EntreLeadership - $6 Million Business and No CFO?

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Today, we’ll hear about:  A man wondering if he should hire a CFO for his successful company  A $1 million business that could be a gift or a nightmare  Dave Ramsey sharing how he handles being a dad and a CEO   A business owner’s clients having buyer’s remorse because the program is harder than they thought    Next Steps  ️📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://bit.ly/3HUgAgi    👣 Find out what stage of business you’re in: https://ter.li/axd39b  ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/y8qdo7     🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/fcazl2     🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/wcjhpu     ☎️ Learn more about EntreLeadership Executive Coaching: https://ter.li/ycznhl    💵 Help your team members win with money with Ramsey SmartDollar: https://ter.li/4imot0    🏅 Help us make the show better! Please fill out the quick survey form: https://ramsey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_01hjJ6UN8mnQPNI    Offers From Today's Sponsors   NetSuite: https://ter.li/x1t20q   BELAY: https://ter.li/yohiu6  Payority: https://ter.li/fh2oau  Trainual: https://ter.li/a8zexl  Found: https://ter.li/ggwmrv    Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show    🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💰 George Kamel  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  💼 The Ken Coleman Show    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy  https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading you in the trenches right alongside you. If you've got a question you want to ask on the show, you can fill out the form at Entreeleadership.com slash ask, or you can call here and leave a voicemail. We'll make you one of the callers at 844-9-4-9-4. 4, 1070.

Valdosta, Georgia, starts today off. Brent is with us. Hi, Brent. How are you? I'm wonderful. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve, man. What's up?

So I'm the founder and CEO of a landscape business down here in South Georgia. We currently employ 47 people. We're projecting to do $6 million in revenue this year. Last year, we did $4.5 million with about 10% net profit. Way to go, Stud. Yeah, and so anyways, we're growing. Our goal is to grow 30% annually. We've done that over the last three years, and we're hoping to do that again this year. So my question is, so we are struggling with job costing, operating on a budget, cash flow and cash flowing asset purchases, growing effectively and remaining profitable. So my question is, should I hire a CFO and a controller at this phase in my. business. You need to hire a very sophisticated controller or a CFO that's not afraid to get their hands dirty. I don't think you need both. Okay. You got a bookkeeper now. So yeah, I do have a bookkeeper

as a, it's actually my sister who is on the bookkeeping firm and we contract out all of that. Okay, then you dump that and hire a controller and a CFO. I'm back with you then. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I thought you had it in-house at this stage. But yeah, I'd bring my bookkeeping in-house and that's the controller, and the CFO helps to make sure you guys get the software in place. And the CFO needs to have the hard, they're not the corporate goober that bosses everybody around. That's not going to work in your culture. They're going to have to be somebody that comes in and teaches these guys how to job cost and shows them why they want to job cost, because it's going to increase the accuracy of their,

estimates, and it's going to increase the margins, and it's going to increase their bonuses, so they want to do it. They just don't know that they want to do it. And a good CFO can teach, not just govern. Does that make sense? Yeah. That's what you're looking for. And then, you know, investigating and finding software that you never even heard of that they know about, and they help you make a decision to put in place that makes all this stuff work like a hot knife through butter versus some of the heavy lifting. are doing now to make these numbers crunch and, you know, and then just start building sinking funds for asset replacement, for equipment replacement, because you need to constantly have that as a line item in the budget anyway, but you need to lay out some good life expectancy on the different

pieces of machinery, and then that'll layer that into a spreadsheet, and that'll tell you what you need to be saving because you can tell how often one's going to be dying, and we've got to bring in a replacement, or how often one becomes ineffective because of maintenance, and we need to replace it with and keep moving. And you've got to add equipment to continue this growth, too. So you've not only got replacement, but you've got additions, and all of that is basically a savings mechanism. That's right. And so, yeah, I could tell you already knew that by the way you asked the question, so I'm just preaching to the choir, right? Yeah, well, I mean, it's more, I didn't realize I needed to bring in both. You know, my goal was to, for the CFO to maybe, or

controller be one person. I was thinking that too, but your bookkeeping is still done outside. And I think it's going to be important for everything to be brought inside in order to get these processes smoothed out. I'm not trying to make your sister-in-law mad, but I just really don't. I think you're way beyond, I mean, you're running a $6 million business. This is not outsourced to the local bookkeeper. It doesn't make sense anymore.

It's too complicated. You've got too many variables. Yeah, we're learning that. Yeah, we've hit a lot of roadblocks in learning that. Yeah, I think what you'll find, it's, it be like you were doing the maintenance on the mowers or something at the local mower shop instead of having your own guys. Correct. We have a in-house mechanic. Cut-up.

That's the same. It's going to give you the same feel when you do this. And it's just the, it's just hard to, positions like we're talking about are not. revenue-producing positions. They are cost-saving positions, and they're also peace-giving. It's going to give you peace when some of this stuff is running better than it's running now. So honestly, I think I would look at cutting the budget by the cost of the outsourced bookkeeping and adding a controller that's slightly above bookkeeper status, barely into the edge of controller, and then a solid CFO. You don't want your CFO is screwing with keeping books.

That's not a good idea. So you've got to get that piece covered. And then the CFO can work on these other things we're talking about, which is your sinking fund layers based on equipment, life expectancy, and replacement and growth curves. And then, of course, also what we were saying, you know, get ahead of the curve on the job costing and getting those estimates dialed in a little bit better. All of that.

You're right on track, man. You're stud. You're killing it, man. I'm so proud of you. Six and a half million dollars, dude, man. Wow. That's sweet. It's America.

This is the Entry Leadership Podcast. Hey, if you're struggling to know the right next step for your team like he was, well, you're in good company. Most business owners deal with seasons of uncertainty, but that doesn't mean you have to keep blindly stumbling from an obstacle to the next. I know how to get you from where you are right now to where you want to be in 10 years. It's called the Entry Leadership System. And it's the roadmap that takes the guesswork out of business.

growth so you can build the life and the business you really want. If you'd like to learn more about how to solve the right business problems at the right time, in the right way, so you can level up and move on through these phases of business, these stages of business, go to entreleadership.com slash system. You're going to love this. Entreeleadership.com slash system. Josh is in Louisville, Kentucky. Hey, Josh, what's up in your world?

Hey, how are you, Dave? than I deserve, man. How can I help? All right. I appreciate the call. I am calling about a direct mail marketing business. It had a revenue last year of about 1.1. And my question is how to take on this business because it is possibly being gifted to my wife and I. Okay.

What do you mean how to take it on? What do you mean? Well, kind of like, well, we're not really. buying it, but I guess it would be kind of the same as buying it, even though it's being gifted to us. Okay. What does the business consist of that's being given to you? A client list and a process, or what?

Yes, sir. Any assets, any machinery or? No, so. No, sir. There are no assets other than a bank account. Just a client list and just all the, continuing work that's being done at the moment. Okay.

Is it an LLC? I believe so. Okay. Well, they can just transfer the shares of the LLC to you. Okay. Done. Yeah. That's it.

Okay. I'm so interested how you're doing direct mail profitably in the world we live in today. That is such a 1980 thing to do. It's the postage costs a lot of money. It's not the most profitable. I mean, who's doing this now at a volume? I mean, I thought that, I mean, I know crap still shows up in my mailbox, but I'm still interested that actually is effective in today's digital world.

Yeah. I was honestly very surprised, too, when I heard about it. But then I saw the amount of clients and the money that's coming in. So someone comes to you and, That wants to do a mass mailing. Yep. Or a targeted mailing of some kind. And who would be like one of your larger clients as an example that would be wanting to do that?

Like a pizza franchise. Okay. So they're wanting to send out coupons and advertisement for the pizza? Correct. So the local franchise or the local pizza parlor or whatever would pay you guys X number of dollars. And do you broker the printing piece? bring it to you or how do you do it? Yeah, that gets sent out elsewhere.

We won't be doing any of the printing ourselves. I know, but I mean, are you helping the client do that, or they do it and just bring it to you? Oh, no, we facilitate all of that. Okay, so they come to you with an idea, and then you help them with the creative, and then help them, and you broker them. They pay the print bill, but you hook up the printer,

and then the printer does the delivery to wherever you need to and builds the postage out, and then you've got the list to send it to. Correct, yeah. At the moment, the person running the business doesn't, they also kind of farm out all of the design work. Yeah. But when we get the business, my wife will be doing all that

because that's what she already does is design work. Okay, but that's just perfectly in her wheelhouse. But that's interesting. So if I own a pizza place, I can just come to you and say, what would it cost me? And you would say, well, here's what the printing would cost, is what the postage would cost. Here's what our fee is.

And you can put this in 20,000 homes or something, right? Yeah, correct. Just like that. Okay. That's cool. Yeah. And they're getting an ROI on that, you're saying. In other words, if I do that, if I'm a pizza guy and I do that, and what would I,

what might I spend with you if I did 20,000 houses? Is that be the right kind of number? I believe so. I'm not really sure on that detail. I'm just saying, okay, would a 10,000 or 20,000? thousand mailer be a typical one for you guys? Yeah, that'd be a typical size. Okay, so what would, if I'm a miscellaneous business and I buy a 10,000 mailer, what's that cost for me probably?

I'm not quite sure on the breakdown on that. No, I mean, the total. Yeah, I don't know yet. Like I said, this is a business that is potentially being given to us that we're not working in yet. Okay, all right, yeah. So I think you've got to understand a whole lot more about it because I'm not sure you have a gift yet. I understand that. Someone might be handing you their nightmare, not their dream.

So you need to understand it. Because I've got to tell you, it's an antiquated business. It's a business that's certainly not cutting edge in a digital world. I thought it was dying, but I don't know anything about it. That's why I was quizzing you about it because I'm intrigued. Of course. And I'm not saying it is dying. I just thought it was.

And I'm curious. I want to learn more. So, yeah, so I guess the idea being, let's just make up a number if I wanted to do a 10,000 mailer, and it cost me $20,000, $2,000 a pop, it wouldn't be that much. Let's call it $5,000, okay? 50 cents a pop, right, for $10,000 mailer. Then I got to sell more than $5,000 worth of pizza. Of course, yeah.

Directly attributed to that, or I don't ROI on that, and I'll never do it again, and you won't be able to build a client base, you'll destroy them one at a time. So that's what's interesting to me is how you, you know, how you can measure the attribution on this, from an ROI standpoint, because I've been selling advertising for 30 years. Advertising that works is free. If I spend $5,000 and I make $10,000, all I want to know is how many times I can do that.

Let me do it again. Load the gun and put it on full auto and pull the trigger. I mean, that's all I want to do then. So when I've got enough attribution, in other words, I can attribute more sales to it than it costs. It's free. So I'll do advertising all day long. It's free. Brings the business is always growing. It's always bringing in more than it costs.

And this is the problem with the freak in Facebook world and the Google paid ads is you can give direct attribution. And your ROAS or ROI, one of the two oftentimes sucks because they've gotten so greedy on what they're charging for it. And so it's not free anymore. It's starting to be a cost. And it's starting to be a cost. and it's starting to be a line item that's unbelievable. So anybody like Josh that can bring me a different version of advertising to the table as a business guy that is actually working, even if it's one I thought was gone, I'll look at it. And if it works, I'll do it again, and if it works, I'll do it again, if it works, I'll do it again,

until it quits working. I'm just going to keep squeezing the trigger until there are no more rounds in the chamber, baby. That's it. This is not hard at all. And why did you quit shooting? I ran out of ammo. That's the only reason. So that's it.

That's what you do in that situation. Way to go, dude. Very proud of you. That's interesting. Yeah, you need to learn a lot more, though, before you actually take this deal on. Because right now it just sounds like it's a free thing, and I don't know why this guy's walking away from something that's a cash cow. And it is an old school business model.

So let's make sure it's working in the new school world. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. So at Entree Leadership Summit, one of the top talks this year was from our own Dr. John Deloney, who has a Ph.D. in counseling. And, you know, we're all in there talking about leadership and how to do better, how to grow the business. And he says, let's make sure we stay connected to the home front. Let's make sure we stay connected to our spouse and our kids. And let's not lose our families while we're building the business, which we all kind of know. And we do actually know and we do actually believe.

but we don't stop and say it, and he says it so well that he grabs you around the throat and gets the emotions and gets the heart going. And consequently, it was extremely popular talk this year. And that's one of the reasons his show is exploding on the Ramsey Networks too. If you haven't listened to the Dr. John Deloney show, you ought to.

It's not only highly entertaining, but it's motivational for all of us. Very, very cool stuff. So we took a video of a guy right after that talk who wanted to ask, a question on this show. His name is James. And he's referring to understanding your goal and not sacrificing your family at the same time to do it, which is kind of a standard thing. And how I brought my son Danielong into the president's role here at Ramsey over a decade and how we foster the

relationship throughout the time here in the business. So here's the question from James from Wisconsin. All right, I'm James Sullivan from Ellsworth, Wisconsin, where I work at United Dredging. We have about 30 team members and revenue around 10 million here. What we just heard from John Deloney was just amazing. How convicting to hear that you need to have a line to finish at and know when enough is enough, but not trade your spouse and your home life or really to the young single guys. work with us? What's your end goal? And don't trade what your end goal is to the means that you're using to get there. I put a lot of time in at work and then I go home and I do projects and I find

myself probably absent more than I need to be. I would ask him something along the lines of what I just heard from John Deloney, how he's built the time to bring his son along. I have four little boys at home. So, you know, how do you build that time in and where he's drawn the lines of intentionality and doing that? It was awesome to hear that he eats breakfast with him every Tuesday and has built and fostered that relationship. And ultimately, that legacy that he's leaving to his kids. And I'd love to have gifts like that to give my children when they're older, just pouring into them. And it may never be a business, but what's my legacy going to look like? and I want to build it like his.

Wow, James. My first question is, what's the guy from Wisconsin doing wearing an Alabama hat? That's my first question. So I'm still confused. But you guys ought to go back and watch the video a little bit later.

But, oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, the, there's a couple of things he's kind of woven into what he was saying there. One is how we've worked with our, the Ramsey kids, we call them. they're in their 30s, so they're not kids, uh, and,

inside the business. How have we communicated? How have we handled that? And then, you know, and then, you know, Dr. John Deloney was talking about, you know, you got little kids at home, don't sacrifice them on the altar of success, um, and time with them. So it's a couple of things that always come to mind. Let's go back to the early years when, uh, when the children are little and, um, and you're trying to run a business.

How do you do that in the middle of that? There's a lot of different things that we did along the way, and no one single thing was the silver bullet for sure, and we certainly weren't perfect as we did it. One thing we figured out was that watching television is not spending time with your family. So when you come home at 5 o'clock so that you can spend time with your family

and the television's on all night, you didn't spend time with your family. Stop it. Throw a brick through the stupid thing. You're just making Netflix a living now. I mean, I'm not saying the devil is in the TV. I'm not saying it's horrible to have a TV in your home or something, but in most houses, people watch three hours a day of television

and then wonder why they can't connect to their children because they work too much. No, it's because you've got the stupid. TV on too much is why. And so turn TV off and lay your phone and close your computer and lay your phone in a basket and don't pick them back up. When you're home, by God, be home. Don't have one foot back at the office through your stupid phone or be entertaining yourself

with ridiculous Instagram reels instead of with your three-year-old. That's so screwed up. it's unbelievable and it's destroying the fabric of the family these screens screen time and it's doing a bunch of other damage too that i'm not going to get into right now but again i'm not on some kind of rampage i just think you if you you can't tell me you're working too much to see your family when your tv's on all the time because your work's not your problem your tv is that's one thing we figured out the second thing we figured out is is that i had to stop for three minutes the front of the driveway and change my hats before I went in the house because I've been wearing

the kill it and drag it home hat. I've got the sword out and it's got blood on it. And I got gunpowder smoke on me. I've been shooting everything and stabbing everything in sight for the last 45 minutes and then I walk in and I'm supposed to deal with a five-year-old gently. Doesn't work. so I knew I had to stop at the front of the driveway and reset. And then when I walk in, as the pioneers did of old, or the soldier of old would do, I take the sword off and put it above the mantle. And it stays there until the next morning

when I buckle it back on and go back to work. I don't use the same tools with my family that I use at work. And that's when the kids are, little. Then that gives me the opportunity to be a right kind of dad and a right kind of mom and a right kind of time spent. And then we can talk about learning to work, teaching kids to work, age appropriately. We don't put four-year-olds in the salt mine, but they do need to learn to make their own dead gun bed and pick up their own toys. I'm not your butler. I'm your father. And you will brush your teeth because I'd like for you to have some later. They're handy when

year old. So if you want teeth, you have to brush them. So we go through these processes of parenting and set the stage on this as we go along. And so we were old school parents, and I know some of you are, you're fine raising anarchists, but I'm not. The inmates didn't run the asylum. And so, and when the grandbabies visit Papa Dave, they get spoiled, but they also mind. They also, they're not confused about who's in charge of the house, and it's not them, it's me. and it's not, I'm not mean about it, but we're just not confused about how authority flows and what you do. And it structures a young person's character then to be able to enter the workplace because there's authority in the workplace too. And it turns out you can't play beer pong all morning at work like you did in college.

There's authority in the workplace. You actually have to get your work done. And so all of that sets the stage for then when they start entering the business. And what we've done at Ramsey, we've talked about it many times on this podcast, was we've treated our Ramsey family members that work inside the business with the exact same dignity that we treat our team members, which is great dignity. If you work at Ramsey, we treat you extremely well. And we expect a lot of you.

And we're kind to you. We don't yell and scream and cuss at people around here. We don't do that. But we, by God, get our work done too. We've got a lot of very important work we're doing. and we need to get it done, and we need to be done with excellence. We don't need to be, you know, talking about we're Christian this, and then if you're going to put a fish on the back of it, drive it right.

You better bring it. And so this is what we're doing. And the kids, you know, they're the same way. Only I told our kids, I mean, they would work book tables and stuff when they were teenagers at one of the events. And I told them, if you're going to be a Ramsey and you're going to be around the Ramsey thing, you're going to have to work twice as hard as everybody else just to be respected. and you're going to be really better just to even be looked at as capable

because they're going to automatically assume that you're a dufus, that you're the boss's kid who's useless. And if you give them any clues that that's true, they'll believe it. So never let them have a clue that that's true. You've got to super bring it for your own sake, for your own reputation, for your own effectiveness in the marketplace and in the workplace. And to their credit, they have. They bring it. They work. And they're good at what they do. And they're wise beyond their years.

And they've done a great job. I'm really proud of them. And so over the years, we've done that. And yes, he's right. In the video, he asked, what do I do? Daniel and I have had breakfast the entire time he's worked here. Father's son breakfast, not a boss employee breakfast every Tuesday morning at 7 o'clock. We're changing that right now. We're getting ready to change it. We're going to start doing lunch instead. But after 10 years, you ought to change something. So it's good. you know, we've done that and discussed, sometimes we discuss business, sometimes we discuss football, sometimes we discuss grandbabies, sometimes we discuss family trip coming up, whatever, just father-son breakfast, right? And then later on in the week, a year and a half ago,

he became the president of the company, I'm the CEO, and so he reports to me for the first time since he's worked here. And so I have a direct one-on-one with him that we go through once a week. And that's president to CEO, and it's 100% business. and, you know, when he's in the room and he and I are working on, we were working on a problem earlier today in one of our areas, and we were analyzing the business case that one of these areas was bringing to us on something we thought sucked. And both of us kind of looked at each other and went, this sucks.

And then we got to explain it to the VP that it sucks. So anyway, it worked out. But we get in the room and argue together and argue sometimes on the same side and sometimes not. And fight through a problem and work through, you know, challenges, which is every stinking day in business, right? And so, but we're never at each other. We're always at the problem. You know, our job here is to beat the problem up. I don't really care about your opinion. All I care is we want to call the right play to put the

ball in the zone because we're trying to win the Super Bowl. That's all I care about. And I'm not arguing about you or your issues. I'm arguing about the play. Did you call the right play or are we calling the right play? That's all I want to know. and because that's what we're just trying to get effective, work done. And so it's healthy conflict and healthy roles and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of it involves Facebook, Instagram, or texting. It's human to human interaction.

It is not good that man be alone. Did you not, did you people not learn that? during the Fauci pandemic, when these buttholes locked you in your house and you couldn't see other humans, did you not learn that these relationships matter? They matter. Direct relationships matter.

Don't ever let them do that to you again. It matters. And it matters in your family, and it matters inside your organization, and it matters for productivity, and it matters for connectivity to the customer. And I think that we're going to see a disgust rise up following the pandemic, which opened our eyes.

And we realized that Zoom is not the answer to any equation. And we realized that Facebook friends aren't real friends. Real friends help you change a tire or two in the morning and the rain. And let me just tell you, and a stinking soul on Facebook, going to do that. So, and if some of you said to your neighbor in person, what you said about them on the HOA Facebook page, they would break your freaking nose,

and you would deserve it. You know, but you've got all this digital courage, and that's a part of the breakdown of this relationship stuff too. And people are getting disgusted with it, and so we're going to see a revolution in this country that's going to be awesome, a renaissance in this country that's going to be awesome, where people are rejecting the overuse

of these screens in substitution for real relationships in the workplace, in the family, with the little kids, and with the grown kids in the business. And that, James, is how we did this. That's exactly how we did this. This is the Entry Leadership podcast. When you start your business, you're doing it all by yourself. You're the Chief Everything Officer. If you stop everything stops, if you start it goes.

It's called the treadmill stage. The treadmill operator stage of business. There's five stages of business. And we'll teach you how to level up to Pathfinder from treadmill. And then you'll have a new set of problems, which is how business works. As soon as you graduate, you get a new set. And then we'll help you level up to Trailblazer and then to Peak Performer. And then you'll end up where we are eventually, which is the legacy builder stage,

the last stage of business. and we'll walk you through the six drivers of business from personal to purpose to people to plan to product and profit. We'll show you how we've grown this over 35 years and why it won't take you 35 years if you'll learn the system, if you'll learn the Entry Leadership system. You can learn all about all of that at Entryleadership.com.

Be sure and check it out. Mike's in Miami. Hey, Mike, welcome to the podcast. How can we help? Hey, Dave, good to talk to you. You too. What's up? So I'm 38 years old. I own a health care clinic in Miami. Our main treatment is we treat patients for hands and feet nerve damage.

All of our treatments are holistic in nature. Last year we did $3.3 million. Paid myself $150,000. And then when it was all said and done, we had an $800,000 profit when it was all done. So wait. Yeah, it was great. Business 10X from, from 2021 to about now, so it's been great. How did it 10X?

Because there wasn't that much more people. They just found you and you were the solution and the word got out? Yeah. Yeah, I really started focusing on the different marketing. Our ticket price went from, for each patient, kind of went from 2,500 to closer to 10,000. We just found a niche for a bigger problem that people had, where really only drugs and surgery was their only option. And for us, we were giving them a different option that was helping them avoid those things.

So these are people that have enough money to avoid the insurance debacle and want real help, and you've got an answer? Right, right, exactly. So these are well-heeled clients, as we say. Right, exactly. Gotcha, okay. Cool. Good for you.

into is patients are every about 10% to a 0% of the practice the patients that start care are getting buyer's remorse after they start care and I can't figure out how to prevent that. It's really my role in the practice has really just become overseeing everything and just helping people. I'm not, I'm there about 75% of the time and I haven't been able to figure out how to prevent people from buyer's remorse. Okay. So I come in and I've got nerve damage in my hand and you sell me a program that's $10,000 to help me alleviate that.

Is that kind of how this works? I'm sorry, you cut out. Yes, yes, that's all it works. Okay. So how would I get buyer's remorse if you're helping me with my nerve damage and I knew I was going to pay $10,000? Yeah. Sometimes I think it's because we give them the whole,

blueprint right off the bat. We're giving you equipment to go home with. We're showing you how to use it. We're setting you up with in-office visits for anywhere between six months and how much nerve damage you have. Okay, one more time because you cut out. Office visits for what? For the nerve damage. So we set up on office visits. How many? How many? Usually over a one-year period, it's 20 to 25. Okay, so I'm in there every other week. Yes. Yeah, in the beginning. And then it fades away over time. So it's more... That's one year every other week, 25. Right. It's front-loaded in the first six months, and then it's less and less over time.

Okay. So what is it that I get, if I'm the customer, that I get buyer's remorse, is it harder than I thought it was going to be? Sometimes it's harder than you thought. There's more at home than you expected. It's usually anywhere between an hour a day at home to two hours a day at home. so it is cumbersome in the beginning, but that's only for the first three months, and then it fades away over time. And then the healing rate on this is 90% or whatever.

Right, but it's very, it's a lot. If I do your protocol exactly as you tell me to do it, and it's hard, what's my probability of healing? 96%. That's what I was asking. Now it's not going to be, it's not going to be 100% for everybody. I got it. I can't be.

30%. I can't be. But I mean, like in Financial Peace University, we used to tell people, here's your money back guarantee. You get your money back if you do this and it doesn't work. But if you don't do this and you want your money back, we won't give it to you.

Right. So, I mean, if you do exactly what I tell you to do with money for 90 days, you will see an improvement of $8,000 to $12,000, and you only paid $100 to get that. That's a deal. But if you don't follow our stuff, you can't bitch and whine about our stuff. Right.

Yeah, that was our money back guarantee. It was kind of smart aleck back in the day. So I'm trying to get it the idea. So I think maybe you're seeing normal bell curve of people not following through. As a matter of fact, you're probably better than normal bell curve of people not following through on things when you only have 10%. I think a normal bell curve would give you a higher than 10%. Even though you have a 96% probability that if I give you $10,000 and you do exactly what I tell you to do, and it's going to be very hard, still a percentage of people aren't going to do it. Right. Yep, exactly. And that's what I'm trying to run into. And then they have, when they don't do it, is when they have buyer's remorse. The people that execute on the protocols are not having buyer's remorse. Am I right?

You're right. Okay, you're right. Okay. So I think what I would do is be more negative in the sales process. Okay. Tell them things like not everybody makes it. Because most people simply don't have the willpower to do what's necessary to win. I don't know if you're a winner or not.

but if you do the stuff I teach you to do, it'll work, but not everybody can do it. So if you're the kind of person that bails halfway through something that's difficult and hard, you probably don't want to give us your money because you're probably going to end up mad at us later, and it'll be your fault. So I'd rather not have you as a customer if you're going to bail halfway through. Because here's what I can tell you. This is going to be really hard. and it's absolutely 96% going to work.

If you do the stuff we teach exactly the way we tell you to do it, you are going to be very happy with the results. If you half but do these protocols, you are not going to win, and you're going to be mad at yourself and us, and we honestly would rather not have you as a customer. Now, you don't have to be quite that rough, but that message delivered in kind of a negative way,

you might run off two or three percent of the people, but they're all people who weren't going to do it, and they were going to be a problem. That makes sense, because sometimes it feels like, I kind of correlated to like a gym membership. Sometimes people sign up for a gym membership, and they think they did something.

Absolutely. It's exactly what it feels like. It's exactly what it feels like, because it's very similar. Or it's like, you know, the thing I was reading the other day, I was blown away, the statistics on the number of people,

you leave a dot, you leave a doctor's office with a prescription for medication, the number of people who don't even go to the drugstore and get the pills. And then of the ones that actually go buy the pills, which is like only about 30%, about one and three actually go fill the prescription, the rest of them drive home and go, well, it's going to be okay. I don't know how the heck they think that's going to happen, but they do. And then of the 30% that actually go get the pills,

like 90% of them don't take the whole medicine. Like, you know, you buy a Z-pack. I'm just going to take it until I feel better and then quit the pack. So that's more like an X-pack instead of a Z-pack. I don't know. It's an abbreviated Z-pack, right? People don't, it's a protocol.

And they don't finish. And then they wonder why they're still freaking sick because they didn't do what the doctor told them to do. They didn't take the drug protocol that they were told to take because they're so stinking smart when they didn't go to med school. It's amazing.

I don't know if you've ever read those numbers. I was just saw them the other day. We were looking at something else where people don't follow through on stuff. And somebody laid those numbers down. I was just flabbergasted what the medical profession has to endure. No one, I mean, and then they get sued for malpractice

when the stupid person didn't take the drugs. I feel like I'm getting threatened to be sued on a weekly basis, you know, threatened to go to board, threaten for all these things. And I make too much money and help too many people to not sleep at night. And that's where it's like, do I give this 10% of their money back or some of it? I think you need to look for three to five percent of your clientele and fire them before you hire them.

Okay. You need a better nose for crazy. And we used to call them here two percenters. Two percent of the public should be institutionalized. And I don't want them as customers. They cost me a lot more in bandwidth than they'll ever make me. And I can't help them. because they're not ready to be helped.

They're more used to screwing up stuff than they are and having temper fits and everything else than they are actually getting help. And so if we figure out somebody's nuts, we just go get, here's all your money back for anything. Just go way away. We don't want to see you anywhere near. Leave, you know, spend the money on counseling.

That's what you need. So, yeah, number one, you need to lean in and go, all business is not, good business. Some of it needs to be cut loose for it happens. Two, I would get a little heavier handed, not as heavy as sarcastic as I was a while ago. I was trying to make a point, but I still am going to be more negative about the sale and go, this is hard. It's not easy, but you're very sick and you're hurting. And if you want to fix this, we have a 96% probability if and only if you do the very hard things exactly like we say. We really don't want your money if you're not going to raise your

right hand. I know it's not nerve damage, but raise your right hand and promise that you're going to follow through on this, right? Right. I mean, I'm going to, I'm going to like get a commitment from them to engage in the protocol or I'm not going to sign them up. And then if they do ask for a refund, you're just giving it back. No, I'm not necessarily. Not necessarily. I'm probably going to give them a hard time. Because I've already warned you 63 times.

Now you got the guts to come back in here. Why do you want a refund? You didn't do? You remember that thing when we talked about where you have to do all this stuff and you've done none of it? And you want to come back here and you want your money back when you didn't do the stuff. No. Right.

I got to pay people here. And you took up somebody's ban. You took up a seat for another patient that was. would have actually gotten help. Yep. And that's what I feel like I'm filling my life with right now, and it's just, it's so stressful to do with this 10%. You know, it's my whole life right now.

Two things will solve that. One is cut them loose before you hire them because you smell them out. And two is put a, put, make it a little harder to buy by some kind of a promise to follow through on the protocol and a little bit of a negative sell, a little bit of a takeaway. And, and that's doing them a favor. because you're setting expectations and the secret to happiness is low expectations. Right.

Yeah, set your expectations. This is going to be hard. I mean, it's really hard. This may be the hardest thing. I'm looking directly into his eyes and I say, this may be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life. But you're really sick. And if you really want healing,

you've got to really do every stinking thing we tell you to do. And if you're not going to do that, please don't take up the seat because there's somebody wants this seat that will do it we don't need your money we want you healed along with that same thing because i love this this makes this resonates with me greatly culturally in the office we're down probably 20% this year from last year and i know it's this everybody's almost nervous like who's the next one coming out of the woodwork How do I create? Yeah, and I think if you got a little bit more swagger in your sale,

it'll help them morale all the way through the place. Okay. So about 20 years ago, we had an old-fashioned receptionist. We called her the director of First Impressions sitting at the front desk, and she was in the lobby of the office, like old school. Like when you walk in, you met the receptionist. There was a phone, an actual telephone laying there. You know what I'm talking about, that kind of thing.

It was a long time ago. but we had this guy calling in and as I was walking past I could hear her and I looked and there's tears running down my receptionist's face and this guy is screaming at my receptionist

and I'm like, is he yelling? And she said, yeah and I said, put him on hold. And she put him on hole. I said, sir, I can put you on hole. And she just slapped the phone down. I said, she said, he's just cussing and screaming about how we ripped him off

and all this stuff and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And how horrible we are and all this stuff and I just picked the phone up and I'm like hey who's this he told me his name I said listen here's your deal this is Dave you know who I am he said Dave the Dave and I'm like yeah the Dave that owns this place and he said yeah I said you're fired he said what do you mean I said you're fired as a customer never call this again never contact us again never come anywhere near this building again stay away from anything that has my name on it you need to take any money you were going to spend with us and spit it on counseling for your rage.

You have serious problems when you call up and chew out a poor little receptionist who's got tears running down her face. You need to get help. And we don't provide that kind of help. Go somewhere else. And he goes, you're kidding. I said, do I sound like I'm kidding? And I hung up.

By then there were 10 people gathered around the desk. Now, I, you know, I'm not telling that story because I'm some kind of barbarian or something, although I might be. but you know what happened to the morale inside the company? We protect our people. Well, you're not going to abuse people that work here. The customers are not going to abuse the people that work here. We love them.

We want to help them. We want to serve them. But I ask no one at Ramsey to sit and be abused. Our customer care team is not a punching bag for you to call up and vent your childhood trauma on. Bull crap. And so that's what's going to happen around your point. place, man. As soon as you start taking up for what we do is right and our protocols work and we've just allowed ourselves to do business with some two percenters and we're going to stop that,

your morale will turn as soon as you do that. As soon as I did that with that little receptionist, morale shot all through the building in a positive way because we stood up for what we believed. Yeah, and that's probably what I'm not doing right now because I just, you never know who the crazy ones are and then when they come. No, and you're never going to get it perfect. We still get crazy around here sometimes. You don't believe, man. I mean, it's God, mighty.

But, yeah, I mean, we deal with it. We deal with public and mass. They're out there. So some of you people, we just adopted the southern thing. It's bless your heart, right? So, yeah, so you're fine. You're doing good, man. I think you're just letting a small percentage of your customers steal your joy

and steal the confidence that what you're doing is absolutely, incredible. The numbers that you're giving me are amazing. 96% probability. The profit is incredible. You've dialed the product line in and gotten the profits way up and the average order value way up. You're a stud, man. You're killing it. Don't let two or three of these nut jobs steal your joy and don't let them steal the morale of your place. You know, you get on the white horse. You get to the front of the line. By the way, the guy at the front that's leading is the first one that gets shot. That's how it works when you're leading. Get ready. Expect a bullet wound or two.

Expect a stab wound or two. You're in the front. That's what leading is. So good for you that you're taking those and good for you that you're dealing with us. You're going to have a great deal. This is going to be awesome. Next year is going to be amazing. I don't care if you make less money.

I'd be happy to make a little less money and have a lot more joy than you got right this second. That's where I would be. Good call, brother. Love that guy. How neat is he? Hey, guys, remember better a weary warrior than a, quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.