EntreLeadership - #105: Dale Partridge–Why People Matter More Than Profit

Episode Date: July 27, 2015

Can you run a company that cares and still make money? Absolutely, and this week’s guests share how to make it happen. Dave starts by discussing why people matter most. And entrepreneur Dale Partridge shares his story of people over profit.  Additional resources:  entreleadership.com/podcast FREE EntreLeader’s Guide to Hiring  Another great episode sponsored by our friends at Infusionsoft. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You'll hear Dave Ramsey talk to our team about Marketplace Service, and I sit down with best-selling author Dale Partridge to talk about his new book, People Over Profit. It all starts right now. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now here is your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the podcast of Leaders, by Leaders, for Leaders, and we appreciate you being with us so very much. much. Wow, fun episode. We're going to get right to this. Dave Ramsey talks to us every week. Every Monday morning, we have a company-wide staff meeting. That's nearly 500 people now. And the other day, Dave just taught. It reminds us all the time of our core values. Core value number 15 around here is Marketplace Service. And Dave taught us. It was so good. We decided to give you some of the gold. And so let's get right to it. Here it is. Dave Ramsey talking to us and you about Marketplace Service.

Do an exchange with the customer that causes them to go, it causes them to have that moment where they say, I will never forget our interaction with your company. Avoid policies. Policies are good. I can give you a guideline and know what to do, but avoid them. Find a way to create a moment, to create an experience. experience when you're dealing with your customers.

We call this marketplace service. It's our number 15 core value. We talk about what Rabbi Lapin says all the time. That if you help people, they will give you certificates of appreciation with President's faces on them. If you help people, they will say thanks. Ken Blanchard says, profit is the applause that your customers give you. around here

another way we say it is if you help enough people you don't have to worry about money that's marketplace service serve serve serve serve serve serve have them have a moment when they visit the web page that you did the coding on and it was so

different and so unique so efficient you're a visit a website or is that good? I have we visit somewhere it's not wow have them have that moment where what we produced here, the experience we produced, the item we produced,

the words on the page, the podcast we produced is so over the top that they have that moment of service and they go, wow, I see why those guys are winning. I see why that organization has got God's hand on it. Because when you're faithful in the little things, Scripture says it clearly. You will be given more to manage. This is marketplace service.

We're constantly having a conversation with the market. The market is telling us, no. The market is telling us, there's a different way to do this. The market is telling us that we are moving digital. You can keep printing everything on paper and you can keep putting out VHS tapes, but we're not going to put it. participate with your product when you do that.

You know, the market is moving. The market is telling you how to serve it, but we have to listen to it. And it doesn't mean we go with every fad, it doesn't mean we do huge corporate strategy changes based on, you know, periscope, because, you know, I remember Vine. It was just yesterday, and it's so yesterday now. So you can't make your moves on every little fad that comes along, but you have to be hearing what's happening. There's a conversation the marketplace is having with you. It's having with us. And you don't have a chance to be second. We have to be first. Second is so far behind first

now. It's way down there. We really have to have this conversation with the market. We have to hear it. And then we have to bring it. We can't mail it in. It's a way down there. It's a lot of game out. And then when we have this delicate thing called a customer, we have to be intentional with them. Be careful. Be careful in your interactions. Be careful how you think about this. I was telling a friend of mine about this, Todd Duncan, who is a speaker in the mortgage world, and he wrote a book called The $6,000 egg. And he said, my wife and I have been going in this store three times a week, and we eat a hamburger because they have the best hamburgers in our And he said, we came in there one day.

Now, we eat there three times a week. We spend about $6,000 a year in there. He said, we came in there, and we sat down, and the new waiter came over, and said, oh, we've got a special today. It's waffles with an egg on them, fried egg on them. It's a gourmet, cool, hipster thing to do or something. And they said, oh, that sounds really, really good, but, you know, we really love your hamburger. And Todd spoke up because he knows his wife loves four. fried eggs and says, but my wife will have a fried egg on her hamburger today. That'll be different.

And the waiter went, oh, I don't know if we can do that. And he said, oh, I think he can do it. It's an egg. I'll have to check with the kitchen. And so he goes back and checks with the kitchen and comes out and says, the kitchen says they can't do that. He said, you're kidding me. It's an egg. He goes, I'll pay extra for the egg. He said, I'll be happy to do this. I come in here, eight three times a week, put an egg on my wife's hamburger, really. Oh, what the shit kitchen says, he can't do it and he goes hi you're going to have send the manager over here we got a problem now so the manager comes over you're defensive combative and says I understand we have a problem he said no we don't know a problem you all have a problem but I don't have a problem

your problem is you have a customer sitting here that wants an egg and you've got eggs back there we know this because you put them on the waffles and my wife wants one of your eggs to go on her hamburger and we were willing to pay extra for it, and somehow the kitchen can't figure that out. And the manager says, this is not possible. He said, I'm sorry. He goes, it's an egg. And she said, no, really, we can't do that.

And he said, well, help me to understand why you can't put an egg. Because now I'm intrigued, because now I'm starting to be upset as a customer. And she said, well, we have a certain number of waffles and a certain number of eggs, and when the special runs out, we can't sell any more of the specials. and if we have one waffle left without that one egg, we will lose that one sale. And he said, maybe to a customer that might not ever come. You might be throwing out four of them.

You don't know. But you have a customer that comes in here three times a week and spends $6,000. And this woman continues to argue with him until his blood continues to boil. And he says, I'll tell you what, here's $5. Send the bus boy across the street and buy a whole thing eggs. problem solved. I only want one. You can have the rest and have more specials.

Sir, we just can't do that. The woman just bowed up and refused to put an egg. And he said, let me get this straight. I'm never coming back in here again. You were going to lose a customer for life that spends $6,000 with you over an... I mean, he's explaining it to her. Over an egg!

And she says, sir, I'm sorry. I just, we cannot, we cannot put an egg on your hamburger today. And they get up and leave. The $6,000 egg. You know, you have the chance where there's just kind of a little rough edge to super serve and go over the top, or you have a chance where there's a complete rough edge, and for an egg you can fix it.

But policies and procedures get involved in corporate America. And they lose their soul in the process. They lose their ability to think. That's why we're self-employed here, because we still think. You still think. Be careful of that egg. I'm not talking about jerks that are entitled and feel like they need things. That's a different animal.

That's a whole separate discussion. But I'm talking about the opportunity for someone who actually appreciate it where you can blow their mind. And every day you bring it. excellence in the ordinary every day. And that creates this marketplace service that causes a connectivity to that customer's heart and you'll have them forever.

So serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve, serve. Watch for the opportunities. Don't ever have a $6,000 egg. Look for those God intersections, those God appointments in your day. There's stuff that's coming across your desk. It could be somebody right down the hall from you in this place that needs somebody to just stop a second, breathe and go, oh, yeah, we're getting stuff done together here,

but that's actually a human I'm working with. And it looks like they're having a bad day. It looks like I just need to breathe a second and go, hey, what's going on? Can I help you with something? Just look for that stuff. It's right there in front of us, isn't it? When you do every little thing we do,

every big thing we do with an idea of service in mind, it changes the way you do it. be watching for those things because that's what self-employed people do. They have that mentality. You would never, if you were self-employed, do the $6,000 egg. You would never do that if you were self-employed. You would never ruin your own company on purpose. We know you won't do it on purpose, but what scares me is I'll do it on accident

because I'm not thinking, or you might do it on accident because you're not thinking about what you're saying and how it's being perceived. action you're taking and how it's being perceived and boom there's something changed then and what we're doing that's marketplace service that's how we got here we did that more right than wrong never perfect but more times we did it right than we did it wrong that's how we got here and guess what that's how we'll be here next year that's how we got here you guys marketplace service number 15 core value So there you go. That's enough right there just for one podcast.

What an incredible treat we get to have a man with this much leadership, expertise, and experience to share with us. And we live this out. So I hope you get something out of that. I know we did. All right, folks, it's time for one question with Jeff Mask from InfusionSoft. The most important space for a business owner or business operator, I think, has got to be the space between their ears, their mind. It's such a volatile, powerful space, and that tension is huge. I want you to talk about the mind of the business owner and how delicate and important that space is. If you're listening to this right now, which you are, and I put a microphone up to your head, and then I amplified the voices that were in your head, what would you?

you hear. How loud would it be? How proportionate would those thoughts be toward fear and anxiety and stress versus confidence and faith and optimism? That is the question. And we all know in running a business, all too often we're leaning toward fear and scarcity and just, it's crazy. Yeah. The mind of the entrepreneur is a fascinating place. It's like, it's like, uh, it's like a busy street in New York sometimes. So you mentioned, uh, in a previous podcast, we talked about how overwhelming business can be, and that's so very true. But you know, think about it. You got taxis running into people honking horns. Somebody's screaming at and you're swearing at you. That's your own voice. You know, it is a busy, busy conundrum and it's loud. Right. All kinds of noises, right?

It's not just fear. I mean, it's several voices. Yes. Multiple hats you're wearing. Am I doing my marketing and sales right? Am I running the books the right way? Oh, wait, I have that football game I'm supposed to be at. It's personal as well. You're mixing both all the above. It's not just a career that you can turn off. It's your life. And so it's critical to understand the mindset, to know where you are, not to mention to be able to battle all the outside voices that are telling you you're crazy, that are telling you, why don't you just go get a real job? How many times have we heard that? And so when you hear that voice and you marry it with the voice that it's already in your head, you feel like you're validated in that fear and anxiety and you think, yeah,

what am I doing? Am I crazy? Mastering your mindset is a key. component to successful small business, and we are passionate about helping entrepreneurs get straight in their own minds first so that they can lead themselves and others as well. I'm telling you, folks, Infusionsoft will help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. That's what we believe in. Check them out. Infusionsoft.com slash entree. That's infusionsoft.com slash entree. Well, our feature interview this podcast is with a guy by the name of Dale Partridge. Dale Partridge is like a super entrepreneur. If you think Entree leader, well, Pardridge is one of those guys.

And he's done so very much CEO, co-founder of Sevenly for a time, which is a wonderful organization. You can look them up and learn more about how they are making a difference in the world through good products. And so now Dale has come out with a new book. It's called People Overprofit. Now that does not mean, just a little asterisk, that does not mean he's not a capitalist. He is very much a capitalist. but he's illustrated in this book something that all entree leaders know that people are our greatest asset people matter so you're going to enjoy this let's get right to it here's my conversation with

dale partridge all right dale people over profit you see that title and i think it's important to establish right out of the gate that you say that you believe valuing people over profit makes you more profitable so you're an unashamed capitalist you're not asserting in this book that people matter and profit doesn't. That's not what you're saying. No, you know, I'm not a communist, right? That's right. I want to make sure we established that, yeah.

Yeah, the book's title's not people instead of profits. That's right. It's valuing people over profit. And in my experience, companies who can do that and leaders who can do that actually create a more profitable company. And you talk about this at the very beginning of the book, that this is not new. This idea that you're asserting in this book is not new, yet, So many American companies have gotten away from this time-proven principle that when you take care of your people, well, you're going to have plenty of profits.

Why do you think that we've gotten away from this idea? You know, I say that, you know, how you make employees feel about themselves says a lot about your leadership. And it's looking at your company and not seeing parts but people. And I think that, you know, since the beginning of time of capitalism, it was this idea of transferring value, right? And at the core, this has just changed over the last 150 years. And so companies today just, I think, have swung the pendulum so far in terms of they almost think that the customers are serving them in some way or that they think that their employees are serving them in some way instead of serving a mission.

So I think just bringing it back to the root that at the end of the day, we're all people, we're not parts. You know, Walmart is not like this giant machine. It's just made up of, you know, 50,000 people or whatever their crazy amount of employees is. And I think that when you bring it back down to the human level, when you bring it back down to that intimate, empathetic level, it starts to change the way that the organization operates. It also starts to change the efficiency, the growth, and the profitability of the company. All right. So how has this worked in your company? You're a co-founder of Sevenly, a successful

business. And I want to hear what this looks like in your building. Okay, so I was sitting back and talking about this a couple years ago, and I was realizing that the marketplace, it left to itself, it just doesn't see people. It sees pieces of a puzzle. It sees potential purchasers. It sees zeros and dollar signs and credit card swipes and bottom lines. And the problem is, is that every dollar our companies make is a reason not to change. You know, because tradition is powerful. Pattern is powerful. Consistency, these things that we have in our companies is powerful. But when they're stagnant and deceptive, when they're only focused on profit, they become these prisons and ultimately they can become like an executioner of your actual business.

my company, Sevenly, you know, I'm no longer there anymore, but I was the founder. I was the CEO for a few years there. And I was sitting back and I was realizing this shift in capitalism and I wanted to figure out how we could change it. And, you know, it came with the idea of a tagline at first. If we started this tagline, our first tagline was do good. And I thought, oh, man, what a tagline. We can rally behind this idea. Do good. We're going to change the world, right? A few months later, I ended up getting a seasoned assist from someone in our industry saying, hey, that's too close to our tagline. We have it all over our products, right, at this point. We're already like a two and a half million dollar a year company at the time. And I'm thinking, great. So I got to go back to the drawing

board. And I realized at the core, why do we do what we do? You know, why does Sevenly do what we do? And I thought, well, we believe people matter. And the tagline, people matter, ended up becoming our tagline. It also became one of the chapters in my book and became kind of the banner that flew high above our organization. And you know what? Do good is easy. valuing people and believing that people matter isn't. Because at the end of the day, as entrepreneurs, as CEOs, as leaders, as managers, one of the hardest things that we're going to struggle with doing is valuing people. It's very difficult, especially in the face of adversity, confrontation, especially in the face of awkwardness. And at the core was the starting point. And secondly,

I spent so many stinking years trying to figure out how to make a million dollars. You know, I was chasing the money and it took me until I finally shifted the idea instead of not focused on making a million dollars instead of helping a million people. So that was the big shift mentally for me as an entrepreneur that really made things tick. And I realized that if our focus is consistently on helping people, we'll end up making a million dollars. And I flipped that whole thing upside down and serve the customer, serve the employee. And it really changed my heart in a deep way that has just been incredibly fruitful for

our company as well as my new company and some of the other things, the other companies that people have been reading my books for. So it's definitely a game changer and mentality, but it takes a very strong, emotionally mature leader to take on this message. Well, that's so true. And now I want to talk about, I think everyone listening here agrees, of course, if we want to be pure leaders, if we want to win with people, obviously we have to value our people and those are the companies that are enduring. But let's also talk about the current landscape, because this book also addresses the shift in the consumer habit now, which is they want to buy from companies that are doing good as well. And so that's a shift. And that's not a fad, you say. That's here

to stay. Is that correct? Yeah, you know, we're starting to see that customers want to purchase with a purpose. They want to extend. They're literally voting with their dollars. And there's actually a study done, I think, in like 2013 that said that people would rather give through buying a product it does good, then give to a charity directly. And I mean, right now, even so, like, I think it's 95% of millennials have never donated to a charity, right? So we already have a generosity problem. And, you know, companies that have been able to create this, I want to do something good, but I also want to get something in return, right? And that's the big shift that's going on here. But also, there's a massive trust issue in the economy, right? In today's economy, your company is a liar

until earned otherwise. That's interesting. Especially with the millennial generation is that we have every possible reason to not trust a company because, one, we grew through the 2008 recession, we saw companies just do ridiculous things. On top of the fact, this onslaught of documentaries

that's coming out and just shoveling truth into our face, right? It's like, do we trust the food industry? Do we trust the pharmaceutical industry? Do we trust the education system? Do we trust the government? I mean, there's a reason to not trust anything today. So companies that are incredibly transparent, that are credibly authentic, that take

the people overprofit message at the core, are going to be able to relate with this next generation of consumers and build that trust and earn that trust so that they say, I actually want to spend my dollars there. Okay, so let's look at that. People over profit could also mean the people, your customers that you're serving. So what does that look like? How do we begin to develop quick trust because I specifically ask it that way because Dale, I agree with you that it's kind of like you're a liar until you prove otherwise. But with this millennial generation, for sure, there's a lot of competition. It's noisy. How do you cut through the clutter and quickly get some trust? I mean, I think there's a couple ways. One way that I really love is just incredible customer support.

And I know that sounds like a broken record, but customer support that does something that's incredibly different and that shows people that you literally love them and care for them and will spend money to love them and care for them. And another thing I noticed very early on is transparency. So there's a chapter in the book titled Transparency Freeze. And we're in a season where anybody can follow any company or any leader and be massively involved in their life, meaning that I can see Jack Welch's tie color in the morning. I can also see, you know, Jeff Bezos is dog and what he's, you know, what he did do is remote this morning, right? And companies that aren't transparent are actually the ones that are standing out in a bad way. They become a liability,

right? So having this transparency where you go, hey, check out our staff member today. This is Christina. She's the social media manager here. She's been working here for three years. She loves this, this, this, and that. And it's this authentic connection of transparency that you can use on social media to not actually be the one that's hiding. So transparency is a really great way to equal trust and to build trust with the millennial generation. And social media offers that. It's just it's an easy way to get out there. But it's more than just talking about the things that are great. You know, we want to be vulnerable in our companies. We want to be vulnerable with the things that are happening in our brands. And I think that we talk to people almost as if we're, you know, a brand should try to focus on talking to people as if it was a person,

talking to a person. You know, today we went through a very weird season on social media where companies speak to people like, we're companies and we're going to speak down to you. And I think that the faster companies can figure out how to speak to people as a person, as a brand. And that's going to start changing the trust game for a lot of people. Boy, that's really good. Okay, now you just mentioned transparency freeze, as in it frees you. This is one of the seven core beliefs that you write about in the book, People Over Profit. These seven core beliefs, you say, will help companies break the cycle of profit over people, if you will. And so let's roll, I'm going to roll through these like a speed round, Dale, because you know this so well. So you just mentioned that

transparency frees you and how you do it and how it works. Let's start at the top. People Matter. Give me a short description of how this plays out. People matter. What does that look like? Yeah, I mean, it's looking at your employees is not parts, but people. And it's taking in consideration an empathetic standpoint as a leader, meaning that, you know, when you have an issue, you have to take in consideration that this person is a person. They have brokenness. They have issues. They have fears. They have problems. They have worries. They have anxieties. And that should change the way that we communicate with our people, not just our staff, but our employees. And I think we saw that with, I think Chick-fil-A did, did a really great video a few years ago that talks about that concept of

every person has a story. And so taking that in consideration is an incredible part of a, it's a maturity, it's slowing down. It's going, okay, listen, cut through the noise. What's happening in this specific moment on my leadership, whether I'm talking to, you know, my entire team, whether I'm talking one-on-one, whether I'm talking to a customer. And if we could train our people, to value people, it's going to change the game for our companies. All right, truth wins. So truth is one of those things where it's like subjective and relative, right? I think that...

Yeah, that is true. Right? And I think that having the idea of truth wins, it means that you're willing to be brutally honest with each other. And, you know, one of my favorite quotes is that rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. And it's the idea of talent, even if it hurts. hurts. And there's a couple characteristics so that you want to tell the truth completely, right? So

everyone gets the same story. Entry level employees aren't told, you know, they're not sold a bill of goods that executives wouldn't recognize and customers aren't fed facts that employees know are falsehoods. You know, all the people that an organization touches should receive identical information. Tell the truth quickly. That's another thing, right? Organizations have a tendency to like withhold the truth in certain situations. If there's a systematic failure, they'll often sit on it for like an apology for weeks or even months. But a truth wins ideology, you know, that companies know that ignoring the booger on your face will actually only draw attention to it, right?

That is actually really true. Disgusting example, but true. And I like that. Right. Yeah. You know, they know that failure to respond quickly. Everybody's now whispering. Everyone's whispering. Do you see the guy over there at the table by the window? He's got a bugger on his face.

It becomes a much bigger issue than if you just own it. That's really good. And it actually erodes. trust at warp speed. I mean, it's so, you know, especially in a digital age where if, you know, your silence creates space for others' words to fill, you know, when important information becomes available, it needs to be disseminated quickly. So the first one is tell the truth completely, tell the truth quickly. And then the last one is tell the truth clearly. Companies often claim they've told the truth when they've only shared a partial truth, you know, because withholding that

information, it's a distortion. It's actually the same effect of telling a lie. You know, some organizations even actually tell more than the truth, you know, releasing information that's like spun or sensationalized or exaggerated. So this dedication to truth. So there's a company, Charity Water, ran by a good friend of mine named Scott Harrison. And he has 100% no white lie policy at his organization. He's like, we're already a nonprofit. People don't trust us already. So anybody that tells a white lie, it's a direct conversation, hey, this happens again and you're not on this team anymore. It's this 100% no white life policy. And I love that because that's constantly checking. Are we exaggerating?

Or we have truth? We're spinning. Are we sensationalizing? And that's something that in a time like today, we need to be very careful as leaders to make sure that we're not being dishonest. All right. The next one, authenticity attracts. Yeah. So authenticity is, it's such a weird thing, right? We think that it's incredibly easy to be authentic. Bernay Brown says authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and to be real, right? The choice to be honest, the choice to be to let our true selves be seen. And, you know, the finding the authentic organizational personality of your company is really key because I'll tell you what, I spend a lot of time trying to impress people I don't care about. I spend a lot

a time trying to be someone that I'm not just to make sure that I can be friends with someone. And I'll tell you that leadership mentality, the CEO, the frontrunner, the A man, that guy, that stuff bleeds into your company. And you start becoming everything that you never intended to be. And so I say in the book, I say, what are you currently doing that is not you? Murder it. Restle it to the ground, strangle the life out of it and bury it in your backyard. Get rid of it, right? And so being authentic is, it's just resisting the urge to being something else, right? It's also helping others become who they are. And it's also continuing to innovate even as you remain true to yourself, which is a very difficult thing to do. So the big message is just become who you are. And I think that's a good takeaway. All right. Three more real quick. Quality speaks. We all understand as business owners that quality matters, right? But there's a problem is that every time, time we increase quality, we decrease margins, right? We know that and we're like, dang it. Like,

every time that happens, trust me, there's been times at Seventhly where I thought, okay, if I took my products over to China, we'd make an extra million dollars a year. And I thought, but then I wouldn't be able to watch who made our clothes, where they were being produced, what type of ethics were at hand. So understanding quality is an incredibly important part. And it's a painful profit, right? It's really sticking to quality is a painful profit. And there's four types of quality. There's physical quality. So there's anything that a customer or a team member can touch.

It needs to be excellent, right? Because quality tells customers that if they care this much about the smallest details, then they care that much about me. That's what good design and good quality and good packaging says at the core to a customer. There's experiential quality, right? So there's like the emotional ambiance, the experience that a customer has with your product or an employee has with your office. There's visual quality, right? We live in the aesthetic era. The millennial generation, I'm telling you this, you can't get far anymore being ugly,

right? Just because people don't refer ugly, right? We know this is true. Like, you know, we're on the playground. We don't tell our friends about the not cute boy, right? We don't refer our friends to the restaurant with the crappy ambiance, right? We don't do those things. We don't refer ugly. So, visual quality is incredibly important. And the last one is personal quality. In a time when we have so many conversations through the internet, we don't have any conversations in person. And so monitoring that personal quality, are you actually getting face to face with people? It's something that I recommend executives having on their dashboard as something to monitor as a metric. So I think that would be the great wraparound for Quality Speaks. All right. Then generosity returns. So,

Generosity is not something an organization does. It's something an organization is. You know, many companies get into trouble because they don't understand the difference of those. Generosity at the core, it's rarely about money, to be honest. Generosity is rarely about money. And I think that companies can be generous in so many creative ways. And I think that that's something that you and your team should go back to the drawing board and think about. Ultimately, at the core, generosity is need and abundance. It's say, someone has a need. We have abundance. Let's fill that. And at the core, it's love. It's love. It's, it's this kindness. It's this, it's this selflessness. And I think that companies that can embrace this show a really high level

of maturity and companies that don't have a level of generosity. I think customers and employees are wondering why. And there's typically a fight of greed. I think that it's the company's jobs in our society to really step in to the generosity game. Sevenly, we give away now $4.2 million. and $7 donations. We've also been a multimillion dollar company. And I look back and I go, what if we didn't start that company? Like, what if we didn't plan to be generous?

Literally, people would not be alive today. Talk about ROI. Right? Talk about ROI, return on investment like with this purpose. And as CEOs and as leaders, this is a message for you to stand up and say, I could take a small chunk of my profit and change someone's life for,

ever. And I thought about that. And that's what I'm talking about for generosity returns. And it's an open-handed system, right? And it's not some, it comes from the heart of love. But generosity should be selfless, not conditional. And, you know, and Frank, I think so this, right? No one has ever become poor from giving. One of my favorite thing is that generosity should be built in, not tacked on, not a marketing ploy. It needs to come from a heart space. And ultimately, remember, that generosity is less like an arrow. It's more like a boomerang. It's, it has a has a way of coming back to you. And that's the core of that message for you. I really like that. I think the takeaway here is, folks, we need to recalibrate what ROI looks like. And I think that

that's a great challenge from Dale. All right, final one of the seven core beliefs for breaking the cycle, courage sustains. You know, let's just stop pretending that fear is like an adolescent thing. to say that fear is something that's adolescent or that we don't deal with it as men, as women, as leaders, as CEOs of massive companies would be stupid. Because fear's a real thing. And I'll tell you what,

there's a cost. There is a cost for valuing people over profit. There is a cost for being honest. And there is a discipline there. And courage, courageous leaders, that don't back down in the face of adversity, that don't back down in the face of confrontation.

Those are the leaders that change the landscape for everybody else. And it's difficult. It's painful. It's real. And I think that there are a few leaders out there that can really stand firm with their beliefs, with their dedication to their morals and to their values. Davy Crockett says, be always sure you're right.

Then go ahead. And we also know one of the big truths is that fear kills more dreams than failure ever will. We know that fear kills more profitability, that more integrity, kills more relationships, kills more opportunity than failure ever will. And so having the ability to be courageous and stand up and to assassinate fear

is a skill set that people over profit leaders have that changes the game for their companies. All right, so that's just a snapshot of the seven core beliefs that Dale outlines in the book, really good stuff. Dale, I got to tell you, I think this is an important book because I think that so many leaders want to value their people over profit, but sometimes just life happens, business happens,

and the best intentions kind of get run over by the reality of now. A final word from you to encourage the men and women that are listening in today that certainly want to do this. They want to implement these strategies, these techniques and principles to be able to win in life, not just win in the profit sheet. What would you say to them if they want to make this change? And they know that right now they're in the middle of a process that they can't get out of. So remember that fear keeps people, you know, keeps many would-be leaders on the sidelines. You know, while good opportunities just paraded by to be courageous, they didn't lack insight.

they lacked courage, okay? And remember that the reason you get paid more than everybody else is to bear the weight of the organization. It's to bear the weight that others don't have to. That's the reason leaders get paid well. And remember, it's your job to remember. It's your job to be disciplined. It's your job to be consistent and to stand up.

Okay, and that's really calling leaders out. And building that discipline, and building that ability to stand. strong as a leader is one of the most important things you'll ever do. And it's a discipline, a maturity that you will grow into. So if you're struggling with valuing people over profit, you need to go back to the core. Remember, because hurt people, hurt people. Okay? And healed people, heal people. Let's not pretend that psychology and brokenness from our past doesn't affect our leadership. Let's go back. Let's become better leaders. Let's become healed leaders. And let's run our organizations valuing people over profit. The book is good, Dale. We really appreciate it.

It is a timely message. We really appreciate your time hanging out with us. We're better for it, man. Good stuff. Awesome. Thank you, my friend. He is Dale Partridge. The book, again, brand new. It is out. You need to go get it. It is people over profit. I want to thank Dale for hanging out with us. Hey, remember, folks, we've been telling you about this all month as we have been focusing here at Entry Leadership on hiring and firing. We have a great wonderful resource that we have prepared for you it's free no strings attached

how do you hire eagles we are giving you the entree leaders guide to hiring all you have to do is text 3 3344 3344 and put the word E L hire no space

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free. 3-3-4-4 and text the word E-L-Hire. All right, folks, that is going to do it for this edition of the Entre Leadership podcast. I want to thank Dave Ramsey, Dale Partridge, Jeff Mask from InfusionSoft. And I can't end an episode without thanking you, our audience, and Eric, the producer, everyone on the Andrele Leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.