EntreLeadership - #230: Live From Our 1-Day Leadership Event

Episode Date: October 31, 2017

We are so excited to share some of the highlights from last Friday’s EntreLeadership 1-Day event! Over 1,000 small-business owners and leaders from around the country gathered in Nashville to learn all about building a championship team, and it was a power-packed day to say the least. Join us as Dave explains why your team is your absolute most valuable resource—and if it’s not, why it needs to be. He, along with best-selling author and leadership guru Patrick Lencioni, will also break down what might be sabotaging your company’s culture—and exactly how to turn things around for good. And we’ll hear from some of this year’s attendees as they share the personal challenges they’ve faced while running their own businesses. Head’s up: You’ll want to take some notes during this one! entreleadership.com/podcast Team Communication Field Guide All Access Membership Discount How to Hire, Engage & Stop Work Stress 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. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the broadcast of leaders by leaders for leaders. Thank you so much for joining the conversation. We are recording this episode backstage from our Entree Leadership One Day event in Nashville. The event was live streamed around the country and in 17 countries. really fun format this episode. You're going to hear from some of our attendees who were with us.

These attendees are business owners and their team members. You also hear some content from Dave Ramsey and Pat Lynchione from our stage. And here's what I like most about the conversation with our attendees. We investigated with them why they as busy leaders and their busy teams would set aside an entire day of work to improve their business. And don't forget, as always, we're going to bring you two great free resources in the episode. All right, folks, to get started. We're going to introduce you to Curtis and Christine Smith, a husband and wife team. Their enthusiasm and story is so intriguing that Eric the producer literally grabbed them

in the hallway before the event to record why they are here. And we couldn't be more excited to have them with us. They're about to assemble a team, so that's why they're here to learn more about leading people. And we just believe that they're going to experience tremendous growth. So let's listen in to Curtis and Christine Smith. Hey, hey, I'm Curtis Smith. I'm Christine Smith. And we own Premier Service Group here in Nashville, Tennessee.

We started our business almost 10 years ago strictly as a get out of debt tool. It took four years and 10 months. We got out of debt. And we are here today because we can experience some growth really quickly, but we want to do it and strategize. and implement the best way possible, and today could not come at a better time for us. It started, obviously, just with Curtis and I, and we did everything together, so all of the physical, lovely manual labor that is involved with mobile detailing.

That's how it started. We did it together. Over the years, we've hired people and fired people, and it didn't work out so well. So we've got Curtis, me, one full-time, and then two part-time guys. That's the structure of it. mobile detailing, and we've moved on. Now it's become a service group where we do mobile detailing, window cleaning, driveway pressure washing ceiling, holiday lighting. Anything that our clients ask Curtis if he can do, he says absolutely, and then he just figures out how to do it.

It's been incredible. It was hard at first. I mean, we almost, to be quite honest, we almost got divorced because debt is a, you know, it's just a, it's a killer. It's a killer of all things. Marriage, life. Especially when you have no way to pay for it. Yes. It just sucks everything out. So it's just been a roller coaster. We were going to shoot for five years, which we felt like was a lofty goal. But I said the next five years are going to come whether we want it to or not. So in five years, we can be sitting here in the same crappy mess that we're in right now or we can be done. And we just, our motto in our marriage and in everything else is whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, baby. And that started. We scrub toilets. I mean, we did it

anything that we could do. This is a different world. Now we're in the good. We turn this corner and never look back. And weirdly, it brought us closer together in our marriage. Oh my gosh. But I mean putting the Lord first. Now we can do anything. Yeah. It's just like, okay. When we first started working together, it was rough. I mean, it was a lot of- greatest arguments of all time were working together. We were mad. I mean, and it was, you know, and you're also talking about really hard labor. This is physical. labor. We were outside. It was the summer I remember when we had like 10 days of over 106 degrees. It was crazy. So we're like drenched and sweat and I'm over here with this guilt

feeling like she's out here. This absolutely gorgeous woman is out here. That was 11 years ago. She is more gorgeous today than she's ever been. I would look over at her working just as hard as anyone could ever work, and I'm thinking, she's out here doing this. One, it was guilt, but then it was also followed up with, I can't believe someone is doing this with me on my journey. And I realized then how much of a blessing our marriage was. And then I thought about, I think it feels like this whatever it takes motto is so ingrained in us that if we had to live in a cardboard box together, it'd be fine. I mean, it's not, I don't even think about it. It's just autopilot. We see a mountain. We jump over it.

But we do it as a team. Yeah. And it was just hard at first. It was just really... Yeah, this did not happen without disciplined, concentrated effort. We don't do anything the easy way. But I also, I have an eye disease. And so I lost almost all of my central vision.

I tried to hide it, but I haven't been able to drive in about nine years. So there's just been like this added element and this added pressure and stress on Curtis. But all of this. has made us like, okay, we are in this. And we're a team and we're going to do it. Right. And I'm fired up because, you know, it's just this, you don't, when I say autopilot, I mean, you know, you hear folks that maybe make excuses for things they want to do or couples that I can't do this and I can't do that. And it's all, so not an excuse person. No. And I'm saying it's just this self-sacrifice that is, that's part of the autopilot.

Ever since then, that's, our business is debt-free also. I see the type of business that we pray for. We intentionally prayed for the type of business clientele that we would have when we started this business. I have learned contentment. I've learned thankfulness through this business. So those are two huge reasons we want to keep going in this business is because I see the blessing that it is and that I can't just throw this away. And I see, you know, it's all perspective. We get to work for ourselves every day. That is a, that's a huge deal that you can take for granted. And we work for ourselves every day. We make our own schedule. I don't even think about the, yeah, it's the responsibility or all the things that go into owning a business. I look at those is just,

okay, that's all I have to do. In order for our business to grow the way that we want it to grow. And the way it can grow, we turn away business every day. We really do, which is nuts. It's crazy. Yeah. So we've hired, we've fired, we've had some really interesting characters, really. We feel really strongly that because what we learned from Dave and what we implemented, listening to him and following his steps, getting us out of $200,000 worth of debt, that it only makes sense. We do turn business away a lot, but we have also had recently, we have a contract that is local, that we have the possibility for it to go all over the United States. And so in order for us to do that, we know, obviously, that's not happening with just Curtis and a few people and myself. We need to know how to grow it. And we need to know how to grow it smartly.

And we feel really confidently that who else would I even turn to, you know, besides Dave. We will seek all advice. That's right. And the hardest thing in this industry that we're in, we really have carved a niche for ourselves where there are a lot of companies around that do these services individually, but no one does them. all together like we do. So we have that. And now this would be a different conversation if we didn't have a right person in place. We have a great full-time guy that's with us now that he wants to grow with the company. And we can see him growing with the company. And we want to invest in his life. We want to invest time into him and realize the blessing of being able to be a part of his future

and affect his future. So I want to know how to do that in the right way. And of course I know. Dave teaches that. It's practical wisdom from the trenches like the book says, and Dave starting the business so small and growing it to what he's at. Of course, I mean, this is the playbook. Highlights. Money's part of our testimony. We do whatever it takes, and the next few years are going to come, whether you want them to or not. And from that, I think we might be out. We need to go listen to Dave and learn some clean knowledge. That's the highlights. Thanks, baby. Hope you enjoyed listening to Curtis and Christine. And folks, we started off our day with Dave Ramsey coming out of the gate. talking about one of the most important resources that any organization has people.

The talk was entitled People Matter Most, and we wanted to bring you just a clip from that talk. Here's Dave talking about people matter most. Over the last decade, Fortune 500 companies have added a net decrease to the economy of 4 million jobs. During that same period of time, privately held, primarily family-owned small businesses have added 8 million jobs to the economy. If you're in here and you're running a small business, if you're watching this from one of the 17 countries around the world or one of the 50 states that are watching this, and you're running or owning a small family-owned business, you are the freaking economy. And you can't be quantified, you can't be politicized, about the only thing we're sure about you is you know how to get up, leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. You get crap done, man, and I'm one of you. There's 28 million small businesses in the American economy right now, and we, we amount to 54% of the gross domestic product of the United States.

we are the economy and they can't figure us out in Washington which is a good thing because everything they figure out they screw up your every background you're every color, you're every sex you're every demographic you come from everywhere

but you share this one thing that you believe in the free enterprise system and you get up and leave the cave and kill something and drag it home small businesses provide 55% of all the jobs in the United States today and since 1970, 66% of all new jobs. I've been a business nerd my whole life.

I love business. I'm an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. I'm a capitalist pig, baby. I love it. I've traveled all over the world. I've seen those other economies. This is the best one. Is it perfect?

Oh, no, no, no, no. But you've got a better shot here than anywhere else. and better right now than in any time in the history of the world. These are good times you and I are sitting in. And, you know, when I first started, y'all, I started hiring people. I was so dumb, I thought if you hired them, they'd work. Y'all know what I'm talking about? I thought if you hired them, they would actually care.

They would actually show up and care. Oh, man, was I in for a treat? Well, I spent the next 30 years of my life learning how to get the right, right people on the team. And as my friend Jim Collins says, the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and right people on the right seats on the bus. And it's one of the great joys of my life now that we're at that point. I started teaching a little class to our team so I could grow leaders within our team. And you know, I want to grow leaders within my team. I need other leadership because I can't do it all myself. And, you know, once you get above about

five or six people, you lose the ability to watch over everything by yourself. If you're trying to directly manage more than about seven people, you've got a problem. And finally, I said, well, we've got to have some other leaders to lead and guide and help these people. And I didn't know what I was doing. Y'all, I was 30-something years old. I was 32 when I started, I was a boss. I wasn't a leader. I didn't know what I was doing. But I thought, we're going to teach leadership. We're going to teach leadership. We're going to teach leadership. Had a young guy working for me and he was doing the stuff he was supposed to be doing wrong. I said, dude, don't do it that way.

And I said, okay, okay, I'll go away. I come back. He's doing it again. I'm like, dude, hello, don't do it that way. Do it this way. Okay, okay. I'll go off. I come back, he's doing it wrong again. I'm like, boy, we're going to set you free in Jesus' name. This ain't hard.

I showed you what to do. Don't do it. This is the wrong way to handle this. Do it this way. You ever done this? He looks at me, and he says, I'm not like you. I said, hmm, okay. Change.

You don't have to be like me, but there's a right way to do it and the wrong way to do. You're doing the wrong freaking way. And that's a decision. Change. I'm not very passionate. Change. It's a decision. You got that kind of power.

Now, you may be screwed up, and that's why you don't know how to decide. I've been screwed up a time or two and decided some stupid stuff with smart, and it'll come home to get you. But it's a decision. It's a choice. I got to thinking, maybe I don't just want leaders in my organization, although that would be awesome, but I went to college, and so that means I went to management class. Any of you go to management class in college? Taught by a professor that never made payroll. You remember that?

So I'm scarred for life about management after that, right? And so sometimes when I think of leadership, I think of management, don't be, this is leadership management. Managers count stuff. I want leaders. Leaders like, this way. It's a difference between being a boss and a leader, right? leaders pull come on we're going this way come on train's leaving get on the train here we go this is a leader boss is behind the herd and the organization moves at the speed of the lowest common denominator

when you're a boss bosses push leaders pull you make a decision to do these things it's a decide now as an entree leader one of the things you will find that if you're running an organization, non-profit or profit, and you look at the profit and loss statement, or you look at the expense statement if you're a nonprofit, if you look down what you spend your organization's money on, unless you are a very, very unusual company, by far the largest line item on there is payroll. Most of your money goes to payroll, and especially in small business. I got 646 of them working on my team,

and I love them, and I'm glad they're there. Every one of them. If I cease to be glad that someone's there, they're not there anymore. We love them. We don't want them to be somewhere where God doesn't want them to be, where they're not any good at what they do. So your most expensive item,

we could say financially in business your largest investment dollars and cents is in people and if you don't get an ROI on that a return on your largest expense

on your P&L you go out of business and I will tell you after all the years of doing this starting with 10 and then going to 30 and then going to 40 and then going to 100 and then at 200 and now at 642 like I said I will tell you the greatest joy of my life is my team and the greatest sorrows in my life have been my team especially my business life changes everything you ever had anybody lie steal cheat if you've been in business more

in 20 minutes you have the people there people are screwed up and we're looking for the ones that are the least screwed up to be on our team right and hopefully as a leader we're least screwed up so we know what that looks like. It's a large investment of your emotions. It's a large investment of your time and the return is the largest, the most rich, wonderful people in my life are people on my team. Some of my best friends are on my team. I love them. And some of the things that made me the maddest and made me cry the longest have been associated with our team. Emotionally, the return on investment is there. Financially, they have to make me more than they. They have to make me more than they cost me.

We figured out the other day it cost us $27,400 for someone to be in our organization before we write them a check. I got to make money on you or we all go home because we go out of business because it's the largest investment I make. Leaders, not managers, not bosses, not people with theories about business, but real leaders understand that people matter. People matter most. You've got to value your largest investment, value their souls, value their lives, their kids' lives. Our HR manual says this, do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. That's pretty well the whole manual.

We treat other people like we want to be treated. I'll take care of a whole lot of your ethics stuff on it. You don't need teach business ethics if you get that one. You want to be lied to? No, then don't lie. You won't be cheated? Good. Then don't steal. Don't cheat. You know, ethics is just treat other people like you want to be treated. It's really not rocket science, is it? But some of these people were raised by wolves and you have to train them. So when you would expect to be praised for doing something,

won't you give some praise? You know how long it's been since some people had a kind word from anybody that gave them a paycheck? Just walk in and look at them and smile. that was really good and walk back out you just made their millennial you didn't make their week their day their hour

you made their life because no one ever told them that you did good and if you expand just a little bit more and say why they did good and how they did good they might do it again it'd be amazing then you'd have like a lot of good going on stop a second I mean we get the kids grade car out what we look at. I know what I did.

Like, Bubba, what is this? What is this C minus here? I mean, you got all straight A's except for that. Would you just, were you just dumb at that? I mean, we don't concentrate on the straight A's. We look at the C minus, don't we? Catch people doing something, right? When you'd expect some grace because you goof something up, give them some grace. Treat of the people like you want to be treated. The return is astronomical.

That's how this works. Why have we forgotten that? Everything's a dead-gum transaction now. People aren't people anymore. And they say stuff they should never say. And do stuff they should never do. When you'd expect a little grace, give some grace. When you'd expect a pay change, your pay to be changed?

Change their pay. A good entree leader pastors the flock, and this builds loyalty. A good pastor shows up at the hospital when the babies are born. A good pastor loves people when there's problems, knows what's going on in their personal lives, is there for them with them and helping them. When you feel it sounds like you're interfering in their personal lives, dead gum right, they're taking my money every week.

You don't get to be on my team unless you allow me to love you. If you can't handle that, you need to work for corporate America. You're a goob. we're going to be there. Now we're not inappropriate in any way ever. We're not going to invade in something that's completely rude or something like that. But we're going to know what's going on with you. Because if you're not bringing the water and it's because your mama's dying of cancer,

we need to know that so we can cut you some slack while she gets through her chemo. We need to know what's going on. You see the point? It's not just how much I can squeeze out of you because you're a, unit of production and this is a transaction. Yes, you're going to get your dad gum work done with excellence. Yes, you don't get to work here. But yes, you're a person with a life.

And that's part of the equation of what we're doing here. It's part of the rhythm of what we're doing here. Coming up next is a conversation with Manny Fisher and some of his team. They had just heard the talk from Dave. And we wanted to get a sense of what they took away from the talk. Here's what they had to say. So we have a team of 10 here with us. We have a few that have been with us the longest.

Malem and Andre and Justin have been a big part of getting our team culture to where we are now and have seen the pain points and going through the pain points with us and seen our faults, seeing the strengths of the potential of having an entree leader type mentality. I'm mailing a project manager at Integrity Custom Builders. I've been with Manny ever since the company started in 2007. Just like Manny said, got to a place in 2015 in my personal life and business where I came up against a wall and you needed answers. I heard about the Entree Leadership podcast, started listening to podcasts, picked up the book one day, Entree Leadership book, and it was life-changing. Just the communication and how to deal with problems, issues that come up in the company was life-changing to me.

And I really appreciate what Dave has put into this. I think you recommended the book to me that year. But when I read the book is when I was like, wow. It was just life-changing for me as well, where I then started, I mean, in my library now in my office, I have, I don't know, maybe 100 books or at least 100 books. of just team growth development. We do a weekly Monday morning meeting where it's become a culture meeting for the whole company we get together for an hour

and we'll watch a John Maxwell presentation or we'll watch a Dave Ramsey presentations. They have really input a lot of very helpful information on how to get through everyday life thinking more about the big picture than just getting caught up in the everyday swing of things. So for me personally, When I started seeing the value of the information that Dave was putting out,

I saw how ridiculous it is to have the owner mindset of, well, you know, I have to be careful about what all my team members here because they'll want to then go out and do their own thing and you've got to be careful about putting too much information into them. And I realized that was ridiculous because the opportunity that I have with my guys while they're with me, is just, I can either encourage them or I can discourage them from growing in life. And what I made a decision to do was the opportunity and the window that I have of their life with me, you know, it's about making them better personally.

It's about spirit, soul, and body, improving their lives. And what I encourage my guys with them, and I have remind them here and there is, I don't ever want them to feel like they can't go out and do their own thing because that's not what this is about. This is about us growing as a team and we're going to have ideas. And it's not my place as the owner of the company to try to squelch those ideas. It's my place to encourage those ideas because I don't want a gift or talent that God has put within them, each one of them, to be squelched by me.

The only thing I want to do is to encourage them to develop in it. Yes, my name's Justin Beechie. I'm the carpenter here at Integrity Custom Builders. And when I came on board in 2015 when this was all beginning, I had come from different experiences and different companies where there was like dissension in the ranks. Everyone was talking about either the boss or a coworker behind their back. And to me, I always found that strange because my mindset was,

and I even had voices to my coworkers was, at the end of the day, who signed your paycheck? You know, he's putting food on your table and giving you an opportunity to make a way for your family, and then you want to turn around and talk bad about him. I just disagreed with that, and there was just drama all the time, and it was just, it created stress for everyone, and the work environment was not a place where you could thrive, grow, be who you want to be, and then just go for your dreams. It was just, you just show up and your work. And then when I came on with Manny, and we decided to get into this team development, and growth, I've seen the value in it because just the way we interact with each other as a team,

the communication is huge. And then when we work together as a team, customers see that. Like, crazy. The impact that it has on a client is incredible because they see a well-willed machine that's all working together. And it's so rare to see that these days. And for them, it creates a trust relationship between them, the client, and the company. And to them, they just have a different level of respect for the company, for each person in the company. And it's not like a hierarchy. It's like we're all just a team pulling each other's workload. And if somebody else needs some help, we go over and we help them. We encourage them. And we just develop each other. And to have this type of environment, it's a beautiful thing.

Because for me personally, I know, like, I enjoy going to work because I know somebody's not, you know, waiting behind a corner with a knife to stab me. You know, it's just, it's, it's, it's, I can look forward to going to work because I go to work with my friends, do something that I enjoy doing, and get paid in the meantime. It's, like, a wonderful combination, you know. It's like a dream come true.

So my name is Andre, and I am a carpenter and team player. When I first came to work for Manny about three and a half years ago, I guess it was 2014, I came in right at the time when there was some serious, growth going on, but it was not necessarily healthy growth. It went from a three-man crew to a six-man crew consisting of full-time and part-time and an extremely busy summer. It was not necessarily a healthy environment. And that went on for maybe, I guess, what, two years. And then we started using the Entree leadership, the Dave Ramsey methods, and maybe a year it was pretty much turned around

to where it went from a, you know, it was a good job, but a little bit of an unhealthy atmosphere to completely different. Everybody's happy. We were friends. We got along. Things went smoothly. The profit went up.

You know, it was just really great. Probably one of the biggest areas of improvement that I need is in the area of poor communication. I still have an issue with that. I'm more the type of guy that's laid back, and I can identify with letting things build up to where they blow up and you're not addressing things right. right away. So I definitely have those things that I need to work on where when I see an issue,

I need to just work with it right away because it is unkind to be unclear. That's one of my weak areas, and I'm certainly okay with acknowledging that, but I do know that I need to work on that. What I pulled out of what they were saying today the most was the Wizard of Oz moment when he said that he had to address something, and he was afraid that everyone would turn on him when he addressed it, but in retrospect, everyone had respect for, a greater respect for him. And I think that's an area for me. I like being friends with everybody. I don't want to come across to somebody and shoot them down.

That would be one of my biggest fears, but I think that it's something that I can work on as far as just being more honest with everybody. But in a way that doesn't condemn them or in a way that doesn't hurt them, but can cause respect to grow, can cause unity to grow. And I think that us all be in here and being able to communicate openly with each other as a company, it really speaks to the whole we value people. and we value each other enough to be honest with ourselves and each other and have this conversation because if we don't have this conversation, we can't grow.

There's always new things to learn, and I think that that's why we have this, you know, hunger, this drive to keep on coming to one-day events or to listen to the podcast or to do things like that as a constant growth atmosphere. We don't ever want to become complacent or, you know, if you're not moving forward, you're going to move backwards, really. We're all there working together. It's not like I kind of go. You trust each other.

You know, I don't approach him and he holds out the scepter and then I can speak. It's just, you know, it's like he's my friend. He's my friend. We're here together working and like, we'll listen to a podcast on the way to work or, you know, something like that. And then we'll like talk about it. Man, this is so good. This is so good. And like, yeah, I definitely need to work on this. Organtic interaction that just happens. That's the atmosphere that we have here at Integrity. And that's what's the most beautiful thing to me, because I've never experienced this in any other companies. I worked at some decent places. but it's a priceless culture here. One of the things I really appreciate that Manny's done, he's been very protective on who he hires and how he hires and making sure that that person adapts in our culture. You know, there's always challenges, you know. But the people that you're working with, if you can get along with the people you're working with,

that takes half of the day's stress off your back. And, you know, I can walk in the door in the evening and look my wife in the eye and I had a good day, you know, You know, it was good, it was tough, but we won today. We killed it and drug it home, you know. With Dave Ramsey and Chris Hogan, you heard a thing a lot of how good leaders can change you and make you better at your job, but a great leader can change your life. That really is kind of the case here because I tend to be a lot more laid back and impulsive,

just kind of going with the flow. But, you know, when you sit through an hour long seminar or webinar or something every Monday morning and you hear people like John Maxwell, Dave Ramsey, talking about this, it's impossible for that not to affect your personal life as well. I think it's really helped me to be more intentional in my own personal life, not just with work. Summer of 18, I would say a goal for me for six months from now

would be definitely to be better at leading our team than what I am now. I certainly have areas to improve in. We have some things that I want to see stabilized in the company, One of those is the profit go up. The more that our communication level increases and gets better, the more we have that chance of that happening. And in the construction industry, it is hard to find a company

that I would personally allow in my home to remodel my home just because of how their mentality is, their personality might stink, and that's where our company is different in area locally. Like our guys don't do stuff that we don't think our clients would approve. I mean, we have a personal conviction on things. I think I want to see our subcontractor team to a point where they're completely okay with our way of doing things, and they want to do things their way. And so we struggle with that.

That's one area for me that I really want to see improve in six months. Hearing Mani being vulnerable about what he wants to work on brings us security to the team. because number one, we know he's honest and we work with him long enough. You know, it just, it brings us stability to each one of us knowing that our leader's not going to let us go. You know, he's consistent and he's moving forward. We've seen the changes in the company in the last two years, and that's huge because most of us have all had jobs where the company wasn't going nowhere. You know, you're just there to get a paycheck, and everyone's there for the paycheck. But when you know that the leader's moving forward, it makes you want to get in the wake and follow.

Hey, folks, our first free resource in this episode is our team communication field guide from the Entree Leadership Team. This is going to help you keep your team engaged and productive. So let me give you some ideas of what's in this amazing field guide. You're going to get nine hacks for highly productive meetings. then we're going to give you 12 methods of communication that we recommend. Here's an example. One of the methods is how to have a great staff meeting. Now, to get this, we want you to text communication.

Just text that word to 33444. That's 33444. We also have a link for it in the show notes of this episode. Now, you'll see there's a sample of weekly reports from Dave all the way through our leadership structure. believe in weekly reports as the number one way to have a health check of your team. So ask yourself, right now as it stands, do you get constant feedback from your team every week? As of Friday at the event, our team offered a new weekly report tool that surpasses all previous versions we've ever talked about. It has revolutionized how weekly reports are conducted in

our place and it will for you as well. The All Access Weekly Report tool, instantly shows your team how they are doing at a glance. With a click, you can see each person's stress level, morale, and workload. And there's a dashboard that summarizes your team's attitude as a whole. Your team, your people are your most valuable resource. This tool is only available, though, through all access. The coaching program you've heard us discuss many times. It's more robust than the general weekly report. So I want to make that aware to you. If you want to learn more about a weekly report tool and the community that we refer to as all access, simply text all access to 33444. There's no space there. The two words smashed together, all access, text that to 33444.

Or again, we'll have a link for you in this episode show notes at entreleadership.com, click on podcast. Coming up next is Kimberly Holmes and her team. Kimberly runs Marriage Helper. And boy, if you You need to be effective in communication. I would think that Marriage Helper would be the business where you need to win, and they have figured out how to do it. You're going to love their story, how they came together, and they're communicating at an all-time high, and it means their business and their customers are winning.

Here is the story from Kimberly and her team. My name is Kimberly Holmes, and I'm the CEO of Marriage Helper. At Marit Helper, our mission is to save marriages and strengthen families, and we do that all across the world. I have had the privilege of being the CEO at Marriage Helper for three years now, and a lot of stuff has happened over the past three years, a lot of growth. And really the growth comes from implementing a lot of leadership principles. One thing that I was really excited about was bringing part of my team here with me today so that we could have a language that we all speak together

and that we could have a similar foundation to go back at work with. And as we're growing, these are people who are becoming leaders as well. And so this is important for us to start speaking this language and implementing these things together and not just me. My name's Johnny Cardwell. I'm the director of client relations at Mary Chilper. My name is Shannon Rollins. I am the office manager at Mary Chilper.

My name's Katie Hill. I am an intern and I am the content and customer care coordinator. So to be brought in today to this awesome event as an intern was definitely such an honor, really. And I was shocked. I mean, not shocked, because Kim really is a CEO that comes around everyone and checks on us daily, not only in our work life, but our personal life. So I definitely saw that today with the talks that I'm so lucky to have that. Not everyone's able to even see their CEO on a daily basis, let alone for them to come check on you. But to be invited today is just awesome because I get to learn what the higher up levels of my team is learning. So that's like so awesome. I really think it does show, you know, You know, people are more motivated when you feel like you matter, and especially when you have a purpose, and that you're recognized. And it doesn't have to be a huge thing. I can be like, you know what?

Good job on that. And it's just, it really is about feeling like you're a person and not just a number in a corporation. Because I have actually worked in, like, you know, bigger companies, but to not be recognized at all or not to feel like you matter or you're contributing, there's a huge difference, I think. and I've seen a motivation to do your best versus when you feel like you matter and when you are appreciated and you're treated like a human, the outcome's a lot different. I mentioned that over the past three years, we've grown a lot. So in almost every single year, we've doubled, which means that we're helping more marriages stay together. And so this year, we've actually grown our team by five or six people, and we're about to hire for a couple of more

positions as well. And so with that, Johnny was promoted to Director of Client Relations. So he has a team under him. Shannon, who was our office manager and our fourth full-time in-office employees, who was just hired earlier this year, but she's starting to have people she's managing under her as well. And so that was one of the reasons I wanted to bring them. And then of course, Katie is a part of our team. She's an intern. And for bigger companies who have a lot of extra money, they might think, in terms of commodities and just come and go. But to us, she helps answer the phones. She's talking to people whose marriages are in crisis.

It's important for her to know what we're talking about, what we're doing, because it trickles down the whole way. The difference in this company is that Kimberly, as our CEO, actually asks for our opinion on stuff. She doesn't just say, do this and make your people do this. And so when everybody feels appreciated and valued, then they work much better than if you just say, you must do this because he said do this or she said do this.

It just makes the whole culture different. It is efficiency and they're just excited to come to work and be a part of what we're doing. I think the most unique thing about marriage helper is we don't just work together. It's not to sound corny, but we do life together. Like we all know everybody and what's going on with each other and big things and happy things.

and sad things, and, you know, it's not come in and punch the clock and leave after eight hours. We have a really great work environment. It has been intentional creating that, and it's something we constantly work on making better. Just earlier this year, we created what our core values were, and that is what we hire by and fire by and make decisions by, and what guides what we do at work. On top of that, though, coming to an event like this and having a foundation of it, does help us to get more out of it because we don't feel like we're drinking from a fire hose per se, but I get to hear something like, oh, having those difficult conversations. We still struggle with that.

And so that today, it's an issue we've had to deal with recently. And so that's one thing I'm taking back and I'm saying next week, we need to talk about some things as a group. We need to have a different way that we approach when difficult conversations need to happen because no one in our organization is going to be seen as a coward. That's what we're going to do, like Dave said earlier. But there's things to learn and still implement. The things are going well.

We actually are celebrating a lot this month and this week because we have surpassed our first goal for this month of the quarter. We're excited and we'll always celebrate with food. And mass text messages of numbers that continue to increase of couples that were helping. Or for in the office and we just yell. Yeah. They were on the phone. They were answering calls the other day, just incoming calls, and we hit our goal number while they were on the phone. And I just started screaming because I was so excited. And people, apparently people on the phone were like, what's happening?

Is everybody okay? I don't care. I mean what was happening. We hit our number. Just like with our team, we want to make sure that all of us are hitting goals and have hope and are excited. We want to do that same thing with our clients. And so when we're doing that with each other, we're able to do that with them. And when they get hope and they don't give up on their marriage, that's a win. All right, folks, going to take you to the stage. I had a panel on stage with Pat Lynch-Joni and Dave Ramsey from this event. And we're just going to give you one of the questions from the conversation.

And it is a question that we get more than almost any other question. And that is, what do you do with the problem child who's a high producer? People are scared to fix or to send that person on because I think their business is going to literally crumble. And so Pat and Dave address this very important question. Take a listen. You know, let me do a follow-up question that I've never asked either one of you. I know we get this question a lot. Dave gets it at Entree leadership events.

And there's probably some people out here right now, Dave and Pat, that are feeling this. They've got a problem child who's a high performer. and they're terrified. And it's a real fear that if I push them out, the company's going to fall apart. We're going to lose revenue and, oh my gosh, we're not going to be able to make payroll, whatever the fear is.

This is something we hear a lot, Dave. I just curious for you both because it's a great, I think, follow-up conversation to what we're talking about. You finally meet with somebody and go, look, you've got to stop. But they're terrified if you actually make them walk out the door. Well, I'll answer that by telling a quick story. it's about myself, which will make it easier for you all, because if you're all struggling with this, I did this years ago. I hired this woman who was fantastic at getting things done. She was a butt

kicker. And I needed a butt kicker. We had a lot of work to do. But she did not fit culturally. She was not a team player. And this was before I started my own firm. I was working at another company. And so it was clear she wasn't a team player. So I did what any good manager would do, and I promoted her. Yeah. And my staff went to me, thank God, because they were honest with me. And they said, you shouldn't do that because you said you believe in team player. She's not a team you should either change what you say or change what you do. And I was convicted. I was like, well, man, thank God that they told me.

I wasn't loving it at the moment, but they did. And I said, okay, I got to do the right thing. So it was a big company, and I met with her realize she was not a team player. She never had that DNA. And I found another job for her in another part of the company where she didn't have to be one, but I moved her out of the company, even though she was my butt kicker. But here's the thing. The performance of all her peers went through the roof after she was gone.

And that's the thing. We don't calculate the opportunity cost of what that person does to the other people. It's just like in the world of sports. And, you know, we're in baseball season right now. The best regular season record of any team in the history of Major League Baseball was the Seattle Mariners. And it was in the year after they got rid of Ken Griffey Jr., Alex Rodriguez, and Randy Johnson. I'm not putting those guys down. He's just like, other people step up when you get rid of that person that doesn't fit.

A toxic person gives the organization the flu. And the whole organization is running like, if you ever had mono, it's like the flu that won't go away. You know, the organization gets mono. And it's just like we're running at this, you know, 75%. 65% level of what we should be, but we kind of get used to it, and we can't really find the source of the virus. And then when you remove the virus, the whole thing does step up. But it's hard to calculate that in your head, especially if they're, you know, in a sales

position as an example, and they're a high revenue producer, they handle all the big accounts. But what I found is, you know, the accounts know they're a butt. The accounts know they're toxic. They're like, you're going to lose all my accounts if I lose this performer. No, they don't really, they deal with that. They deal with your company in spite of that person, not because of that person. It's like the Dorothy thing you were talking about before. And then when you do that, they come to you and they go, thank you.

Yeah. I'm really glad you did that. You're like, really? It was all hell Dorothy. Yeah. Yeah, because what you're saying, Dave, is the customer doesn't care about that person as much as they care about being served. They're there for the company and the service of the product. Yeah.

Not the person. And if they were a pleasant, wonderful, non-toxic person, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. So we're fine. Up next, another story. This one from Angel Leback. is a member of our All Access community, and she is a story coming right off of the answer from Dave and Pat, how she handled a problem child. You have to listen to this. So I'm Angel Lebeck, owner of Assistant Angel, where digital and social media marketing agency

in New Jersey. Never hire family friend. Family friend hired her and gave her a job, but she wasn't really qualified. So this is the sanctioned incompetence that they talk about in Entree leadership. And it took a while. And eventually when we released her, it opened the door for the greatest team member to come. But if I didn't have the confidence to do that, it was really hard. Probably the hardest part of the business, up to them. So you can't serve clients if you don't have people. There's just, you can't do it. You're going to burn yourself out if you have to wear all your hats. So at the end of the day, what matters most is just like they say, if you take care of your people, they will take care of your clients. So it's just an investment in them. But, you know,

people are great and yet sometimes there's challenges. And that's what, you know, if it's a personality challenge or like they're saying, sanctions incompetence, those are the kind of things we need to weed out so we can serve our clients better and have a better work life balance for everybody. So most of my team, they were all there except for the last three. They watched that happen. So it was a team member and she was new. I let her have a job because of friends, she was out of work and she needed a job. So I invited her back in and I said, oh, well, you could do this for us. And I didn't really, A, talk to my team. I did not look at what her skill set was. And I was like, oh, she's teachable. I could show her what needs to be done. She missed deadlines.

They weren't done well. They weren't done with excellence. And that's when I started to realize, okay, her lack of excellence is causing a ripple effect through the whole company, and everybody was affected. And when I started to see that, I was like, where's the bottleneck? And it was there. So I gave a couple warnings. And I had just been started on-TRA leadership, so I was learning about the key results area, the KRA, implementing that.

And then at the end, I put her on a 30-day. And I said, I'm putting you on notice. If this happens again, this is what your KRA says. I'm going to have to release you. Okay. Two weeks later, we had another incident, and this time the client was directly affected. So now it's costing me money because I have to comp the client, like it was a big, and I had to have a really difficult conversation with somebody who was also a family friend, and it was hard. And since that time, we've put systems in place. I'm not allowed to hire family friends. We now have a new hiring process, a second level of leadership. I don't

even get new hires till the third level now. And that has made all the difference. So our new team members are amazing because they've been filtered out a different way. So that's been a real win for us. So as hard as that was, it actually opened the door by releasing her to allow amazing people on our team. So now what we've done since that time is it allowed the team itself. We're all virtual, actually, too. So communication is more important. So now we're looking at video, communication, email communication, we're on Slack, making a way so that we can have immediate communication and say, hey, this is a red flag. And so now it's like, well, Angel, that's not what you said. This is in your KRA, Angel. We need to make sure that you have the tools you need, or you're not the

bottleneck. And it's moving that thermometer forward to a success. And when they began to see that we were all part of the solution, it really did empower everybody. So when the new team member came in, the two project managers now did the hiring. So when the person came in, they were absolutely, we had just gone through a hard season, and now they knew what we needed for the team. It was a way for them to also give their perspective to the new team members. And the team members we have now are incredibly solid. And a lot of that is because the next level of leadership got involved early. So investing in the team, there's no question. I mean, we're virtual. I use profit at first and set up a whole separate bank account just to be able to have a time when we could

all fly in from around the United States get together. We just did this two weeks ago. It was, and I thought I had like bingo planned and all these things, you know what they wanted to do? They wanted to talk. They wanted to learn about their families. They wanted to understand why they do what they do. And you know what?

There's a cohesiveness in our group. And we've had hard things happen since then and I watched the team come together and I know that's because of the relationship. So it was worth every penny times 10 because of the relationships that were built. We're a solid group. And when one person's down, the other one is covering. It's really powerful to watch. We have a lot of new initiatives launching next year.

So what I've learned is we have to do what we're doing in excellence now. And I really listen to the litmus test of the team. Just like Christy was saying today, you know, like, oh, we're doing this. But the other members may be asking, how do we do this? That's what the team members are. They're like, this vision's great, but how are we going to get there? And so they're helping me slow down a little and implement excellence in every step of the way. So yeah, investment in that is very important to me.

It's really investment in them in the business. So for the business owners out there where you have a toxic person and you're afraid to address it directly, rip the band-aid off, and have the difficult conversation. Because on the other side of fear is freedom. And it's not just freedom for you. it's freedom for your business. It's freedom for your team. And when that toxic person is out, life comes back in. It's like a living organism. So it has life. And you want to make sure that you take the toxic out so you can have the good in to make it grow. And then it's exponential growth.

That's the part of the other side of this. Once the toxic is out, you're going to see exponential growth in your team. And you even heard Dave and Patrick's talk about that earlier. Well, you will remember that we started off the episode with Curtis and Christine Smith. So the team grabbed them after the event because we wanted to ask them, what was it like to go to your first entree leadership event? What did you take away? This is fun stuff. Here is Curtis and Christine Smith post event.

This is a timed program, and it would take a long time to go through it all. There's so many one-liners. I don't want to look through my book, but Christine said something that when we were in the communication was so great. The key takeaway for me with Patrick was managing is ministry. And when I think about Josh or anybody else that we may hire in the future, that that's what it is for us. I have to care about these people. They're not just making us money, but it's how are we going to affect their lives for an eternal way? This isn't just about dollars and cents. With what we needed to hear today, I think more than anything was about hiring.

Especially, I mean, being a small business owner, you know, and it's pretty small. But it's successful. We needed to hear this. How do we grow? How do we hire? How do we hire properly? And just the whole thing. I mean, it feels like a lot to try to put into words now.

But I'm like, we needed this. We needed to hear sometimes it just feels so overwhelming. You don't know where to start. This is the starting point. You know, you don't walk away from anything I feel like. with Dave Ramsey wondering like, well, I'm not really sure what he was talking about. Or I don't know if he wasn't very clear about this.

I feel like it was all very clear. I think for so long, it's been this maverick mentality of me and maybe a couple guys going out and rocking and rolling and working hard and doing it. But to think that we have tools in our tool belt now to create something that could be around 20, 30, 40 years and be as big as we want it to be is incredible.

Yes, like the tools to hire, but really I felt like taking away today was more, I mean, the goal with any business owner usually, unless I guess you're a nonprofit is to make money. So of course we want to hire, we want to grow, we want to be bigger. but I feel like after today and listening to how these leaders are leading and really caring and taking the time to know what is going on in these people's lives, not that I don't care about people that work for us at all, but there has been, one of them touched on, don't get to know the people you work with, and that's my comfort zone. Like, let's just, let's not get too involved because that's their life.

But now I feel a different sense of wanting to, you know, that's, Christine, that's not really what I should, you know, you shouldn't be doing this. Like you need to care. And I feel like I want to kind of shift slightly. Of course, it's about making money and growing and doing things, how God wants us to do them and being smart and wise. So then we can be generous. Now I feel the sense of, okay, maybe there needs to be more of a purpose here in influencing and affecting people's lives. and it can be something where our business isn't very glamorous. Oh, it's not sexy at all. It's pretty dirty and it's gross and it's hard. We could be on dirty jobs sometimes. We really could.

Oh, for sure. We have some crazy stories. But I've never considered that somebody would want to come and work for us and to consider that like a good job that they like and that they feel fulfilled by. So I feel I've always just kind of written that off. Like that's not going to happen. So we shouldn't expect to get people like that.

You know, and I'm not saying that we hire below where we should, but we just don't ever think that we can get. But now I'm like, you know what, our business is great. It's great. It's successful. And we should care about people enough so that they want to come and they want to stay. I mean, it would be. To create that atmosphere for them. Yes. I mean, it feels like, okay, I think that even with this dirty job, that we could create that and create like where we're. We are giving people the opportunity to feel fulfilled and to love their work. That's exciting. That is. That's a whole new, that's a whole new ballgame. I've never thought about that with detailing or hanging Christmas lights or, you know. A window cleaned a movie matter or whatever. No, it doesn't.

But if that can do that for someone, then it's about influencing people and it's about people. And it is about showing them that through great leadership, you know, and patience and everything else, you're showing God's love. I was sitting in here today thinking 10 years ago on I-65 in between Old Hickory Boulevard and Harding Place, I ran out of gas on the side of the road because we had $2.30 and $2 and something in our checking account. With a lot of debt. $200,000 worth of debt. You know, that's a low point.

and I'm saying at least but I'm thinking wow in 10 years I've gone from that to I'm able to take a day off from a business that we own that's successful that has blessed us more than I could ever imagine to learn how to take it to the next level wow hey folks I want to tell you about our friends at infusion soft and what they've got for you this episode here's what we know a happy healthy work environment is absolutely essential to growing your company and ultimately growing your bottom line. So to help you in this journey, InfusionSoft is packaged together three separate blog posts from their authors at InfusionSoft and then our team at Entree Leadership. And these blog posts offer insightful information on achieving office unity. Here's what you're going to read, how to maintain employee engagement and motivation in your company. These are things like job security, clear vision, and goals.

goals, employee appreciation as key contributors to keeping people happy in the workplace. InfusionSoft CEO Clayt Mask offers his thoughts on hiring in, should you hire for skill or fit? And then our very own Entree leadership author, Amy Lorton, provides four ways to reduce workplace stress. This is great material. Each one of these posts is must read. If you'd like to get these posts, you can get them easily at infusionsoft.com slash team success. That's at fusionsoft.com slash team success. On behalf of Eric the producer, engineer Will Rudder,

and special help from my good pal, Chris Wright, plus the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon.