Growth Thrives in a Positive Culture

Red Rock Secured helps clients invest in gold to improve retirement stability.

During the Great Recession in 2008, Sean Kelly saw the impact on his retired grandparents when their investments were affected. The whole family was worried and stressed. As he looked for solutions for his family, he found a role helping clients invest in gold and silver. He realized that, unlike stocks, precious metals are tangible and timeless. This led to a career in precious metals.

Kelly also wanted to work in a place where people were valued. An executive at a former company once told Kelly that he would replace employees with software if he could. He knew he needed to make a change and cashed out his retirement plan, even though his wife was pregnant at the time. In 2017, he bought Red Rock Secured, pivoting the financial services company to provide gold individual retirement accounts (IRAs), which purchase and hold precious metals for retirement investments.

PEOPLE FIRST

Kelly prioritizes hiring teammates with “smarts, humility, and drive.” Maintaining a positive culture is part of his big-picture plan. He credits the team for outstanding Better Business Bureau (BBB) and Trust Pilot ratings. But he is most proud of the raving Glassdoor reviews from current and former employees. “It shows the strategy is working. When the company is full of happy people, you have happy clients.”

His goal is to foster a sense of collaboration. “If one team wins, we all win in the long run, so why not work together instead of constantly competing with each other,” he says. Focusing on happy teammates helped the company grow from $500,000 in revenue in 2017 to $46 million in 2021.

EDUCATE FIRST, THEN OFFER PROMOTIONS

Another key to Red Rock’s growth is that the company invests heavily in education. “We have to provide value before we ask for the opportunity to compete for the business,” Kelly says. To help employees stay current, the company publishes new guides and books annually, sends informative newsletters, and posts weekly educational YouTube videos.

Red Rock’s promotions also add value. These include free precious metals shipping and insurance and 30-day price protection. If the price goes down within 30 days, the company redoes the transaction at the lower price, giving the difference to the client in free metals.

While some of Red Rock’s competitors have been at this longer, “the difference is we have happy teammates,” Kelly says. This results in a focus of being a trusted partner, not having a transactional mentality.

KUOG CORPORATION

“Fast growth pulls on the resources and mental stamina of your teams. Focusing on maintaining communication rooted in empathy and compassion helps calibrate culture when levels of energy to handle the growth are taxed during the process. I like to refer to a line from the British Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid in these moments: ‘Empathy is about finding echoes of another person in yourself.’ It is an anchoring element that may assist in keeping the glue of your culture intact.”

Gunn’s Huntsville, Alabama, logistics and procurement company made the Inc. 5000 in 2021 and 2022.