EntreLeadership - How to Lead When Your Boss is Out of Touch

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Today we’ll hear about: •       How to approach leadership to help clear blockers and confusion between business units •       Determining if your issues are real problems or just ...minor headaches   •       What to know when deciding to offer different prices for cash payment versus card transactions •       What to do when your CEO is out of touch with big decisions that are necessary to take the business to the next level Next Steps 📊 DISC Assessment: https://ter.li/DISC 🗳️ Submit your question for a chance to be on the show with Dave Ramsey: https://bit.ly/3HUgAgi 👣 Find out what Stage of Business You’re In:  https://ter.li/axd39b ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/y8qdo7   🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/fcazl2   🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/wcjhpu ☎️ Learn more about EntreLeadership 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://bit.ly/3O8fRvh   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 Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💼 The Ken Coleman Show Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/compa… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:09 From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches, just like you, right alongside you. If you've got a question, particularly if you're small business people, we love you. Hey, we want to help you, Phil. We want to help you here on the show. Give me a call at 844-944-1070.
Starting point is 00:00:41 844-9-44-1070. Or leave us a message by filling out the form at entreleadership.com slash ask. Alan is in New York City. What's up, Alan? How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you?
Starting point is 00:00:59 Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm a product manager for a manufacturing company of the about 300 people. The division that I run is about five people, and we made 700K last year. Wow, your five people did? Yep, our five people, yeah.
Starting point is 00:01:21 Cool. We were very excited about it. It was a very good year. Yes, excellent. We've set our goals for this year to double this past year. We've been growing kind of on a nice, nice exponential curve, so we're looking to double this year. The question that I have is, at the end of last year, we had a new customer come in, very slight iteration to a standard product,
Starting point is 00:01:49 and we actually got the order, so we were very excited about it. However, we weren't able to execute last year because we ran out of inventory. A different department is responsible for the inventory, and they are concerned about increasing inventory without steady growth or easy income kind of set goals of how much we're going to be ordering and seeing those orders come in. So my question for you is, how would you help align a small team that's looking to grow with a different team that's kind of growing on their own and having different goals? So what does the person do that you report to? I report to the national sales manager.
Starting point is 00:02:46 Okay. And so this is a sales team. I thought you said you're a product manager. I'm a product manager. I wear a couple different hats. So I actually run the new product development at our organization, and I own the products. that come out of that team, and then all of new product development reports to our national sales manager.
Starting point is 00:03:14 Okay. I'm the CEO of a thousand-person team. I view my job is to make sure I run down and knock down any barriers that are in the people's way that are getting crap done. That's my job. Yeah. So your sales manager's job is to knock down barriers that are keeping you all from hitting a goal of taking 700 and turning it into 1.4. So the sales manager should be on par organization chart-wise with someone who is in charge of this inventory area, correct? Yep. Yes. And if the two of them can't put their heads together, the two of them need to show. up in their leader's office and figure out why the crap these people in inventory can't
Starting point is 00:04:10 seem to produce the stuff, bring the stuff in because they're being conservative after we already made the dead gum sale and you're screwing up our sale. I like the answer. That sounds good to me. Yeah. So I'm going to ask the sales manager if I'm you to run interference for me. I don't think you're going to win by going cross-departmental when you're five people out of 300. The other 2995 have different agendas. And so the only way you create unity is from,
Starting point is 00:04:42 is my job as a leader is to be a drawstring at the top, lifting up like a tpee, right? I'm pulling the whole thing from the top up and that creates unity. And sometimes what I have to do is knock down silos between the different departments and say, yeah, I get that this is your concern, but I'm going to remove you of the obligation to, uh, to, to, not over order in this case, because in this case, you need to over order because we've got a trend line here. And apparently you're not seeing that, so I'm going to help you, and I'm going to take the responsibility for you that allows you to go ahead and make this order.
Starting point is 00:05:22 I'm talking to the inventory guy now if I'm his leader. Because he's holding it. He's basically what you're describing is someone that's trying to protect their job, not do what's good for the business. Okay. That's called a bureaucrat. Got it. I mean, is, am I wrong?
Starting point is 00:05:43 Am I missing something? I don't, I don't think so. I know my, me and my sales manager are in lockstep. We are looking to grow and keep growing. We're really excited about. So if you say to your sales manager, the thing that's going to keep us from growing is dupor over here in inventory, won't order the stuff. Can you go run interference and fix that? What does he say?
Starting point is 00:06:07 She, I, she's tried. I, I think that that's, the one thing that I'm most interested in is basically having the she has tried yeah my my sales manager uh is a woman okay she not i don't mean that i mean that i got that what i'm saying is if she is what does she has tried mean she tried to go talk to the dober or she went to the her boss and said hey i got a problem we we we've had a couple of different conversations with the CEO because she reports to the CEO and he and and she's talked to him about the issues that we and he won't do anything about it and he runs a place we haven't yeah we haven't had much
Starting point is 00:06:49 much success thus far okay then I'm going to ask him how is it you want me to double sales if you won't help me get the inventory okay if you don't want me to double sales just tell me yeah we definitely want to double sales well that no that's what I'm that's what you need to ask the CEO, because he's kind of telling you that. Dr. John Deloney says behavior is a language. When he won't go get the orders in, because I got to tell you, man, if, you know, if we run out of Dr. John Deloney's books or we run out of Ken Coleman's books and we have a bunch of orders stacking up around here and someone says, well, we didn't want to over order, then I'm going to say, I give you permission to over order because we can't sell crap that we don't have.
Starting point is 00:07:38 Yeah. I mean, we have a trend line here. You know, I don't want you to over order initially, but when we're, you know, when we're selling out at record pace, then get the dad gum rush order in here and let's make the money and help the people. That's what we're doing. So somebody's not understanding that this person in inventory is going to keep these sales from happening.
Starting point is 00:08:00 And we need to make that message really clear. And it's okay if you don't want me to make the sales. But you really don't want me to make them. and us not be able to fill the order. That's the huge concern for me. Yeah. Well, no, you need to tell your sales manager and the CEO that. Do you have an audience with the CEO?
Starting point is 00:08:20 Yes. Okay. We're very flat organization. Good. I talk to him pretty regularly. Well, I think you and the sales manager sit down and go, hey, I've been thinking about this, and I'm not understanding why. So I must be missing something.
Starting point is 00:08:32 What am I missing? Because if we don't, if inventory boy doesn't order the stuff, we can't make the sale. and somehow we still haven't got that part of line. If you don't want me to make these sales because you're more concerned about over ordering on inventory than you are the sales, then tell me and I won't make them. You know, this is the conversation because there may be something you don't know in this equation that that person knows. And they go, yeah, really, because of this, this and this, we'd rather not make that right now. It's not worth the risk. The juice ain't worth the squeezed kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:09:08 The CEO may know something you don't know. And they'll tell you if the organization is truly flat. So, but yeah, the job of leaders is to make everything else run that's not running on its own. Our job is to kick the walls down and keep things moving. That's our job. That's how we serve our team. And only the CEO can do that in this description right here of where you are. So it's a very cool thing you're doing.
Starting point is 00:09:35 Congratulations on the sales. It's frustrating what you're facing. and but yeah what you're having to manage through manage is through the people business is easy until people get involved and you know i'm picking on the inventory guy and i'll back up a little bit on that there may be a chance that there's something going on here that alan and i don't know in this equation and they don't need to be building up but i'm a sales guy and i like to make sales when somebody's keeping me from making sales my natural bent is it pisses me off This is the Entree Leadership podcast.
Starting point is 00:10:13 This is your very last chance. To get tickets to the Entree Leadership Summit, 2024. There's only a couple of seats left. And believe me, they're not going to last long. So get your phone now right this second. Go to Entreeleadership.com slash summit. Lock your tickets in. This is your last chance.
Starting point is 00:10:36 Because you don't want to miss this. We're celebrating Summit's 10th year anniversary. Dallas, Texas, it's going to be epic. You're going to connect with almost 3,000 leaders just like you. You're going to be inspired by the top thought leaders in the nation. You're going to leave fired up to grow like never before in 24. Summets like a shot of adrenaline for leaders. So whether you're stuck in a rut in your business or you're looking to be challenged by like-minded thoroughbreds,
Starting point is 00:11:03 summit is the place you want to be this April 21 through 24. stop what you're doing. Go to entreil leadership.com slash summit right now and reserve one of these two or three seats that are left before they're gone. Entreeleadership.com slash summit. Andrew is in Canada. Hey, Andrew. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast.
Starting point is 00:11:28 Hey, thanks for having me. I'm the operational manager for a prefab wall company, so we built the walls for condos and townhouses, and then from our shop and then ship them to site and then the framers stand them up. We have a team of around 20 people in the shop plus two designers in the office. And we try to keep a pretty tight schedule,
Starting point is 00:11:50 but with the nature of our business, the sites can often have delays. And we run into problems where we tried to overbook ourselves by about 10%, but sometimes these sites can get delayed by two or three months, and then we have these big walls. And I'm not exactly sure how to solve that problem because we don't want to be the reason that we get delayed so we don't
Starting point is 00:12:11 want to overbook ourselves like crazy and then if there's no delays then we're stuck having to be the reason going to our customer and saying hey we can't get this job done or the quality suffers but we also don't want to have to lay our guys off when something that's out of our control happens on site um so it sounds like you're a pretty short fuse from order to delivery Well, we book our contracts out like a year in advance sometimes, but it takes a few months to do the design. It takes time to build the walls, of course, and then, like, the builders, if we were all of a sudden to try to get a new job in, we don't have enough time to design it or they've already lined up their framers on site. They don't really. If you have everything started a year out, if the average, if the average, if the average, if the average,
Starting point is 00:13:02 average contract is a year out, you should be able to line these things up. Yeah, so we do, we have it like, we think that we have aligned up six months in advance. We're checking in with the customer three months in advance. Then all of a sudden they're putting the concrete slab in or whatever. And then, oh, now we got a month delay. And so we don't have to build them. You have to deliver them as soon as you build them? You don't have a storage?
Starting point is 00:13:28 No. Well, we do have storage, but they take up quite a bit of space. Like we build, yeah, thousands of square feet worth of walls every day. So if a project gets delayed by a month, we can't. We don't have the space in our facility to store them. Okay. It's a manufacturing question, and I'm not sure I'm expert enough to help you with it. I'm just trying to think through from a common sense perspective,
Starting point is 00:13:57 the workflow situation you've got there. What occurs to me if I were looking at it from the top down is, is the work stoppage costing me more than additional storage would cost me? Yeah, it costs money to move the walls from wherever they are. Like, we'd have to put them on a semi and there's more risk involved with that. Yes, but how much, I mean, how much is all of that involved versus the cost of work stoppage? If you got you're shutting down like three weeks at a time, what you're talking about, right?
Starting point is 00:14:40 Yeah, potentially. Yeah, we haven't necessarily had to shut down, but it's getting to a point where it's becoming an issue. And as we continue to grow, the stoppages become more drastic. Okay, so what is a drastic stoppage? Explain it to me how long that is. Well, for me, I would think that one day
Starting point is 00:15:01 I don't want my guys not getting paid for even one day, but right now it would be, yeah, like, we'd have to take two weeks off. Like, we took the week off in between Christmas and New Year's, which we hadn't done before, but that didn't really help our issue. So now we're looking at layoffs or, yeah. So, so he's going to, so your owner is going to lose his work crew because he won't pay them when they're idle, because he won't store the walls. Well, we just have no. Oh, there's space. Somebody else has got space. You can find space.
Starting point is 00:15:39 I just don't know if it costs more than the loss of your work crew. Because now you're going to lose your crew. They're going to go do something else. And then when you want to start back up, you're not going to have them. Yeah, exactly. And if I'm the owner of this operation, I'm thinking about that versus the cost, you know, of paying them to sit there, paying them while they're not working. And build that into the pricing structure of the whole product.
Starting point is 00:16:06 line to where they get paid and, you know, sometimes we're just not working, but we're getting paid. Yeah. That's got to be built into your margins. Or he's going to have to store some stuff, or we're going to have to decide, you know, our model is set up a little different on delivery versus turnaround time. And maybe a year lead time is too much because that's causing these work stoppages. How often is this happening?
Starting point is 00:16:39 Uh, it's happened like once or twice that it's been like this where we're having. And do you lose most of your people then and you have to go restaff? Uh, we haven't yet, no. Um, so they just kind of take the furlough, go home and come back when they can. Yeah, we haven't laid anyone off yet. Like that hasn't happened. So we've been sending them to site sometimes, but, uh, that involves a lot more work for them. like a lot more driving. They could be driving up to an hour as opposed to just coming to the shop.
Starting point is 00:17:15 But they didn't lose their job and they kept getting paid. Yeah. Okay. That's a valid option because it doesn't happen that often. But at least they're not getting laid off. That's different than a while ago. You said, you know, for two weeks they don't get paid. So which is it?
Starting point is 00:17:32 Yeah. Well, yeah. So if we don't make money when they go to site, right? Like we're not, we're not, that's just us trying to make sure that we keep our guys not, uh, as a revenue stream for us, really. So it becomes way more of a headache from an operation standpoint to trying to find work for these guys. And to me, it seems like we should just overbook ourselves and then figure it out.
Starting point is 00:18:05 If there are no delays, then to try to keep it as tight as we have been keeping it. What do you tell the guy when one guy delays and you're overbooked and you can't make your delivery? Yeah, exactly. If I'm building that house, I'm pissed. Yeah, exactly. So your overbook plan pissed me off just then if I'm building the house. Yeah. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:18:35 Number one, you need to decide how you guys need to look as a leadership team. How often this is occurring and is it a legitimate problem? or is it just a headache three weeks a year? If it's a headache three weeks a year, it's part of the cost to do in business because overbooking is going to create lost customers, and that's different than a headache three weeks a year. If it's a headache four months a year
Starting point is 00:18:59 and you're having to redistribute your guys out of four months out of 12, you've got eight actual good months and then four that suck, then you've got a business model, manufacturing model problem. But if you've got something two or three weeks here or there, you don't have a problem. You've just got somebody covering the adjustments, and I think they've already found your solution. You just don't like it.
Starting point is 00:19:20 But overbooking and causing delays in delivery because you overbooked, that's going to piss off customers and lose them permanently. Because if I'm on the other end of that, I'm not going to do business with you. You don't deliver when I say when we agreed you were going to deliver because you didn't have your manufacturing model set up right. So I'm not sure I know enough about what we're talking about. to actually, I'm just trying to think through it with you, Andrew.
Starting point is 00:19:46 But I think if I'm in your shoes, what I would do is to try to quantify this problem. Is it just a big emotional deal? But the actual number of days is not that many? Or is it an actual number of days that's a big deal? If it's the second one, then I'm going to sit down with leadership and go, guys, we need to rethink this. I'm willing to help. How can I help us rethink this?
Starting point is 00:20:11 Because this is, you know, we're shutting. down three months out of 12 here, four months out of 12 on average out here. And it's really starting to cost this company a lot of money. And we need to rethink how we're doing our scheduling or something. But if it's three or four weeks here or there throughout the year, whoopee, deal with it. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. But you look at it and figure it out, and we can go from there. I, my part of my problem is, Andrew, I'm not in the, I've never run a manufacturing operation. So the actual workflow stuff there,
Starting point is 00:20:46 I'm not qualified to help you with. I'm just thinking through it as an entrepreneur with you. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. 54% of the gross domestic product. That is the total output of goods and services in America today. 54% is done by small business people. people with 500 or less team members.
Starting point is 00:21:18 If you work for one of those organizations or you own or run one of those organizations, you're a freaking hero. You are the backbone of the American economy. Washington pisses on you with their tax code every day. I'm one of you. I know. I just did my taxes. Piss me off again.
Starting point is 00:21:36 We're for small business. No, you're not. You're a bunch of duffuses. Corporate America struts around like they're doing something while they mistreat their team members. Small business treats their team members like family and loves them, takes care of them. This is what drives this country. And so you people that are doing this, you're heroes, and I love you. You're on my team. If you want to talk on this show, we'd love to have you. The phone number is 844-944-1070 with your question. I love business questions.
Starting point is 00:22:12 I love leadership questions. I love problems to solve. That's what entrepreneurs do. We get up every morning and chew and spit that stuff out. It's how we live. Also, you can leave your question at entreleadership.com slash ask. We'd love to do that as well. By the way, guys, the show, this podcast ratings have gone way up. Thank you in the last 12 months.
Starting point is 00:22:36 And the reason is you are sharing the show with others. You're sending links out. You're clicking subscribe. You're leaving five-star reviews. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We appreciate the number of you that are there and a whole bunch more of you are brand new to us. We know that based on the rankings and so forth that we're getting,
Starting point is 00:22:57 so thank you for doing that. Leave a five-star review, share the show, subscribe to the show, whatever it is you do on the particular platform you're consuming it. Thanks. Our question of the day is brought to you by Entree Leadership Summit, 24, where they have just a handful of tickets left, and you're not coming if you don't get on the phone right now. Jonathan from Georgia says,
Starting point is 00:23:19 what are your thoughts on the cash discount program that's being presented to us business owners? Will my customers think if they have to pay more with their card than with cash? My business does about $100,000 each month, and this cash discount program will save me about $2,000 a month in credit card fees. Well, I don't know what the cash discount program being presented to a business owner, is. But any company that uses, accepts credit cards or debit cards, pays two to three percent transaction on that. So per hundred thousand, it's a couple grand a month, what you're saying exactly, two or three thousand dollars a month to process those fees. If you have someone pay cash
Starting point is 00:24:06 instead to give a discount that is equal to that amount would be great. It's a two percent discount. It shouldn't be that big a deal. But oftentimes, Sharon and I just got back from a trip overseas, and we were dealing with a purchase, you know, from a vendor there in an overseas setting, which is a completely different mindset when you're negotiating for buying something while you're on a trip, right? And the guy's like, okay, is this price cash? Is this cash price with a card? And I went, well, it's cash. And I expect to get the discount. He goes, well, I can do that. So, you know, some customers like that. In some cases, there are some visa regulations and MasterCard regulations that don't allow you to have two prices, a cash price and a card price.
Starting point is 00:24:59 But a lot of people do it anyway. So you need to check about, make sure your card processor, you're not violating anything with that. But if your business does $100,000 a month, and you can get someone to pay cash for all of that instead of running it on a card, then yes. That does save you $2,000 and there's certainly nothing morally wrong with it as long as you're not violating the payment terms of the payment processor that you're working, you're processing your cards through. So it's certainly not the end of the world, but I don't know what cash program is being presented. nationwide to business owners, there's not a singular cash program. It's just always been that if you
Starting point is 00:25:47 pay cash instead of use a card, it costs the business owner less. And sometimes they will pass that on to you, that savings on to you. That's all it is. It's a very simple concept. And, you know, that's really how you do it. So, yeah, I mean, I would offer it as long as you're not violating some kind of an agreement you've signed with your payment processor. Pretty simple stuff. Thanks for emailing us in, Jonathan. You just leave it at entrei leadership.com slash ask. Just leave your question there, and we'll turn it into a question instead of having you be a caller. That'll work.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Let's do that. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Stephen is in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Stephen. How are you?
Starting point is 00:26:34 I'm well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, I'm the general manager. a live event production company. We hit about 1.2 million in revenue last year. Awesome. With two full-time employees, including myself. Wow. I believe our business model is solid, and we've worked to build a reputation that's contributed to much of the growth that we've
Starting point is 00:26:57 experienced to date. However, we're struggling with some growing pains, and it seems like we're at sort of this pivotal moment where what we do next can make or break us. And I'm a little fearful that the owner of our business may be comfortable with the status quo, possibly afraid to make the necessary changes to prepare for that next phase of growth. And so my question is sort of two-part. Why would you think he's not wanting to grow? Well, anytime it comes to big decisions that need to be made, there's kind of a delay in decision-making. He's not really involved in the day-to-day operations of the business. And so when it comes to, you know, equipment, investment or, you know, just big decisions that have to be made inside the business, there's just a delay. And I'm just fearful that
Starting point is 00:27:48 it's going to limit us. We kind of hit this lid of the next phase of course. Why is the decision delayed? I'm sorry? Why is he delaying in the decision? Is he a process guy? He wants more details. Is he slow to make decisions and you're fast to make decisions and it frustrates you? Or is he just disconnected and doesn't care? I think he's disconnected. I know that he cares. I think it's just a fear of change, a fear of losing control of and security that the business provides him and his family. And we want to provide more of that.
Starting point is 00:28:28 We want to give that security and grow this business and take it to the next level. but I'm, you know, I feel like... Do you have an audience with this guy? I do. Okay. Okay, so the first thing is I would... Have you ever taken the D-I-S-C model personality test? It's been a long time, but I probably need to take it again.
Starting point is 00:28:59 No, it's not... You can't flunk it. It's okay, but I am suspecting, okay, there's the D and the I. The I is a party looking at. for a place to happen, a people person, the D is very task oriented, the C is very detail oriented, the S is very people and loyalty and conflict avoidance oriented. I think your owner is a C or an S. They are slow to make decisions. I think you are a D and you're fast to make decisions. I'm a D. That's why I'm guessing that. None of these are right or wrong, but we just recognize the C needs to make
Starting point is 00:29:38 decisions slowly because they have to have all the details, all their ducks in a row, and they are painfully process-oriented for people like you and I, if you're a D, the C person is more of the accountant, the engineer, kind of, and they have to have every freaking detail, and you and I are like, hey, we got the thing figured out. Let's just go get it done, you know? And the S is slow to make decisions because they're conflict-averse, and they want to make sure all the people are happy. I don't think that's your guy because you don't have enough people to worry about being happy. I think your guy might be a C and you might be a D,
Starting point is 00:30:18 and your conflict might be just in the speed of decisions and the way decisions are processed. A high D, if that's what you are, and I'll give you the test for free. When we get done, I'll put you on hold. The team will pick up and we'll send you one. You can buy them in our store for like 30 bucks or something, but I'll send you one. one for free. I'll send you two if you can get the owner to take it. It'd be fun conversation for the two of you to have, right? Because what we find around here sometimes is that a high D, if that's what you are, I am. I'm very task-oriented, and a mature D does take other people's
Starting point is 00:30:52 feelings into consideration, but not much. An immature D never does. We just steamroll over everybody. You're a mature person I can tell about talking to you, so you are concerned about, you know, relationships and, you know, the future of things and that kind of thing. And you're trying to kind of understand this and analyze it. But anyway, if you're that, we can make a decision in 30 seconds, and if it's wrong, we'll make another one. And to a high C, we can seem very impulsive. To a D, a C can feel like a Pharisee, a bureaucrat that's slow and too careful.
Starting point is 00:31:32 so careful that they miss opportunities. That's kind of how you're describing your owner. That he's overly careful. Because I don't think he's unmotivated to win or unmotivated to grow. So anyway, what I'm trying to say is there may be some simple communication between the two of you that could solve a lot of this. Now, I'll give you that. The other thing I'll tell you, my friend Seth Godin, who's probably one of the best marketing minds on the planet, wrote a book called Lynchpin, and it talks about managing up the organization's chart.
Starting point is 00:32:12 You are a lynchpin in your organization. You run this thing. The thing revolves around you. The success is because of you. You're a linchpin for your owner, but you have to manage up, which is why you're calling me to get this growth that you see opportunity out there to get. And so I'd read that little book. It's not very long, but it's one of the same.
Starting point is 00:32:32 Seth's best writings. He says it's his favorite book. So it's excellent. Linchpin by Seth Godin, G-O-D-I-N. Now, having said all of that, then let's try to role-play this just a little bit. I would go in asking questions and say, all right, boss, I got these three things I see that will make us money. You are slow to move on this type of thing. I want to serve you and honor you. You're the owner. Tell me if there is real growth potential here, why you are slow to move. What am I missing? And ask questions like that, leading questions to pull him in. And he may be going, you know what, I'm just sitting on my thumbs. You're right. We need to do it. Or he may go, look, you know, before you were here, one time we ran up a bunch of equipment expenses, and then the
Starting point is 00:33:34 Fauci pandemic hit, and nobody did a live event, and we were sitting on our thumbs and screwed, and I don't ever want to be back there again. All I've got is a wound from that, and I remember that, and whatever, he may have a story, because sometimes I'm holding people back around here because of my experience tells me something they'd never even seen before, and that's wisdom. wisdom comes from pain, which comes from experience, right? And so he may be functioning in some of that, and he may teach you something about, you know, a longer view of some of the decisions that you're making. I don't know. I don't know what you're going to learn.
Starting point is 00:34:11 But if you go in asking some questions and go, look, I really want to grow this. And it's my personality style. I'm a little bit frustrated that we can't grow it. Tell me what I'm missing. Why do you not want to do this? I have guys ask me that stuff around here all the time, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Does that make any sense?
Starting point is 00:34:31 It does. It does. Yeah, so I think you are very important to him, and he knows it. The org chart, you just told me, I mean, there's you and two other people are doing a million, you know, a million two, and you got upside. And so how much stuff do, I mean, how much equipment do we need to, what's the capital investment, what's the rate of return, how fast we're going to recoup on that piece of equipment? I mean, boss, we can buy this. We can recoup on it in 90 days.
Starting point is 00:34:56 It's a no-brainer. But if you're asking him to do something that recoupes in three years, well, all you got to do is look back three years and remember why that might not be so fun, you know? And so those are the kinds of things to think through. So very cool, very cool. I've got to tell you, Stephen, I think you're a stud.
Starting point is 00:35:15 I think what you're doing there is pretty amazing. You're pulling off a large amount of revenue with just a handful of people. And so I think this, guy has a deep respect for you. If you'll just ask questions, understand where he's coming from with a personality style, and look at it through the lens of a linchpin, how to manage up. I think you're going to get what you want.
Starting point is 00:35:37 And you're probably going to get some lessons on why you didn't get what you want, and he was right. You may get some of those, too. And all of that's good. All of that's a good, good, good formula. So very, very well done. Good stuff, folks. Hey, remember better, a weary warrior.
Starting point is 00:35:53 than a quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.

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