Building a Business with Purpose: Garrett Perkins on Operational Excellence and Strategic Growth

After 15 years working with e-commerce brands and content creators, I’ve learned that the most valuable conversationsaren’t about five-year-old success stories. They’re about what founders are wrestling with right now, the operational challenges keeping them up at night, and how they’re navigating it all with their faith intact.

That’s exactly what I got in my conversation with Garrett Perkins, Chief Revenue Officer at Givingtons. Garrett and I have worked together for years, and this episode gave me the chance to pull back the curtain on how he and his team have built a $20 million enterprise that serves content brands from concept to customer delivery.

From Nonprofit Dreams to Multi-Vertical Revenue Engine

Givingtons didn’t start as the comprehensive service provider it is today. Twelve years ago, Garrett and co-founder Alan wanted to help nonprofits generate non-donor revenue through e-commerce. But they quickly discovered nonprofits didn’t have the budgets for this service.

The pivot came when Proverbs 31 Ministries approached them with a different problem. They were already selling products successfully but were shipping everything out of their storage room. They just needed someone to handle fulfillment. Garrett’s response? “As maybe serial entrepreneurs, but also more honestly, maybe just desperate people that needed to make money somehow to feed our families, we said, ‘Yeah, we can totally do that.'”

That became revenue vertical number one: boutique direct-to-consumer fulfillment.

Working Up the Supply Chain

The brilliance of Givingtons’ growth strategy is that they didn’t chase random opportunities. They systematically worked up their existing supply chain, identifying problems their current clients faced and building solutions.

When product arrived at their dock, they listened to clients complain about working with traditional printing companies. Founders who spoke the language of e-commerce were trying to communicate with salesmen at printing presses who only understood spec sheets. Givingtons launched their product development vertical, starting with trusted clients and offering to learn the process together at no charge.

Today, they complete over 100 product development projects annually across 40-50 clients, creating hundreds of thousands of units worldwide.

Five years ago, they realized they were entirely dependent on their clients’ marketing abilities. Rather than bootstrap a creative agency from scratch, they acquired Polymath, a creative agency whose founder was transitioning to lead Christianity Today. Now Givingtons offers full-service support from concept to customer: creative development, product manufacturing, and order fulfillment.

The Operational Reality of E-Commerce Excellence

Garrett’s transparency about their recent Black Friday/Cyber Monday success was particularly valuable. Zero delayed orders across the entire holiday season, which is almost unheard of in the fulfillment industry.

How? Meticulous planning from their COO Zach Morgan, more labor in their new 65,000 square foot facility, better client forecasting, and a strategic decision to stay boutique. They serve 42 clients, not 400. They have 400,000 SKUs in their warehouse, not 4 million.

“We want to pride ourselves on saying no, no, we’re actually one of the only ones that say that do what we say. And when we don’t, we’ll make it right. And we can only do that if we don’t serve everybody.”

The Product Development Timeline Reality

For anyone managing product-based businesses, Garrett’s breakdown of product development considerations is essential. There are three critical buckets:

Financial Model: Margin controls, pricing strategy based on customer research, understanding the full cost picture including shipping, tariffs, shelf life, and seasonal factors.

Forecasting and Timeline Planning: Material lead times, manufacturing timelines, shipping methods, port selection based on time of year. Garrett’s team prefers working in calendar year planning cycles, mapping out the full product catalog 6-8 months in advance while maintaining flexibility for quick-turn opportunities.

Physical Logistics: What box will this fit in? What shipping method prevents damage? Because Givingtons handles both product development and fulfillment, they’re uniquely positioned to think about these details during the design phase, not after products arrive.

The Give-Away-Your-Expertise Dilemma

Garrett was refreshingly honest about the tension between giving away expertise versus charging for it. He and Alan are, by his own admission, “terrible” at drawing that line.

“We have always viewed our expertise as the thing we give away to be able to earn the right to provide the value,” Garrett explained. His philosophy? “Even when you give the idea, most people don’t even know how to execute it. And that’s not a knock. It’s just they’re doing other things that they need to focus their time on.”

Givingtons has built their business model around being executors who happen to understand theory, rather than consultants who occasionally execute.

Building Culture Across Diverse Functions

Managing culture when you have warehouse staff, account managers, and creative professionals under one roof is no small feat. Garrett attributes their success to expert leaders who care deeply about each other, uncommon cross-functional collaboration, and a business mission that balances relationships and excellence.

Their internal business statement: “We steward the opportunities that God brings to build life changing relationships and an innovative and lasting business.”

Garrett was vulnerable about their journey. “For the first five years of our business, we did a really good job of building relationships, life changing, long lasting relationships. And we did do a good job of stewarding opportunities that God brings, but we were not building an innovative and lasting business. We were bleeding money.”

The shift happened three years ago when they realized that without financial stewardship and operational excellence, they couldn’t sustain the relational culture they valued.

Faith Integration in a Post-Christian Business World

Coming from a ministry background where he thought he’d be a church planter, Garrett now finds himself in rooms that are “hostile to the gospel.” But he’s discovered unexpected gifts that fit well in that environment.

Their approach is to be “the Chick-fil-A of the content world.” They’ll serve anyone, regardless of belief system, but they don’t hide who they are. “We get to represent Jesus and the gospel in a culture that thinks Christians hate everybody that isn’t a Christian.”

Garrett acknowledged the tension. Many of their clients have belief systems at odds with his own. But he sees it as an opportunity: “I like you, you know, I actually enjoy you. Yeah, I think what you believe is wrong, but I still like you. Let’s go eat lunch.”

When I asked for advice for others struggling with this tension, Garrett emphasized courage, patience, and comfort with nuance while maintaining objective truth. He grounds his approach in Scripture, focusing on what the Bible clearly says about God’s will: faithfulness and intimacy with Jesus. “That can be and should be able to be done in the most hostile of environments, because if not, who will?”

The Tactical Takeaways

If you’re managing operations, building culture, or integrating faith into your business leadership, here’s what you can take from this conversation:

1. Work up your supply chain by solving adjacent problems for existing clients
2. Stay boutique if it serves your mission—focus creates space for excellence
3. Plan 6-8 months ahead for product development
4. Build cross-functional relationships at the leadership level
5. Balance relational warmth with operational excellence
6. Give away expertise, charge for execution
7. Find God’s will through faithfulness rather than specific job titles

This conversation reminded me why I started this podcast. Garrett isn’t giving me a polished case study from five years ago. He’s sharing what he’s wrestling with right now, the operational decisions his team is making, and how his faith shapes the way he shows up in rooms where he’s the only Christian.

That’s the kind of strategic shop talk that actually helps you build a business with purpose.

You can find more about Garrett Perkins and their work at www.givingtons.com.