EntreLeadership - #221: Dave Ramsey—A 25 Year Celebration

Episode Date: September 11, 2017

From local radio to national syndication, Dave Ramsey and longtime producer Blake Thompson have been on quite a journey together. While the scope and reach of The Dave Ramsey Show have grown immensely, the focus still remains on one singular thing: providing hope for every listener. Join us as Dave and Blake reminisce about their humble radio beginnings, figuring it out along the way, and turning felt needs into thriving business units at Ramsey Solutions. Their best advice after all these years? Never, ever give up! Words to live by, for sure. entreleadership.com/podcast EntreLeadership eBook Giveaway   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is Andre Leadership. Now, here's your host, Ken Coleman. From the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders, by leaders, for leaders. Thanks for joining the conversation, and this episode has a very special conversation. Dave Ramsey, our founder of Ramsey Solutions, of course, the man who created the term Entree Leadership, of which you are a part of that awesome tribe, and his longtime, producer, Blake Thompson, his very first producer. Now Blake is an executive producer and actually

on our operating board. And Blake Thompson listens to every one of these episodes before they go out. And so he's a big part of this tribe as well. And so recently I got in Dave's studio with Blake and Dave and we go back on 25 years of the show. It's really good stuff. A lot of great leadership content there. And then after that conversation, I have a very special personal announcement. and we'll give you something too. But I'm excited to share something with you folks that I think you might be excited about and I want you to be excited about it

because I'm out of my mind excited about it. So there you go. Is that a good enough tease, Eric the producer? I think that's what we like to see there. So let's get right to this. This is such a fun, fun conversation when you realize that Blake and Dave started out in local radio.

It was a circus. It was an absolute circus. and it started very, very small. And here's what I love. It started with a vision, having no idea what the provision was going to be. I tweeted that this morning from my account at Ken Coleman on Twitter. The vision always comes before provision. It's just that simple.

But Dave knew what the vision was. even though he didn't know how the mission itself would lead. So good. Take some notes. Be inspired. Here it is. My conversation with Dave Ramsey and Blake Thompson. Well, this is so fun to have Dave Ramsey and Blake Thompson in studio.

And when I say in studio, not our normal entree studio. This is the big show, as I like to affectionately call it, the Dave Ramsey show. And this past June 29th, we celebrated 25 years. And so, Dave, we have to start with, when did radio first pop into your mind as a possibility? So you've got, you go bankrupt and you start digging out and you go, I want to help some people. When do you first entertain the idea of maybe a radio show is a good platform for my message? Oh, I didn't. It fell into my lap in the sense of God directed it.

But, no, I went on a show to promote the live. local real estate club that I was on. The show was like a bad Saturday Night Live skit, like bad financial hour, you know, is what you would have called it Saturday Night Live, right? And this guy had a horrible show. And he let anybody on, so he let me on to talk about some nothing down shister that was coming to our real estate club to teach people to buy real estate with nothing down. And I was on down to promote it because I wanted people to come out and join our club. So that's why we were having this big guy come to town. So anyway, I went on and we ran out of stuff to talk about. So the guy goes, hey, so what are you doing these days? I know. I know.

you like lost everything in real estate and he had lost everything. So we're sitting there telling like foreclosure jokes or something, you know, and like sick humor. And I said, well, I'm actually helping people at my church getting out of debt and that kind of thing and helping them with their foreclosure. And if they're facing one and that kind of stuff. And so he goes, hey, if anybody's got any questions, Dave's here, he'll help you. And I went, and the phone rang. And he never got in calls because nobody listened to the show, but the phone rang. No call screener.

He just picks up. And he's like, you know, you have no idea. Yeah, so anyway, I started answering questions. He's like, hey, that's fun. Let's do that again. Oh, yeah, right. I don't think so. But I went back down a couple times and did the show.

And then a friend of mine heard that the guy quit, read it in the newspaper. I think he was like two lines. He quit because the station was in bankruptcy and didn't pay him his $35 or something. So he goes, hey, let's go down there and do that show. And I'm like, I don't want to do radio, man. Radio people are like bankers, you know, big titles, no money. I need money. My kids are trying to eat it.

We're broke. And he goes, hey, you know, we'll go down there. You can do it a couple days a week. I'll do it a couple days a week. It's only an hour a day. You can look at it as a ministry. And I had just written financial piece, and he had a copy of the manuscript. It hadn't even been printed.

And he goes, hey, who knows? You may have sell some of that stupid little book you wrote. Little did he know. And so we go down and talk the guy into letting us work for free. I did the show two days a week. He did the show two days a week. Another friend of mine did a real estate hour on Fridays, and that's how it started. How far removed from bankruptcy?

is this story you just told. Give us an idea of that timeline. Pile bankruptcy, September 23rd of 1988. We went on the air June 29th of 1992, so less than four years. And you're still digging out, right? Three and a half years. Yeah, I mean, I owe the IRS.

You don't get rid of them. KGB stays with you, man. And so we're still struggling. I mean, I'm doing real estate deals again, but I didn't have any money. So I was just flipping. But I was making six figures again. Right.

And I was teaching this stuff, the financial peace materials at my church as a Sunday school and doing, it as a ministry, you know, just helping people with counseling at night and that kind of, helping people get their budgets together and that kind of thing. And, you know, a couple people asked me to speak somewhere and I did. And then the show came up and I'd written the book. I had no idea I was going to sell the book.

And it all kind of came together. How long did it take you to write financial piece that first edition? I flunked English class. So I cheated in English class to keep from flunking. but I wrote it in about the initial home paper in about four months, but the editing process is what was the nightmare, because I handed out, I was stupid,

I handed out 17 copies of the manuscript for people to read and give me their grammar comments, their story comments, their spiritual and scriptural content that I'd get it right and everything else. And so somebody would send me their notes, and I would go through and change the things they said, And so I'd be like on page 16 and I'll change this. This is you're too mean here.

Change your verbiage and Bill Niser. Okay, I change it. And then I'd read the next guy and he goes, this is the funniest thing I've ever read. Don't take this sarcasm out. And so I'd go put it back. You know, it's like back and forth. It was a horrendous way to edit a book. Just a horrible, horrible.

Wow. And so we're going to get to the season where you decide, okay, we're going to take this radio show a little bit to another level. And we'll hire Blake. But before that. So now you're selling the book, and I've heard you tell the story of selling out of the back of your trunk. You're now on the show. You start moving the book. The radio show is going.

At what point do you realize there might be, and maybe you didn't, but as an entrepreneur, certainly for this audience, you saw a problem. It came from your personal story. You began to try to solve it, and you got some momentum. At what point does it enter your head or heart, Dave, that there might be something here. You're making six figures again. You know real estate really well. You've been successful. You know you're going to get back.

But this whole money game is the name of the show as it develops in the book and teaching and speaking at churches. Did it crystallize at some point? You went, this might be my future. Yeah, yeah, it definitely did. It was within 18 months of starting the show that we went full time. Right. Quote, financial peace. I quit doing real estate and opened the little office, started doing coaching and speaking and selling books.

Radio show didn't make money. It lost money for the first, probably six years that we were. We were on the air, but we knew the need was there. And part of my recovery from going bankrupt was I studied and read and learned biblical ways of handling money and started realizing that I wasn't the only one that was stupid, the majority of people. 70% of Americans love paycheck to paycheck, you know. And so all these people walk around acting like they've got it together, almost none of them do. So I started realizing the market was huge. The need was huge.

And so if I can help them with a book, I could probably sell busy in books. If I could help them with a class, I could probably sell busy in classes. But we never thought the radio show was ever going to be a big profit center, which is ironic because it's a huge profit center today. But it was the megaphone. It was the way we sold tickets to seminars. It was the way we got people to buy books. It was the way we got people to buy counseling. It basically was an infomercial for all the things that we had to offer in the early days.

And so it was a loss leader. You know, a marketing mechanism is what it became very quickly. And still is. It's not a loss leader. but I mean, it still is a megaphone for our message and letting people know that, hey, we can help you in a lot of different ways. Where is the show at when you start to look for somebody that eventually becomes Blake Thompson? How long has the show been going? How is it doing? Take us to that moment. The Gaylord bought the station out of bankruptcy, and Gaylord's a country company.

They had WSMAM, the Grand Ole Opry and all that kind of stuff. So we figure we're all dead. They're going to fire all of us and take this. It was an FM, 100,000-watt FM station, so it's going country. We're all dead meat. And Gaylor did some qualitative and quantitative research, which was unusual for radio people. They actually asked questions to find out what's going on with people, because they would call them up and they would say, hey, do you ever listen to WTN? No. Do you ever listen to 99.7?

No. Have you ever heard of Dave Ramsey? I listen to him every day. Well, that's the station I was on. But they never taught us to say call letters. Right. So we were completely illegal. You're supposed to say the call letters by FCC rules once an hour.

We never said them. Nobody was listening, no. We thought. And what they found was there was a bunch of people listening, and it wasn't showing up in the ratings. So as soon as we start saying the call letters, our ratings went from zero to four to seven to 14, which is unheard of in radio. And we own the market. So Gaylord realized this, and they're like, okay, we're keeping this thing talk. It's a gold mine.

There's a bunch of what they call phantom Qum, meaning. a bunch of listeners that weren't reporting, weren't showing up in the ratings. So they came in, sat down and they said, okay, do you want to stay? And we're like, yeah, we want to stay. But you don't even have to pay us. We figured out we didn't want to be owned by them. We didn't want to be employees. We wanted, so someday you'll have to give up part of your clock because we want to syndicate this someday.

And so anyway, they moved us to the afternoon, which we thought was suicide, because it was one hour before Rush came on and then two hours against Rush. And they said, we can beat Rush. And I'm like, you can't be, if I can just survive against Rush, I'll have a story to tell. And you can syndicate from that. And so we ended up beating him in the Nashville market. And, of course, they made a bazillion dollars off of us because we sold endorsement ads locally. And it really started monetizing locally at that point. And that gave us a ratings and a revenue story to tell to start syndicating.

So we started in that in 92. We're with Gaylord a little while, and it gets settled in a little bit. and then Blake comes on board. And I guess that was like 94, wasn't it? 96. July 96. So four years. Four years in.

Four years in. And at this point, I want people to understand this, at this point, you don't have a full-time producer. You've got somebody essentially operating a board or you operating the board. No, it's the radio station. Right. I was a radio show that they had local radio shows, all we were. So they furnished all the technical.

They furnished the, quote, producer, which was somebody that answered the phone and ran the board. But I didn't need a producer. or that was part of the deal. They furnished the equipment. They furnished everything. We worked for free. All we got was endorsement fees.

But then when we start to syndicate, we've got to think about things that they don't make money on, meaning we get other radio stations we got to fool with, and they don't want anything to do with that. So we have to staff it at that point. And so Blake comes on as four years, because you came on in like June. Yeah, July. July 96. Almost four years to the day. Yeah.

So now you enter into this 25-year calendar. Where are you at? What are you doing? And how does this opportunity enter into your world? Well, I'm a Kansas City boy. Came from Kansas to Treveca Nazarene College at the time. It's a university now, and it's a small private school here in Nashville. My parents both went there and met when they were 19, got married at that age there

and had me shortly after. But we ended up in Kansas City. My dad's a minister. But I came out here my sophomore year just to get away. I'm only child and just said, it's time to get. get away because the college was across the street that my dad worked at. My church was across the street. My school was down the road. And it was time to break out. So I came to Nashville by myself in a truck loaded with all my stuff. Long story short, I graduated from college in 93 at Treveka.

I got engaged the day I graduated and my wife, Tanya. I was a broadcast communications major. And I graduated with that. And I had this dream of starting independent radio. and music station and programming those. And I thought, you know, I'd be on WNAZ, the local Nazarene radio station here, and I would go right from that, right into that job. And, you know, it was like the reality of marriage and taking care of a wife and need that job to support her was just like a pop in the face. I didn't just walk into that.

And so I started working at this place called Nashville Legal Copies. We had set up copy sites and law firms all around Nashville. And we started with a few and ended up growing at the 20-something. And I started as a copier and moved up to managing all those sites and had about two to three team members in each one of those major law firms. And like every 15 minutes, they go around to the secretary, take the order of, hey, send this UPS, double side this, print this, whatever. And I looked over those things for three years after graduating. And that whole time, it was like, oh, man, this is it. You know, I'm trying to find radio gigs, trying to find that producer type of deal at the same time.

but I started growing so fast in there, and the money was getting real good for that age group, for my age at that time, and me and Tonya. And so I was like, okay, that's the most important thing, but I dreaded Monday morning. Sunday nights, Tani said she could see the shift in my face. I'd go from the weekend guy to it's time to go back to that. But I worked hard at it and busting my butt,

and one of the worst days of my job, two people didn't show up, and my pager goes off. And I look down, and it's a 248 number. It tells me it's Treveca. So once I get a break, I call, And I get a hold of a communication professor that I've known there and stayed in contact with. And she said, hey, Blake, I just got a call from Dave Ramsey. He called the school.

Now, do you know who Dave Ramsey is? She asked me, do you know who Dave Ramsey is? And at first I was like, it doesn't ring a bell. And she said, well, he's the host of a radio show called The Money Game. Dave and I joke about this. We talked about on the radio show this year. It hit me right then. This is the guy on the billboard of the ads in the bathroom at like all the, you know,

sports bars or wherever I go to. They were everywhere because they were big. Locally Money Game was growing huge. It was the number one talker in town, beaten Rush, like Dave said. And so when he said that, it triggered. And she said, Blake, he called here. And I was like, why do he call Treveca?

Because I saw that as he's big time. And she said, he was very pleased with a sales guy he had hired six to eight months earlier and thought he tried Treveca first, got her. And long story short, I went in and met with Dave and sat down with them. And she pushed hard. She said, this is a big opportunity because I think this show is going to be huge.

It's changed our lives. And he wants to syndicate this thing. And he has a producer kind of board op that works for the station, goes home after the show. We want someone on his team to work side by side with him and grow this thing. And so I went and met with Dave. We didn't go through many spouses or anybody else. It was Dave and I the first time and another guy. And then the second time we met again.

And then we had dinner together, me and Tanya and Sharon and Dave, at a restaurant still over in Brentwood. And right at the end of it, he offered me the position. Do you remember the lady's name from Trevecca? Oh, Lena Higai Welch, by far. I thank her every single year. 21 years later, every year. Yeah, folks, I think there's something here that I want you to focus in on because here's a lady that, you know, he calls. Yeah.

He wants it lead. She thinks of you. But she also had big belief in your show. I think that's pretty wild. 25 years later, she's one of the, I mean, obviously the show's doing well,

but she thinks it's going to be even bigger. And she goes, this is a great thing. I think, you know, listening to people who give you those nudges in life is something that's really important. I think that's really cool.

I'd like to track her down. I think that'd be fun. I'll introduce you you. So Dave brings you in. Talk about the first day. What can you remember from the first day? I remember coming in with a suit in tie and thinking,

you know, that's what I'll wear from now on. I mean, Dave even back then had that look. Yeah, I've seen the early pictures. Dave rocked the suspenders, I think, and so I was like, if he's at that level, I got to be at that level. And so, I mean, I went out and bought a cheap suit. I probably didn't own one then. Right. And I mean, first day on the job, it was like, here's the goal, here's what we're doing. It was immediately going over to the radio show. So it was a brand new thing to me. I had to work with the board up there,

and I worked on that relationship for a while. And what that looked like for me coming in and taking over the phones and working with Dave and another host at the time. And a lot of that was we were learning and growing. So a lot of it we call like thrown in the fire. We were learned at the same time about syndication and how we hook up with other stations and the clock, creating a clock. How do we do that? So it was a lot of just figure it out. What connected to your heart? And the reason I asked this question is because this is entrepreneurial 101. Dave sees a problem, has a personal story connected to it, once it's solve it, he starts it, and he just continues to knock things down. And then you come on very early, but the show's already a success. And I've seen you get

teared up so many times. If we've had meetings and looking at debt-free screams and all these things, how early on did you really connect with the mission of the work? Once you get in this place, it ends up in your blood. When I say that, I didn't have that thought process going in. But they always say try to find something where you love what you do, and he helped people. And to tell you the truth, it was in here, but I didn't know that that's what I was walking into. It was purely, I met with him, this guy's on fire, I'm getting on his train.

He had me talked into this in about two seconds because I could just tell we're going to be knocking down some walls and I would love to be a part of this opportunity. But man, it just took a couple days on the phone with these people, which I'd never even thought about. Because you're screening calls. I'm screening calls right out of the gate. And learning that process and hearing them and the desperation and, you know, not having the hope.

And it's amazing how they would start early. I would notice how it was like no hope. And then Dave would talk to them and guide them. And they'd start getting it. And when they leave, it was a different person that I had answered the phone talking to originally. So long before there was a term called Entre Leadership. I want you to save that story for how you created it. But long before there was a term, you guys are trying to figure this thing out and starting to syndicate it.

That's a whole other deal. You're winning locally, but now syndicating. because we have so many entrepreneurs and small businessmen and women listening in here who are in those early days right now as they listen to this. They've got this big vision. They know that on some level they're solving problems and they're helping customers. They're serving people. As you begin to look, Dave, and Blake speak to this as well, syndicating this thing. So now we go from local and we're thinking nationally.

There's so many unknowns that had to be on some levels terrifying or certainly have some fear and trepidation. involved. Take us back to those days and how you stepped into those unknowns and what can we as as small businessman and women take from your experience. I'd love you both to speak to that. I don't remember being afraid. Never once. I remember being stupid. Like, I mean, you just so. So you're so stupid you weren't afraid. I think so. I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know. I get that. I didn't know what I didn't know. If I'd have known how hard it was going to be, would I have done it? I don't know. Okay. I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know that I just assumed that we were helping people and we were getting great ratings and great revenues,

and why wouldn't somebody put this show on? And it was like quizzical to me when they would say no. I'm like, what's your problem? What is wrong with you? And we would send out these tapes. And of course, we, you know, I sounded like, we sound like Daryl and their other brother Daryl. I mean, it was like redneck radio, you know, it was horrible.

And we couldn't figure out why some guy in Boston didn't want some guy going W-W-T-N, you know, and we couldn't figure out why they want to carry us in Boston, you know, or New England looked down their nose at us, southern, or. as we were mad like mad rednecks and what's wrong with you people and we couldn't you know and we just said why not why not and finally people some people would tell you in a nice way or some people tell you in a not nice way and you go okay that's what we got to do and you know like we for instance we I found this guy this consultant who was a crook and we brought him in to help us and he helped us buy satellite time sure well it turns out he like knew the satellite guy

and was getting a back door he got a back door on everything this guy and so So we were on this satellite paying three times what we should have been paying, and it was a substandard satellite. And all these stations are going, you sound like crap. Then we find out like the megahertz or whatever, the thing that it's using, we sound like Mickey Mouse coming off of it. And it was nothing more than we bought like the cheap satellite and paid three times too much for it. Because we were just stupid.

Right. I just didn't know. And we're like, God, man. And then we found out we could get a satellite time for a third. the cost from ABC, and then we go to ABC, and then, what, two years later, they come in and they go, okay, we're going to do away with that satellite. Everything's digital now. We're like, oh, crap.

So, you know, there's always something we had to learn. There's always something we, there was the learning curve on, you know, the marketing pieces, the content, the learning curve on the technology that we had to figure out. Not only was it changing rapidly, but we didn't know beans about it. I mean, we knew how to answer a telephone. We didn't know how to hook up something to do this. Blake or I need the one. We're like, hey, we've got to get this done, so figure it out.

And you ask a thousand questions, and you look foolish, and who gives a rep? We're doing this. So whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, and, you know, push through, push through. And, yeah, I may look stupid. I may buy the wrong satellite, but, you know, that guy's out of the business. That satellite company's out of the business. We're still here. So something worked, you know.

You just keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. And you learn and learning course correct and course correct. course, correct. If any one of those things had, if we had like, I think one of the lessons maybe for an entrepreneur is, you know, don't fall in love of your prototype because it sucks worse than you think it does. It's going to morph. How you do business, your business model, the product you actually put out, whatever it is, is going to change. Like, all the time. And if it's not, you're dead. And if you fall in love instead of with the idea and the principle of what you're doing, you fall in love with that and you're passionate about that. But the product is, you're

that you use is going to change. Don't fall in love with that. You're going to be dead meat if you do. And if we had, we'd been gone because we just didn't. But all we wanted to do was get people to listen on the other end of the radio. And there were all these barriers, technology barriers, radio stations carrying us, people selling the show, all these different things that were just, that were between me and the listener. I knew if I could get to the listener, we could help them. But there was all these things between us.

See, that's conviction. You knew it was working. So it gave you this courage that you may not even know you had. at the time, right? I think that's a real takeaway. And then the barrier wasn't, oh, there's a barrier. We can't do it. And it wasn't, hey, we've got to spend a ton of money and bring an expert in here

that can knock through the barrier. We don't have a ton of money. We didn't have the money. And we get some duct tape. Get some bailing wire. And I love what you said earlier. You're like, why wouldn't people put this on? There's a conviction there that you knew that you were working and that it was changing lives. I think that's a huge lesson for entrepreneurs. If you can, if you can

prove to yourself that through customers that you're changing lives or you're helping people. If you don't believe in what you're doing, you're dead. Yeah, that's it. It's too difficult. You're right. Everything is too difficult. If you don't believe you have a difference that you're going to make in the space that you're playing in. If you don't believe in your brand differentiation, if you don't believe in the delivery, the end result of your service or product, you got to have a deep conviction because it's just too hard. There's too many big obstacles and you won't run through them. You won't run through the bob wire. You won't climb over the fence. You

won't climb under the log. You won't, you know, just keep bumping into it until it cracks or whatever the methodology is to get around it. You won't do it if you don't have that. Yeah. Yeah, and as these owners, it's very important, like what I saw in Dave early and he still has it now. When you're leading your team, you've got to be that driver.

You've got to put them in those situations where as young as I was starting with Dave, I might have held back in doing some of the things we ended up doing. But because of his drive and saying, hey, we're doing it. I didn't even question it. Yeah. You naturally get that from the leader, and it becomes you. I think there's also something I want you to speak to. I think it's great for our audience.

And that is, in these early days, you didn't even know how bad you sounded, and you got duped, and there's all these stories of doing things the wrong way, but then you kept going, you figured out the right way. And this is where I want to spend a little time, is both of you talking about the commitment to excellence. Dave, you still set a high standard here within our organization that excellence is everything. It's got to be excellent and we're going to figure it out until it's excellent.

Blake, I want you to speak to that because here you are a new radio station and you're figuring out all these things I just mentioned, some of the hurdles, but Dave's commitment to excellence in everything on a broadcast. Before he does that, the reason we did that was so it was practical. It wasn't like some philosophical thing we believe in excellence. It was like,

nobody's going to carry the freaking show. That's right. If the show sounds like crap, nobody's going to carry the show. If the host is a redneck, hillbelly and nobody's going to listen to this guy. He's broadcasting from a double wide. And if the satellite sounds like Mickey Mouse or the long distance falls off, because see, we were competing against these guys with corporate America with these big budgets. And so they're delivering solid everything, wall to wall everything.

And then we're coming in off the back side of a barn trying to pull this thing together. And they were using any little thing we did as an excuse to run us down and not let us be on a station. So we didn't have a choice. Excellence was the only way to survive. Yeah. Because we showed up, show up at these conventions. with all these corporations he's talking about and all these major players. And to that point, we'd go in and just to keep winning and make sure we're a part of that.

And they start recognize us, do our own little marketing or guerrilla marketing, whatever it took. Put our book on their table. Give them a demo tape and try to make relationships with them. Really ground floor. But it works. David can still slay Goliath. It still works. Certainly has happened.

But, I mean, short-circuited. You answer the excellence thing, too. Just to piggyback off what Dave's saying, it's like, okay, we're big in Nashville. Right. That's the ceiling. Okay. How are we going to get this message? How are we going to, the phones are blowing up here?

How are they going to blow up in Dallas if we don't do what it takes to get on in Dallas or Kansas City, etc? So it was like, okay, here's the ceiling. If we want to be the best, if we want to be a household name someday, if we want to touch all of America, these are the obstacles. This is what we have to go through. So it's not just the knocking them down, but to your point. with excellence, we've got to do it the right way with the relationships and how we do this with each other and et cetera. And, yeah.

All right. One of the things I want to talk about that, again, is such a bullseye topic for our audience, and that's the customer. In this case, you've got listeners, readers, live event attendees that you're serving, all with the same felt need and you're helping them. I just want you to speak to how over the years, again, some of it's organic and then it becomes intentional to listen to your audience to make sure you're serving that audience. That's one thing that I've always been impressed with, certainly the show and what we do.

What can our audience learn about being intuitive to make sure that you're continually serving the audience and you don't try to get doing too much? The main thing is the main thing. It's your life and your money. That's what the Dave Ramsey show is about 25 years later. I think if you're in business for something other than your customer, you're not going to make it. If you're in it to self-actualized because I've always wanted to be one of the, or you're in it to make money, you're not going to make it.

Again, it's too tough. You have something that's more noble than just a pile of money. You have something. And we all know, because companies, when they don't think about the customer, they become transactional.

And they drag their customers off their airplane because they don't think anymore, you know, and they become Bank of America, they become Wells Fargo, where it's a transaction, versus when you go in your small town bank, they're still looking at the person's eyes.

They're still saying that's a person. You go in the small town credit union. That's a person. And you can have a big company that's not transactional. I mean, you can have Southwest, right? They're not transactional. They do a transaction. You have to do transactions to stay open,

but they're not transactional. They're thinking about the customer. What's the customer? What's the customer? What's the customer? And it's not like customer service. We don't have a customer service manual today. Our customer service team

That takes 20,000 incoming 800 calls a month They don't have a manual in there on how to serve the customer We don't have customer service training We are people that care about people And your job is to help those people Figure it out It is not rocket science And we had to do that with the listener

And one of the great revelations I remember we came up with And somebody taught us this for you and me And I remember we came home We went wow, it was like an epiphany was that the caller on the radio show is not who we're there to serve. Because I would take a whole hour with one caller. Like I was doing a counseling session.

Sure. I thought they were the customer. And the guy goes, no, the callers are the records you're playing. The customer you're serving is the listener. You're using the content that the caller brings. You're using the caller. You're helping them too. Sure.

But you're using them to help the other millions of people listening. It changes the calls. take and it's call screening it changes how you talk to the caller it changes everything so yes we want to serve that caller we want to answer their question we want to help them otherwise nobody will call because they're not getting any help right but they also there's an entertainment factor and if they're going to be combative you know hey we'll turn you into a neat radio call we'll turn you into a legend with your stupidity on the air and everybody's laughing their butt off in a car you know if they're hurting and they're crying we're going to meet you right there and we're going to help you and lift you up

and everybody's crying in their car. And it's not to be manipulative of that caller, but what we're looking for in the caller is what helps everybody, not just that little weird, nuanced thing that they have. And helping everybody can be an entertainment factor. But it also can be literally instruction. It could be motivation. It could just be reminding you that you love your wife, you know,

because this guy's calling up and his wife just passed away, you know, and, God, I've got to go home and hug my wife, you know. I mean, that's serving the listener and helping that caller. So we try to do both every time, but it was a revelation. You remember that conversation? Yeah, definitely. And along with that, to your question, Ken, is just encourage the entree leaders to listen to their customer and their felt need. The beauty of talk radios, we hear a lot of them on the air and get to talk to them where we're screen and et cetera.

And if you just get past, we have all the answers. We know this world better than you. You're just the customer. some of the biggest business units that have stemmed out of this small radio show that started in 92 within this Ramsey Solutions is because Dave kept hearing it over and over from the customer. Some felt need they were looking for and we go, we can plug into that and solve that. Yeah, that's a great point. I'm glad you bring that up.

Let's talk about seeing the right opportunity and then seizing it. So you're on the air. I think of our endorsed local provider program. You know, many of our entree audience come to. to us from outside the Dave Ramsey show. I think it would be fun to explain what that endorsed local provider program is. It's a phenomenal business unit, but it's helping real people where they are as an extension of you through your credibility and trust you built with the audience. Well, that whole thing was built out of a screw up. Oh, really? Like so much other

things around here. But we had a big endorsement that came on and we thought, oh, God, finally, we got somebody going to give us some money. And it was one of the big brokerage firms. And we said, Yeah, you can come on and, you know, they're going to give us a big pile of money, and we're going to endorse them, send everybody to them to get their IRAs and get their investments done. You know, do any time you want to do a rollover or you want to set up your kids' college fund to go see so-and-so. So we put these people on the air. And, I mean, within minutes, our tribe was responsive. I mean, we started getting hate mail almost immediately.

Dave, you're saying to ABC, I go over. over there. You're saying never buying them by mutual funds. I go over there. This guy's trying to sell me gold futures. You're saying never buy a whole life insurance. He's over trying to sell me a whole life insurance. And so this big company, when we sent it to their local broker, the local broker is just like, well, I don't do whatever I want to do. And they had no concept that I had been teaching these people what to do and that their advice was perpendicular. And so there was this huge thing. And I'm like, crap, I got to take these people off the air because they're screwing my listeners. Oh, man, I need this money, though. It's finally we could pay the satellite bill. You know, it's like, unbelievable. And so now we can't take them off there. We can't do this. And so I called a couple of big brokers and were like, yeah, this is what I do.

I'm like, you're just stupid, man. What we figured out was that stupid was not all within that brand that almost any brokerage house has some smart people and some stupid people working for them. And so we said, okay, regardless of the brand, we need to find individual shops. can endorse, meaning I don't care if they're who they work for, if they do the stuff we teach, or they'll agree to do the stuff we teach, we'll send them leads to do that. And so we had to, instead of having just one nice fat endorsement on the network, we ended up having to syndicate the dadgum endorsement of investment advisors, is what amount to.

We had to go to each city and find one that would align themselves with what we teach so that the listener was getting consistent advice from me and them. And so there wasn't an integrity thing or I wasn't feeding my dadgum listeners to the wolves because that business is full of wolves. And so, you know, we'd get one that was one brand. We'd get one. That's another brand. And it started all with the investing side. We called them ELPs in those days.

Now the investor side is called SmartVestor Pros. We had a brand change on that about 24 months ago. Well, then that worked. And it grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. And Jack Galloway is running that area to this day, one of our operating board members now. Treveka boy. So Jack comes in and goes, hey, well, I want to do this for real estate. And I'm like, man, I grew up in real estate business.

There's no way you can get these real estate people to do that. They're a bunch of wild characters. They do whatever they want to do. I mean, any industry that has glamour shots on their business card, you have a problem. You know, I mean, this is going to be an issue. You know, so you're going to have drama out your ears, man. And so he goes, oh, I got to try it. I got to try it.

You're going to regret it. But go ahead. You're going to leave Mark, man. I'm telling you. And I was wrong. I mean, real estate's revenue off the real estate ELP program. And we, of course, found the only the top drawer real estate people. What we were looking for there was the high producers because a lot of people in real estate business do one house a year.

You know, I list your house of that guy. I wouldn't, I wouldn't tell you to if you're my friend and you're my listener, you're my friend. So again, endorsed local people we endorse, but they're local providing help with something we teach you to do on the radio. It gives you a safe place, someone you can trust. And the trust transfer created an explosive brand. and an exclusive business model, and it's parlayed into a whole bunch of other spaces as well now. Really great entrepreneurial story there. I love that. Blake, I want to talk about developing leaders.

Obviously, this is a podcast. We focus a lot on leadership. We're a brand that has the word leader in it. I want you to talk about when you came in, we got that story earlier, and now you sit on the operating board. You, you know, beyond executive producer, which you've been for years, you train James Childs, who's one of the best producers. in America to failure, there is a real intentional leadership development in this organization, Ramsey Solutions. From the early days to now, what has our company done right when it comes to

hiring from without and promoting from within, very intentionally? Well, one main thing nowadays is the interview process itself and what it takes to get in these doors and the quality of the person we allow to be a part of this team. It's purely, you know, grind, do what you're supposed to do, head down, and do the work and work really hard. But more importantly that is this place means more than just a job. And the leaders in this building that have gone up, whatever way they've grown to what they are today, every one of them have the foundation of they care so much about this place and what we do for people that they will fight for it. Yeah, I think that is just so vital versus just just becoming the expert in your field or just, now that's important too. Read as much

you can, learn from others. I remember meeting with a Russia's producer. I remember having a relationship back in the day when G. Gordon was huge. His producer helped me form the first clock. And those things are really important. And that's what we're all called to do in order to grow. but having this place on you so much and caring about the people you're leading as you do get people beside you and really caring about their family and growing them. I get more out of guys on my team that have gone from a mid-level or just, you know, basic to what they are now, like a James, and I have many more that I can name, being able to help them become successful and do it right and look back at that where I was when I first came in the door, which was funny.

to where I am now in wanting those guys to achieve that too. And it's just pouring into them and caring about them. Yeah. It leads me to one of my favorite stories that Dave tells, and he's got a million of them and I love them all. But the very brand that you folks are a part of this awesome, vibrant, growing tribe called Entree Leadership comes from Dave needed to name some internal training. You were training leaders being intentional. Just share the brief version of that story.

And you teach on this all around the country. What entree leader means, what an entrepreneur looks like, what a leader looks like, and why you smash those two words together. I knew that we needed new leaders, and I couldn't personally mentor them fast enough as fast as the organization was growing. And so I needed to teach the basics, the tactical things and the principles both that we were doing. So when in doubt, what a teacher does is they teach, and I'm a teacher. So start teaching a class on Tuesday night with an overhead projector and, you know, said, if you want to be a leader, here you want to learn how to run a business come and you know I'm going to do it in the afternoon at the end of work and I'll give you 30 minutes on the clock you give me 30 minutes off the

clock if you want to learn about it and so we set up an overhead projector ran off lessons after I got off the ear and then type up a lesson and teach somebody about hiring and firing or teach them about you know advertising principles and accounting principles or whatever and those kinds of things and so but you have to name the class right even though there's nobody coming much but I mean it's not it's not customer facing it was internal but even then I'm like, okay, just call it leadership. But I went to business school. I've got a degree in finance, and so anybody that's got that degree has sat in the management class with a tenured professor who's never made payroll, and that leaves a psychological scar on you forever. And so I didn't

want to call it leadership, because leadership reminded me a management class. I know leadership's not that, but it's what it reminded me of. So I knew I needed leaders, but I wanted more than that, because I knew we were more than just leaders. I didn't want like a corporate leadership thing. you know, we needed people that would grit their teeth, take a deep breath, and run through a wall. And that's the entrepreneur, right? And then I got to think, so what I needs a bunch of entrepreneurs? And then you're thinking, oh, God, no,

because all of us that are entrepreneurial are a little bit ADD, you know, it's like squirrel. And so what I finally figured out was, was that I wanted leaders with the energy of an entrepreneur, and I wanted entrepreneurs with the polish of a leader, and the different character qualities that both represents combined. So I just combined the word, and I called it entree leadership.

And now it's a big enough brand that we're all real comfortable with it. But there's been times that it, you know, you get sick of explaining what it was. So it probably wasn't really a good name, truthfully, looking back on it. Because, you know, if you have to explain what your name means, you don't, you know, you screwed up in your branding. So we talked about changing it even back when we did the book. We talked about changing the name. But we couldn't come up with anything better.

So we stuck with it and ran it on through it. Because it still just meant that to us. And we were all comfortable. And we thought, well, we'll just spend the brand equity out there to get the customer to grasp what we mean when we say that. But it is the energy, the entrepreneur, with the polish of the leader. And it's grown. That book was number one and still sells like hotcakes. And now we have multiple events. As we look back on this year, we have entree leadership one days with thousands of people. The Entry Leadership Summit is becoming

the crown jewel of leadership events with an amazing tribe. All access, thousands of men and women engaging daily, weekly, monthly, and a great community that is built on coaching and content from our playbook. Christy Wright's Business Boutique. That's just a much better name. It will true. It's just so descriptive. That's so prescriptive.

I mean, it's just a much. You don't have to explain. You know what it means. And that's a felt need one. That's a great example of Dave and I on the radio for years had women calling saying, how do I do this? What can I do to make some extra money at home, et cetera? And Dave's wheels were turning early about figuring that out.

Look what it's become just from listening to your customer. We have to wrap our time, and this community is so special. I just will give both of you the last word. How would you just from wherever you're at today or where you're at in this season, and I know you both care deeply about our entree leadership audience, what would you say to them? How would you encourage them? If you're ground floor, just thinking of my story of just starting out,

don't give up. That's one of Dave's biggest messages for 21 years. I've been here is don't give up. And we have so many examples of times we could have given up. And then we get to see every single day the families we touch out there in that lobby screaming their debt free with their kids. And if we would have given up on multiple occasions or saying, hey, we just don't know how to do it. We're not going to knock down that wall.

Then millions of those would have never been touched. And again, we're big about, we'll just give you that information of how to go do it. but they're the ones doing it. They're the heroes. They're the ones that put their nose down and did all the work. Just encouraged the first thing I think of is not giving up. Yeah, it's good. And I think the theme of this discussion has just been listening to the customer and care deeply about them.

And that'll cause you to not give up. I mean, it'll cause you to iterate. We didn't know what iterate meant when we started, but we did a lot of it. Right. You know, we couldn't spell iterate. Iterate. Iterate. That's probably what we said, yeah.

They what? You just got it. You're in it, right? But the, uh, for those of who you don't quite get that, Dave took, uh, like,

did you take lessons to, yeah, I mean, you're a Tennessee boy and, and, yeah, that's part of it. I have a voice coach come in

from a broadcast school to teach me to not say, ass. Instead say ice. So we could get on in the north. Or going. Yeah. Going.

You know, I finish my I and G's most of the time. I don't always. And I almost always say double you now, not Deb you. That's right. Unless I'm referring to the That's right.

But, oh my gosh. So, yeah, we didn't know what that meant. We didn't know what it meant that we were, how many times we were going to have to change things. So what we did was we quit doing things that didn't work, but we didn't quit. Love that. And you quit doing things that don't work, but you don't quit the concept. You don't quit. We're still going to get there.

We just don't know how. That color bicycle didn't get us there. We need a moped that does this. We need a motorcycle does this. We need a rocket ship that does this. And so we got to find a way. You got to find a way to get that in here. And we don't have the money.

And so we got to make up for it with sweat. And that's all we did. And so we quit doing a lot of things, but we never gave up. And there's a little distinction there that is, you know, people say, Winters never quit. Yeah, they quit doing stupid stuff all the time. But they don't give up. And that's the difference.

A quarter of a century is nothing to sneeze about. Longevity is something to aspire to. And both of you have shared so much with us. We could talk for hours and hours hours. We did this to encourage you, folks. She means so much to us. So one more time, thanks to Dave and Blake for being with us. We appreciate you all so much.

Thanks, Kim. That was fun. Yeah, it was fun. Well, I hope you enjoyed that. We say this a lot around here. Remember, we're standing on the shoulders of giants, and I make no bones about it. I declare that Dave Ramsey's a giant. He's a giant among entrepreneurs.

He's a giant among men because of his character, because of his commitment to excellence. So thrilled to have him and Blake Thompson with us, there's so much to learn there. And speaking off standing on. the shoulders of giants. I get to stand on Dave's shoulders quite a bit, certainly on this broadcast, Entree Leadership, where I get to sit down and interview the brightest women and men in all walks of life, that then their stories, the conversation that I get to have with them is encouraging you.

We hear this all the time. Recently, Dave started allowing me to guest hosts his radio show, the third largest show in America, something that I never envisioned happening. I'm not a money expert, never will be. But it has been a great joy. And I am beyond privileged and grateful to Dave Ramsey for the opportunity that I get to share with you. Now, many of you may have seen on social media,

I've been talking about it, but if you've not seen or heard this news, today, as this episode comes to you, the Ken Coleman show debuts on serious apps, X-M, and we are going to have a conversation about maximizing the unique role you were born to play. Now, that's going to play out in a couple of key elements. The first is, we were created to work. So what were you born to do?

We're going to focus on helping you discover what you were born to do, and then, most importantly, how to make that a reality. We're getting in the weeds. It's practical. We're going to encourage you. We're going to equip you. And every once in a while, we will entertain you because I just like to have to have. have fun. So many of you on this broadcast have heard me talk about the sweet spot and living out your calling. That's our primary focus. But we're going to expand that. You folks are more than

one-dimensional. What I mean by that is I am more than just a broadcaster. I also happen to be a husband. I happen to be a father. I happen to be a provider. I happen to be a son. I happen to be a friend, right? The list of your titles and your unique roles goes on and on and on. So to live a life of significance, to make the most out of the opportunity I've been given, to maximize my roles, plural, we're going to add an element that on our Friday shows, I'm going to have some friends of Ken stop by, friends who are leading experts on marriage, relationships, parenting, money, health, every once in a while we'll do some business leadership stuff as well

every once in a while we'll do some personal growth stuff beyond those big buckets so we'd love for you to join us it is on serious xm channel 132 the triumph channel you can also go to ken coleman show dot com ken coleman show dot com really really proud of what the team has done this is a conversation that will help you all and i will just tell you plainly we're going to continue to do what we do here which is to help you grow yourself your team and your profits. But you want to go deeper on your personal growth? You want to get some clarity on where it is you're supposed to be? Come on over to the Ken Coleman Show. Tell everybody about it. You know some friends, some family that are lost, stuck, confused, scared, ashamed, absolutely clueless.

Come one, come all. The Ken Coleman Show on Sirius XM Channel 132, Ken Coleman Show.com. So thrilled to get that going. So there's my announcement, but I also mentioned a giveaway. So we are so excited about what we're doing on Sirius XM. And I want to mention this really quickly. We have a four-hour block every weekday. The Ken Coleman show that I just mentioned is a part of it. Our Ramsey Solutions Podcast, that's retire-inspired, business boutique, life, money, hope, all of those.

Plus, this Entree Leadership broadcast is going to be a part of that lineup. Each one of those broadcasts will air before my show then Dave Ramsey. So in honor of this exciting opportunity, we're giving away the book of Entree Leadership. It's the number one bestselling book from Dave, of course. That is the title of this broadcast and our tribe. Entree Leadership, it's absolutely free. Some of you're going, hey, Ken, appreciate that, pal, but I already have it. You can give it to somebody else.

Have an attitude of gratitude. It's what I say to my kids all the time. I kid. I know none of you had that response at all, but just in case two of you did, well, it's anonymous. Nobody knows. Just look around you right now. Nobody has any idea that I just scolded you on that. So give it away if you've already got it.

And let me tell you something, folks, this matters because we are getting new listeners every week. Eric, the producer tells me that we have over 1,000 new subscribers every week. Folks, that's what we call growth. And one of the ways you can get them to engage over here is send them a free resource like this. Number one, New York Times, bestselling book, Entree Leadership. Here's how you get it. Text Sirius XM to 33444. No spaces.

Text Sirius XM to 334444. Now here's the deal. We're only giving this away for three weeks. So you better mark your calendars because if you're like me, three weeks are going to absolutely be gone in a blink and you're going to come looking for it and then you're going to have a bad attitude. But I told you three weeks. three weeks from right now, this special free offer of Entree leadership goes away. Goes away, just like your daily grind.

Boom, gone. It's tomorrow already. So take this serious and act on it quickly. Well, folks, I say this every time as we end our time together, but we just absolutely want to say thanks for being a part of this tribe, this broadcast for downloading, for listening, for sharing. And hey, I thank you in advance for those of you that have come check out the Ken Coleman show over on Sirius XM Channel 132.

Really excited about next week's broadcast. One of our favorite guests, Pat Lynch-Joni, is back. We're going even more in-depth on the ideal team player. Specific focus on hiring. So using it on the front end, not so much training, but really almost recruiting and filtering. So on behalf of Eric the producer, engineer Will Rudder, and the entire Entree leadership team,

thanks for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.