarily long-term, right?

39:08.89
aggierobison
You lose those relationships that you, the staff build with the people.

39:08.92
AROB
Right.

39:12.86
aggierobison
So we focus on the Teach2Fish and that's kind of led to some of the more recent things Petrus has been working on so and we've talked a lot about the BOAT program, Basic Online Advancement Training recently. It's a virtual ten-week kind of boot camp for fundraising. Ah, we've also been working on some new courses that have just released the first couple ones ah publicly. You want to talk about those?

39:34.67
AROB
Yeah, so I don't know how much detail you want me to go into, but you know when we came up with BOAT, it was just this idea a couple of years ago to take ah take enough teaching online into a kind of a course model. Um, and it has changed dramatically in the three years. Um, you know it's that you and I both believe in this Eric Ries ah you know, lean startup model, right? You start with an MVP, a minimum viable product, you get users, you take that feedback and you iterate. So we've definitely iterated BOAT multiple times. Well, all along, it's been like, once we can kind of crack this, figure out what's needed, what's useful, what's the most helpful, then are there other courses? Are there other ideas, talents, skills, right? Concepts that we can teach through the same model.

40:27.23
AROB
Um, and so that's what we're doing. So now we have, uh, signed a, uh, or we've partnered with what was originally Catholic Faith Technology, CFT now is called FACTS.

40:58.67
AROB
And they don't have fundraising content. And so we have been able to start our kind of wheels and motion gears moving to develop content. So now we've just launched the Spirituality of Fundraising course, um which is a great course, just a couple of modules, some lessons, some videos, downloads, um good resources. And then and we've got a really great one on how to run a successful Giving Day.

41:20.34
AROB
So if you are connected with a diocese or you are connected with a way to get access to those platforms, the courses, then you can go through your diocese. If not, then you can find those courses just by, I don't even know how to find them, Ren, you're gonna have to tell people how to find them or put in the show notes or whatever. But we've got courses there that you can take.

41:42.74
aggierobison
You can go to PetrusDevelopment.com/Academy and find all of our different course offerings there.

41:45.74
AROB
There you go.

41:47.81
aggierobison
So you'll find the, the spirituality of fundraising.

41:48.33
AROB
And ah

41:51.17
aggierobison
You'll find that Giving Days course. So if you're planning on Giving Tuesday, December 3rd, this year, you got about two months to get ready for it. Ah, this is the time to start preparing for it. And that course is going to give you everything you need to know to raise money.

42:05.29
aggierobison
I know the first couple of times I did a Giving Day, uh, we didn't know what we were doing, and it felt like a waste of effort. We put up a bunch of time and effort. We didn't do things correctly at all, and we raised some money. But I was like, ah, is it worth the time? When you when you put all the pieces together and kind of do do the right approach to it, you can be very successful. So start planning for that now. Go to PetrusDevelopment.com/Academy, and you can find that course. We have some other courses that are coming soon, ah one on understanding parish finances, if that's something that you're you're trying to get um you know more familiar with.

42:34.92
aggierobison
We have the BOAT course available through there. And we have another one that Matt and I talked about in the last episode coming prior after the new year, we'll have a deep dive into major gifts fundraising. So if you want to know every detail about how to go sit down with a donor face to face and ask them for some money, that's going to be the course for you coming soon.

42:44.55
AROB
Nice, awesome. Um

42:53.78
aggierobison
You can get on the wait list for that on at PetrusDevelopment.com/Academy if you want to know when it's released.

42:58.79
AROB
There you go. I should have known to send people there, but, but that may bring you to another point. So I don't want to end. Um, you know, I didn't want this episode to be like, you know, the career of Andrew, right? Because Andrew is a piece of Petrus, but in 2017, it was Andrew, it was Dan. We actually hired my wife, uh, as a full-time, the quote full-time employee so that we could get a group life insurance or a group health insurance policy for me and Cheryl. 'Cause you needed to.

43:24.51
AROB
Um, but it was, yeah we were pretty lean at the time. We had a lot of contractors, we had kind of a stable of contractors, um but not a lot. I was the only full-time employee. And, um, and that's not the case anymore.

43:37.93
AROB
Right. In 2019, I was able to bring on Josh Whalen. He was my first hire, um, as the, uh, as a ah vice president and senior consultant at the time, um, was able to grow.

43:50.40
AROB
When did you join REN 2021, 2022, um, full time.

43:52.63
aggierobison
2022 full time. Yep.

43:56.60
AROB
You came on as you've done everything. It feels like, uh, now director of marketing. Um, Tara Joins, who is now our VP of operations. Um, so we've got Eddie, who is our marketing director. What's no, you're marketing director. What's Eddie?

44:13.87
aggierobison
Uh, communications associate, I believe is the official.

44:16.57
AROB
There you go. Yep. And we've got Eddie as communications associate. Um, so we've definitely grown the team and I knew that was the need all along, right? Like when I came on, I have my skills, I have my abilities, and then I have my,

44:34.08
AROB
In some cases, glaring ah gaps and, you know, deficiencies. And so I was able to kind of piece things together, doing it all myself with, with Dan's help and with some, ah you know, part-time support, but that was never going to be scalable in terms of building a successful company um that, you know, would survive if I got hit by a bus. And now, you know, last year in 2023, I did,

45:00.38
AROB
Figure to get hit by a bus. I broke my leg and my daughter had you know some pretty significant um psychological health issues. I was out for you know two months last fall. I was out for a month this spring of 2024. And so because there was a team now, we actually acted like a company.

45:19.23
AROB
That could continue to sustain operations continue to deliver services even without me involved so um now I'm back I love being you know now kind of like I don't want that to happen again right I didn't see that as a oh no this is my you know my way to ride off to the sunset but I.

45:37.25
AROB
But I was definitely relatively absent for a time. And the team, the Petrus team was able to keep things moving and get us in a really good position. So I think that's the difference that that's a shift that we've made over the last couple of years. And just the company side is adding really great team members who can lead when needed to lead, who can follow and execute when needed, and that's been the difference that will be continue to be the difference for the next 20 years of Petrus.

46:09.83
aggierobison
Awesome. I think there's a lesson in that for nonprofits too, you know coming from a parish background. When we started fundraising, some of the parishioners were like, oh, what if you build these programs and then father gets transferred to a new parish and the next priest doesn't you know doesn't do as well. It doesn't carry it on. And that was kind of our argument to them is, hey, if we build this big team, it's going to have a lot of momentum. It's going to carry us forward these programs that we're investing in now, ah even if father does get transferred at any point, which someday he will. Right? So um

46:35.08
AROB
Yeah.

46:35.90
aggierobison
Yeah, I think that's a valuable lesson for all businesses, all organizations, non-profits.

46:40.89
AROB
Yeah, I read the book Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz and it talked about kind of putting these measures in place and then taking a sabbatical. And so I did that in 2022 and that saved our bacon because it kind of forced us to make some decisions about who would step in, how things would run if I was gone.

47:03.41
AROB
Um, and then in 2023, I was gone. And so, that I would recommend that book to anyone. And like you're saying, it's not just for the for-profit, it's you know any organization that has leadership ah can benefit from that book, the lessons, those principles, and sort of going through some of those exercises yourself.

47:25.26
aggierobison
Great. Any kind of final thoughts or lessons from from your time with Petrus?

47:29.16
AROB
Oh my God, lessons from my time. Yeah, I could go on for another 45 minutes, but I don't think you want that.

47:31.24
aggierobison
From growing? Yeah.

47:35.84
AROB
Um, you know, I think that ah at the end of the day, it has it has been

47:47.24
AROB
Non-family, right? It has been the most rewarding experience. It's also been the most challenging experience kind of putting all of those things in place, right? Running the company, buying the company, owning the company, trying to run the company, you know, all of that has presented a lot of opportunities for you know reflection, for introspection, um, sometimes you know will you you do that introspection and you know you're terrified and you think, oh my God, I'm clearly unqualified to do this. And then sometimes a couple of minutes later you do the same kind of ah introspection exercise and you think, no, I've done it so I've done it well thus far. I think we can continue to to do it. So yeah know I would say that you know anybody who is owning, starting, launching a...

48:37.36
AROB
Business or a nonprofit or any kind of organization, just be prepared for those ups and downs. Um, to know that there are going to be days that you love it. There are going to be days that you want nothing to do with it. There are going to be days that you feel like you're brilliant. There are going to be days that you feel like you're the biggest idiot in the world and the biggest fraud and imposter. So,

49:00.92
AROB
Knowing that and finding ways to ground yourself through prayer, through scripture, through um you know life outside of your business, I think will definitely serve you well um as you kind of go through that journey on your own.

49:01.58
aggierobison
Thank you.

49:16.47
aggierobison
I think that's a perfect note to end on. Well, thank you for being here with us and thank you for sharing the story today, Andrew.

49:22.68
AROB
Absolutely. Yeah. If people have questions, you can always find me, Andrew at PetrusDevelopment.com. I'm happy to talk in more detail or give advice if you're in a similar situation or thinking about it. So always happy to help.

49:35.57
aggierobison
Great. All right. Well, we'll see you back next time on the Petrus Development Show.

49:40.02
AROB
Thanks, Rhen.