Mixing blood and business is either a recipe for disaster or a secret weapon for growth. At Broadhead Equipment, it’s clearly the latter. Back in February 2025 I embarked on my first work trip, traveling to Alabama to interview Rural Lifestyle Dealer’s Dealership of the Year, Broadhead Equipment. Beyond our growth (and the “guard dog”), I’ve seen firsthand what family in business can and should mean. I’ll get to that part about the dog, I swear.

Richard and Jordan Broadhead, the father-son duo of Broadhead Equipment, were the focus of my first work trip. This trip remains memorable and important to me today, as it offered valuable insights into the complexities of family-run businesses. These businesses often involve a hectic and sometimes trivial balancing act, making it difficult to keep home and work problems separate and maintain clear boundaries. 

Witnessing Richard openly express how proud he is of Jordan, even with his son in the room next to him, or while they were separate from one another spoke volumes to me.

Richard gives credit to his son for working to restructure the business by concentrating on marketing and how to run the entire business from front to back. “That’s when things started to change,” says Richard. “Once it changed, it was like he struck a match to gasoline. I let him have at it and he became self-taught on marketing, digital, how to contact people, Facebook ads, the whole run of it. We started taking on employees, overhead, insurance, etc.” He credits Jordan for teaching himself on the accounting system and other self-taught lessons, emphasizing that Jordan’s setting up a budget was a game-changer.  “Seeing your son do something that he excels at, that’s a proud papa moment,” says Richard. 

An excerpt from “Focusing on Key Products Helps Broadhead Equipment Grow Sales

Our very own Mike Lessiter took to a blog to explain the importance of family and how our work to ensure we cover stories like the Broadheads resonates with every family dealer out there. 

Many of these stories covered small, family-run businesses, and most viewed these interviews as special moments for them, their employees, their companies and even the broader community. Some humbly shared they never imagined that their business – located halfway across the country – could appear on the cover of the industry’s leading magazine.

Once that weight of this idea “took,” I admit it was a lot harder (and took a lot longer) for me to write those articles that it did prior to arriving at that notion. I felt the responsibility and duty, unaware of whether a story might ever again be written about those people or their businesses. The fact that our articles end up in frames, scrapbooks, company trophy cases and heirloom collections is not lost on us and still drives us to pursue our very best today.

An excerpt from “Mike Drop: What if Today’s Workday Was the Last?”

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of speaking with the Broadheads about how 2025 finished up for the dealership and if they met their goals. 

"Winning Rural Lifestyle Dealership of the Year really helped us grow, not just from a sales perspective, but from a confidence perspective, not just inside, but customers as well," Jordan states. "They look at that badge that's on our website. They look at the article that's online. We've got it hanging in our showroom, and it adds a lot of authority that we are a real dealership, even though we've only been here for 7 years now, that we're not going anywhere."

Richard and Jordan Broadhead celebrate their growth at the dealership in Alabama. Source: Connor Campbell

"We have a lot of experience behind us," he says, "We take care of our customers, and we've had several sales come from that, where people saw that and they wanted to buy from us because we received that award, and we're incredibly thankful that y'all chose us for that."

While awards look great on the wall, it’s the trust between a father, a son and their community that actually moves the iron. 

Be on the lookout for more content from my conversation in the upcoming weeks.

Here's their fierce guard dog defending the showroom floor. Told you I wouldn't forget!