Leadership That Makes A Difference | The Business Owner That Moves By Faith (w./ Special Guest Tamara Jackson)

How do you lead with faith, purpose, and impact in today’s business world? 

Join us as we dive into the power of faith-driven leadership with special guest Tamara Jackson—a trailblazer who integrates biblical principles with business strategy.

• The biggest challenges Christian entrepreneurs face in leadership
• How faith shapes decision-making and business success
• The balance between boldness and humility in leadership
• Practical ways to integrate Kingdom values into your business

Tune in now to discover how faith can be your greatest business advantage!

Tamara Jackson is the visionary founder of Beaconship, a platform dedicated to
equipping faith-driven leaders to transform industries and tackle global challenges
through innovation. She is also the CEO of Lead Reviver, an AI-powered sales re-
engagement platform that helps businesses and nonprofits unlock the hidden potential of their lead databases. Tamara merges faith, innovation, and purpose to inspire leaders to create lasting impact.

As a former Vice President at a Fortune 500 financial institution, Tamara has led multi-million-dollar projects and managed complex operations in sales performance, team development, and customer engagement. Her leadership and strategic insights have driven significant improvements in performance management, associate satisfaction, and call center operations, making her a trusted voice in high-stakes environments.

Books mentioned in this episode:

265 Point By Tamara Jackson 

The Mom Test: How To Talk To Customers And Learn If Your Business Is A Good Idea When Everyone Is Lying To You by Rob Fitzpatrick 

Learn more about Tamara's work at https://beaconship.co/

Connect with Tamara on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thebeaconship/

Simple & strategic marketing solutions for the busy coach and consultant. Visit www.reinventingperspectives.com

Transcript

Tamara Jackson: [00:00:00] what causes us to fear moving ahead is that we're looking at what we know, the connections that we have or don't have, the money that's in our account or isn't in our account. And we're thinking there's no way that this can happen.

With what I have and the key is to remember that if God is directing you down this path Then he has whatever it is that you need. Recognizing that it's not all on me.

It's Tizer Reinvent

Priscilla Shumba: Welcome to the lessons of entrepreneurship, the journey of reinvention. And today I have an amazing guest Tamara Jackson. She is a faith based leadership consultant, the founder of Beaconship. And if I started listing all the things that you have done. 

Tamara Jackson: Don't

Priscilla Shumba: be here We would be here all [00:01:00] 30 minutes, but I just want people to know Listen in we are privileged to have tomorrow here to speak to us Tamara

Let us know What's your mission?

Tamara Jackson: Really, when I think about mission Priscilla, With all of the experiences that I've had, one of the things that stands out to me is the opportunity to bring. Faith and business together. And that's not a conversation that I have been a part of a lot, growing up in church, it was these different worlds, right?

There was ministry and then there was business over here. So if you wanted to serve God, but you didn't necessarily see yourself behind a pulpit, then there wasn't a whole lot of talk about how you could use. Your gifts, skills, and talents that are very valuable in a business setting to actually grow the kingdom of God.

My mission is to see those two worlds come together, to be able to show that we can honor God in many different ways in many different fields. And in fact, it's an opportunity to be able to draw people to [00:02:00] him that perhaps otherwise. Would never make their way in a church, would never sit down and have a conversation with someone that, is an ordained minister, but it's an opportunity for us to reach them through our life and through our calling. 

We're kindred spirits here. That's why i'm so excited to have you here Tamara you've Done a lot of things. And leadership, the thing that you're driving home, .

What do you think is the one mistake that people make commonly when it comes to that? 

Yeah, it's, and it's a mistake, Priscilla, that I have made many times and it's separating the two worlds. For example, even as a person of faith it can be challenging sometimes when you have. All of these experts and voices telling you to run your business this way. And this is going to be the path that leads to success.

While all of those things may be tried and true business practices and principles, as leaders of faith, we also have to [00:03:00] recognize. That we still need to consult God to find out whether this is something that we should be applying in our business. Is this the right time to be doing it?

Is this the right person, the right partner? So I think the mistake that I have made, and I see many Christian leaders make, Is assuming that because something is put in your path sometimes we take those as signs, if you will, that necessarily means that's what God wants you to do in this moment.

And so one of the things that I have learned and I'm still learning transparently is to really just slow down. And it doesn't mean that the advice that you're being given is not valuable. But the question still is this for me? And is this for me right now?

Priscilla Shumba: In the Bible, it was never about speed to get to victory. And in the marketplace, it's move fast, , who can make decisions quickly. And that's the right person for the job.[00:04:00]

And then when you think about biblically, God always gave you the victory, but he had to tell you to move. 

Tamara Jackson: I agree a hundred percent. I've had this conversation with a lot of leaders over the last couple of months, especially there is a temptation to follow the leading of the business world that says things like money loves speed. I've heard that so many times. The problem is.

That it's elevating these leaders, their practices, their expertise above what we know to be true about God. And you bring up a really great point that it was never about speed. It was about listening for the voice of God and then following that direction that you've been given. Now, sometimes that happens in a moment and you get that divine insight that you need.

But sometimes you have to wait. And I think the culture has gotten to such a place that we expect everything to happen quickly. And we're even [00:05:00] sometimes pressured to make, as you've said, quick decisions. And one of the things that I'm learning is even if it's uncomfortable, I need to wait until I have clear direction from God on how I need to move forward.

Because what I want to do is make the best decision. right? Sometimes I think back over decisions that I've made as an entrepreneur. And , they seem to be good decisions at the time, but there were so many things that I didn't know. And I feel like that's our advantage when we lean into our relationship with God.

He knows the things that we don't know, but if we skip Him or we keep going with what we think we should do and pray as we go along, I know I've been guilty of that. Then we miss out on those divine insights that would help us to understand that this might seem like a good decision, but this really isn't the best decision for you for your business and for your clients. 

Priscilla Shumba: , I think I probably fall on the question I'm going to ask you next, which is sometimes, you wake up [00:06:00] at 2am, all of a sudden you have the answer you've been searching for, or, the thing that's been causing you to not be able to eat thinking, how am I going to solve this in a 2am day?

I don't know how to say it, but you know in your spirit, that's the answer. And also being on that side of having the courage to take the action now that you know the answer.

Tamara Jackson: That's true. Because, I think a lot of times, Priscilla, I've had that experience so many times that you're describing like waking up in the middle of the night and I almost know now that those are opportunities where God is going to speak to me. So I just try to stay still and say, Oh, what is it that you want to show me that you want to reveal to me in this moment?

But you raise a really good point knowing what to do and doing it are two different things. And there may be someone that's watching us that's listening to us right now. And you're continuing to pray about something as if you don't know the answer. And I know I've been guilty of that, right? Because sometimes we do that because we really don't like the answer that we got.

God, can you give me a different [00:07:00] answer? Can you show me a different way to do this? Because I really don't like that answer that you gave me. So I'm going to keep praying, hoping that I'm going to get a different way to get there. But many times we actually already do know the answer and it's about partnering with God to develop the courage to actually take the step that he's challenging us to make.

And for me, Priscilla, what that has really meant is. Recognizing that it's not all on me. And I think that's what causes us to fear moving ahead is that we're looking at what we know, the connections that we have or don't have, the money that's in our account or isn't in our account. And we're thinking there's no way that this can happen.

With what I have and I think that the key is to remember that if God is directing you down this path Then he has whatever it is that you need. You may not see it yet You may not know how it's going to [00:08:00] happen But there's an element of trust to believe that as you go in this direction Then what you need will be provided even as I say that Priscilla I think about the 10 lepers in scripture and how much faith it took for them to have, because in order to show yourself to the priest, you need to already be healed.

So these lepers are starting off in this direction. And can you imagine all the while looking at their condition with no change? , the scripture doesn't tell us exactly when their situation changed, but they had the faith. They had the courage to go in that direction at Jesus's word that somehow, some way, when they got there.

They were going to be healed and they were going to be who they needed to be. And that's the same kind of courage that we have to have as faith driven leaders is I know I'm looking at my situation. This doesn't add up. This doesn't make sense, but if God told me to go in this direction that I'm trusting that he's going to give me what I need and when I get [00:09:00] there, it's going to be okay.

Priscilla Shumba: I love that. those statements of fortune favors the bold. Fortune favors those who move by faith, and sometimes we call ourselves, myself included, faith based. \ we forget the faith part, what it actually looks like in action, what does it look like in action?

. It looks like moving when you're not sure. And you hear, the marketplace stories of I took this risk. And you hear that, I didn't know what I was going to do, but I just took the risk and I just took a leap. And really they're describing .

The idea of, faith in action, 

Tamara Jackson: That's true. As you've said, it's easier said than done. But I think the key benefit that we have when we lean into our faith is that there is guidance that's being provided, right? God is showing us this is the way to go. He Often doesn't, at least for me, Priscilla showed me how I'm going to exactly get from step.

One to step 10, but he is showing me that this is the way. And so if we can hold on to the fact [00:10:00] that this is a Word from God, not just something that someone told me or something that I want to do personally, or this goal objective that I have, if I can hold on, that this is direction from God.

, that gives more confidence. So I think that is the key that I would encourage the leaders that are watching us and listening to us right now. Is make sure though, that this is God that is leading you. And I think that is where we really need to spend more time, because sometimes we have these personal ambitions.

We have all of these voices that are speaking into us. Sometimes we have something that we wanna prove. I'm not ashamed to say that I've been there, right? I got something to prove. I wanna show them that I can do this, I can make this work, right? But the key is. What did God tell us to do? And once we're clear on that and we're following that path, we can have confidence that he's going to be with us and it will work out.

Priscilla Shumba: When I saw all that you're doing, and I thought, how did this all start? What [00:11:00] led you to starting Beaconship? What led you to Lead Reviver? Because a lot of times, we see the thing already made, and we don't understand, how did you get to that point? And so we're not sure if what we're doing is leading us somewhere, or it's leading us nowhere, 

Tamara Jackson: We probably don't have time to get into every detail of it, but I would sum it up this way. I've always felt called to do something impactful. I could even remember as a child thinking I actually wrote this in my yearbook, I want to be in charge of something and I wasn't sure if that was.

Running a division within a company. And I did eventually do that in corporate or was it starting my own business. But I just felt this desire to create, to be in charge, to do something different. And so I've been blessed to have a lot of different opportunities, both in the corporate space. And then in the entrepreneurial space I started , my first official business not the businesses that I had as a kid that weren't really official.

But I started my [00:12:00] first official business in 2013. And my story is one of pivots. I first started out in the fitness space based on my own journey. And I thought that would be the thing as an entrepreneur that I would do forever. And then the pandemic hit, and that's another one of those examples that I think of when I think about.

God knows things that we don't know. I made some decisions in 2019. Anticipating that 2020 and the years that follow were going to be the same or better than 2019. I had no idea. My Team didn't have any idea that COVID was coming. So we held on as long as we could. Eventually it became clear. God made it very clear to me.

That it was time to exit, that I would have to close my gym. And my question became, God, okay, what do I do next? And I literally, this is one of maybe at that point, few times that I heard God say, focus on what you have left. And maybe that's something that someone listening to me needs to hear right now is you're looking at things that didn't work [00:13:00] out, and you're not sure where to go.

But maybe there's something that you have that you don't even realize that you have. And for me, Priscilla it was a small Facebook community that I had. I'm about 150 members because people in my gym, people that I had coached said, I want to write a book. And so during the pandemic, that was something that we could all do, even though we weren't physically coming together, we could focus on taking the message that God has given us and putting it into a book.

So I use part of the time during the pandemic to help people write and publish their first book. And there was a small Facebook community that I'd created for that purpose. When fitness blew up and I heard focus on what you have left I really honestly was drawing a blank for a while. And then I realized, Oh wait, there's this community.

So fast forward for the sake of time, today that community is over 2, 800 people and I never would have anticipated that a small community of 150 [00:14:00] people could grow into almost 3000 people. But. We found out that people really wanted to be in community together because their friends and family didn't really get their passion for writing and for sharing their devotionals and their scriptures and their books on Christian leadership.

Like their family didn't get it. So this community became like their safe place where they can learn and grow together. And then once again, I thought, Oh, this is what I'm going to do. I'm just going to focus on serving Christian authors in 2022. I went through a really challenging season. My mom was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.

I literally left Charlotte, North Carolina, moved back to Richmond, Virginia to support her through her cancer journey. And if it wasn't for having an amazing team, I honestly y don't know how the Christian authors network. And how we would have been able to serve our clients. So shout out to my team for all they did to support through that period.

[00:15:00] So it's interesting when you walk with someone through the last months of their life, you have a lot of great conversations. And one of the conversations that I had with my mom was about goals and dreams and, what she would have wanted for the future what I would want for the future.

And so I shared with her a seed. of what is now Beaconship today. And she asked me how come you're not doing that? Like, why aren't you going for it? And, you know, I kind of, like, many people wanted this guarantee. Wanted an assurance that if I took this leap of faith, if I took this path, that it was going to work out.

And one of the things that still stands out in my mind to this day is these few words that my mom said. She said, Tam, sometimes you have to take a chance. So when my mom passed away in April of 2023, those words over months just kept coming back to me. Like sometimes you have to take a chance. And I realized, okay I'm at this 50th mark, my 50th year on the planet.

[00:16:00] I hope I have a whole lot of time left, but I don't know, right? So there started to be this urgency in me of, I don't know how much time I have left. So I want to maximize whatever that time is. And so I made the leap in 2024 to start Beaconship, which as you shared is about empowering Christian leaders.

And then I had this passion, I tried to do it a little bit within the Beaconship space and I didn't get quite the traction that I wanted in terms of leveraging AI to grow your business. Once I realized, hey, this really isn't necessarily, at least at this point, a fit within the Christian leadership space.

I said I'll make it a separate company called Lead Reviver, which focuses on leveraging AI to actually grow your revenue, to grow your bottom line. The cool thing is that the work that we're doing with Lead Reviver allows us to be able to fund a lot of the work that we do with Beaconship.

So sometimes you end up having verticals, we call it, right? So that you could [00:17:00] scratch all of your itches, like all the gifts and skills and talents that you have. You may actually put them in different businesses in order for them to make an impact. It's been a journey of pivots trying to listen to.

The marketplace in terms of what they're looking for, but also really staying close to God and asking him to order my steps. 

Priscilla Shumba: , thank you for sharing your story of how all this came to be. I'm sorry for the loss of your mom. Those powerful words she left you with.

Tamara Jackson: She did. And those are just a few of them. I have so many great lessons from her. She was also a big note taker. So sometimes just reflecting on her words. Even though she's not physically here with me, she taught me a lot of great lessons over the course of my life. And I really treasure those last 10 months because I feel like it was God giving me this opportunity, this second chance to really spend time with her.

Learn from her wisdom and be able to carry that forward with me even though she's no longer physically present with [00:18:00] me. 

Priscilla Shumba: Sometimes I think about how you interact with your parents as a young person, and then as you get older, how that dynamic changes and how you hear each other differently, too. 

Tamara Jackson: It's very different. And for me, it was. And sometimes pretty challenging because it's like role reversal, right? Because I'm trying to get her to do things that she needs to do that's not the way it's supposed to go. it was sometimes a challenge, but also a tremendous blessing and I'm honored to have been able to spend that time with her and support her for all the years and all the time that she supported me. 

Priscilla Shumba: That's beautiful. For entrepreneurs who are listening, and they're thinking, I've got to Step into this leadership role. I've gotten into this space,, maybe because of a situation. I had no other choice. I had to build something or I needed to make something to survive or whatever by choice, but I don't know how to step from this to being a leader.

I've never been a leader before. And how do I step [00:19:00] into that now? 

Tamara Jackson: So for me, it alll came down to having examples. My mom was a great example of a leader to me. She. Had all these different leadership positions in retail, in pharmaceuticals and like many different industries. So I often learn lessons from her, but I also very intentionally sought out other examples of people that I felt were great leaders.

And sometimes that was through the form of a book, I would be listening to something at a conference or something. I Googled the person. I'm like, man, they have this book. Let me order this book so that I can learn more about them beyond this experience that I'm having. And then within the corporate space I was blessed to have amazing leaders that were doing a great job at what they were doing.

And so I wasn't afraid to say, Hey. Can I sit down with you? Can we go to coffee? Can I borrow, 20 [00:20:00] minutes of your time? Just whatever I could get. And I was very fortunate that people were willing to say yes. Being bold enough to be able to ask the question, to be able to learn from them.

And, I think about some of the people that I learned from, they were willing to sit down with me every two weeks, once a month for years. And it's amazing, but you never know what you get until you ask. And then I think about in the entrepreneurship space, I've had a lot of great coaches that.

Sometimes they have been unpaid and some I've invested in because they had something, they figured out things that I hadn't figured out. My advice would be to look for an example, look for someone that is already exhibiting some of the traits that you're looking for, and then don't be afraid to look for opportunities to sit under their leadership and learn from them.

Sometimes that could be through a book. Sometimes it's a conversation and sometimes you may have to [00:21:00]level up and invest in coaching. But it's a big responsibility to be a leader. That's one of the things that I don't think I always realize, I've led in some way since my early twenties, but I don't think I always thought about it as a responsibility, but it truly is.

So you want to make sure when the decisions that you make impact others. You want to make sure that you're trying to continue to learn and grow at every opportunity. I'd say find an example.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for that. Tamara, a lot of times when people go from corporate to entrepreneurship. That's a pretty big jump. And I'd like to know what was your experience or what would you say to someone who's thinking of making this transition,

Tamara Jackson: yeah , One, going back to what we talked about earlier, I would seek God on, Is this the decision that you want me to make and is now the right time? Because I would want to make sure that I am being led and I'm not just reacting to something that has happened.

Sometimes we are in situations that we don't want to be in and we [00:22:00] just want to get out of them. And sometimes I can even say there have been times where I realized that I've stayed in situations and places too long. And I think God was using circumstances to, move me in a different direction.

But there are also times that I could think back when I wanted to leave corporate and it was me that wanted to leave, but it was not the right time. So I think number one, seek God. And be sure that this is him that is leading you and not just your personal ambition and desire. 

And then two, I would say create a plan. Ask God to help you with the plan to transition from corporate to entrepreneurship for me actually did both for awhile. So I stayed in corporate and I built my business on the side, which meant some sacrifices, right? It meant evenings and weekends and not having as much free time as some of my friends, some of my peers.

But that's the path that I [00:23:00] took. And the way that worked for me is it helped me to not be starting from ground zero, right? But that's not everybody's situation. Some people do literally. They quit, , they go all in to their business and they are 100 percent committed to that and they are able to make it work and that business grows into a very successful enterprise.

So I can't say that I have the answer for every person but I believe that God does. So that's why you start with him and then ask him to help you to put together a plan to figure out what that transition should look like. And once you know that you've heard from God, once you are following your plan, you'll know when the time is right to make that step, to make that leap of faith. 

Priscilla Shumba: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Tamara. I've got to ask you this quickly. A leadership principle. That has been the hardest lesson that you've had to learn. 

Tamara Jackson: Oh, a leadership principle that has been the [00:24:00] hardest for me to learn. What comes to mind is people over paper. It's something that actually my mom said to me a few times because it was something that she had been coached on.

And what it means is that when you are leading people, when you're leading teams and even when you have clients, I think it applies in both instances, is don't forget that there is a person because sometimes we can be very transactional, we can think about, okay, this is a prospect that I want to convert into a client so that I could get this sale because this is the revenue that it represents for me, or this is a person that is working on my team, I need them to get this done and get it done quickly, but It's not just a transaction.

It's not just an assignment. This is a person. And so we have to, as leaders, think about the person as well as the assignment and the task. And that means that [00:25:00] sometimes whatever your initial reaction is or the initial statement that you want to make you might need to pause a little bit because you've got to think about, okay.

How is it going to impact the person? How are they going to receive what I am going to say? How do I make sure that even if it's an opportunity to provide constructive feedback that I don't damage the person's self, esteem in the process, right? It's just being willing to slow down and recognize that there is a person here that you're communicating with.

And it's really important to consider their feelings, not just the agenda or the objective that you have in play. 

Priscilla Shumba: Yeah, I that's an important one. We can be so, metrics driven that we forget that we're dealing in a world with people, and those people have lives of their own and things going on and, it's not just this short time that you spend with them, but they have a whole world going on too

Tamara Jackson: Absolutely.

Priscilla Shumba: If you could give us one [00:26:00] essential practice advice to an entrepreneur that's starting out today. 

Tamara Jackson: A lot of things that I could say here, but what stands out for me right now, Priscilla, is take the time to gather information. This is an important one because as I think about All of my time as a leader, whether it was in corporate or entrepreneurship, sometimes because of the pressures that we've talked about to act quickly, there have been times where in my desire to move with speed, I have been missing critical pieces of information that would have helped me to make a better decision.

So one of the things that I have learned is to make sure that I have done my due diligence. To gather as much information as possible to ensure that I am making an informed decision. Sometimes I have this conversation with people because we're faith [00:27:00] driven leaders.

I'm going to pray and I'm going to ask God for direction and I say, yes, absolutely. And also do your due diligence and do your research. When we think about Joshua's example in scripture. God assured him in Joshua chapter one that victory was going to be his. But we still see in Joshua chapter two, he sent spies to the land to check it out first.

Why did he do that if he knew that victory was assured if God already told him because he was a military leader and he knew that it made sense to send people to the land, to gather as much information, to know what he was walking into so that him and his Warriors could be prepared and the same is true for us as leaders, as entrepreneurs, we need to invest the time.

It's both spiritual and practical to make sure that we can prepare ourselves, our teams, so that we can drive the right [00:28:00] solution and get the best result for our client. We have to slow down and make sure that we have enough information. to make the best decision for all involved. 

Priscilla Shumba: That's really good. Thank you so much for that. Now, I can't let you not recommend a book, because you did talk about in the beginning you did find a book, so people are like, okay what book am I going to look for? So I'll just get to know what your book was, Tamara. 

Tamara Jackson: Yeah. My first book is called two 65 point and it was about my journey of gaining and losing a hundred pounds. It's on Amazon. Today. Okay. I actually, it's funny that you asked about a book. I was thinking about if I were to give a book recommendation today for the audience that is watching and listening to us, I actually just read a book that I would highly recommend to people that are starting a business.

It's called the mom test. And literally I just heard about this book this week and I ordered it and I read it from cover to cover over two days. The mom test is all about making [00:29:00] sure that you're designing a business, that you're designing a product that your customer is actually going to love. And so I'm not going to spoil it by telling all the details.

But even after all these years of leading teams in corporate, all these years of being an entrepreneur, I learned so much about that book because it helps you to cut through the fluff and figure out, okay, what do my customers really want and how do I deliver that for them? Because if I can do that, then I'm not going to have to worry about getting clients because I'm truly meeting a need, the challenge is 

as the author says that sometimes your prospects, your customers are lying to you. They don't mean to, but they are. And so I'd encourage you to get the mom test so that you can learn more about how to gather the insights that you really need to grow and scale your business. 

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you for that. I'm Glad now I got that recommendation and we learned about your book. Thank you so much, Tamara. Please, if people [00:30:00] can follow you online where are you most active 

Tamara Jackson: yeah, I am on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Please look up the Beacon ship that is the name of our Christian leadership company. You can also find us online@beaconship.co. And if you're looking for ways to grow and skill your business with ai, you can visit us@leadreviver.pro. Pri, thank you so much for this opportunity to be here and talk with your viewing and listening audience today.

Priscilla Shumba: Thank you so much Tamara, it's been a pleasure.