EntreLeadership - How Dave Ramsey Plans to Hand Off Ramsey Solutions

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

In this episode, Dave Ramsey shares how he is handling succession, plus we’ll hear about:  A business owner who’s struggling to forecast future profit because of inconsistent revenue  How to get fighting team members to work together  A new business owner who’s looking for advice on how to lead his first team member    Next Steps  📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://ter.li/askus    👣 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 Coaching: https://ter.li/ycznhl    💵 Learn more about 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    📖 To order Silos by Pat Lencioni: https://amzn.to/3VdrL9Q    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 Ken Coleman Show  🎙️ The Ramsey Show    🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💰 George Kamel  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy  https://www.ramseysolutions.com/compa…  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 in the trenches. Yeah, I've been trenches. Ditches. I've been in the ditch. I've been in the trench. I've been in the hole.

I've been scratching and clawing. I've got dirt under my fingernails. This is not theory. is not a think tank. This is somebody who really runs a business. So if you want to talk, I'd love to talk to you about your business. The phone number is 844-944-1070. I love small business people. 844-944-1070. I am one. And I think we are the backbone of the American economy, and the statistics actually prove it. Fifty-four percent of the gross domestic product, the goods and services in America today are brought to you by businesses that are small,

that have less than 500 team members. There you go. You can also leave us a question at the form, fill out the forum at ontreleadership.com slash ask, and we'll get back with you and make you a caller here on the show, entreeleadership.com slash ask. Well, this is a very sad day

on the Entree Leadership podcast. Our producer, Austin Selby, has been with me for 18 months on this show and many years on the Ramsey show as my associate producer, and he's decided he's a quitter. He's... Micro said it well at Summit. He's a quitter, and he quit.

So he's going to go to be with his family over in the Carolinas and start up his own thing doing podcasting. We're very proud of him. It's the problem with doing the Entry Leadership podcast. It'll turn you into a deadgum entrepreneur, and then you quit your dadgum good job. So there you go. That's what happened.

And so we're losing a brother. a friend and we're not losing the friendship but we're losing his presence to help us get this show done it's been a great 18 months together i took over this seat 18 months ago and the producer at that time promptly quit and then austin stepped in and took this position and it's been a lot of fun doing this show and and helping you guys out there but it's largely due to will and ibu and and Austin the gang in the booth the booth people that make the show happen and so he's breaking up the band. So there we go.

We'll have to figure it out now. Boo! And he wore a Hawaiian shirt to celebrate, which makes no sense at all, but he did anyway. We love you, brother. We're going to miss you. Thank you for your service to Ramsey in general,

but to Entree leadership. It's been a good ride, and we know you'll be really successful. We'll be cheering for you. Absolutely cool. John is in Peoria, Illinois. Hey, John, welcome to the podcast. How can I help?

Yeah, thanks, Dave. Pleasure to speak with you today. I'm the founder and founder and president of small consulting business. We've been in business about 13 years and we've got about 16 employees. Last year we did about 1.8 million in revenue and this year we're on track for about 2.7. Way to go. Thank you. Thinking ahead regarding succession planning. My son is currently going to college for accounting and he's expressed interest and taken over the business in the future. He doesn't necessarily have the professional degree. in our line of work. What is your line of work? It's similar to engineering consulting. So we're in the geospatial industry, it's called him.

And I'm looking to kind of with that succession planning with him taking over someday. I'd like for him to go basically work somewhere else for a few years before integrating him into the business and then having maybe like a tenure plan on him moving into leadership and then taking over ownership someday. My question is, how can I best prepare him, myself, and my team to ensure the smoothest transition possible when that time comes? Well, what you're doing is fabulous. The way you're laying it out is unusually, it's unusual in a good way

because most people aren't this intentional this many years out. And one of the principles we've found when we've studied family businesses that had successful succession plans is the more gradual the plan, the higher the probability that it's a successful handoff. Okay? Okay. And so you've given yourself a really long runway here, which is exactly what you need to do.

So very well done. Congratulations on that. Now, what do we do with that runway is what you're asking, and if you want him to work somewhere else for a little while, that's fine. A lot of people promote that. my friend Dan Kathy at Chick-fil-A, they have always required the next generation to work somewhere else two years. The rumor has it that the Kathy family kids, grandkids, great-kin kids call that two years that they can't work there, purgatory. And so, you know, but they're out there learning how not to do it in a lot of cases because, as you know, corporate America sucks.

So if you get plugged into one of those things, you figure out how not to lead. But anyway, so that's an idea thing. We did not do that. We brought ours straight in, but we were big enough that there were several layers of leadership between us. So none of my kids reported directly to me. I did not have any one-on-one accountability with any of my kids for, gosh, almost a decade before they did. Okay. Now, my son, Daniel, has been here 11 years.

moved into the president's role. I'm the CEO 18 months ago. And that's the first, and he's moved his office next to mine, and that's the first time he's actually accountable directly to me. Prior to that, he worked for somebody that worked for somebody that worked for me. And so that... And I think I heard you mention you, one of the things you do with mentoring him is you took him to breakfast, and I'm starting to do those kind of things and have those discussions to try to start, you know, preparing him for future leadership. Yeah, for 10 years we've had breakfast every Tuesday morning unless I'm traveling or he is. And that's just a father-son breakfast.

That's not a business mentoring breakfast. Sometimes we talk to business. Sometimes we took football or our grandbabies or whatever else. So as far as introducing this to my leadership team, you know, I'm assuming when that time comes and ready to bring him back into the business, giving them plenty of time and plenty of planning and plenty of notice is yeah and also letting them buy into the dream because here's the thing your leadership team if you disappear when you die when you retire if they don't have someone strong coming into that seat they're screwed so it is in their best interest for your sons to succeed which means that he can't be

a wussy boss's son who gets away with murder, he's actually got to grow some dadgum muscle. And so I had guys, Daniel plugged into the Daniel mentoring team. There were three of my top leaders that took Daniel to breakfast once a week. And their job, and he knew it, they knew it, I knew it, all of us knew it. Their job was to mentor him to pour into him and to put much, put much, on him really fast as far as leadership muscle goes and because it was in their best interest because otherwise you know when Dave's not here they're screwed so they bought into that they

bought into the dream and they wanted him to win they wanted him to be capable to be competent to grow his skills and consequently I think it accelerated all of that for him they did a lot of stuff for him I couldn't have done those three men. There are three of my top leaders, three of my best friends, and they just really, they just took, you know, it's in my best interest personally, it's in the best interest of the company, it's in the best interest of our customers for the next generation to be competent and ready. And it's our job to help get him there. But they took that job seriously because they bought into the dream. That's what your leaders can do. And, and, and, and, And so, and even when he came in at an entry level,

like if your son went out two years and then came in, he's not going to come in in in leadership. He's going to come in at some kind of entry level. And, you know, the best thing they can do there is stand back and let him get a few bruises, let him make some mistakes, and let him learn some lessons and talk him through the lessons and toughen, get him a callus, you know, toughen him. And that's because you and I had that happen, man.

That's how we got where we are. we got the snot beat out of us by the marketplace, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, your kid is not going to have that benefit except under the guidance of your leadership team and you. So the further you can keep him away from you when he enters your building for the first little while, the better. Because that's going to allow that team to come around him.

They'll learn to love him and so forth. And then my advice to him is keep your mouth shut and get your work done. Humility. You know, you don't be confused if you're born on third that you hit a triple, dude. Yeah. You didn't do nothing. You need to shut up and you've got to work twice as hard as everybody else to even be respected. Yeah.

The ideal team player, hungry, humble, smart. Yeah, and lots of humble. Lots of humble. Lots of hungry, lots of smart. But smart is you don't do anything except you hand out, you give credit to everybody but yourself. And you've got to really be humble. And the second thing he better do for the sake of his reputation with the rest of the leaders. Because, John, their lead on your team because they love you.

and he hadn't got any choice except to keep you in a seat of honor. He has to constantly publicly honor his dad and honor the founder of the company. Even when he disagrees, he's got to publicly lift up and honor that because that's class. And when he starts to be low class,

he looks like the snotty prince who's getting ready to assassinate the king. And you can't have that vibe going. So, you know, so my advice to him is ideal team player on steroids and humility and keep the honor, keep the founder always in a seat of honor. For the rest of his life, he's got to do that. And so just like you don't steal all the honor from your team, when there's a win, you hand the credit to the team if you're a good leader, right?

Same thing's true here. When you're a real leader, you don't get to. steal the honor. You hand it to someone else. You steal the, you credit, then you're not a real leader. You're just a self-centered narcissist. But the, so anyway, you know all that stuff. But that's the stuff, you just, that's the stuff Daniel and I've been talking about for 15 years. To where the, and of course then he's got to have his business acumen in place. And in your son's case, he's not going to have the expertise of what it takes to do the work in the field. So he's going to have to learn some of that. He doesn't have to become,

a geoscientist, but he needs to understand what the flip they're doing because it's what y'all do. He can't be constantly walking around the dumbest guy in the room. That won't work. Or as Will, who works aboard here, his grandpa says, he says, you might not be the dumbest guy in the room, but if he dies, you're in trouble. You don't be that. You don't be anywhere on that list, right? That's the whole thing.

John, that's a great question, man. and thanks for letting me get on my family business succession soapbox. It's one of my favorite subjects. It's a very hard thing to do, but it's very worthwhile. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. If you feel like your business runs your life more than you do, then it's time to do something different. You're on a fast track to burn out if you don't make some time to work on your business

instead of just in it. and Entree Leadership Master Series is the best place to do that. Master Series is a crash course for small business owners on how to grow a successful and sustainable company. You'll hear practical leadership lessons on hiring and firing, delegation team unity, compensation and strategic planning. This stuff is the meat and potatoes of leadership. And every lesson is taken directly from the wisdom I've gained over the 30 years of doing business myself. Master Series is happening November 10 through 15 at the Ramsey Events Center here in Nashville.

There's less than 70 tickets left, so do not wait. Just a handful of more folks are going to get in. The rest of you are going to have FOMO. Go to Entree Leadership.com slash Master Series and get your seats right now. We'd love to see you, November 10 through 15 right here on our Ramsey campus. Bryant is with us in Salt Lake City. Hey, Bryant, how can I help? Hey David, it's good to talk with you.

You too. How can I help? So I am the owner of a robotic automation company. Very cool. We have 10 employees. And we did $3 million in revenue last year. And we're in the Pathfinder stage looking to try to move to the Trailblazer stage. But I guess my question would be is, you know, is how do you forecast for revenue and things like that on

project-based revenue that can be inconsistent at times with, you know, ebbs and flows, just as projects or not as consistent as subscription or other type revenue. Well, the longer you've been doing it, the more you can trust the pipeline being full of projects. And the more the pipeline is jammed full of projects, the more predictable that things are going to come out at the end of the pipeline. If the pipeline's got holes in it as it goes along, gaps, air gaps in it as it goes along, between projects, those are fearful times,

and it makes it volatile and harder to forecast. How long have you been doing this? We've been, it'll be six years in October, so we've been doing it for a while. And you did $3 million last year. What'd you do the year before that? About 2.3. What'd you do the year before that? No.

Okay. That's a reasonable trend line. It's a nice trend line. And I don't know why I would, so here's forecasting in a nutshell, and you know this already, but I'll do it for some of the ones out there listening that are maybe not all the way up at Pathfinder. But forecasting in a nutshell is I'm going to assume that this year's revenue looks like last year's revenue plus or minus any observable changes. Okay? Some plus would be we've got a trend line here from 1.8 to 2.3 to 3.

That's a pretty steady statistical growth rate. Okay. And so that's a plus. We know what these projects look like and the longer we've been doing it, the more predictable it is that we can actually get the projects in the door and keep them coming in the door. So for this to go to 3.5 the following year,

would be probably accurate, or maybe a little better, maybe 3-7 even, plus or minus any changes. Now, minus changes would be if there are changes in the industry, changes in my material costs, changes in my cost of goods sold, you know, the impact of AI on your world, is it starting to get a foothold there, is it messing up things or accelerating things? is, you know, so plus or minus any changes. Okay, so I can even go into a year where I've got bad things going on, and I go, okay, that's an observable change. I'm not going to be able to do this year in that particular area

what I was going to be able to do. But, you know, I could do this other thing over here. So anyway, you can forecast three points. based on your trend line, and then you say, gosh, but I don't, the customer that gave us eight projects last year is now gone. Oh, well, that's a, that's a minus. That's a change. Okay. Right. Or we've got these two other customers we've signed up, and they are buying better order, better average orders, and what they're ordering has more margin in it. So it's even better. So those are positives. But like, you know, if we're publishing a book, you know,

when supply chain got all turned upside down in the Fauci pandemic, our paper costs went up 40%. Yes, we saw that too. Yeah. Our paper costs went up 40%. And so we can't predict. Our cost a good soul went up and we can't raise the price on a book 40%. The marketplace won't tolerate it. Now, we have raised them from 25, you know, we have raised them 40%, but it took time. We're on 32. books now. We were on $25 books before for a hardback. Right? So we followed it. With our stuff, it's not, you know, pricing is not difficult because, you know, you do it per project and there's not, we don't do a ton of projects for the same customer over and over because once you do a robotic palletizer, once you do a case pack, or once you do

whatever automation they need, a lot of times there'll be a gap in time before they need anything else. And so it's, you're bringing on a lot of the new customers continually because you're, you're doing custom projects for each one. And the tricky part is just because there's what do you attribute your growth to? Our growth is, well, we're just, we're doing more marketing and finding more projects per year. It's probably one of the big ones. And then as we get, your marketing's more effective. We're better at it. And we are, um, as we continue, as we continue, continue to be in business for longer, we have a longer track history of successful projects that we can use for our marketing. Right.

And so there's more people interested in doing business with us. Yeah, you got more swagger when you walk into the presentation. Right. Yeah. And rightfully so. Rightfully so. You know, you're not a neophyte anymore. So, yeah, that's...

I think so. So I think those are things that are predictable. Mm-hmm. Your marketing should continually get more effective. and you know you should be able to select you should reach a point that you've got enough leads coming in that you don't have to take all of them you leave some bad business on the side of the road because it's more trouble than it's worth it doesn't have enough margin and this guy's a bit crazy i think i'll avoid both those yes yeah we we try to avoid the high risk projects yeah and uh hard part is that you know you can have two projects that look very similar and in some industries you can say, okay, that kind of project, that size of project has a, you know,

statistically it's a six-month close. And we'll have customers who one of the projects will close in two months and another will close in 18 months. And so it makes it tricky to... Yeah, but those are two outliers on the ends of the bell curve. You've still got a bell curve in the middle and you're still your average is six. And so six is not a bad prediction. selling a house is the same way, or putting a house on the market to sell.

If you're a real estate agent, I'm going to list this house. How do I project when that's going to hit? Well, you know, average days on the market right now, we know in that area are X, and so we can drop that X in the middle of that bell curve and go, okay, anything off either long tail or short tail there is going to tell us we're closing unusually fast or we're closing unusually slow

based on X being the average days on the market of a house in that price range. So you've got some things you can work with here, but your statistical outliers do not throw your forecasting, usually. Usually what will throw your forecasting is an unforeseen change in the market that's positive or negative. You can't see a Fauci pandemic coming. I mean, you're standing there in January of 20, who the crap knew that we were going to talk Americans like a bunch of sheep into going into their houses and sucking their thumbs for 30. 60, 90, 120 days beginning in March of 20. You could not have predicted that in January.

None of us could. Not a chance we'd have figured that one out. And so these are not predictable variables in the marketplace. We react to them when they come at us and survive those of us that are warriors. But yeah, you're... So it's pretty simple. I always sit down and go, okay, you turned in a budget. For Entree Leadership,

it includes Entree Leadership Summit, Entrae Leadership Master Series, Entree Leadership Elite, and our one-on-one coaching programs and advisory groups. Those are the revenue sources inside of Entree Leadership. If your budget is not increasing,

your top line is not increasing, why aren't you planning on growing the business? Why? That's what me talking to the guy that runs Entree leadership here at Ramsey. And it is increasing. by the way. This brand here is wonderfully successful. So, but, you know, why do we think it's going to be better? You turn it in an increase of whatever, make up a number, 20%. Why, you know, make me believe that 20%?

Where did you get that? Well, we see, we think we can raise this price. We think we can add a few seats here to the event. We know we can, we're seeing a curve and a change, a predictable change on subscription signups and coaching. And, you know, he can make a case for the things that are different by 20% than last year. And that's true. It's not, it is, whether you're going and getting new customers every time or whether you're working with old customers, and we're doing both in that particular brand. So I think you're doing a great job. What you're describing is a beautiful, elegant business. It's very fun. You're right in a sweet spot. Small businesses that run $3 million top line are just, that is such a cool time of life. You're, you're really having some fun. and it's very rough and tumble, it's very visceral,

and each one of those deals you close, you get a high-five, it's a good time. So I like where you are. I think you're winning. Congratulations, sir. Very, very well done. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us, America.

I could use your help if you want to help us. Here's how you can do it. Subscribe to this show. Click the subscribe button. Follow this show. Click the follow button. Share this show. if your platform has the ability that you're watching or listening to share it, share it.

If not, just take a, you know, cut out the website, the web link where you're doing it and send it to somebody. And just check this show out. All right, we need your help with that, please. And those five-star reviews, just keep them coming, baby. We appreciate you. Tim is in Los Angeles. Hi, Tim. How are you?

Good, Dave. Talk to you. Thanks for the call. Sure. How can I help? So I'm the current owner and leader of a high pressure valve and fitting company in Los Angeles. I've got three team members, and our top line revenue last year was about $2 million. Wow.

We've been dealing with, I've been doing a little bit of a situation with two of the members who hit butt heads. We sit down and talk about it, and then a week or two later, we're back to the same thing again. Just trying to figure out what the best way is to resolve that. What are they arguing about? It seems to be boundaries within their work areas. One is covering the warehouse. One's covering the front office and order processing. So they're arguing about what?

They're arguing about the front office person going in the back and checking inventory and pulling parts, essentially kind of stepping on the toes of the warehouse person and vice versa. There also seems to be some level of what I feel is. disrespect as far as the tone of voice. It's almost like civil rivalry, to be honest with you. Yeah, it's territorial. It's territorial, yeah. Yeah, okay.

All right, pick up Pat Lynchione's book, Silo's, and read it tonight, because you've got two silo leaders here that are there. So I'm going to assume the best, is it two men? male and female. A male and female. I'm going to assume the best of these two humans for a minute. I'm going to assume that their heart is in the right place and they suck at how to handle it.

Yep, agreed. Okay. That neither one of them is just a grouch and dysfunctional, which if that's the case, you just need to fire them because you're not going to be able to fix that because they're just a butt, okay? But I'm going to assume that's not the case. I'm going to assume that this person cares so much about the customer and the reputation of our company

that they can't stand it and they have to make sure they take ownership even of areas that are not theirs. You are 100% spot on. Okay. All right. Then I guess what I'm going to do is I'm going to put them both in the same room and I'm going to say that out loud. Okay. And then instead of saying kids, we can't argue, it's what is it that we're arguing about? We're arguing about when you go over there from the front office and go out of your area and start pulling parts and shipping them,

which says to the other guy, I don't think you're competent. It insults him. And so he gets angry at being insulted and being called incompetent, not by your words, but by your actions. And all you're trying to do is make sure the customer is taking care of, which I like. And a matter of fact, he likes that. and uh but you just completely you know you you walk through his area in your muddy boots right and every time i walk through the living room in muddy boots i hear about it from my wife okay can't do that leave your stupid boots at the garage you know and so don't walk in my area in your muddy boots so so

you've got to change your process that when you think there's a struggle in the other area, that you show up in that other area and say, hey, we've got to get these parts out of here. We've got customers ticked off. How can I help? And I'm not going to tell you guys 63 times to start asking, how can I help? When both of you have the same goal of looking at the customer and taking care of them and making this company look good, both of you have that same goal. If you don't believe the other one has that goal, then what you're saying is you don't trust me as a leader because you think I'm willing to leave someone who's incompetent, doesn't care in a seat. Now, we've got another problem. And I don't think you believe I'm an incompetent

leader. But when you walk down there, you're calling him incompetent and you're calling me incompetent for leaving him in the seat. This has got to stop. Now, I do want you to cause something to happen to solve the problem, but the answer is, instead of going and physically taking over someone else's area, you simply say, hey, the customer needs these things. I know you guys are backed up or there must be some kind of thing because I know you would never do this on purpose. How can I help? You want me to pull them for you? Is there something I can do to help? Ask permission.

That's all you got to do. And then nobody cares if you're in their area. if you ask permission to come in and say, how can I serve you? How can I help you? You guys must, because I know you're good people. I know you want to take care of things right. I know you want to do this, but you're not.

So I must think that, gosh, something's bad going on. How can I help? Instead of you bunch of doofuses, I got to go fix this because y'all can't. Right. Is that kind of accurate or not? Absolutely. Yep. Yeah.

So to me, I would. just teach them to say, how can I help? And I think Lynchione's book, Silo's, after you read it, you may make both of them read it. And then the three of you sit and have a little 30-minute discussion over a cup of something and discuss that book and say, okay, this is what silos look like. Because silos, territories that are protected and no one is allowed to walk into for fear of the person running at taking their head off, that's unhealthy too. Yes, and that's kind of where we're at right now. Yeah, you've got side.

I can hear it. You got silos. That's where this is coming from. Again, assuming that they have good hearts and they are competent, and I'm assuming that, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. If they don't have good hearts, if they're just being small-minded, and they really don't care about the customer, all they do is care about being political and slitting somebody's throat by doing their job for them, then that's a different thing.

I've got to fire somebody there. Sure. No, I've got a really great team. The culture has been really great as well. It just seems to be more recently that we're having these issues. Yeah, when you get really, really busy and stuff gets backed up, people just start scrambling in the chaos and they step on each other. And we're experiencing growth, and I think that's what it's created. Yeah, you've increased your volume and your systems are breaking. Yep, you're right.

Yeah, and that's a classic Pathfinder thing that you're sitting in. You've got to get those systems going, man, and we start working here. and level up through these stages. So get with the Ontario leadership team and get an elite and they can help you do every bit of that. So that's very cool, man. Yeah, I love what you're doing.

And I love that you observed it and figured it out. But, yeah, Lincioni, that's a classic book. We read that book around here. We had silos for days around Ramsey. Took us forever to get the silos torn down. But the good news is you've got people that care that run them. They're little thiefdoms. They're little kingdoms within the kingdom.

And, man, the good news is there are people that care. and that are competent involved, but boy, they get real territorial. We used to have a lot of fights on that. We called it VP on VP violence around here, and we had to stop that. It was a big deal. So, hey, good question, man. Thank you for calling in. I'm proud of you.

Keep it up. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. If you want to be on this show, we'd love to have you. The phone number is 844-944-1070, or go to ontaryleadership.com slash ask. Love to have you. Bryce is with us in Tampa. Hi, Bryce. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast. Hey, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so I am 25 years old. I own a small residential and commercial grading company that just broke about $200,000 in sales since November of 2023 when I unexpectedly started this business.

we are now on track to do about $400,000 this year. And my question for you is what is the best way to train a new employee who I will eventually put to be an operations manager to be a leader in his role and eventually take my spot? And also, what are the most important things to focus on when pouring into the culture of my business? How many team members do you have? So currently, it's just me and one one other. team member. I hired him two months ago. But obviously looking forward for growth, obviously looking to plan to have more. So wanting to kind of get the roots of the business established and healthy and figure out, you know, if I can focus on one and do one right, I can do the rest right.

That's a good question and a good intent. Realistically, the guy you hired will not end up being your guy. Okay. The chances of your very first hire ending up being your right hand 20 years later is very close to zero. Okay. But the, but what I've done instead is I've just hired folks into their particular roles in the early stages where you are. You're at the, you know, treadmill operator stage and on the first stage of business. And so I hired people into roles and then I watched them. The first qualification for them to move towards leadership is they have to do their current job well. And if they can't do that, then we can't talk about leadership. You don't move into leadership because you can't do the other job. That doesn't work. Right. So you've got to be good at your

current job. And then the way they go about that job is what you can begin to mentor them on. And that is, okay, how do you involve other people in the decisions? How do we lift people up? How do we lift the organization up more than just simply execute? a task. And so, and I'm going to pour into them that way. And that really is an overlay as well to the answer to your question about culture. And we're teaching our team to care deeply about the outcome, to care deeply about the customer and the quality of our work and the excellence of our reputation and the timeliness and the cleanliness of what we do. And the, the, efficiency of what we do and do we are we throw our shoulders back and have some pride about who this

company is and how we get things done and when that that's the culture and that's people doing things at their current job with such a level of excellence and caring because they see a bigger picture they don't just say oh my job is moving dirt i moved the dirt give me my check that's transactional. But if you move the dirt in such a way that it changes and gives us more business and things on and on, then yeah, then now you start to be qualifying to do something more than just move the dirt.

But if you're just going to sit there and nobody likes you, but you're really good with a dozer, then whatever. You know, you can be good with a dozer, but you're stuck on it. You're not going anywhere else. And so that as you write, as you raise these people up and really you don't have any reason for an ops manager for a while.

You've got quite a, quite a ways to go to get to needing that. And really even to start worrying about culture. But if you start thinking about it now, you're ahead of the game and that's what you've done, which is very, very wise on your part. Well done, sir. Well done. Congratulations. But yeah, it's interesting to me now all these years later that it matters if you can do, you know, we have a lot of developers on our team.

If you can write a line of code and you're really, really good at that, it matters. But what really matters is, can you work with a whole bunch of other people who are doing it in such a way that everybody's glad you're there? And then that's leadership material that you can build on.

Because that's someone that cares about the whole picture, not just their task. They're not just mailing it in, emotionally while they do a good job on their J-O-B. And that's what you want to avoid is just getting people in the J-O-B business. Let's move away from that. Folks, 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 for the Entree Leadership Podcast.