EntreLeadership - Businesses Need to Focus on Things They Can Control

Episode Date: April 15, 2020

Tune in to hear Dave Ramsey, Daniel Tardy, and Ken Coleman respond to some business owners' fears around Coronavirus.   Give us your feedback on these daily, COVID-19, bonus episodes: Text DAILYBONUS to 33444   Want to bring in Alex Judd and experience an EntreLeadership Workshop with your team? Click the link below: https://www.entreleadership.com/workshops   Get access to the EntreLeadership Weekly Report Tool, FREE, for you and your team for 3 months: Text TEAMHEALTH to 33444 or visit entreleadership.com/weekly-report   Follow us on social media to stay plugged in to everything we’re doing to help the small business owner win: LinkedIn Instagram Facebook Twitter YouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, this is Alex Judd, and this is a bonus episode that our team recorded specifically to bring you hope and practical action items that you can use as a small business owner to tackle this whole coronavirus situation. So today we've got a special episode for you. It's taken from the Dave Ramsey show where they did a small business theme hour. Dave Ramsey, Daniel Tarty, and Ken Coleman answered questions from small business owners around the country about how to lead during this wild time. So here it is from the Dave Ramsey Show, The Small Business Theme Hour. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios. It's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America.

Well, this hour has become so popular. to do it because it is so needed right now. We are doing another Entree Leadership, Small Business Female. Ken Coleman is with me. Ramsey Personality, number one, bestselling author of the book, Proximity Principle and Your Career and Jobs Expert, answering your questions every day on the Ken Coleman Show. Daniel Tarty, Executive Vice President of Entree Leadership, sits on our operating board, is also with me. The three of us make up the panel, and if you're running a small business or wish you were,

or are in the middle of one or just had to close one and you're wondering to reopen it or you're facing the corona crap, the corona shutdown, and you're trying to survive and make decisions in the middle of this. And you want to talk to somebody who is also having to make decisions in the middle of this. Well, the three of us are. We're part of the leadership team here at Ramsey, and we certainly are on the front lines right now looking at these very things. Matter of fact, spent the morning doing it. and with our whole operating board gathered to look at exactly where we are with the business of Ramsey Solutions. So if you got a small business, you've got a question.

We're here to help. The phone number is AAA 825-5-2-2-25. That's AAA 825-5-2-25. So Daniel Tarty, one of the things I'm observing, and I know you guys with our entree coaches dealing with, with small businesses are observing this. The first thing that happened was there was the emotional freak out. We got to shut down and work from home or all our customers are gone. We have a restaurant.

Our catering business isn't catering. Or we're doing business, you know, like Ramsey is. We're still doing business, but it's diminished. And how long do you, you know, how long do you survive in that? And what kind of steps do you take? But the first thing is just the, oh, my God, moment, the freak out. And then it kind of, it's almost like you go through the stages of grief. You know, you negotiate and then you kind of settle in to weather the hurricane.

It's like, oh, my God, there's a storm, there's a storm, there's a storm. Well, wait a minute. The storm's going to be here a while. Okay, we got the plywood on the windows and we're going to bear this. We're going to ride this thing out. But it's almost as if those of us running businesses have gone through emotional stages in the last few weeks. Is that fair? Well, I think it's exactly the human response, not just the stages of a small business owner responding to this.

But here's what I love about small business, Dave. And we experience this here with our leadership team. And I've been talking to business leaders all over the country. They are so inspiring. I've been getting text from people in our Andre leadership community saying, here's the latest. Here's what we're working on. You know, business owners by nature understand that they are not victims of their circumstance. You know, psychiatrists have talked for years about this idea of the lotus of control.

And essentially they're saying there are people who believe that control is inside of them and they can cause things to happen to their environment regardless of what that environment is or control exists outside of here. It's nebulous. It's whimsical. I can't touch it. It's luck. It's fortune.

It's fate. And for the most part, business owners, as much as they've had this really big disruption and to your point have had to grieve a little and had to do some hard things. Once we settle in, we go, well, this is my new. reality. What can I can control? And then I focus and I get to work on what I can put my hands on those levers of. And they're different levers today, certainly. But I'm still in control and I'm still causing things to happen. I'm still going to lead my team forward. And that's what we're seeing with a lot of businesses right now are doing that. It's inspiring. The first step we had to take

to remind our leadership team. We've got a world-class leadership team. So it didn't take much reminding. But up and down the ranks of leadership from senior leadership all the way through because I mean, there's a thousand people in this organization, so leadership's not two people or eight people or something. But the first thing was just to get everybody calm down. No one leader, as a leader, your job is to not bring drama to the party. It's to give drama. It's eviction notice. Even if there's real threat, and there is in this case to your business, there's real economic threat associated with coronavirus.

buyer shutdown. And yeah, and we love you. We know that 54% of the gross domestic product in America, half of the economy is small business. And when you take small business off the table as a governor or as a president or a senator or a mayor and you shut them down to the point they can't return, you have done permanent damage to the community that you're supposed to be governing. Permanent damage. Lives are wrecked in that process. The first lives are the first people to get laid off, and the second lives are the second people to get laid off, and the third lives are the businesses that are gone, and oh, all those customers that they used to serve, they're no longer served. That's right. And it changes the landscape of the entire community when you change economics.

It's not about worshipping the dollar. It's not about saying dollars are more important than lives. It's about saying lives are affected by both things, and to ignore that is very, very burdensome. Well, we talk about every business is either providing a good or a service, good and service in the community. It's good to be in business. You're giving something to somebody that is good for them. You don't provide a bad. You provide a good. But we talk about business like it's evil, yet we know what they provide is good.

goods and services. And so, yeah, we got to get these small businesses back on their feet. We got to get back to work soon, and we got to get this economy going again. It's a tough place to be in this environment where you've got to make a decision between public health and the economy, but I would say it's between public health and public health is what you're saying. I mean, the second degree consequence of shutting down the economy is it's a double-edged sword and there's the health components of how people are affected as a result of not being at work. Dave, Daniel, I was watching a classic movie this weekend. and I've seen a lot of business leaders step up,

but I was thinking about small business leaders watching this movie. It's called Gettysburg. Obviously, one of the most famous battles in American history. And the little-known Maine teacher by the name of Joshua Chamberlain, who Jeff Bridges plays in the – not Jeff Bridges. It doesn't matter. I'll get the name in a minute.

But he plays Joshua Chamberlain in the movie. And this guy's a school teacher out of Maine, and he's leading this unit from Maine. And they're outgunned, they're out-maned, they're under heavy, heavy odds. and the Confederate Army's charging him, and he gets the command, you've got to hold this hill. This is the key to us winning this battle. You've got to hold this hill.

And he's literally, it's all he's got is his rag tech unit for Maine. And in that moment, this guy stands up and he leads, and he goes on to become the governor of Maine, and he's truly a hero in that moment. He's the hero of the Battle of Gettysburg. Why? He did in that moment what I see a lot of leaders in small business doing right now, that is they're realizing they have one mission and one mission only have to win the day. Then the next day and the next week, the next month, it's short term.

What's your mission? When you get super, super clear on your mission, you can lead with confidence. Uncertainty's not going away when coronavirus goes away. And so I'm seeing that, David. I'm really encouraged by the leader to step up. Yeah. Stand up. Yeah.

And he charged. Win the day. Andy Andrews has written a lot about Chamberlain. He's done a good job with it, as a matter of fact. So he's one of the men in the traveler's gift. Yeah, a matter of fact. So good stuff. All right, we're talking small businesses.

If you have small business questions, comments, we're here for you. The phone number is AAA 825-5-2-2-25. It's a small business theme hour. This is the Dave Ramsey show. Amanda is with us in Ohio. Hi, Amanda. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey show. Hi, Dave.

First, I want to say hi from the YouTube crazies because we love you. Well, thank you. More importantly, my question. is I'm just started development on an independent video game, and it's probably going to take me two to three years before I'm finished with it and ready to actually, you know, start selling it. Why does it take that wrong? Because I'm a single person. Okay. Doing all the art and assets and everything.

Okay. And that's just based on having a full-time job and working on it in my spare time. But anyway, do I need to worry about putting together, like, and creating a business, and setting up bank accounts and all that stuff at this point, or do I wait until I'm actually ready to release the product? Amanda, I'm kind of curious to know a little bit more about your goal with this. I mean, are you wanting this to launch and become a big, like, what's the product? It's a video game that's sold through the App Store, or what's the endgame here?

So I'm actually going to target more of like traditional video gamers and less on the App Store. So probably like PC, Nintendo Switch, that kind of platform. It's going to be a relatively short RPG. I'm a huge video game nerd, and I know how to code, so I've kind of got my project plan in mind. It's not necessarily because it's that I want to push 100,000 units and become a millionaire. It's that I want to create something to show that I can do it with the potential of moving into that industry at some point. I work in IT, and I like what I do, but my ultimate goal is to do something more in that side of it. So when will you start making money or spending money?

not for a couple, not for like two to three years when I actually have a product to sell. That's when I would worry about it. That's when I would worry about a bank account. Until then, you don't need to worry about a bank account. And I don't want to diminish what you're doing. It sounds like a lot of fun and you're excited about it. But I would say it's closer to what I would call a hobby at this stage that you're hoping could turn into something once you get it out there and see how, you know, see if it takes off. And that's today's point.

What he's saying is that's when it kind of becomes a business. You got revenue coming in. You got expenses. you're starting to look at staff and scaling that thing up, then it's really a business and not an idea that you're just kind of messing with. Yeah, exactly. It's kind of what I was thinking, but I thought I'd better ask to make sure. Yeah, good question.

Hey, thanks for calling. We appreciate you being a listener. Lauren's with us in Texas. Hi, Lauren. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. How you doing, Mr. Ramsey? Great, man. Your question for the panel.

Well, I don't have a question. I just want to brag on what you do and what you've done for me. So I own a deck company in Houston, Texas. We build custom decks, part of those anything wood outdoors. And I've been to a couple of summits. I'm an All-Acess member. And June of last year, I went to a dealership to buy a new truck. And I walked in there and I had the deal with everything was ironed out.

I got a finance department, and they started jerking me around on the financing. And so I said, I just got frustrated. I said, you know what? I'll tell you what. I'll be right back. I went out on my truck and got my checkbook. and I wrote a check for $48,000 for the truck, and I walked out and made that guy, man, he was mad because he didn't make the interest on it.

And I got back to the office, and I started looking at all my bills, and I said, man, this is stupid. This is absolutely nuts. What am I doing here? I had three other vehicle loans out, and I had about $40,000 to American distress. And I went to my office. I told my secretary, I said, this is nonsense. I've had it.

I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. Never again. And so from July to September, we paid off about $90,000 in just dumb business debt. And now my company is 100% debt-free, and we rolled into 2020,

expecting a, you know, a wonderful year. And it's been a great year so far. It's just we had this little coronavirus thing that hit everybody blindsided, and now we have, Zero debt, and man, we're skating through it. Yeah. So are you building decks in the middle of all this? Yes, sir.

Absolutely. Okay. So that hasn't slowed down on you at all then. What city are you in in Texas? What city are you in Texas? I'm in Houston. Houston, okay. I'm in Houston.

Yes, sir. So your business is still running along, but you've got the extra pad of having some savings and having no debt at all? Absolutely. And now because we don't have debt, now I'm just waiting on deals for, you know, we need some equipment. And I'm ready to buy because I have cash in hand and no debt. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Very good. Yeah, I mean, you're in a position to, there's people in three different situations right now. They're in a situation like you're in and I'm in personally. And then there's people that are kind of in the middle, you know, and things are going okay, but they're wondering. and then there's folks that have just completely lost their jobs, lost their incomes and lost everything. And, you know, congratulations, Lauren. I've got to tell you, in Ontario leadership, you're exactly why we exist, and we're very, very proud of you. Very well done.

Very well done. Daniel, that's your team doing their job. Yeah, so, you know, Lauren's actually part of our coaching community, and I'm just, I'm so excited when business owners actually get that these financial principles are not just for the household. They're biblical principles that apply anywhere in life, including your business, especially your business. But we talk to business leaders all the time who go, but it's business debt. It's justified debt. I'm going to get an ROI on the debt. And Lauren told us, he said, he had that moment where he said, I feel like this is crazy. I'm burning the ships. I'm paying off the debt. And now there's a lot of people out there going, I wish I was like Lauren. I wish I had done that a year ago and decided that, you know, I didn't get into this debt that I could justify at the time. And, you know, hopefully this will be the wake-up call for a lot of business leaders going forward to say,

hey, this isn't a plan to finance this business. Let's pay cash and let's have some savings in the bank today to get through the speed bomb. Well, I mean, there's a wake-up call. Any time you go through stress, I mean, the old Warren Buffett's saying, you can tell who's skinny dipping when the tide goes out. And so when your business is up against the wall and you have a pile or you're personally up against the wall and you have a pile of cash in business, we call that retained earnings at home, we call it your emergency fund, and you don't have any payments. It puts you in a completely different situation.

And so for some folks, they're not in that situation. But this is the never again moment. I'm never going to be here again. And in some cases, they lost a job, and they're going to start a business. because never again am I going to work for somebody else and depend on them for my security. You know, never again. I got fired from that job, so never again, am I going to work for the man? And a lot of small businesses start that way.

It's not really a good way to start one. Well, it's not a good way, but, I mean, I'd love to hear from you guys on this, because as much as we'd like to think that we learn and get these convictions out of what we hope life will do for us, it tends to be more response to pain. I mean, usually pain is a greater motivator. and teacher than just on principle. We're going to buy in and say, yes, I'm going to have the strong conviction just out of wisdom.

Well, that's a very good point. A lot of people won't learn from this because of what you just said. And here's the, here's the risk. Don't let the feeling dissipate. Because you could feel a lot of pain right now. And then what I believe in a couple months, three, four months from now, third quarter this year, you might look back on it like I do on the scar on my hand. I had a doofus seriously six, eight stitches right here one day doing something stupid in my backyard.

and I can touch that scar right now, and I can remember what happened, but I can't feel it. And some of you're going to be like that six, eight months from now, and you better be careful, because this is the point. You better think differently if you're going to make real changes. It's one thing to feel this pain, but you better start changing the way you think as a result of this. Why did I get into this situation? What was I not doing? What's the right way to run my business?

What's the right way to run my personal finances? What's the long-term vision and why we do the baby steps? See, I went broke. And the first thing the bankruptcy attorney told me was he said, go apply for a bunch of credit cards and rebuild your credit. And I said, how do you get credit cards if you don't have any credit? Because you just file, I just filed bankruptcy. And this was 30 years ago. He said, go subscribe to financial magazines, Forbes, money, so on.

And you'll get credit card offers. And he was right. I did it. And as I was doing that, I was starting to learn these principles because I started investigating and saying, What happened? Why did I go broke? Because I did everything I was taught about borrowing money, and then I went broke. I must have violated something that I didn't know was there. And we discovered, you know, these biblical and grandma's common sense principles, we said, we're not borrowing money anymore, we're not going to be without generosity anymore,

we're not going to be without a budget anymore, we're not going to be without savings anymore. Ever again. Ever again. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. It's a small business theme hour. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Daniel Tarty, joins me, our entree leadership executive vice president and also sits on our operating board. Ken Coleman joins me, Ramsey Personality, the Ken Coleman show. The Entree Leadership Summit is, by many accounts, the best leadership event on the planet right now. It is, if it's not, it's in the top three. It's absolutely incredible. And we look forward to this event every year. It is a high-end leadership event that is not simply going to, and sitting and listening to speakers, although we do that.

But it is a full-on immersive experience, and you do not want to miss it. It was scheduled for May, and like a lot of things that were scheduled for May, Gaylord in Orlando, the Gaylord Palms, where we're holding it, asked us to move it, because they're afraid they're not going to be working in May with what's going on in Florida. So we agreed to move it to July 12th through the 15th. which gives us a higher probability of it actually occurring, which is what we want it to happen. And so all of you that have tickets to it already, your tickets just transferred over, and we're looking forward to having you.

It's going to be incredible. It's the exact same city, exact same hotel, exact same everything. Chris Hogan will be speaking. Christy Wright will be speaking. Ken Coleman, Carly Fiorina, Damon John of Shark Tank, Mike Rowe. Everybody loves Mike Rowe. and Cat Co, C-O and President of North America at North America at Focus Brands, Dr. Benjamin Zander, the founder and conductor of the Boston Phil Harmonic,

and Hall of Fame coach and football analyst Lou Holtz. Everybody loves Lou. And, of course, I'll be speaking frequently throughout the week, and we're having all kinds of breakouts and all kinds of experiences. Lots of things you can do. Plan on being in Orlando, July the 12th through the 15th. Some of you are running businesses right now, and you're going to need to have your tank fill back up after the fight you're going through. And we'd love to have you for business.

This would be like going to church right here, man. That's the truth. You need to go once on Sunday and get your tank fill back up, you know? And obviously it's not church. Don't send me hate mail for those of you that are oversaved. But the bottom line is we need – we humans need to have input. And especially when you're going through a battle, you need some healing time and some fresh ideas and emotions. And we'll have all of that for you.

If you'd like to come, just visit Entreeleadership.com and you'll see the Orlando event July the 12th through the 15th, or you can text the word Orlando to 44 to 222. That's Orlando to 44 to 22. Ken, you and I have spoken at a lot of leadership events and been involved with them. We have lots of friends that do leadership events of all kinds. We're often participants as one of their speakers because we've got a lot of friends in that space. And yet, I defy you to say there's a better event than this one. Yeah.

Obviously, the speakers speak for themselves. We're talking about wonderful communicators, great men and women, captains of industry, thought leaders, and beyond. But what's so special about this event? that you speak to there is that there's something, something really great among the attendees, that there's an energy, you know, you and I've been on a lot of stages, and every crowd, you and I talk about this, has its own personality. It just does, you know. It's just the way it goes. And yet this event every year, there's an energy level that's palpable coming off of the floor onto the stage and then in the breaks and the hallways and to see Daniel, you and I, you know,

Dave's out there too. We'll frequent the hallways and the gathering areas, after the sessions of the day and the community there and people that are saying, hey, hey, guys, how are you doing? We go up and say how to them. We find out that they've been coming for five, six years, and they all kind of hang out in a group. And there's something about the camaraderie of the battle. They understand the battle.

Yeah. And it's special. Well, they're fighting together. And the people who come to this event are small business owners, the entrepreneurs, the dreamers, the visionaries, the get out of bed, get it done people who actually want to go out and make it happen. And so what you guys are hidden on, I mean, energy, inspiration, absolutely. But at the end of the day, business owners tell us, you guys give me results. I mean, I make an investment. You give me utility that I take back. I plug it into my business and my business

gets better. And so it's not just rah-rah. It's answers, it's solutions, it's practical advice on things that really work. And that's how we curate the list of speakers, and that's how we teach. And so I think that's why it really, it sets it apart in the marketplace for small business. text the word Orlando to 44-22. Linda's with us in Kansas. Hi, Linda. How is it going out there? I must have to push, not push the button.

Let me try it again. Now I did. Linda, there you are. How's it going out there? It's going well. Thank you. How can we help today? Mr. Ramsey, I'm so blessed to be able to talk to you.

I'm the owner of a small business. I've been in business for over 20 years. I don't have any debts. I never took out a loan on the business. business. And, you know, we've been profitable. And I have three employees. Now, I was advised by my landlord that I rent the business from, I mean, the space from, and by my financial planner to try, you know, to apply for this paycheck protection plan. And right before, the coronavirus, we really hustled and we got a lot of business in. So it's, you know,

It would be okay. I mean, I could get through this without taking out the loan. It was free money. And so what do you assign? Do I take out the loan or do I lay off two of the people that work for me? I thought you said you could make it through it. I can make it through it, but only if I'm by myself because I'm the third person. What kind of business is it?

it's a service industry specialized okay and so how long before you run out of money if you don't take the loan um i would say three months so why can you not make it three months i can make it three months without laying anybody off um no i that's what i meant if you don't i think she would have to lay them off if you don't lay someone off how long can you make it if i don't i would say a month and a half. Okay. All right. So why do you have to make the decision now to lay someone off or take the loan?

Well, because I submitted the loans to four different banks. No, I mean, if you didn't take the loan. Yeah. Okay. And you went a month and a half out, assuming the loans are still available, they may not be, but you could take it then, right? Well, that's a good idea. I hadn't thought of that.

Because after a month and a half, I think you could be turned around. What service do you provide? Well, it's an art service. Okay. All right, cool. Well, the thing is, what we told our folks here is, are you and your husband in good shape financially where you don't have to take an income from the business for a while?

Say we're okay for a few months. Yeah, like if you didn't take an income for one month, you could keep your people? Yes. Yeah. I would look at you not taking an income before I laid people off, and I would look at laying people off before I took out a loan. The problem with the PPP loan is it is a loan.

It has a term with an interest rate. It is not a grant. It has provisions, and you can pull the law up and read it. It's available on the Internet. It has provisions for forgiveness of the loan, and that's why your advisors are acting like it's free money. If you meet those provisions exactly, and if they're. They don't change the game in the middle of it and you're dealing with the SBA and the federal government. And frankly, I don't trust their competence and I don't trust Congress to not change the game.

So I am never going to borrow money. I can tell you at Ramsey, the first thing that will happen is our leadership team will go without pay. The second thing will happen is that another layer of our leaders would volunteer likely to go without pay. The third thing that would happen is we would go, everybody else skips a paycheck so that nobody loses a job. And way after that would be furloughs and layoffs. And I think you're ways away from this, and I think these guys are just going,

this is free money, and I don't think it's free money. This ain't monopoly. This is real life. Those are real dollars, and they're going to want them back if you don't meet the guidelines. I disagree vehemently with the advice you've been given. Avoid the PPP. avoid the federal loans.

You're going to regret it, America, if you don't. I'm just telling you. All right, guys, there's a lot of stuff I don't know anything about. I can't do brain surgery on you. I'm not going to help you with your dental problems. And I can't work on your new Maserati. I do know about financial issues. It is what I have done for 30 years.

this is not my first ride on this cabbage truck. And I didn't just wake up this morning and decide to be obstinate or hard to get along with on these stupid PPP loans from the SBA. And yet I think I may be the only one, the Ramsey organization, may be the only one, and we're all aligned on this, on this panel, that is telling you not to take the, in quotes, free money. the end quotes grant because it is neither. 100% of the time that you borrow money and you sign loan documents, you owe the money. That's what's going to happen here. Then the question is,

will the guidelines in the 800-page bill that no one, including the people who voted on it, has read, will they allow you without a dad-gum federal loophole to have that loan forgiven? So I got to tell you what we're going to do at Ramsey. In case you haven't heard before, we don't borrow money. Because no one's going to tell us how to run this business at a bank, ever. And I'm not going to be on my knees begging the federal government to do what it promised it was going to do.

in the headlines, but took away in the fine print for giving this loan. You're going to look up and you're going to entail at a minimum a lot of hassle, a lot of hassle, and then be able to get the forgiveness done. At a maximum, the forgiveness is not going to be taken away. Or the forgiveness is going to be taken away, and the loan is going to be still sitting there looking at you. and you know, Daniel Tarty, we've heard this from small business leaders, our entire Ontario leadership career, but Dave, you don't understand. In our business, we have to borrow money.

Dave, you don't understand. Our backs against the wall. Well, welcome to the freaking human race right now. We all are. But you have to have some things you value, what your principles are, and you have to stand on those principles in good times and bad times. Otherwise, they're not principles. Well, Dave, one of the things that I've always admired about you is you have figured out

that there are principles. When Proverbs 22-7 says, the rituals over the poor, the borrower is slave to the lender, when you take that as a principle, even when you can technically justify the specific context of a situation, logically, you might can justify taking the PPP. You can go down the list and say, but it's logical that, and it's logical, and I can rationalize this if I want to ignore the principle. But there's some things that are just worth standing on your conviction on a timeless principle that is, it's based on wisdom. Well, let me ask you both this. Isn't this a trade-off of short-term pain because you don't want to have to let anybody go?

No leader wants to do that. That's awful. You're trading short-term pain to then have long-term pain because you're going to be stuck with this loan over the long haul. And Dave, Daniel, aren't we going to see a lot of small businesses that were otherwise healthy until cash flow stopped? Strap themselves with something they got. So I just think that's what people aren't thinking. They're not thinking of the long-term trade-off. Isn't that the real problem?

Well, and they're not thinking about the fact they're increasing their risk. They're increasing that they are now about to be slave to the SBA or the bank and all these things that Dave's talking about. And so it's not free money. It's not no strings attached. Here's the thing. How many people are out there saying right now, and I haven't rubbed anybody's nose in this publicly anywhere, okay? I will admit to, I have had the thought, but I have not done it. I have not done it.

How many people are out there saying, gosh, I wish I had listened to that stupid Ramsey guy that I thought was crazy. And I wish right now I was out of debt and I had an emergency fund in place. And now we're sitting here discussing going into debt in the middle of a time when you're just supposed to have learned that this crap doesn't work. Yeah. I mean, my God. You have the lessons sitting right in front of you. and then you look to your right and go, I'm going to borrow money.

You know, it's so freaking illogical. It violates two things. One is it tells you that, let me just tell you, there's one time that debt works, and that's if everything works. And I have never in my life, in my personal life or in my business life,

and I'm old, had everything work the way it's supposed to. I can afford the payments, says the guy who didn't live, lose his job until the coronavirus shutdown hit. And now I can't afford that car anymore, which means that, by the way, you couldn't afford it to start with. And the same is true, walking into this, and it's like, well, I mean, I could just put the money in the account and I can turn around and pay it off. And how many times?

Why? Listen, you need to sit down leaders that are running churches and you need to take a pay cut or a pay vacation. By the way, Congress, you ought to take a pay vacation and donate all that money to something. Because, well, anyway, I just about went off on a rabbit hole. But anyway, the vacation is ready to help. Seriously, the leaders, the first thing that's going to happen in this organization is the Ramses will not get paid. Our name's on the building. That's the first thing that will happen before I lay a soul off.

And the second thing will happen is our leaders in the operating board, not going to get paid. And by the way, they're all okay with that. And the third thing that will happen is we've had a whole bunch of volunteers at the next level down of leadership that says, I'm okay, I can make it for 30 days, I'll skip a paycheck too if it means we don't have to lay people off. Those are real leaders. They're putting themselves ahead.

They're putting their team. The team's good ahead of themselves. leadership generally sucks. You're constantly having to make bad decisions with, I mean, make good decisions with bad information and partial knowledge of what's going on and you've got to make the call anyway. It's high stress. People's feelings are involved and no one appreciates it. But you've got to do it anyway. That's what leadership is.

Well, leadership is going first on the hard things. If you don't go first, you're not leading. You're not leading. It's not going first on the upside. It's going first on the downside and assuming the risk and absorbing that so the team doesn't have to, right, Ken? Well, I think a lot of people taking these loans are following everybody else. Well, everybody else is doing it. I'm going to do it.

Again, let's break this thing down. My financial planner who makes less than I make is advising me. Yeah, right. My accountant who, you know, does not, has never made a payroll in his life except as one secretary is advising me on how to run this business. No. No. Absolutely not. Do not take these loans out.

You're going to create problems that you don't see yet. A hundred percent chance of that. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. As my buddy, Larry Katvin says, it ain't rocket surgery. So, I mean, it's just, you know, guys, please, please, there's two problems here. One is, is that you're counting on debt to be your supplier. Your provider. The second thing is you're waiting on the government to be your provider.

Neither one of these turn out to be good providers. You come up with ideas to create revenues fresh and different and digitally in the middle of this mess. Go do something special and new. Even if you're just doing it for 30 days that you've never done before and you may never do again, cut your own pay. Preserve cash, preserve cash, preserve cash, sell off assets. and protect your people. Protect your people. That's what you do.

And if you have to furlough them, you're going to cry while you do it and not take a paycheck. To be clear, and you said this this morning in our meeting, you said at the end of the day, if it came down to it, after doing all that, and you should do all those things first, we would have to do layoffs before we would take on debt, on principle. I'm not on principle because I think it's the shortest way to healing. It's the best way to run an organization because it's the most profitable

and it's the smartest, it's the wisest. Avoid the stinking debt. Please, guys, please. And you can be mad at me, and you can make fun of me to some dinosaur if you want, but I'm sitting here freaking open too. So shut up.

Ken Coleman, Daniel Tarty, joining me for an entree leadership theme hour. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.