EntreLeadership - How Should I Split My $3.5 Million Company?

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

Today, we’ll hear about: •             A business owner wondering how to distribute the company’s shares to his sons •             Dave Ramsey’s tips on determining when an employee deserves a raise •       How Wes Henderson worked with his family to create two innovative bourbon brands   Next Steps: ·      📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://ter.li/ask-us ·      📚 Learn about the EntreLeadership System™: https://ter.li/system-p ·      💻 Get EntreLeadership Elite™ for your business: https://ter.li/elite-p ·      ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/enl ·      🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/summit  ·      🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/masterseries  ·      📖 Order Dave’s new book, Build a Business You Love: https://ter.li/b4kru2   Connect With Our Sponsors: ·      💼 Go to Belay Solutions or text ENTRE to 55123 for their free resource! ·      💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more. ·      🧾 Visit Payority for a free consultation! ·      📈 Grab Sales Gravy's free resource to help you hire and lead better.   Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show💰 George Kamel   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entree Leadership, 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 in the trenches right alongside you. If you've got a question you want to ask on this show, you can fill out the form at entrell leadership.com slash ask or give us a call at 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-1070. Dan is in Indiana. Hi, Dan. How can we help? Good afternoon, Dave.

It's a pleasure to speak with you. I feel like I know you a lot better than you know me, but we've appreciated your practical advice through the years. Well, thank you. So I'm 67 years old, an electrical contractor since 1982. I bought an electrical business that I was working in with a business loan at 18.2%. That was before I knew what business was. Worked in the field through the day, with the help of my wife, we operated the business side after hours from a folding table in the basement of our home.

So we're currently a sub-S corporation since 1985. We have a revenue of about 3.5. We only end with an average of 15 to 20% net. Appreciating the advice through the years. We've been 20 years plus debt-free with our line of credit being untapped. Way to go, man. Look at you. You're a great American success story.

Congratulations. Well, thank you. Yeah, we've been blessed. Through the years prior to your influence, we were connected to Larry Burkett and Crown Financial. if you're familiar with those. Oh, yeah. So we currently have 11 team members.

It includes myself. And I have two sons that are working in the business. They have each purchased 20% stock in the corporation over the past seven years. We also have two other children that are not involved in the business, and we are in the process of selling the business out of our estate. So within our plan is to sell the current or the remaining 60% shares within the next two years to our two sons that are in the business. And this kind of comes to the question. They complement each other well.

We work together well. Their roles and responsibilities in the business are very different. One is project manager and operations manager, has a high profile. in the company. And the other is an estimator, safety director, and does other miscellaneous jobs here in the office with a lower profile. Both are essential. Their levels of responsibility vary, but they're somewhat difficult, determined percentage. So it gets down to the core of the question, as the remaining shares are purchased, how should we be thinking of percentage of shares distribution and pluses and minuses pitfalls of a 50-50 share distribution versus something

different than that. Okay, the first thing I would do is separate their day job from their ownership. Okay. Okay. The day job you get paid for, one gets paid for being an estimator, one gets paid for being the ops manager or future president or whatever, right? And so I have two children in this business. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality gets paid like the other Ramsey personality. Same schedule of percentages for royalties or speaking gigs or appearances or whatever that John Deloney gets.

Okay. Same kind of thing. My son is the president of our company and he gets paid for being the president. And it's a completely different thing. That does not affect their ownership. Their ownership is separate from that. And then ownership dictates how the profits are distributed, but the day job you get paid for the position. Okay.

And it could be an indicator into how to split this up if you want to do that. And so they are paying for these shares. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So then that money is going to go into Euro's assets, which becomes part of your estate that will be split among your children upon the death of both of you, I assume. That's right. Yeah, that's the plan.

So that's how the other kids are okay because they're not getting anything free that the other kids aren't getting, you know, that the other kids aren't getting. So the non-working, the non-in-the-business kids. So, all right, then that comes down to, okay, if we have two owners. regardless of their position inside the company, what is the best way to structure that? Even there's no tiebreaker. Okay. And if it's odd, if it's 5149 or anything where one of them is a minority shareholder,

they have zero power. So it's kind of all or nothing is the problem. because, you know, if I have 451, we're simply going to do what I say. You don't really get a vote when you're a minority shareholder, technically speaking, okay? So that's the downside of that. The downside of 50-50 is anything with two heads is kind of a monster, right? So, you know, you could get to headbutting and not come to any conclusions. Okay?

then having said that, what I want to do is I want to put in place operating agreements for them that they are involved in drafting. And I want to say, okay, the owners are not involved as owners in the day-to-day operation. The owners are involved in setting the tone, the values of the company, and the large decisions, setting the vision, setting the CEO in place. But the owners don't need to have an owner's meeting to decide what coffee we buy for the coffee room. That's by the leadership team that included in the CEO. And so that we're not going to have a 50-50 meeting every time we have to make a decision around here. The leadership team is empowered by this operating instructions to make the decision. And the only time you could, the only thing the leader, if you hate the decision and you're the owners,

just remove the leader, much like a board of directors and like a publicly traded company, right? The board of directors represents the stockholders, and they put the CEO in place, but the board of directors doesn't walk up and down the hall hiring and firing, setting marketing plans in place, deciding on products. The board of director puts the CEO in place, who puts the leadership team in place that does everything and runs the business. So I want to separate the operations of the business day to day from the ownership in what would be called some operating documents that the young men agree to. And you can help them form that. You probably get a good lawyer involved that has done that before help you put that in place. Also in those operating documents, you probably

ought to solve for death of one of them, disability of one of them, disinterest of one of them. Because the way you made the decision, let them buy in as they were involved. What if they decide they want to quit and go work somewhere else? Do you want them to still have a ownership position? You can decide either one, but you need to address that. I have to divorce. Yeah, that don't make sense. What happens, you know, because your one son doesn't want to be working with his ex-sister-in-law

because the judge awarded her ex-husband stock. And so you need operating. agreements that address all, I call them the Ds, and it's usually when I'm addressing partnerships, and that's kind of what we're getting into here, but it's divorce, disinterest, drug use, disability, death, all of these bad things that happen have a D on them for some reason. And so, you know, if I talked to a young man earlier today, his partner just didn't want to work, that's disinterest, right?

So I would write all of that out in the operating agreements, and we agree to that, I ahead of time. And in this instance, I would have to buy you out or you'd have to buy me out. In this instance, you know, we do this. And so, you know, if it's in the event of death, what happens? You could do buy-sell agreements on that, that life insurance is provided to Son A to buy out Sun B's estate in the event that Sun B died. Yep.

And that kind of stuff. So that's the way you keep this from, if you leave it vague and it's 50-50, it's going to be a freaking fight. Mm-hmm. And that was another question I had. You know, I hear often of your sinking partnerships. Yeah, yeah. You know, how would a 50-50 stock split be different?

Not than a. The only difference is it's a succession plan. We didn't open up the business as a partnership. So in my case, I've got three owners, all three, Ramsey, Gen 2 will be the three, they own 33, they own, I own 1%, they own 99%, now. So they own 33 each in my case. And that's in a trust. And the trust has the operating statements in it, okay, of how they're going to interact. But the good news there is two of them can outvote the other one.

in the end of the story. And so there's not going to be this tiebreaker thing that I'm more worried about in your case. So, yeah, I think I want to address all of that. And what that makes us do is it makes us clarify what the roles are. Okay. It sounds like the operations guy is probably going to end up being the guy running at the president or the CEO, right? we'll see how that comes together but he has the larger role at this point yeah and probably more of the aptitude it sounds like yeah now which took on our stage of

business we're we're at a peak performer and entering the legacy phase sounds like you are I agree yeah and then what our goal is to to transition two years within the next two years from dad as the general manager CEO to the two sons who are vice presidents. And would you have any suggestions as far as transferring leadership roles or hierarchy? I feel like we've got a window of time here to work on that. But just wondering if you would have some advice there. Yeah, it's independent from the other discussion.

You can keep 100% ownership or you can keep 60% percent. ownership and still do that transfer of power. And it might actually be cleaner. Do that first and then do the other, or do the other one first and then do the, but I think you've got to get your leadership team in place before you transfer the rest of the stock over. So it sounds like that's a really good thing to do. The biggest thing is that the team believes based on the actual actions of the individual

involved that they can do the job. So like when my son Daniel moved in the president's role, I was talking to my friend Dan Kathy at Chick-fil-A, and we've talked about succession a lot over the years because they've got a great model at Chick-fil-A as well. And he said, was Daniel elected in the boardroom or on the elevator? Meaning, does the team think he can do this? Does the, if the team, would the team have voted for Daniel to be moved in?

And I went, oh, 100% on the elevator. And then the operating board decided along and me decided it was time. And that's proven to be true. That was three years ago. So it needs to be that when you announce it, it's almost like, oh, I already thought he was. Yeah. And I would say we're probably pretty close to that right now. I've been pulling back a bit, you know, to the last couple years.

Yeah. And so I think that would be. The team sees it coming, even though you have. haven't necessarily gone, announced it with trumpets, right? Yeah. But I would start announcing it with trumpets and go, this is where we're headed, this is what we're going to do, and probably going to see some changes moving in this way. And you start to let the vendors know, some of the customers know, and, you know,

lots of communication around it. And then it's, and, you know, and he is proving himself in that role daily, his competence to where everyone's going, you know, this is good. He may actually be better than the old man. you know, which is actually what they're saying around here too, but. Whoever that may be. I hope they are. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, you know, and then in light of that, I don't want to create another treadmill, you know. And so that's kind of why we're wanting to give us some pre-thought to where, you know, we're seem to be in a good place at this point. You're very wise. Every question you've asked is dead on. I think you've really got this dialed in.

And all you're doing, all we're doing here is clarifying a bunch of details. you've got the big rocks, you know what to do, and you've got the right order on things. And now you've just got to talk through, you know, the operating stuff, the feelings around it. But every bit of the structure that you've outlined is very good. I like it every bit of it. I think I see how you've grown a $3.5 million company off a card table in your living room.

Way to go. You're impressive, Dan. Well done, sir. Well done. Good stuff, ladies and gentlemen. Good stuff. That's how it's done on purpose. You don't win on accident.

Winning is an intentional series of acts, series of touchdowns. And then you look at the scoreboard at the end of the game and we'll go, we won. This is the time of year when things can get crazy for small business owners. Or fun, depending on your definition of fun. Strategic planning, personnel decisions, next year's budgets. Oh yeah, and everybody wants time off during the holidays. But in the midst of everything else, don't forget about payroll, May not be glamorous, but it's 100% needed for the continued health of your business.

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That's payority.com slash entree leadership. If you're a small business owner working 60 hours a week just to keep things running, you need to check Entree leadership elite out. Entree leadership elite. It's the online platform. Helps you grow your business without burning out. AI powered tools and simple weekly leadership rhythms that'll help you scale. Here's how it works. The minute you join Elite, you'll answer two prompts to generate a custom 12-month plan to grow your business.

Then you'll spend a couple hours a week applying the system that will help you execute that plan. And finally, you get clear next steps every day so you know exactly what work will push your business for, forward. Listen, if you don't have a system for running your business, it will run you. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way. Go to Entreeleadership.com slash elite to get the tools to scale your business and to get your life back or click the link in the show notes. Stewart's in Grand Junction, Colorado. Hi, Stuart. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'm a first-generation farmer with five employees, and we're on track to do about 750,000 in revenue this year. My question for you is, how do you recommend approaching employee raises and how much and how often? Well, when I first started, I avoided doing the annual review.

where we handed out raises because it sounded very corporate to me, and I can't stand corporate crap. The problem was I forgot to do it. And I would look up and it had been two years since somebody got a raise and then they would quit. Well, you never gave me a raise. And I'm like, oh, that's not cool. I was just busy and never thought anything about it. I didn't have any kind of file tickler or anything to wake me up.

So we started doing annual reviews. Now, keep in mind, we do reviews every week or every other week because we have a rhythm of meeting for accountability, for performance so we don't wait until once a year to review someone's performance. So the annual review is just a touch point to remind us to address the raise. So that's one time we would give a raise, is at their birthday, so to speak. They're Ramsey birthday, right? The Ramseyversary. And so the second time would be if they changed jobs within the company and they got a promotion

and obviously they would need to, we'd need to adjust the pay to the new position that they moved to. And the third time would be if something has happened in the marketplace that that particular job has just gone bananas and we're no longer paying market rate. And we need to up it in the middle of the year because we realize we're way off on that. That one hardly ever happens anymore because we stay on top of it. but I mean, an example of where that might have come up is like back during COVID, everything went from $10 an hour for entry level people to $20 an hour for entry level people. And so, yeah, you need to do that or you're going to lose them. Yeah.

And I don't know, maybe that's part of what I'm struggling with. You know, the average pay for everybody entry starting, it's about $20 an hour. And I feel like every time from there going forward, I try to do annual raise. I always do annual raises. And I'll even do like a thousand dollar plus Christmas bonuses. And I got 401K matching, 4% matching. Way to go. And paid vacation.

But but but but but and I, and so I feel like. I'm trying to be fair to everyone. I want to think I am, but anytime I give any kind of raise, it doesn't, it's, I don't know, it doesn't seem to be appreciated enough. Like, everyone always seems to be wanting, I guess everyone always wants more in general, but it just makes me wonder if I'm, am I not doing the right amount? Like, I give over 7% raises every year, sometimes beyond that. that and I don't know.

Well, the amount would be incorrect. If it, if, okay, let's say you got somebody and they were $20 and you've gotten them of $25 and you look up and most people around you're paying $30. Sure. Then you're 7% irrelevant all of a sudden, right? Yeah, totally. And I don't, I don't know what the Grand Junction Colorado, you know, labor force demand is.

My guess is it's a little bit seasonal. Oh, it can be a lot of, What we do, we do a lot of greenhouse operations too along with field work. And so we do some year-round work. Yeah, but if you're competing with anyone working around tourism, you know, wintertime, big, big business, right? Because it's ski country. Sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they can go over to the ski lodge and make $40 an hour, and you're trying to keep them over in the greenhouse for 20. Right. That's what I mean. That's the marketplace I got to look at. And so I don't know if that's happening to you. you are not. It may not be competing for the same labor pool. I don't know. I'm just guessing.

But I have landed in Grand Junction and gone skiing, so I know what it is. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, unless you are doing something that is an outrageous amount of money, you're not going to get an outrageous reaction. Sure. So a little bit of a yawn is okay. Right. Because it's a dollar an hour or a 50 cent an hour or whatever it is. I mean, it's not, you're not saying, you know, you're not announcing that they just won the lotto. So don't expect them to act like it. Yeah.

And so I, I, a lot of times when we're reviewing with someone, it's a, you know, a reasonable raise, but it's not eye popping. And so the reaction is, thank you. Yeah. They don't hate us, but they also aren't doing double backflips. and crying and calling their wife and screaming down the elevator about how much money they just got, either. Sure. Because it wasn't that, you know, I have had that happen, but it was a situation where someone

got, you know, a ridiculous raise because the situation was ridiculously changed. But the standard annual review raise is based on what the marketplace is paying for that position. Yeah. And that's not going to be, that's generally not going to create an emotional, reaction with the team. And even though you're giving them more of your money and it means you have less of your money and you would like for them to be a little happier about it, it's kind of a yawn. And that's okay because it's not a big chunk of change.

And, you know, that's what we're facing. Hey, that's a good question. It sounds like you're a great business owner that loves his people. You're the kind of small business people that this podcast is for. Thank you for being out there, Stuart. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts, and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession?

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So I'm trying to think it's got to be 15 years ago or so. I was connected up with a local store owner of Spirits, and he said there's a guy that's famous in the spirits world, in the bourbon world, that has signed a bottle because he listens to you in Louisville, Kentucky, on the radio and he signed a bottle and you need to come by and pick it up and as a friend of mine on the store Tim and I went by and I got the bottle of Angels Envy signed by the legendary Wes Henderson and in the bourbon world I was just completely it's like I had a I had the Rolling Stones has signed an autograph for me and it was pretty cool and fast forward just a few

months later they were doing an event at that particular store West was down and I got to come down and meet Wes Henderson, and he and I became instant friends because I'm such a fanboy for one thing of what he does and how he does it. But also he loves business and he loves the stuff that we do at Entree Leadership. So we had a lot to talk about from day one, and I became enthralled not only with the whiskey, but with the family business aspects and the whole story. Our guest today is Wes Henderson. He's the co-founder of Angels Envy, one of the most innovative bourbon brand. of the last decade, one of the most profitable, too. He built Angels Envy alongside his father, the legendary Lincoln Henderson, who was a master

distiller at Jack Daniels, and pioneered the cast-finished bourbon and creating a brand that changed the whole industry. And after selling that company, West turned his focus to a new family venture with his sons, who were also master distillers as well. And the company is now called True Story, a whiskey brand built around connection, legacy, and storytelling. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to do a little storytelling. Welcome, Wes. Good to have you.

Thanks, Dave. I appreciate it. And I tell you, you've come a long way in your bourbon journey. You really have. It's been a joy, though. It's been a joy over the years being able to share bourbon and, you know, sit around and where there's some cigars being smoked. And that's really what bourbon's all about. So I'm really happy to talk about it today. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. And watching you guys, watching your whole journey, you've been through like, I've watched you do about three or four different iterations of what, I mean, you know, you were just, barely into the Angels Envy thing when I met you. And I watched you go all the way through that and then the sale of that and then the new startup and what's happened with the boys.

The boys are grown up during that time and your sons into the business and become, you know, they're in master distillers and brands in their own right. So take us back to the beginning. I've heard the story, but I think it's fascinating. Your dad Lincoln retired from Jack Daniels. He did.

And how did this Angels envy thing then happen? You know, Dad was at Brown Foreman, which owns Jack Daniels and all those brands for like 40 years. And Dad's latest concoction, let's call it, or his latest discovery at Brown Foreman was a brand called Woodford Reserve. So that was really a walk-off home run for my dad. So dad retired and gave Dad some time to chill and relax and realized he was a little bit bored. And that directly led to us sitting down and talking about doing Angel's envy. Yeah. And so talk about the, so you and your dad say, okay, we're going to do Angel's envy.

We're going to use his, a master distilling expertise, your marketing expertise, I guess. It's going to come together. That's right. And the way it came together was really cool. And I kind of skipped over that a little bit. But it was literally me sitting in the basement with my father telling him I wanted to start a bourbon brand. And dad said what dads do, you know, he said, sure. And it happened like that.

And a day, we had no idea how we were going to get there. We knew it was a, it was a long path to entry. but we felt like we were going to embark on it. And we felt like we had to be different. And that's what we forced on to do with Angels Envy. I don't remember seeing a bourbon finished in a pork barrel before I saw Angels Envy. I think that's the first time I ever saw it. Were you the first ones to do that?

We're the first ones to do it and be successful at it. It happened a few years ago, but like a lot of things, it wasn't the right time for it. It was a good whiskey. But we took some cues from Scotch. We knew that the whiskey industry needed a little bit of a turnover and something to spark things. And we felt like we had the expertise and we had something cool and fun to do it. And that wasn't without some detractors. You know, it was a controversial move when we started it.

Yeah. And so talk about the production of that because and then how you land on the price point because it blew up. It was massively successful. But it was partly because you could produce it in volume. And it was partly because of what you produced in volume. And it's partly because the price point you chose to be in. Because in a single barrel world, you all did a blend. We did.

Right. I think it was a very deliberate decision to bring a new style of bourbon to a price point that was affordable, yet it was still super premium. And at the Angels Emmy price point, same with true story. We felt like we could bring in people new to the category, yet we could still bring in bourbon aficionados as well. Yeah. Well, and, you know, I guess Lincoln's palate, I mean, just his ability to blend those barrels in such a way that it created a generic enough predictable product that it garnered the reputation of just being excellent. I mean. Dan had a great palette. That's one thing that I've always noticed, and I think I've been blessed to kind of get that from him. But to create a whiskey that's very approachable and has a mainstream. approach, that opened up a lot of doors for us.

You know, bourbon, the bourbon demographic is expanding, and we brought in more women to the category. We brought in younger people to the category. It wasn't your typical bourbon, you know, older guy, you know, male-dominated demographic. We brought in a lot of people to the party that weren't there before. So you, you gathered up some barrels. You finished them in port barrels. You put them in the market.

What year was it that that first, that that first, that first, first bottle hit the shelves. We launched in 2011. We were supposed to launch in 2010, but the barrels weren't ready yet. So, and we weren't going to release anything before it was ready. That's kind of become one of our mantras in the company. So in 2011, we came out with the first bottles of Angels Envy. Yeah.

And to be clear, the whiskey was already aged. The only question was how long it was going to be finished in the port barrels. Exactly. We did what a lot of producers do and still did and still do. We sourced our initial whiskey. had to produce for us to our standards and our taste profile. And then we would take the whiskey. We would do the finishing in those port casks. We would do the blending. And then we would do the bottling. Yeah. And that gets the generic hit and the gets the flavor profile right where it

needs to be and be consistent so that you don't open one bottle and then another bottle and are way different. Exactly. And that's the, that's the artistry to it. It's we're taking barrels from all over the warehouse from different producers, and it has to be the same every time. It's like the puzzle has to look the same every time, but the pieces are different every time as well. So consistency was really big. And plus, look, we were sourcing whiskey that was produced by other producers. We weren't just going to stick that in a bottle and put our name on it. Finishing set us apart. It allowed us to put our mark. And the blending, all that. And there's so much talk about master distillers, and I think it's very important. But at the end of the day, the blending is the art form.

And it's not just the art form and making it work consistently. It's the art form and innovation. And that's what we're really good at. Well, and something I figured out, I was doing a deal with a, uh, uh, years ago, a, uh, a guy that had a restaurant and had a barbecue sauce. And the barbecue sauce was great until he tried to produce a thousand cases of it. And we went to volume, the chemistry all changed. It screwed up the whole thing.

They, they, they almost never got it the same. They never got it. He could do small batches in the kitchen at the restaurant. and get it just like he wanted it. But when you go to a vat and a factory to do barbecue sauce, it changed the whole deal. You know what I'm talking? And I suspect that you kind of run into the same thing here.

It's the whole thing. It's the same thing. Scalability is so important. And keeping on top of consistency and quality and making sure that, you know, you cannot let any drift happen with that product. You've got to be so vigilant to make sure that when you're scaling it, it's being scaled the right way and, you know, take your time and doing it.

But I've seen a lot of businesses try to do. that and it doesn't always work. So that thing, if it's 2011, the first bottles hit, that's about the time I probably got a bottle from you signed. I mean, you guys must have been just coming out. And so that thing went up into the right hard. I knew it got big, but I don't know if I realized it got that big that fast. Because you guys, it became one of the top most profitable brands out there.

by the time that things changed. So then Lincoln passed away at what year was that? That was 2015. So you had four years of this? We did. Okay. And then you and your mom are owning it at that point, right? Correct, yep.

And you guys made a decision to sell? We did. And what year was that? We sold in 2016 to Bacardi. So it was a five-year run. It was a five-year run. Man, I had in my head this was a decade. That's so wild.

You sold it to Bacardi. 2016. Is the number public? It's not. Okay. I'll bring it up then. Yeah. I know what it is, but I didn't know if it's public. Okay.

It was a good deal. It was a good number. It was a good number. It was an incredible number. Yeah. But yeah, so you got sold a lot of whiskey in five years. We did. We did.

And the bourbon craze was probably at its zenith also. He's cooled off a little bit now compared to what it was. Yeah, it was like anything you touch that had brown water and it was going nuts. And so, and you rode that, you rode that horse well. So during that five years, you have meteoric growth. Does that put a strain on the family business parts? Oh, absolutely. I don't know if the strain.

I think, well, there's certainly strain any time you're sacrificing that much and you're spending that much time on a business and you lose work and family balance. I mean, that's always a strain. And that's part of being an entrepreneur. You just have to, you know, you've got to figure out how to live with that or you're in trouble. I think our biggest issues came probably when it became time to sell the company. And then you've got a tremendous asset like that. You're trying to make sure that that's what you want to do.

It's the right time to do it. And now it's with your mom. Right. It was recently widowed. That's correct. Right. So, I mean, there was definitely some stress, a lot of stress points there. And to this day, I think there's still residual stress points from that.

And a lot of that has to do with, I don't, my dad and I did not foresee what that company was going to do. And we did not do a good job of preparing ourselves, be it with making our wishes known clearly, be it with proper documentation, all those things as to what would happen if Dad passed. And that caused a lot of heartburn with everybody, really did. How old was he? Dad was, I think, 73 when he passed away. Okay. So, you know, he was a melanoma survivor for a long time.

I think, though, when Dad decided to do this, we knew in the back of our minds that we were going to lose Dad probably. soon rather than later. And this was his kind of way of, okay, let's do something with my son. Let's do something with my grandsons. And let's spend the last years of our lives together doing something fun that we enjoy. So were the grandsons old enough to be involved early in the deal or they came in later? One of them was, my oldest Kyle, I think was about 18 at the time. But look, it was all hands on deck with us, Dave. We were filling sample bottles in the garage as a family, you know, when my kids were little. You know, they would help bring the glass bottle. models over to the table and we would fill them and all those things. So they were already involved.

But Kyle, the youngest, was not even 21 yet. And he's a master in a seller now, right? Carl is. Kyle is our, it's more of our productions director than anything. But the boys all have distillation experiences. But one thing I think I've done a good job with the boys is that I'm putting them in all different aspects of the business. You know, I want them to learn supply chain, marketing, operations, finance, all those things, distribution, all those things. I don't think it was done as good of a job as as we could. but, you know, we're certainly fighting the good fight and trying to make sure they know those things.

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I mean, the volume is incredible for five years. Wow. You became in the spiritual world a household name in five short years. competing against brands that have been around for a hundred years maybe or a decade or decades anyway and when you look back on that uh you got to get some absolute things i we did this right and we did this really wrong give me a couple of those i think what we really did i think what we did really right was is that we were able to recognize what was happening in the industry we were able to respond you know we we were very nimble

You know, it's not like a big company that's like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. We knew we were nimble. We were willing to go up against the big boys. We weren't scared of them. As a matter of fact, I would get excited. Every time I heard somebody got ticked off about something that we were doing, you know, we're like, at the beginning, we're this little lap dog gaping at your leg or whatever. And nobody paid attention to us. But all of a sudden, I'd hear stories about people were talking about us, other brands and their marketing meetings.

And I got excited about that. But I think, I think the biggest, if I were to go back and redo things, and I, I don't want to redo much because I think if you change any little thing, it's like blending whiskey. You can change 1% of something ended up with something totally different. I think we sold too soon. I really do. I think that it was a decision not just made within our family, but with our partners. And everybody saw this meteoric rise of the industry, and people start thinking, well, maybe it's not going to get any better.

I think that we definitely, we didn't need to sell. We had no debt. We had a great distribution platform. We had a lot of runway left, but we had some folks that wanted to exit. So I regret that to this day. Once again, I would never change it because things could have been different, Dave. You know, we could have screwed it all up. But I wouldn't mind having the company where it is now when it's worth a couple billion dollars.

That wouldn't stink. I would not hate that. No, I wouldn't hate it. Very good. So after making the sale, you stayed on a while, worked for Bacardi a bit, and then I guess a non-compete, I suppose, ran out. I would imagine that's normal anyway in that world. And so then you could have just retired.

Obviously, you had enough change in your pocket. You had a liquidity move in. So what pulls you back in and, you know, to true story and get this whole new brand moving? I think before I get on to the true story, I think a quick note was, is that we had a great acquisition with Bacardi. And that's the reason I stayed. It was a really good example of a big company not screwing up a small company, which happens more often than not, right? Especially a family brand. So to their credit.

Absolutely. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't a 24-hour job for me to make sure those guardrails were up to make sure they didn't screw it up. But they were smart enough to leave us alone. They knew they had to make rum. We knew that we knew how to make bourbon. So, you know, those ends never kind of came together. Yeah, I could have done nothing. I wasn't built that way, Dave.

I don't think. I try some other things. They have some other interest. And our family's been in emergency services for a long time. We've done a lot of those things, which I got a lot of joy in. But I'm a creator. And I really wanted to do something with the boys. So it seemed like this might be the thing.

to do. Okay, so you did something with your dad. Now your boys are doing something with their dad. How's that different? Oh, wow. It's a lot different. I won't have six sons. So there's not a one-on-one. There's a little more to manage there. With my dad and I was, it was a very interesting dynamic. You know, I really came back to the table with a lot of business and marketing experience, although I had the palette. I was around whiskey all the time. I knew how to make whiskey. Dad was this legendary master to stiller, just a force on his own. But we work so well together. And dad was very nurturing. And dad, I think all dad wanted to do once again to work with me and work with his grandkids. I think with the boys, it's a little different dynamic. If anything, just the numbers.

You know, so I'm dealing with six kids, all of them with different interests at different ages that have different accomplishments or to reach different plateaus in the business. Different gifts. And not, and this isn't just in business. It's with your kids. You can't put your kids in, if you're smart, you don't put your kids in a box and make them want to be what you think they need to be or what they need to be for you. You know, you have to recognize those gifts. You've got to give them the runway to do it. And you've got to nurture all of that. And that's part of, it's not going to work if you don't do a lot of that stuff.

You got to work out of it. There's six opportunities for somebody to be mad all the time. Right. Right. And for the most part, though, I'll tell you what, most of it, especially at the beginning, they would direct at each other. You know, it's that competition amongst brothers. There's those little jealousies, once again, hey, this one's older. Why does this one have more responsibility?

Why does this one get to do this? I'm like, well, this one's been in the company for a lot longer than you have. He's earned that. That doesn't mean you can't achieve that on your own. So it was more, I think, the dynamics between them. But there's also the dynamics with dad and those shifts. And as they learn more, as they get more responsibility, as I start to learn that they know more and start giving them more.

But, you know, and look, Dad's not perfect either, you know. So what was the date the true story began? What's the official date? We launched the brand in October of 2024. So it hasn't been very long. Not even a year old. Not even a year old yet. Okay.

I thought I was around about that time. I thought I remembered that showing up. I know you showed up at an event we were doing about then. And if I remember, I think you sent me. pictures of the bottles. I did. I was so excited. I had to show you. I was excited to see him. I'm honored to watch from the inside a little bit. That's pretty cool. So I love the brand title because, as you said, so much friendship and relationship occurs around some brown water and a good cigar. And so true story is a story. I think the underlying marketing touch of

that's genius. Talk about how you can't. up with that? One of the things that really made me think about the name true story is I was at an event in Houston and we were sitting in a like a library with overstuffed chairs. And it wasn't a typical bourbon event where it's an educational seminar. It's just a bottle signing. I had people in a room, 50 people in a room. I sat out in an overstuffed chair in the middle of the room and we just had a conversation

about bourbon. And that really clicked with me. Another thing that clicked with me is when I sign bottles for people, they'll say, I'm not going to open this. I'm going to keep this. And the first thing I say is buy two, right? Yeah. You know, that's the consummate salesperson in me.

I'm always selling. But there's so many stories. Want to collect? Want to drink? There's so many stories inside that bottle waiting to be told. And you need to open those. And I like being present, Dave. I think I'm present by proxy at a lot of events.

At the end of the day when you've had a good day at work, a bad day at work, when somebody passes away at a wedding. whatever that situation is, is we're there with you to start the conversation. And that's how I look at bourbon. It facilitates those moments that make a difference. Yeah. Yeah, it does. And I guess it's probably the southern roots of the whiskey that kind of give it that ambiance, that flavor, so to speak, is that it just sitting on the back porch, hanging out with some guys, you know, or hanging out with your family or.

or whatever it is or after, like you said, a long day at work or whatever it is, that kind of a thing. It's different than a typical cocktail in the way it's consumed and the situations it's used in. And that's why I think True Story is a great brand, great brand. And so right now you've got the high rye out and you've got a bourbon blend out, right? We do. We started out kind of in the same sandbox that we're in before with secondary barrel finishes. I think we do it than anybody better than anybody else. We've got a bourbon finish in white musketele casks,

and we've got a rye finish in Amberana and Sherry casks. And they're very distinctive, very, the flavor profiles are just incredible, especially the rye, it's off the hook. And we're getting great consumer feedback from it. People love the package. You know, you see that package and you can't miss it. It's completely different than anything else on the shelf. It is.

And, you know, then that's scary. You know, I've had a lot. of back and forth in my mind on, but it was the same way with Angels Envy. When the Angels Indby, when the Angel's Indby bottle came out, it was so different. But you know what I've learned, Dave, over the years is I think that when I start getting, I find what I'm starting to get uncomfortable a lot of times as we're pushing the envelope. That means I'm on the right path. You know, and you have two choices. Either you feel like, okay, I'm uncomfortable with this. I'm scared of it, or I'm uncomfortable enough that I'm going to kind of explore this a little bit

more and find out whether or not that's something that that could lead to something special. So consummate family business now two different generations, two different endeavors. So that gives you a unique view because this is not a, there's not a straight line through this. It's a start, stop, start again thing. And so that's a different vibe than a standard legacy handoff, succession, third generation, fourth generation is taken over. for the business because we had the sale and then a fresh start again and now with the boys. So when you think about family and business together, what's the one principle you would pass on to the entrepreneurs out there?

Because one of the top questions we get are subject matters questions that we get is just family business questions all the time on this show. Well, and you've always been really good at those discussions. And I've thought about this really hard. And I think where I land is, is that to me, it's got to be family first, and I have to explain what that means to me. Family is not always your immediate family. It's your team members. It's everything else.

At the end of the day, as a family unit, your immediate family, I think family has to come first. You have to have healthy relationships because all this bleeds into the business. If you don't have that bedrock of communication, if you're not regularly communicating, we're big on family meetings. You know, we talk once a week. Now, do we do it every week like we're supposed to? No. Should we be disciplined enough to do it every week? Of course.

And I find out where we start to drift in those relationships is when we're not having that communication. So, and look, people are going to screw up. I'm going to screw up. The boys are going to screw up. But at the end of the day, we have to remember that we're in this together. Businesses come and go. Family's always there. But without that cohesive family unit where we're doing the right things,

And really, Dave, I want my kids to be good humans. I really do. I want them to be successful. I want them to experience wonderful things in life. I want them to have the financial, you know, rewards for working hard and giving them independence because I believe that brings independence if you're successful. And that's what I want from them. And so family first, that's got to be it.

No matter how crazy things get, no matter how stupid we get, you know, stupid mistakes or whatever, we have to be together. Amen. Co-founder of Angels Envy, and now the owner and launching of a new brand almost a year ago called True Story. Legend in the whiskey world, in the bourbon world, my good friend, Wes Henderson. Wes, thanks for hanging out with me, brother. Thanks, my friend. Appreciate it. Good times.

Good information, solid stuff. Good stuff. So 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 joining us on Entree Leadership.