EntreLeadership - #308: Live From EntreLeadership 1-Day with Dave Ramsey

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

We’re so excited to share highlights from our recent EntreLeadership 1-Day event! Over 1,000 small-business owners and leaders from around the country joined us in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to pour into themselves and their businesses. Tune in to hear Dave Ramsey explain why taking your time—our process has 12 steps—is the most important part of hiring the right people for your team. We’ll also hear from Ramsey Solutions’ own Christy Wright on the importance of building a motivated team. And finally, Dave and Ken Coleman answer attendees’ questions on everything from navigating roles in a family business to asking the right questions when interviewing potential team members. Get ready to take a lot of notes!   entreleadership.com/podcast Dave Ramsey's website Ken Coleman's website Christy Wright's website Get more information about EntreLeadership Summit Free download: The EntreLeader's Guide to Hiring   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You spend more money on people, more pain on people, more joy on your people than any other thing you do. 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. Right, fun episode. We got content coming to you from our recent Entree Leadership One Day event. This is our business playbook given to you in one day. You're going to hear Dave Ramsey from the

Entree leadership stage. Christy Wright from the Entree leadership stage. You'll hear some Q&A for me and Dave Ramsey. All of it starts right now. All right, Dave Ramsey, teaching from the Entree Leadership stage, 12 steps to a good hire. This is what we actually put into place on a day-to-day basis at Ramsey Solutions. The greatest blessing in my business life is my team. The greatest problems I have in my life is my team. And by the way, for almost every one of you in here that has a team, the largest item on your P&L is your payroll.

You spend more money on people, more pain on people, more joy on your people than any other thing you do. We call it the human resource for a reason, but it is draining at times and simultaneously exhilarating when we do get it right. When someone on our team does what they're supposed to do, it's like touchdown in the Super Bowl. And we work and we work and we work and we work and we think on this. I told you earlier, I used the fog up a mirror process. And I figured out that proper hiring creates a good team and a good team lowers turnover. I was having people come and leave, come and leave. I didn't fire me people because I was nice, which is stupid. I was weak. I thought I was being nice by allowing misbehavior to continue and not confronting it.

That's like southern passive aggressive, right? In the south, we say stuff like bless your heart, which can mean a multiple of things. It can mean bless your heart or it could mean I'm getting really cut your throat. Bless your heart. It's kind of sarcastic. When my wife says it, it's not good. So, I mean, it's like I walk out and we're going to dinner and she looks at me and she's like, bless your heart, which means I need to go change clothes. It can mean a lot of different things. But I thought that meant you just put up with crap and not confront it. I thought it had to be nice. And I figured out that it wasn't nice because I was getting progressively frustrated. And our customers were too because I was tolerating and putting up with stuff. And then good people would come

and they would leave. I figured this out. A guy told me in an event one time, he goes, there's never been a donkey when the Kentucky Derby. Don't hire don't hire don't hire thoroughbreds. Well, that makes sense. Common sense. It wouldn't hire Dufus on purpose. I always hired somebody I thought was good, right? So I really thought, I need to get somebody who's like a proven thoroughbred. I need to get some people in here, really, and I would work and woo these people. And it's as a small, you know, when you've got 10, 15 people, it's hard to attract big time people, right? You know, because all the big time people don't think you're big time. And so I'm not talking these guys and gals. And I finally, I get a couple thoroughbreds on the team. And then they quit. figured out something. If you have donkeys on your team and you put thoroughbreds in the stable with them, it creates a mess. Thoroughbreds don't like don't want to put up with people that don't care. They don't want to put up with people that aren't smart. They don't want to put up with people who don't have integrity. They don't want to put up with people who gossip and run their

mouth all the time. Thuribreds don't want to put up with donkeys. And donkeys don't like thoroughbreds being around. Some of my don'ties quit because I hired some thoroughbreds. Donkeys don't like thoroughbreds being around because the mere presence of a thoroughbred being, their benchmarks and observes and causes us to all observe the fact that this is a donkey. Thuribreds expose donkeys donkiness by their mere presence. It makes donkeys uncomfortable because they look like donkeys. And you might not know they were a donkey until you stand beside a thoroughbred, and then you go, well, that's a donkey.

You know what I'm talking about? And you will get turnover because the don't want to stay on the thoroughbreds. They don't want to stay. A mixed stable doesn't work. It doesn't work. And you're not going to win the Kentucky Derby with donkeys, so we've got to get the stable cleaned out. Some of you are going, I know his name. Right now, don't do that.

Don't fire anybody at the break. That's not allowed. I want you to go home, cook on this for about a week, and start laying out a strategy, not a reaction. okay. And when you get ready to do hiring, I was teaching Sunday school at my church and about 50 people in there and I asked for prayer requests at the end of the Sunday school lesson and the guy raised his hand, hey, I'm looking for a job and anybody knows and pray for me to get a job. And so I stayed after and I said, hey, I'm hiring and I hired him the next day. He came over to the office and I hired him. And then I figured out about two weeks later why he didn't have a job. He was a donkey. And so what I have figured out is every time I made a mistake hiring, I added a step to the hiring process, so I never repeated that mistake. And so what you need to do if you're going to do hiring is you need to start taking more time in your hires. You're not spending enough time hiring, and so you're getting donkeys,

and you're having to do your hires over and over and over again because you're getting turnover. I hired the wrong people. If you are doing one interview, you need to increase it to four immediately before you hire. If you're doing four, you probably ought to increase it to 16 for a while and just see how that feels. Our team goes through 12 interviews before they're hired. Sometimes three or four of them are in one day. You know, if they're visiting from out of town or something like that, some of them are by Skype. But they will have 12 different conversations with different people inside the organization on average before they are hired.

And our turnover has gone to almost zero. We have almost no turnover. Well, we measure our turnover in two different numbers. We measure life turnover, which is good turnover and bad turnover. Good turnover is I had a baby and you taught me how to be out of debt and I want to stay home, I quit. That's good turnover. Our good turnover is I got married and I think probably ought to live with my husband who lives in Dallas. And so that's good turnover.

We didn't do something wrong. They didn't do something wrong, right? Bad turnover is they quit for a better job, in quotes, or we fire them. That's bad turnover. And we've gotten our bad turnover down from about 20%, 15%, some years, all the way down to about 3 and 4% in a given year right now. And because we hire so carefully that we don't have to do it over again. If you do it wrong, you get to do it again.

Any job worth doing is worth doing right the first time, and that includes hiring. The first step to our hiring process, we pray. We're Christians, and we pray. We ask God to send us the people. God, you ask us to do this work? send us your people. And Lord, please, would you keep your crazy children away? Because Father God, you know you have some children that aren't right. Don't send them over here. This is actually my prayer. I love them and they're in church and that's great. I don't want them on my payroll.

You're strange and don't be on my team. Okay? And we just ask God to protect us and send us exactly who he wants. And, you know, we get some weird stories as to how people find us. You know, I was just driving along, and I thought, well, I wonder if I could get a job. And I turned on the radio and you were talking about hiring. And I went, do-do-do-do-do-do, you know, yeah? So there you go. As part of the hiring process, we include a spousal interview and a personal budget from the candidate. If you don't learn anything else today about hiring, the spousal interview is the best thing you'll learn today. When I went broke, I started studying Proverbs, the Book of Wisdom, for financial insights. If you read Proverbs over and over and over again,

the Book of Wisdom, you will have a master's degree in finance. It's in there. And one of the things I read, because my wife is a classic Southern Bell, who is passive-aggressive, like I was talking about, and bless your heart, right? And she would say things like after something failed, she would say, I knew it was going to fail. Well, where was your mouth beforehand? And so, Then I read this proverb, and I used to buy real estate. She never even saw it. I was buying and selling houses is what I was doing for a living. And I didn't ask her.

I just went and did what I, and she's like, whatever you want to do, honey, which is code for. I'll tell you later if this was right. And then I read this proverb 31. It says, who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her. and get this, he will have no lack of gain. I won't make as many bad financial decisions if I make them together with my wife,

with my husband. You can transpose it if you want. So I don't make any major decisions anymore without my wife. Not because I'm a wuss, not because I'm hen pecked, but because we are married and we are one, and when I make a decision by myself, that's using half your brain. And besides that, if she's in on the decision, she can't say I told you so later. And so I figured out that I wasn't going to hire people without

sharing interviewing them. Now, Sharon has a degree in Home Beckin as a full-time mom at this point. She has no desire to interview people. I don't care if you have a desire to or not. You're doing it. So the final interview is our leader and their spouse, in the old days it was me and Sharon, would go to dinner with you and your spouse if you're getting hired. Now, it's not a formal interview. We just go to dinner because when people eat together, they let their hair down. and they'll tell you what's going on. And it's amazing, y'all. It's amazing.

Plus, my wife, who will not talk at these things, she just looks at you. And I'm like, you're stuck up. She's no, I just don't have anything to say. This is not my world, it's your world. Just listen. And so I learned, though, driving away from these things, not to ask her what she thought about that candidate

and their wife or husband, but I learned to ask her, how did you feel about them? Not what she thought. Because my wife has the sense that she can feel things. It's like these Holy Spirit antennae. She's got like a donkey detector. And 95 times out of 100 that we would do the final interview, we had done a good enough job getting to that point.

that we would drive away and we say we'll pray about it we'll let you know in the morning y'all pray about it and talk about it let us know in the morning and we would drive away and we would go yeah let's let's go ahead and hire you know our prayer was just a discussion in the car it wasn't some big formal getting on our knees heavenly father we weren't we're just talking at the three with god and we come back call them next morning hire them 95 times out of a hundred but occasionally she would have a bad feeling and she's from the hills of east tennessee so that's a seven-syllible word It's a pha-ling. I have a bad failing.

Every time I violate that, I lose at least $10,000. I quit doing it. And she doesn't throw that card down very often because she's virtuous. I poke fun at her, but she doesn't like holding this card. It gives her more power than she actually wants, which is a sign of her virtue. If she enjoyed the power, she'd be, you know, it'd be weird. right? And so she doesn't, she don't, I don't want to be the reason they don't get hired. Yeah, you do, because it's going to cost us problems and money and everything else when we hire a

donkey. Yes, you do want to be that reason. So we've had so many fun tales. I could tell you two, I could tell you two hours of stories on this one thing that have actually happened. And so it's an extra step, it's a weird step, but it's no formal. We don't try to do trick questions. We're not interviewing the spouse. We're not doing that. We just have dinner and talk. and ask if you've got any questions and kind of tell you a little bit about what's going on. And sometimes we meet the spouse. You ever done this? You hire somebody and then you find out their spouse is a lot better than they are.

You wish you to hire them? That's usually a good sign, by the way, because they're going to get quality support from home. And you've got a good team member that way if they got a spouse that's a rock star. That's a good thing to know. And then the spouse is involved. They like being involved. They like being brought into the decision. It's so powerful, y'all.

It's the biggest thing that's kept us from hiring donkeys. since we started doing it. And we do a personal budget on the candidate. We don't do that because we're Dave Ramsey and we want to see if you have a credit card. That's not it. We do that because we figured out if the job pays $62,000 and you need $162,000 to pay your bills, you're going to be unhappy from day one. And you're going to think that we're greedy and don't pay enough. You're never going to think that you are too deeply in debt and they've made a bunch of done decisions. You're going to think that we are evil. It's happened to me many times. I need a raise. I deserve a raise. Why? Because I have a lot of bills. That's not a reason for a race. And so it begins. And they end up wandering out the door because they're trying to pay their bills, but they took a job to just get a job, but they can't even pay their bills on their job. And so we serve them by making sure they can eat on what we pay. We owe them a responsibility as a servant leader to make sure they can survive on what we pay. The 12 steps of our hiring process, they're not sequential steps. They're 12 bullet points, if you will.

will. And it's number one is pray. We talked about that. Number two, we advertise and we get referrals. Internal referrals are 67% of our current hires. We heard 200 people last year. We have 807 people on the team this week. Internal hires are 67% of our thing. Here's why. Donkeys run around with don't thoroughbreds in their off time don't run around with donkeys. They run around with other thoroughbreds. and so they will introduce you to their friends to come on your team. And quality people generally run with quality people. You become who you hang around with. And quality people who know donkeys, if they see one,

try to keep them out of the organization because they don't want to work with donkeys. And so we pay $500 for a referral after the new hire that you referred if you work on our team has been there 90 days. If they're technology, then what happens is they get $2,000, $2,000, because we're so desperately looking for developers and Ruby on Rails and IT people and tech and platform people and JavaScript people and all that. So it's just a tight market. So if you're in, you know, we've got about 350 people on our team that fall in the technology

section, web developers and so forth. And so guess who they run around with? Guess who they game with on the weekends, you know? of the developers, and they know who the good ones are and who the bad ones are, and they know who people talk a good game, and people know how to actually write code. And so we pay for that referral, big time. And thoroughbreds attract thoroughbreds. Do a 30-minute interview.

Your first interview should not be longer than 30 minutes. It should not be 31 minutes, even. It should be 30 minutes, because it's a drive-by. You're not going to hire them in the first interview unless you're crazy, because you're going to hire donkeys if you do it in one 30-minute interview. So just 30-minute interview. All you're doing here is my HR director, the first guy ever hired to be HR director, still, whether she runs culture for us now, Rick Perry.

He says, in the 30-minute interview, use the ratio of two ears to one mouth. Listen for at least 20 minutes of the interview, talk for 10. Don't talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and not learn about them. Your goal is to hear enough about them to rule them out. And they'll tell you weird stuff because they're nervous. Because all of them come in dressed up in their thoroughbred clothes, right? They got their interview clothes on, right? They looked like a thoroughbred coming in.

And you sit there and you talk to them, you spend time with them. And if you'll listen and ask questions, eventually, maybe not that first interview, but maybe later on, they'll go, e'all, and you'll go, I heard that. They will mention something that you go, oh, that isn't right. I need to learn more about that. And this is a problem. And if you take the time to do that, you'll put quality people on your team. So we just do a 30-minute drive-by. How many of you have done an interview that five minutes into the interview you already knew you weren't hiring them? So don't waste an hour. Book 30 minutes. That's enough to be kind. And we do resumes and references, which are generally useless.

Resumé, you look at it for 30 seconds and you pretty well got figured out what's going on there. But they spent 17 hours trying to develop a lie. But, you know, read it. Look at it. And references, we check references just to see. if you're too stupid to not set up good ones? Because if you don't call Uncle Bob and tell him to say something good about you, and I call Uncle Bob, and they'll go, is Dan still, did he get out of rehab? You know, if you're not smart enough to set up a good reference, then I don't want to hire you. That's kind of basic in the process, right? Your brain cells aren't firing off, so we'll check them, but, you know, you have to assume that these references are going to say good stuff, right?

I mean, how many times you call a reference they say something bad? That means they weren't smart enough to at least stage the. process, right? Personality test, the D-I-S-C, we take that in the interview process. We want to see if they're a high D, which is driven, task-oriented, if they're high I, which is a people person, a party looking for a place to happen, a high-c, a high-detail person, very much about the rules, very careful, or a high-S, which is a person, a stable, loyal, loving, hates confrontation. And so you want to see where these people are. I would never not hire someone because of any one of these things, but what I'm looking for is a pattern. And if I get like three or four strikes against

you, the pattern is saying, don't do this. And the pattern could be that your personality style is there. So a high eye is a very gregarious, outgoing loves people, and everything's a party looking for a place to happen. And I really don't want you doing my accounting. Probably. I would hire you if everything else lined up, but probably not. You know, usually you want someone that's a detail person to do accounting. Think about it. you know, but I'll look at it if everything else lines up. So the other thing you're looking at is how they fit into the team. Like I'm a high D. I'm a D-I. Okay, so you see the eye up here, the entertaining the person, the sarcasm, the jokes, all that stuff. That's part of my presentation

style and so forth. But when I'm doing work at the office, I'm a high D. I just get it done and I clean up the bodies later. I really don't care about your feelings. I got stuff to do. It's really kind of brutal, and I've had to tone it back over the years. But I, I'm I'm a high D. Now, high S doesn't like confrontation. A high S is a loyal and kind, and they're a golden retriever, best dog I ever owned, sweetest dog I ever owned, smartest dog I ever owned. That's kind of high, and the D is a lion in the jungle, you know, and so if my personal assistant is a high S, she's going to cry every day. So you look at the chemistry in the team, right? And so that's what I'm looking for there.

My personal assistant is a high C with some D, which means she really doesn't care about your feelings. She has a sign in her window. No one sees the wizard, no way, no how. She's the gatekeeper. And she's sweet about it, but most of the time. She's not concerned if you're mad. We get hate mail. She opens it and laughs.

And S would be going, they don't like us. Oh, no. And so you just have to do this. You think about what you're going to be doing, what position they're going to be sitting in. Another thing you want to ask yourself about this person, you're running a small business most of you, do you like the person? Don't hire people you don't like. You're going to spend a lot of time with them.

I mean, everything else is right, but I just like, ew, I don't line up. I just, I don't, I wouldn't want to hang out with them. Then you probably don't want to hang out with them and pay them too. Because you're going to be hanging out with them a lot. You know, I was walking through our organization the other day, and one guy up there was wearing a Florida football hat. I cannot believe our hiring process has allowed that. So you've got to have a little fun with this, right? Do you like them?

Do you like them? Is this somebody you would like to do stuff with? Family would do stuff with. Patty, my personal assistant, is like my sister. She plans every detail of our lives. She and Sharon conspire to reset my schedule. They gang up on me. He's working too hard.

He's grouchy. You need to back him off. And it happens all. I mean, but Patty's family. Really. 17 years, she's been my sister. Family. And that's who you won't work with, y'all.

Do you like them? Do they light up when they talk about the position? I get to do this. Oh, I've always wanted to do this. that's the way you want them feeling. Not like, want there's a job require. Have you ever heard that one? It's like, not you.

Personal budget mission statement. We talked about that. We want them to do a personal mission statement. Nobody does a personal mission statement, but we want them to talk through what their personal mission is and how that graphs into what they're going to be doing. Because we live in Nashville. You know how you get the next country music star is attention in Nashville?

Waiter. Everybody on my team can sing but me. or play an instrument. It's ridiculous. The town is full of people who want to be in the music business. And I don't want to hire you if that is your goal because then you are just taking a J-O-B. If you want to be in the music business, here's an idea. Go be in the music business. I've got three people on our team that were on American Idol. I mean, this is how talented our bunch is. Now, they've moved on from that dream into another dream, okay? and now they're part of our team and we're glad they're there.

So it's cool, but what is your personal mission? How does it graft into what we're doing? Are you just here to collect a check? If you're here to collect a check, hit the door. I want to work with people who care and collect a check. Compensation calculations, benefits, policy review, we go over all that stuff. Obviously, after we get down into it, don't bring someone in that doesn't know what they're going to get paid, how they're going to get paid, what you're going to give them, all that kind of stuff.

key results area, that's your job description. We use three bullet points. If you do these three things, that's what winning looks like. If you don't do these by definition, you are not winning. This is what this job does. If you do something else that's awesome, that's awesome. But if you're not doing these three things, by definition, you are losing. You don't tell people exactly in writing what they're supposed to be doing. That's like taking them bowling and turning out the lights. There will be noise, but we can't tell who's winning. And so, Clear defined goals. This is what winning looks like.

People need to know that. Most of you do not have written job descriptions inside your organization and you need to go back and do it tomorrow. You're killing your people. You think they know what they're supposed to do. They think they know what they're supposed to do. When they start writing it down and you start writing it down, you're going to find how badly off you were. You were not on the same page. Spousal interview, we talked about that.

We do a 90-day probation. I'm on probation, your own probation for the first 90 days. Very low obligation. You ain't going to fit in. We find that out during the 90 days. We just help you leave or you come in and you go, I'm going to tap out. Actually, we'll pay people $5,000 to leave because it costs us more than that when they hang around. Hope you enjoyed Dave teaching our hiring process.

Folks, it works. We tell you what else works. We've got a great hiring guide for you based on what Dave just taught. We've systematized this and we've turned this into a resource for you. It's called 12 Steps to a Good Hire. Now you heard Dave just teach on it. So this tool is going to include those 12 steps that you just heard. And you're going to get the top 10 interview questions you need to ask,

according to some of the entree leaders who employ many rock star team members. To hire thoroughbreds and keep donkeys out, get this guide. Text EL Hire to 33444. Text EL Hire to 33444 or click the link in the show notes. All right. Next, before I went on stage to give my talk on the intentional interview, I sat down and answered some questions from our audience online about interviewing. Let's get right to it.

George Camel talking to me side stage. I'm here with Ken Coleman. He's host of the Entree Leadership Podcast and the Ken Coleman Show. Ken, thanks for being here. George Camel. Good to be with you. I don't know if this is going out on the Entree podcast. So if these people are going, who's George Camel, I've got to tell them you are the host of the Dave Ramsey video channel.

The live feed, you're on YouTube. And so you're a big part of what we're doing. So this is fun. Thanks for being here with us. It is a lot of fun. And I'm excited to hear you speak in just a bit. But before we get to that, I have some questions for you. Now, normally you're on the other side of this. You're a great interviewer. You've interviewed leaders all over. And this is a great question from Jameen and Canada. What is the key to asking good questions? Yeah, I love that question. That's a good one. And the key to asking good questions is simply this. You know, think about what it is that you really want to know. A lot of people just throw a question out with very little forethought. And I find that the most valuable. questions are the ones that I sit and we think about. And so if you really lay out, what is it that I really need to learn or what is it that I really want to know from a person? So if you get an opportunity to go to lunch with somebody you admire or have coffee with somebody you admire, you

better think ahead of time. If I can only ask them one or two or three questions, what would I ask? And so when you begin to identify, what is it that I really want to know, that's the key to asking a good question. So at the end of the day, it's intentionality. That's what makes a good question. I love that. And you're going to actually be talking about that on stage, the intentional interview. That's right. You're going to be walking them through a process that will help them get there. So I'm really excited for that. This next one comes from John in Minnesota. How do you stay strong when the corporate culture is toxic? It really depends on should you stay strong or should you get out. And when people call in on the Ken Coleman show and ask me, hey, Ken, when should I leave? I'm in a

toxic culture. My answer is always when you are financially able to do so. Because even though you're in a We want you to make good financial decisions. And you know, you can toughen up and put up with a lot of junk if you have to. What I mean by if you have to is if you're not financially able to walk out today or the next week or the next month, then you've got to make the sacrifices financially and then almost emotionally in that toxic environment. I'm going to stay there long enough so that I can step out strategically. And so the answer is, you know, you stay there as long as you absolutely. have to financially, and then once you're able to, get out. You're not doing anybody, any favors, and you're certainly not helping yourself by staying in a toxic culture. Yeah, that's so good. Joshua and Louisiana's up next. What is the best way to approach a raise and moving up in a company? Okay, I get this question a lot on the show. I teach a very simple statement that freaks people out. Never, ever, ever, ever ask for a raise, ever. Ever. Ever. Ever. And the reason why is when you go in and you put a case in front of your leader that you deserve a raise, they are instantly in a defensive position.

They just are because you have essentially handed them a request that they know they have to respond to. I believe I've done this. Here's what the market says. I've been here this long. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you push the plate over to them. And it just puts them in a bad situation. Here's what I think you ought to do.

Instead of asking for a raise, I think you go sit down with your leader and you make the case, I've been here this long, I'm doing a good job, here's what my performance reviews are. They're good, and by the way, they better be good or you shouldn't be in this conversation. But this is assuming you have good performance reviews, and I want you to sit there and look at your leader and say, hey, I want to grow professionally. I want to be here, and I want to grow in this building, in this company. And I know that if I grow professionally, that financially that'll take care of itself. So I'd love to, when it's a good time, to begin to have a conversation and get your insight on what a growth plan looks like for me. Now, do you see the difference?

Yes. Now the leader's being asked to participate with you in a growth plan. And here's what we know. When I increase my responsibility, I also increase my financial situation. So when I'm growing, I get more responsibility, more trust, than the income, increased income comes with increased influence, increased responsibility. So that's what I mean when I say, never ask for a raise. Don't make your case for a raise.

Ask for a growth plan. And here's what happens. Not only is the leader not in a defensive position, George, but what happens is they buy into the growth plan. They build it with you. And so now there's some accountability for the leader to live up to what they signed off on. And it's a team effort at that point. Absolutely right.

You versus them. That's great. Awesome. All right. Allie from Arkansas is up next. When interviewing potential new hires, what are your best tips for getting to know someone in a short amount of time? We hire many people right out of college. It can be a real challenge knowing if they're sincere or if they've just been coached to answer in a certain way. You better ask intentional questions designed to actually get below the surface.

So I have the privilege, as you know, to interview a lot of great leaders on the Entry Leadership podcast on our summit stage. And most people can ask a general question, but it's a little lazy. So, you know, if you say to them, tell me about yourself. Well, that's an open-ended, really lazy question that a lot of leaders will ask, and you hope they give you something. But the reality is, as Allie points out, people can perform on you. They can kind of snow you in those interviews, and they do a great job acting. So I want you to get to a point of intentionality on a question that goes about three levels deeper than, tell me about yourself. You know, so you want to come up with some type of question, and this is an example.

But tell me about a moment in your life where you've failed. and it was humiliating, embarrassing. How did you respond? Whoa. Now, what we've done here is we've gone about six levels deeper than tell me a little bit about yourself. And in that situation, with a deep, intentional question like that, you're going to learn a lot about the person based on how they react physically and how they respond and what they share.

Is it a deep answer? Do you feel like it's an authentic answer? Because I think you can really tell. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. I love it. Get into the core of their character very quickly, and you do that with intentional questions. Yeah, you just got to go.

deeper. That's great. All right. We have one more. This one's from Lacey and Michigan. Similar question. Now, we teach, you know, we hire thoroughbreds instead of donkeys around here at Ramsey's Solutions. And this one comes from Lacey and Michigan. How do you nail down who is a thoroughbred in just one or two short interviews? I would harken back to what I just said. I think that you start asking questions that you think would reveal a thoroughbred, you know? So how do you think a thoroughbred is going to answer a certain question? I also think that you've got to really do some homework on talking to people that have worked with them before, so when they provide some references, I would really use those, take the extra time, do a deep dive, and get a true 360-degree view of this person.

It is very difficult to determine if someone is a thoroughbred, if you're not asking, very intentional questions, put them in situations. One of the things I would love to do in an interview is I would want to take whatever the position I'm interviewing for and give them a scenario and give them a problem and say, how would you handle that? That's good. Now we're going to see Donkey Thurber is going to start to reveal itself.

Up next, Christy Wright spoke on how to build a motivated team. This is just a portion of her talk, but it's really going to help you figure out how to get talented people on your team and keep them on your team. A very important and practical talk. Here is Christy Wright from the Entree leadership stage. You know, it doesn't matter how big your team is,

how educated your team is, how experienced your team is, how talented your team is, how intelligent your team is. If they aren't motivated, they can't be successful. If your team is not motivated, nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. If they aren't motivated, they can't be successful. It's like you've got a car and you've got all the parts, but no gas, right? Like you've got the alternator, you've got the engine, you've got the transmission, you've got the wheels,

you've got everything but no gas. If you don't have gas, that car's not going. You have to have a motivated team. But how do you do that? How do you build a motivated team? Where does motivation even come from? Well, I'll tell you one thing that is good news and bad news. Your team's motivation depends on you.

Your team's motivation depends on you as the leader. Let's assume you've got the rock stars on the door, you've got awesome people on your team. Now, you as the leader, are going to fan that flame. You are going to put gas on the fire. You are going to bring out the very best in them. Let's talk about how to do that. There's several ways you can do that. Share the why of your organization.

Why does it matter? Why do you exist? Why should a customer care? Why should your team care? You know, at the beginning of almost every single staff meeting and Devo, our devotionals are on Wednesday. Our staff meetings are on Monday morning. Dave will read emails and letters to illustrate why we do the work that we do. He reinforces it over and over and over. We even started a new campaign this year that is the most specific example of this I've ever seen, and it's called

why we work. It has the faces and the stories of the people whose lives are changed by the work that we do. We read the stories, we interview them, we show videos that interview them, This is why we work. This is why it matters. This is why over and over and over. Share the why. Over and over. Because people don't just want to work for a paycheck.

They want to work for purpose. It doesn't matter what the role is on your team. It doesn't matter if it's a web developer or a landscaper or someone packing boxes. People want to feel like their work matters. They want to work for a purpose. They want to feel significance in the work that they do. So I don't care what business you're in, what industry you're in, what job position that person has. It's on you as the leader to share the why of why your business exists and why that team member matters in the big picture.

They want to know they have purpose in what they do. A good way to do this is to cast the vision. Cast the vision of where you're going as an organization. What are you excited about for this year? What are you excited about for next year? What are your goals? What's your future look like? People want to know where they're going.

Because the opposite actually demotivates. Ambiguity stresses people out. Man, it's demotivating when you don't know where you're going or why you're doing it. But clarity, we're going here and we're doing this and here's why. Oh, that's so motivating to people. I get it. I know why I'm doing it and I know where I'm going. It gives them something to rally around.

it gives them something to get excited about. Another way to do this, another way to frame it, would be to tell your story. Tell the story of your business. Tell the story of your heart. Tell the story of your why. Tell the story of your vision. Tell the story to people.

Here's three main categories you can tell the story of. Number one, tell the story of why it matters. This would be all around your purpose and your meaning behind your work. So tell the story of the why. Tell the story of where you're going. That would be all about the vision and direction. What are you working on this year, next year, in five years? So what's the direction?

Where are you going? And the third, tell the story of who you are. And I don't mean you personally. I mean you as an organization, your identity. This is all about your mission and your values. I can't tell you how many times Dave Ramsey has said the statement, this is who we are. He will tell a story about how a team member super serves someone, how a team member went above

and beyond. He'll read a testimony from someone whose life was changed because one of our team members went above and beyond. And he would say, this is who we are. It's not a statement about a checklist of character qualities. We're talking about an identity. What is the identity of your business? What's the identity of your organization?

tell the story of why, of where you're going, of who you are. And a good way as you tell this story, I would just tell you just as a communication tactic and this is something you'll see all speakers do, but you can do this as a leader, even if you're not a professional speaker. But make people feel something. Make people feel something when you tell this story. Don't just read it like, well, so-and-so hit their sales record, yay. Right?

Like, tell the story with emotion and passion. Make people feel something. When you evoke emotion in people, it makes them care. It makes something rise up in them that isn't activated if you don't make them feel something. It activates them in a way that's more motivating than flat information could ever be. It's on you as the leader to cast that vision and teach the why and pull your team into a bigger purpose of the work that you do. I love the quote by Simon Seneca where he says,

people are engaged and motivated by why we do things more than what we do. They need to know why. But you know what else? Why you do it will always affect how you do it. Why you do your work will always affect how you do your work. It will affect how you interact with customers. It will affect how you lead your team. and teach your team. Think about the difference that you can make in an individual life,

or in the marketplace, or in your community, or in the world, when you have a team that cares. All right, we're going to take you back to the side stage. This is a part of our online viewing experience. You can hear George Camel again, who I introduced just a bit earlier. This time, he is giving Dave questions from our online audience. Here's what Dave had to say. All right, folks, Dave Ramsey joins me now to answer your questions. Dave, this is amazing. We've got thousands of entree leaders all around the world. Our first one is actually from an international entree leader here, Garrett. He's asking, I'm developing a family business. My kids are teens now. How can I bridge the gap between dad and boss? Well, when they're teens, you probably don't a lot, other than you're trying to inject into them the character qualities they need to win in business, like honesty and hard work and, you know, showing up excellence. those kinds of things. Now, as they move into your business as adults, then you want to use what my friend Henry Cloud calls hats. And he tells the story of a dad who had a grown son working for him who was a

donkey. He was not good. And he warned him and talked to him and they tried to train him. And finally, he sees him yelling at an employee and he brings him in. And he puts on his hat and it says, boss. And he goes, son, I've been trying to work with you. I've been trying to work with you, but you can't, you just can't seem to get there. You're fired. And he takes off his hat and he puts on another hat that says, dad, and it says, son, I hear you lost your job. How can I help? And so the point is, is that when we're at work in Ramsey Solutions and Rachel Cruz is in a meeting with me, it's not daddy and daughter. It is, she's a Ramsey personality, and I'm the CEO and the senior personality, just like it is with Ken Coleman in the meeting. Same exact thing,

right? Now, when we're at home and it's Thanksgiving dinner, she's the mother to my grandbabies, which makes her really important. But so you change hats from dad to boss. back and forth. And we talk about that a lot, to the point that our, the Ramsey kids at work and Ramsey Solutions, don't call me dad at work. They call me Dave. Because when you're in a meeting and you say, Daddy says, the whole room tilts. And they've got unfair power that maybe their position really doesn't give them. And so my son, Daniel, is a senior vice president in the financial peace area. And he's very, very good at what he does. But when we're debating, it's as if I was debating with one of my other SVPs on a business problem.

And then we go home, we take off our hats, put on son and father, and we're hanging out together with my son. Yeah, that's so good. Great wisdom there. This next one comes from Jonathan in Georgia. How many direct reports is it healthy for one leader to have? Well, we talked about that in the first session, that about a one to five ratio is roughly where you are. You can do one to seven. You can do one to ten.

But unless all ten are doing the same thing, it becomes very tough. Because you're trying to learn ten different disciplines and hold people accountable in ten different. things and know everything that's going on in their life and love them well and serve them, it's very difficult. So one to five is ideal. Seven is the most. I've got an operating board member right now who has six direct reports and we're challenging her to restructure her area because it's just too much weight. Yeah, that's good. All right, this one comes from Denise in Florida. In a smaller community, coworkers become like family members. What is the best way to keep the role of leader but still maintain the friendly camarader? You know, it's almost the same thing as family

business, that I've got friends that I have hired. They were friends before they came to work for me. They're still friends. And then they have to be friends when they leave. And I won't talk to them about coming on board unless they can pull. Say, when you leave, we have to still be friends. That's our big agreement. And so that means that I'm going to be very, very clear with them. I'm going to be extra careful like I would with family to let them know what the expectations are or when they're a foul of the expectations. I'm going to give them extra instruction, extra chances to get back in and not as codependence, but just to have given that relationship every chance not to be damaged.

And so if you have a friend in the community and their emotional maturity is not strong, don't hire them. Because you're going to, that's going to come back and bite you later. It takes two emotionally mature people to pull off an entrance, a work time, and an exit, and still remain friends. That's huge. All right. Brian in Michigan asks,

What is your best advice for a young leader that has recently transitioned within the company from having no direct reports to now having that responsibility? Don't be a boss. Look at them and say, how can you add value to them? How can you serve them? How can I help you do your job better? That's your job as a leader, is to help the team do their job better. How can you serve them? That doesn't mean do it for them.

It doesn't mean go get their coffee. That's not what I'm talking about. But what blockers in the company are there? What things are going on internally that are keeping you from being able to pull this off? You know, if we could just get this one thing done, then we could get all these other things done. Well, my job is to run interference and knock that over for them then. My job is to remove problems to make them more efficient, to make them more successful. And that's me serving them.

But what you're caring about there is not only what they do, but you're caring about them as people. Yeah. And I've seen that at Ramsey Solutions. A lot of team members, a lot of growth happening, and they become leaders, and they have to navigate that. and they do it very gracefully. It's a different thing. There's one skill set to do things, call them makers. You know, you're in a creative position and you're making creative things,

or you're a developer and you're making websites or you're causing things to happen. That's a different skill set than leading people. Sometimes a good salesman or sales lady doesn't necessarily mean that they're a good sales manager, a good sales leader, because leading is a different skill set than selling. There are two different things. And so just because someone's really good at what they do doesn't automatically make them a leader. Yeah. That's a good distinction there. This last one comes from Kelly in Michigan. Besides values alignment, how can we discern whether employees, especially leaders, are a good

fit within the company culture? I just, we laugh a lot at our place. We cut up and carry on. One of our core values is sarcasm. We have our own sarcasm font. And so if you can't, you know, in other words, are you going to fit in? Are you going to be one of the guys, one of the gals? and not in a political sense, not in a butt-kissing sense or something like that, but just is this the people like tonight when we get done with this event, all the guys producing this event, we'll all be hanging out together because we actually like each other, you know? And that's what you need to have.

You've got to have that vibe. We enjoy hanging out together all five hours. And so not just to get the job done and I have to tolerate the person. And that's what you're looking for with leaders. That's real culture. That's a place that people want to come to work. which is kind of weird, which is what we want to be. Success is weird.

Yeah, and I've seen this firsthand where we take our work very seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously, and that's what kind of helps create a little bit of that environment when we can still joke and have fun together, but still be real focused and intense. Yeah, our big deal is, you know, if you've got to have blue M&Ms in the green room, you don't fit in. No divas here.

No divas, yeah. Now, if you enjoy the great content from this episode, you should think about coming to our next Entree Leadership event, the Entree Leadership Summit in beautiful San Diego. All right, folks, that's going to do it on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team. Thank you so much for listening. We'll talk with you again very soon. Hey, folks, I want to make you aware that we have other great podcasts from Ramsey Solutions.

Here's a sample of Christy Wright's Business Boutique podcast. Hey, I'm Christy Wright, and I help women all over the country take their ideas and passions and hobbies and turn them into profitable businesses. If you have an idea in your head or a dream in your heart and you've ever wondered if you could make money doing it, I'm here to help. Join us on the Business Boutique podcast where we are equipping women to make money doing what they love. If you'd like to hear full episodes, just search Business Boutique in iTunes or go to businessboutique.com.