EntreLeadership - #162: Amanda Holmes—Grow Faster, Better, Smarter

Episode Date: August 29, 2016

What would you do if you were only 24 years old, had no experience in business, and were asked to take the helm of your legendary father’s multi-million-dollar company? If you’re Amanda Holmes, you ask a lot of questions, say yes, and double business within two years. The CEO of Chet Holmes International is a marketing, sales and social-media wiz, and she’s sharing her story with you on this week’s podcast. This is a conversation you don’t want to miss. entreleadership.com/podcast E1D LiveStream Team Communication Field Guide Infusionsoft's Guide to Repeat Sales Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. Broadcasting from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thank you, leaders for joining the conversation. Here's what's coming up. Chris Hogan is going to teach from the disc personality profile. Great stuff on communication.

Then we introduce you to Amanda Holmes, who is a millennial CEO, who has figured out how to win big as a second generation owner leader, you will love her. And then Dave Ramsey's going to teach from one of our staff meetings recently. We're going to give you this audio. He teaches their entire team on how to have a self-employed mentality. And then, of course, free resources to help you grow yourself, your team, and your profits. Now, because we've been focusing on communication this month, we wanted to bring you Chris Hogan teaching. This is just a slice, if you will, of what he teaches. And the guy has really become an expert on the disc profile, which if you're unfamiliar with disk, it's a personality profile.

And he's going to teach specifically on how to best communicate to people who are in the D-I-S-N-C personality profile. So let's get right to it. Here's Chris Hogan teaching you on how to communicate much better. The whole area of personalities. I'm a former business owner, and I wish I'd have known this information years ago. Any of you? Because it changes things. It changes the way you look at things at things.

It changes even how you communicate. And I want to assure you that if you're trying to grow your business, if you're networking, trying to let people know about your business, if you are out dealing with vendors, the more you're able to understand other personalities, the more you're going to be able to understand that individual. And as soon as you can understand them, then it gives the opportunity to connect. So we're going to spend some time talking about the disk profile because I think as you lead your teams, as you guide them, as you guide them, The knowledge you have about the different personality styles will allow you to feel that role even better than you ever have before. The decisive. This individual is hard-charging driver who is task-oriented and first looks to problems. If you look at this from a business perspective, if you've got a high D in charge of hiring,

as soon as there's an opening, you know what they're trying to do? Fill it. If it's 1.30 in the afternoon and somebody's leaving or not coming back or you've got an opening, they want it filled by 3 o'clock that day. They just want to get somebody in the seat. You know why? They can check it off the box and move on. And so you think from a hiring perspective, yeah, they're just looking to get it done.

Not necessarily if that person has the exact skill set or not, but we're getting it done. It's not going to be an opening very long. But you look at the interactive. This individual is people-oriented. They're outgoing. They're generally concerned about pleasing people, so they first look to people. If you put an high eye in a room by themselves, they may have a breakdown. Okay?

And eventually what will happen is they'll start talking to themselves. They'll even answer themselves, okay? Because they've got to have that interaction time. They love people just that much. And I mean by that, they are the ones that know what's going on in your office. They are the ones that know what's going on with everyone else. And so you look at that and you say, yeah, do you really want to eye eye in terms? charge of hiring? It could be dangerous, okay? And here's why. The high eye is going to look to

hire who? Somebody they like. If they like them, they're going to figure out, wow, this person fits the bill. This person, I like this person. They'll do a great job. They may or may not have all the skills required. But again, you think about that. They're hiring somebody they like. Now, let's look at the S. The stabilizing person is amiable, stable, loyal, and does not like conflict. they are concerned about the pace. Is everything moving along? Is everything moving in the right direction? If we look at that same hiring example,

an S is going to look to hire somebody that they think will get along with everyone else. So they start to look at the team, and they think, you know what, this person will get along with the team here. And so, again, may or may not boil down just to the skill set or the ability, but now how does this person fit in with the team? Are we going to be able to stay on a steady pace?

And then look at the last, the cautious. Now, this person is analytical, factual, loves details, and can seem rigid. Why? Because they absolutely love procedures. Now, we think about that same kind of hiring scenario. If you have a high C in charge of hiring, it's not going to happen fast. You know why? They're looking for the exact match, the perfect fit for that position.

They're looking for the person with the right kind of attitude, right kind of skill set, and proven performance. They want to be able to see the proof of how this person has performed. And so you look at that and you go, yeah, the hiring process might go really slow. And so you kind of look at that and it kind of helps you understand, oh, okay, this is how they're wired. They're all a little bit different. I think the most important thing you can do as a leader is lean in to other people. All right, folks. That is just a snippet of what Chris Hogan teaches the guys a world-class communication.

And that full lesson is something that you can experience that Entree Master Series. And the next one is coming up, October 23 through 27, October 23 through 27 here at our Ramsey Solutions headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee. Chris Hogan-Day-Rams are going to cover topics like vision, mission, goal setting, training your team to think like owners, delegation, and so much more. So we want to make sure that you take advantage of this special event. Now, it is really awesome in that we give you so much specific teaching for three days. And on the fourth day, it's all about application.

So how do you actually take everything we've been downloading for three days and plug it back in? We've told you about this format. It works really well. Very satisfied people that are coming to this event. So we would love to have you there. September 1st, the registration will go up by $300. So now is the time to jump in and get the absolute best price. If you go to Entreeleadership.com slash EMS, that's where you can get your ticket.

And again, between now and September 1st, the best price available, then it jumps up by $300. And here's the deal. This event, it's unlike anything else we do in Entry Leadership, because it's limited to 180 people. It is first come, first serve it. It always sells out. And that number is chosen very specifically because it is an intimate setting, great community, great content. and you're going to leave feeling like you've been coached up, you're ready to hit the field, and win big. So, Entrater Leadership.com slash EMS to get the best price before September 1st.

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Chet Holmes. Chet Holmes led Chet Holmes International and really he's best known for the ultimate sales machine, turbocharge your business with relentless focus on 12 key strategies. Now, this is a legendary book to many of you. Some of you may have never heard of it. But the fact remains that what we're going to set up for you today is a conversation with his daughter, Amanda. Now, four years ago, Chet Holmes tragically passed. And in that moment of what do we do next, the leadership of the company trying to figure out,

his daughter Amanda had to step into the company and literally learned from the bottom up everything that was going on. And having no idea where it would turn and which way it would go, She figured it out quickly, worked with the team, and eventually took over, and now she is the CEO, and the company is exploding. You're going to hear more of those details, but that is the setup for a young lady who is a millennial and she's winning big. And here's what I love. So much to take away, but Chet's daughter, having no idea that she'd one day take over the reins, stepped up in a big moment. It says a lot about Chet and a lot about Amanda, so I think you'll be encouraged. Here is my conversation with Amanda Holmes.

Well, Amanda, this is fun to talk with you about your story because it's an unlikely story of a leader who steps into a moment. And so before we get into some of that, the context is so great. Your father was running a very successful company. You're a singer-songwriter. You're in your 20s. And then all of a sudden, major life change happens, and you have to step into a new role. I want you to share that with our audience. Yeah.

So actually, I had studied music industry in college. I had released four different records while in college at USC. And then when my father got ill, I started studying alternative medicine. And right before my father passed, I was actually living in Asia. So to go from a healing center to now you've inherited a couple hundred staff all 20 years, your senior. And I wanted nothing to do with the business. So to go from there to where I am now, it's just been a complete,

beautiful transformation and I'm so grateful for this journey. Yeah, it really is fascinating. And I want to point out, folks, we're talking about 12 companies and a couple hundred staff. So the diversity of the companies, the shock of the situation of great loss, and then a huge shift. How did you walk through that? And also tell us, how old were you at the time that this shift happened? Yeah, I was 24. And thank God it was a virtual company because I would go on the conference calls and I would just sit on mute because I would be crying so hard and not wanting to be a part of any of it. And I just started listening in on the calls. The more I listened, I started asking questions, you know, because I wanted to understand what was going on. And the more I asked questions, the more my staff said, hey, you're asking the right questions.

Keep asking. Eventually, I became the last one in the room to ever believe that I would be CEO, but it got to a point where our leadership, losing the leader, the figurehead, the person that drives everything. I mean, Chet Holmes, my father was the personality as well. It wasn't just the CEO. Losing that, you just, it's like losing the heart of a human being or of a company. So how do you progress that forward? and I kept trying to find different CEOs and different management structures to make it all sustain, even though my father had nothing to do with the sales. You know, he wasn't working in the business.

He hadn't worked in the business for years. But it put a stress on the entire company so much so that finally everyone said, please, Amanda, step in his CEO. You are the only one that can write this ship and put it together. And I did. Wow. Okay. So this is, I want to stay right here.

because I want to break this whole thing down for our audience into what I am seeing here, and I think you can give tremendous advice on this issue. But further context, Amanda hired three CEOs before she stepped in as CEO. And I'm just picturing you in those first days, weeks, and months, and you're sitting there listening, and you have the responsibility, but you really didn't have the knowledge. So you had to ask a lot of questions. You had to listen, you had to work with existing leaders and begin to get caught up. And so as I listen to that story for a lot of our audience, specifically some of the younger folks who are looking to step into roles or those who may have stepped into roles where they don't have a whole lot of knowledge, what advice would you give, based on this very unique experience and story, on learning as you go?

Because you had to do a ton of learning and adapting as you go. I mean, you just didn't have any ramp up time. It was just boom, right there. So what do you take away from that and what could you share on this idea now looking back? Wow, so much. I know. I know. I know it's a big thought.

Well, I had this story in my head that kept saying, you know, how can a 24-year-old step in here and tell everyone else what to do? You know, that or that I would even know what to do, you know. The experience that I had of the business prior to my father passing was nothing. Zero. No experience at all. When people asked me what my father did, I said, oh, I think he runs some companies. I really, I'd never seen him speak on stage. I'd never read his book.

But what I had had experience with was sitting down with him at every dinner with clients, watching how he spoke with people. So his methodology was inherently just in my blood, and I didn't know it. That was how I thought that the world worked was how my father built businesses or spoke. And then when I started looking at what actually happens in the real world, I realized, oh, I know how it's supposed to happen. Everyone else is just all over the place, you know, just simple things. But if I had to give advice, I would really say that the number one thing that got me through was trusting myself and really taking that time to reflect inward and take all of that information that

I've had and connect to something greater than myself and just pray and I say, please assist me to be a conduit of light and love so that I can help selflessly serve as many people as possible. And with that in mind, it's led me to be able to double our business the last two years in a row. I've increased our marketing 2,700%. I mean, it just keeps compounding. And I guess it would be two things. One would be trust. And the second, if you give, then you receive 10 times more. So that was really my big come from.

But I have to put a caveat in there because when I first came in, the first year, I spent the most time with my lawyers. I didn't spend any time with clients. And what I did spend with my staff was really just to reiterate what I had heard from my lawyers. So there was a lot of legal battles for me. So I really had to learn how to trust myself to be able to stand up for myself and my family because it was protecting my mother and my brother as well. So that was a huge part of that trust. So that first year with lawyers and those meetings and things,

we certainly could understand how, you know, just that was, I'm sure, dreadful, just dealing with all that. But the listening and dealing with. the team and trusting yourself, I get that. But I want to ask, when you say give, give, give, gave, and serve, serve, served, is that how you begin to build trust and credibility with the leaders of the company who know this is Daddy's girl? You know, I mean, there had to be some, okay, let's see how this goes. Did you bridge that gap by, when you say giving, what did that look like for you, with the interaction with the leadership of the company to where they clearly developed trust in you

because here you are in two years and you've doubled the business. So what did that look like specifically, the giving part? I think because I had so much heartache in the beginning of, you know, lawsuit after mediation, after, you know, all of these terrible things happening. And then seeing what was happening with our clients and seeing some of the people that were running different companies and things. I just made the decision that this company was no longer my father's company. It was going to be my company. And I was going to do it the way that I felt was truthful, honest, integrist.

And not to say that it wasn't before that, it was just in a different way. So I took what we built. My father had built an amazing company that it didn't cost him a dime if it didn't make him a dime. And it started with radio ads to a call center to a webinar, to upsell and to coaching and then all the other 12 divisions would cross-sell and upsell and I'm sorry, 12 different companies because they definitely weren't all the same at all. Yeah, right, right.

Another complete craziness of taking over. But it took me realizing that I was going to put my clients first, which is interesting because what drove me at that moment was what do I need to do to create the best? best value for my clients. And I'm going to do everything possible for that. So I took what my father had as a complete offline business and I brought it online. So I automated 90% of our marketing funnel. I put it all online. We had never had an online order. 2012, we had never had an online order. Yeah, I rebuilt all of that so that now every person that walked in our doors would experience the best quality. So we had our videos with our lead magnets and our emails and all of that was my focus of

how can I give so much value that people will say, wow, when they interact with CHI. When I started focusing about what do our clients need, everyone around me in the organization started saying, oh, she's getting results. Oh, okay. And if there were any naysayers that didn't agree with what I was doing, I fired them. I really had to change a lot of the people on the ship because, you know, as a leader, you can't have people that don't believe in you. And that was hard too, because some of those were family. Some of them were people that had been with the organization for 15 years. And it's just, you know, sorry, we're going in a new direction. And that's a huge thing that I see a lot of our clients miss is they miss that innovation or they get tied in that emotional state that

they feel that they need to keep somebody on because, you know, they owe them this or they owe them that. But ultimately, when I look at what, you know, you have to take care of the company to make sure that it gets the results that are needed to, you know, continue with that company. So obviously your father, legendary with the ultimate sales machine, and you just kind of led into this idea of how you took everything digitally. I want you to talk about this best buyer strategy in its relationship with so. social media because I think this is such a valuable takeaway for our audience. So the best buyer strategy is the fastest, least expensive way to double sales. And we do it for companies all around the

world, every different size. I mean, we have stories where we've gone from zero to 600 million in one year using this strategy. Yeah, that's a story that's so great that my executive team had originally said, don't tell it because it's so unbelievable. Nobody will believe you if you tell story. But that's the kind of stories that we have with the strategy. So it goes along the lines of there's a smaller number of ideal buyers for any business than there are the greater mass. So a best buyer is someone that buys the most from you the most often. A lot of the time in businesses, it's that 20% that produce 80% of your revenue. Now, my father, the way that he got his fame was he was able to double nine different divisions of a company for Charlie Munger,

which, if you're not familiar, Charlie Munger's the business partner of Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway. So he doubled nine different divisions and multiple divisions he doubled multiple years consecutively following this method of, okay, at the time it was a magazine. So there were 2,200 potential advertisers in this magazine. And when my father did research, he found that there were only 167 that bought 95% of the advertising. So he went after the 167 with something that we call pig-headed discipline and determination. For any of those that read the ultimate sales machine, you know it through and through, pig-headed discipline and determination to go through the six to eight to 12 to 15 different knows

until you get that yes. And what I've been doing is instead of talking about direct mail and cold calling, With this best buyer strategy, I've been using it on Twitter. I've been using it in Facebook chat. I've been using it. It's so amazing that you think about it 10 years ago, even five years ago, people to get that appointment or to get that best buyer, that dream buyer that would completely change your entire world,

to get them on the phone or to get them face to face or to get them to buy from you, you really only had email getting to their front door and you had a phone. And today you have 10, 15 different channels that you can go through. You can text them. You can Facebook friend them. You can LinkedIn them. You can tweet them. And I will tell you one thing that every single one of your best buyers that are on social media,

their job on there is to find great testimonials, is to find people that are excited about what you do. So, for instance, one of my best buyers that was on my list was Ryan Dice. I really wanted to partner up with Ryan Dice because he, He has about a couple hundred thousand businesses in his database that I thought would do similar things. So I went on Twitter and I did a clever tweet where I tweeted him saying it was something about if you pick a marketplace that's reducing, it's like rearranging chairs on a Titanic. And I took that and I put it on a picture of a Titanic and I tweeted it out to him and I said, hey, love this quote. And it actually started a conversation where at first I thought that he thought, I was stealing his intellectual property.

But really, he was just asking me if I had built it or his team had built it because he thought it was really smart. And later on told me that he went to his team and said, hey, why aren't we doing things like this that are as clever as this, which was really funny. And now he's a client. So now we're building out his sales team. And that all started from a tweet. So it's amazing how somebody, if you tried to email Ryan Dice, if you tried to call him,

you'd never get through to him. He has hundreds of thousands of people trying to get a hold of him every day because he's a celebrity in the marketing world. But there's so many different avenues today to be able to gain their attention. And then you really, the focus is who are my best buyers? So that's something, you know, if everybody's writing notes or listening right now, I write that down. Who is your best buyer? Who would completely change your world? Write down, it could be 10 people.

It could be 100. It could be 200. It could be 1,000. We usually call it the Dream 100. I like that. That is really, really good. All right, so let's stay on this, some of these practical things that you are using and winning big with. And that, I want you to talk about the stadium pitch.

So the stadium pitch is something that is an absolutely timeless method. And let me take everyone through an exercise. So, and Ken. Oh, thank you. Don't leave me out, for heaven's sakes. So imagine that you're in a stadium full of 50,000 of your prospects. They'd probably be business owners, right? That's right. That's right.

So imagine you're in a stadium full of 50,000 potential clients. And I gave you a mic, which for you would be easy because you're in front of mics all the time. But for a business owner or somebody that's marketing their products, you give them a mic and they start to waver a bit. And you say, okay, all of these people could get up and leave as soon as they hear your title. What would be the title of your talk that would get them to stay in their seats and be interested in what you have to say? majority of businesses today will say something like hey you know i run a telecom company that's been in business for 20 years we're the best in the industry and you should hear more about how we'll assist you with your telephone systems 99% of businesses really talk about themselves so if everyone

and can you can do this too you take out a pen and paper and draw a triangle all right and On that triangle, put a line through the top 3% of that triangle, and you can write 3% next to it. At any given time, the amount of people that are listening to what you have to say with marketing and sales, 3% of them are interested in your product or service. So if you had 100 people in a room and you said, okay, raise your hand if you're interested in buying a car right now, you'll get about three people. This has been proven studies show. Then you put another line right at about 7%.

and those are people that are open to it. They're thinking about it, maybe down the line. Then you have the last three that are all into 30%. So you put two more lines that are 30%, 30%, 30%, and 30%. So those 30% add up to 90%. So that 90% of this buyer's pyramid are people that are not interested in your product or service. So if your stadium pitch is focused on you, you're only going to get 3%

maybe that 7% that are interested in what you have to say and by the way, that 3% are the people that you're competing with with your competition. The remaining 90% aren't thinking about it, don't think they're interested or are definitely not interested.

So what can you say as a stadium pitch that will get the attention of everybody in that buyer's pyramid? Does it make sense? That makes total sense. And this can be applied So my father replied this to magazine ads, to direct mail, to cold calling scripts.

And now I'm taking that and putting that into my lead magnets, into my Facebook ads, into my Twitter feeds. I mean, content marketing has gotten close to this, but I still haven't seen people really teaching the refinement of educating your prospects in a way that brings them through a logical conclusion that by the end of your education, people logically understand, yes, I need to hire you, work with you, pay for your product or service, because you've taken me through such an expert education. So I'll give you an example.

One of our clients was a vitamin company in Florida. And they used to talk about how great their vitamins were and, you know, 50% off sale, 20% off sale. And we changed their stadium pitch to be the five reasons humans are going extinct. That's big. a very big, broad topic. Who wouldn't want to be interested in why humans are going extinct? It certainly does make you lean in. Right. But then they would give this expert, great education, including market data. We're really big about research and market data to back up and build credibility into why our food system today isn't working like it should. And our health is going

down the drain fast, extremely fast. And it's because our organs aren't getting the nutrition that they need. And then it talked about some studies about what they did with nutrition to be able to assist them to have that nutrition. And by the end of it, you haven't even started talking that you sell vitamins. And the person's like, great. So please tell me that you sell vitamins because I want to buy them all. Because you've just made this whole thing about the problem that they share in. It's really good. So how do you do that? So that, That's great conceptually. I'm reading research here about you that this is what allows you to get nine times

the response from money you're already spending on marketing. So with that statement, I want to go a little deeper on this. So let's break down the different, because you mentioned this. You said this is applied to sales scripts, you know, for cold calling, opt-ins for websites, presentations, all the different ways that our audience right now is going, okay, the stadium pitch, we get it conceptually. But give us maybe a practical example. how does it work maybe in an email or an opt-in type thing?

How do you boil that down into a specific touchpoint? Yeah, I can give you a couple. So we have a company that sells CRM systems to auto dealerships. Now, their Facebook ads always used to say, need a CRM? Talk to us. And instead, we changed it to the four inefficiencies in auto dealers that are putting them out of business today and learn the three strategies you can do to increase your sales, I think it was like 42% or something like along those lines.

So that will get a lot more people's attention than, hey, do you need a CRM system, right? It's the 3% as opposed to people that want to improve their auto dealership. Or on a website opt-in, instead of saying, hey, sign up for my free newsletter or get updates on what's going on here, we have an opt-in on our website that says, you know, how to build the ultimate business. business in one hour a week. Yeah, that, yeah, I really like that. I want to switch gears because one of the things that we know about our audience is they're passionate about personal growth. And I want to just hit you with a few things because I find it fascinating that you're so successful in a leadership role in your mid-20s, late 20s now, and you've developed your own

personal growth techniques. So let's start with productivity. Got a lot going on. What are some things, some life hacks that you use? Oh my gosh. Well, for anybody that's listening, the Ultimate Sales Machine, chapter one is time management secrets of billionaires. And I follow that through and through. I see a 400% increase in my productivity every day that I follow those six steps. And when I don't, I completely flail. One of them is the death of email.

Oh, my goodness. We are just killing ourselves. I agree 100%. On average, people are getting about 120 emails a day on average. So one of the great things that, especially if you're a CEO, managing your subject lines. So as your every single one of your staff should be able to put exactly what's in the body of the email in the subject line very clearly. And then when the subject changes within the email, you need to change the subject line. And it seems so simple. And yet we spend, I think it's a month a year,

rereading information that we've already read. How much time do you waste a day looking in your email for old emails? Death by scroll. That's what I'm going to call that. Death by scroll. I've never heard that. That's great. Yeah, I know.

I just made it up because for me, I have ADD. And so you get into the scroll and my eyes start rolling around in my head. That's what happens to me. So I love where you're going here. So what does this do when you're changing this subject? It allows you to just hyper focus? It allows you to be able to find it when you're going back to it. It allows you as a CEO to be able to say, I see, and the first step of the six steps of time management is touch it once.

So if you see an email in the subject line, it says exactly what it is and you know you don't have the time right now and you're scheduled to do it. You're going to make sure that you put it in the folder of, tend to this from four to five, when I have my time to be handling emails. We're huge about not being reactive to all of your staff because all day, every day, that's all you get, is putting out this fire, putting out that fire. So what we do is once you've scheduled, put in your schedule so you pick out the top six things

that you need to do that day, you allocate how much time for each one of those tasks. You put them into your schedule. I know from 9 to 915. I'm answering this email from 915 to 930. I'm doing this. from 930 to 11. I'm working on this presentation.

And you leave in your schedule one to two times a day where you handle what we call got a minute meetings. Got a minute meetings, got a minute emails, all of the fires. You become proactive about the reactive things that normally used to dictate every moment of your day. So it will take so much pigheaded discipline and determination to make sure that your team follows that and it's just a continual thing that you will have to keep my my father said that he had to train some people for three years before they got it but once they did they were time

management machines right but it's even worse today because anybody that gets pop-ups of hey you got a facebook comment or hey you got a twitter or something or hey there's a text message it becomes even harder so being completely diligent and determined to make sure that you answer you answer those things at once or twice a day. And making sure, this one I got from Brendan Breschard, he says that when he works with people like Oprah and these big moguls in industries, when he works with them one-on-one, he says, I can get you back 45 minutes every day that you've lost. And they're like, great, I need every second I can get.

And he says, the first thing when you wake up in the morning, do not answer emails. Because how many people, they wake up in the morning and in bed, or as they get out of bed, the first thing they do is they look through emails. And it makes your entire day reactive as opposed to proactive. So can you imagine if you woke up and the first thing you did was write down your six priorities as a leader, what do I need to do, schedule your day and then see, okay, what is everyone else's schedule? Well, Amanda, you are refreshing and you are certainly an example to all of us.

And we're so proud of what you do. We're privileged to have spent time with you today and we're better for it. so we thank you for stopping by. Such a pleasure. All right, folks, we want you to continue to learn here, and Amanda and her team have so generously donated to you a free chapter from the book, The Ultimate Sales Machine. It's chapter four, how to get nine times the impact

from every move you make. Who doesn't want to get nine times the impact? So you can get it for free. Chet Holmes, that's H-O-L-M-E-S-ChetHolmes.com slash sales. Chetholmes.com slash sales, get the free chapter, dive into it, and apply it. Well, for all you new podcast listeners, it bears repeating from time to time that the name of the podcast, Entree Leadership, comes from a number one bestselling book written by Dave Ramsey, who happens to be the host of the third largest radio show in America.

And the CEO day-to-day of Ramsey Solutions, which is now much, much more diverse than just a radio show that helps people win with money. So what we'd like to do from time to time is let you on the inside of our organization. Entree leadership after all is just one division of a much larger company now with 560, 570 employees and growing. And so this is a great lesson that Dave taught recently, one of our core values. Every week on a Monday morning, we sit together and we have staff-wide communications called a staff meeting. You know what these are like. But many times Dave will at the very end teach to our entire organization to remind us, to refresh us, of our core values. And so today we're going to play for you one of his recent

teachings on the self-employed mentality. That's one of our core values. This isn't a J-O-B. We all act like we own the place. And this is so fitting because I do believe that Amanda Holmes has this value running deeply within her and her leadership. And so, listen to Dave as he teaches on a self-employed mentality. All of you have heard the story just about, I think, that when I was 12 years old, I asked my dad for some money. And he said, what can you earn some money? I said, well, I guess I could cut some grass. Long story short, I end up with 27 yards to cut at 12 years old. That's known as child abuse. So I found out that work is where money comes from.

And like a guy said on the radio the other day, I tweeted it, and it's done funny statement, but he said, I asked him how he increased his income, and he said, I found this cool place to go, and when you go there, they give you money, it's called work. And so that's how I started in my life. Mom and Dad, we're in the real estate business. They were straight commission. By straight commission, I mean straight commission. House doesn't close and have new owners. You do not get paid. You get zero. If you list a house, put a sign the yard, you don't make money. You make money if it sells and actually goes to the closing table. if the transaction occurs.

And so it's possible to make zero in the straight commission. It's also possible to make zero when you own your own business. We have had some areas that were not-for-profit, and we didn't mean for them to be over the years. It was not altruistic. It was bad, bad, bad stuff. So if you've ever been 100% self-employed or 100% straight commission in your life, raise your hand.

Okay, good, good. You know how it feels then. It's you having a conversation with the marketplace, and the marketplace says, well done, my son, well done my daughter. Or the marketplace says, you suck, and it's brutal. It's very real. And if you have your own business and you have five clients,

you know, and you lose a big one, you lose half your dad gum income. been there, done that, lots of times in my life. I've been straight commission or self-employed all but about two years of my working life, starting from 12 years old. So that's how my brain naturally works. Plus, I grew up in a household. Mom and Dad owned the real estate company, and they were straight commission before that.

And so I've never really known anything else. I don't know how the other brains work. It doesn't, it might not have to, I can intellectually get there, but emotionally I don't. naturally plug into that the way that that brain works and so years ago we set up one of our core values to say we have a self-employed mentality here this isn't a J-O-B you're not here I'm not here to collect a check we're not going to do the minimum we can do we all act like we own the place and you do I get to experience it pretty regularly I

experienced Aaron Dury in my office acting like she owned the place. I've experienced Sherry Singletary praying like she owns the place. And I can go all through this room doing that. You do it regularly. But guys, that's why this place works. Other places, people mail it in. They mail it in. They don't care. They care just enough to not get fired. If we find that here, you know what we do? We ask you to become self-employed. You have a new job looking for a job because we don't want you here. The rest of us that think this way, we like it. And we like hanging out with other people that care deeply and act like and feel like they own the place. We enjoy hanging out with those kinds of people. We celebrate those kinds of people

in this place. It is who we are. You're in here collecting a check. And you'll be exposed. You know how you're exposed? Because you're hanging out with people who are not collecting checks. Oh, they collect their checks. But their mentality is not to collect a check. I'll cash a check. You should cash a check.

I enjoy making people cry with raises. I like cash and checks. Because that's saying we're doing something right. That says the marketplace is grinning at us and saying you're winning and it's saying thank you. My friend Rabbi Daniel Lapin says in the book, Thou Shepin, says in the book, Thou Shelf shall prosper, that Jewish people are raised with a mentality, and it's not necessarily a religious thing, it's more of a cultural thing, but it is a religious thing, that they are all self-employed. Meaning that if you work for someone, like you're on this team, and this is your only position

is on this team, that you have one client. You're self-employed, and you have one client, and you have to keep that client impressed with you or you will lose the client, and that's Ramsey Solutions in this case. So if you're Jewish and you work for XYZ company, that is you, you have one client and you're trying to impress that client and you want to keep the client and you want to cause the client to win as a result of having you around. And that's a different way of looking at it rather than coming in and go, now what's the benefits package? That's a different way of looking at it, right? I tell the recruiting team, the interview team, I tell leaders all the time, it's good for people to ask in the interview process what the job pays.

You would be unintelligent if you don't. It's good for people to ask during the interview process to find out what the benefits package is and the vacation time is. You'd be unintelligent if you don't do that in the interview process. But if you sit down in the first five minutes of an interview and that's all you want to know, you're there for what you can take rather than what you can lend to the organization. Run them out with a stick. Don't continue the interview process.

If the first five minutes is all about what you can give me, you don't belong here. You're looking for a J-O-B. And I don't want people like that. And the rest of us that don't work a J-O-B in this place. But we don't want you. The rest of us are having fun. Because we're working with people that care. Action's got to happen.

That's self-employed mentality. You're not just in here going, thank God it's money. Thank God it's Friday. Don't live your life that way. Don't live your life that way anywhere ever. Oh, I hate Monday. Thank God it's Friday. Now, go, we all have hard times when we're working somewhere?

Yeah! Because we're scratching and clawing and beating through stuff with bats and swords and chainsaws, man. Of course, there's some weeks you go. You crawl home, you go, God, I'm glad that week's over. It sucked. If you don't have one of those weeks, you ain't doing nothing. You're going to have some of those weeks. That's not what I'm talking about.

But I'm talking about you reach the point that you're going to. You're like, God, I just don't, just go over there. And I think, well, I've got to pay the house payment, so I've got to show up. Don't live your life that way. Don't live your life that way. Go be somebody. Go do something. And I've said it before, and I'll say it a hundred times.

Sometimes you hear out there in the negative blogs, Dave Ramsey's like a cult leader. We know I'm not a cult leader because I ask people to leave regularly. Leave. Go find what you're supposed to be doing. HR hates it when I do this because people take me seriously. I want you to take me seriously. I don't want you to put your family in jeopardy

and we'll work with you. We're not trying to harm you. But if you don't care anymore, you're in a wrong place. You're in the wrong place. I still care. Can you tell? Can you tell?

I'm having a blast. Leading this place, working on the broken things in this place. Because I just, I can't stand to lose because every time I lose, it means a family like that doesn't win. That's why I'm put on this planet. It's why you're here.

That's why we're here. How many of you have known somebody that spent their entire working career or even five or ten years of their working career doing something they hated with people they hated? They were mailing it in and it was substandard. We've all known those poor people. Don't be one of those people. Don't be that.

Don't be that guy. Don't do it. Be self-employed. And if you got one client, that's fine. That's awesome. I got one client here in this room. And then I got a bunch of clients out there that we together are going to lift, help, and change the trajectory of their lives, of their family tree.

Entire family trees are going to be changed because of what you do this week. If that doesn't resonate, you've got a problem. You own this place. place. Defend it. You don't care about this place enough to defend it? It's not yours. You can't find a place like this anywhere. This is rare. You're breathing air that not many people get to breathe. We call it rare air. It's different. It's different because of who you are and because of stuff like that core value. Don't let someone else set the tone for your life. You're self-employed. Hey, if you enjoyed hearing from Dave, while he is not on this podcast a lot, he is always at our Entree Leadership One Day events, our Entree Master Series, which I told you about earlier in the podcast.

And we're very excited. We've been telling you about this. The Entree Leadership One Day, for the first time ever, we're going to live stream it. So we're going to open up the audience. It's October the 19th. Kansas City, you can watch it anywhere that you can get a live stream. So this is a one-time deal. We're not going to replay this. October the 19th is the day that you can gather with, whoever you want to gather with, and take part in this amazing one-day event that offers the playbook of Andrele leadership. How did Dave start from a card table

and grow to the broadcasting empire that he leads today? And so, mark the calendar, sign up, don't miss out. It's only $24 for you podcast listeners. That's right. Eric, the producer, is out there on. your behalf lobbying Daniel Tarty. $24, that's a $5 saving. So here's how you get the special price for the live stream. You type in EL Podcast at entreleadership.com slash E1D. That's right. The code is EL podcast. And all you got to do is enter that at entreleadership.com slash E1D,

join the live stream. And then, of course, while you're there, entreeleadership.com slash E1D, if you want to join us live in Kansas City, that's an option as well. We'd love to see. see you there. And while I'm telling you about things you need to know and do, don't forget about the team communication field guide, this is something we've been given away all month in August. It's absolutely free. How do you keep your team engaged and productive? It's all about communication. We're going to guide you through it. Many people have taken us up on this. How do you handle difficult discussions? Nine hacks that will help you take your meetings to a whole other level of productivity. Key responsibility areas. Weekly reports. How to have a great staff

That's just a snapshot of all the great stuff in the team communication field guide. Text the word communication to 33444. Text communication to 33444. If you don't want to do the texting option, as always, you can go to this episode at entreleadership.com. Click on podcast and it's in the show notes. We have a link for you to download this field guide. Also, InfusionSoft in the month of August, giving away another great. resource on how to automate repeat sales. Automate repeat sales. I mean, that is just beautiful.

I like to call that mailbox money. I mean, people are just signing back up and it's all automated. How do you do it? How do you win big with it? Infusionsoft.com slash repeat sales. Infusionsoft.com slash repeat sales. So there are two great free resources for you. You want to make sure that you take advantage of those because a new month is coming and that means more. great free resources, but don't forget to take advantage of these tools. I want to thank Amanda Holmes, Chris Hogan and Dave Ramsey for their contribution to this all-important conversation with you. On behalf of Eric, the producer and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you for listening.

We'll talk with you again. I promise very soon.