EntreLeadership - Is Partnering With My Uncle Going to Be a Problem?

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

Today we’ll hear about: A nephew wondering how to convince his uncle to sell his portion of the business A businessman looking to wisely utilize debt in his business A small business that is dropping the ball with their customer service A business owner whose team regularly leaves him short-staffed   Next Steps: 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://ter.li/ask-us 🚢 Set Sail with Dave Ramsey! Book your cabin today: https://ter.li/s8xnyo 📚 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. 📈 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 have a question you want to ask on the show, fill out the forum on entrell leadership.com slash ask or call and leave a voicemail at 844-944-1070. 844-9-9. 44-1070. Lane is in Austin, Texas. Hi, Lane. How are you? Doing great. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, Dave. I just got a quick question about our family business. I'm the general manager of our family-owned equipment rental company. It's owned by my father and my uncle, and they've done a phenomenal job. They're completely debt-free. Our annual income is about 2.5 for 2024 with about 600,000

profit and about $2 million in 2025 with about $400,000 profit. My father's starting his later phase of his succession plan. And as I'm his only son, the plan is to pass the business down to myself. My question is, how do I know it's the right time to ask my uncle if he's ready to sell his half of the business? Your dad is, you're buying your dad's portion? Are you being given it? No, sir.

I'm being given it. Awesome. Very cool. How old are you? I am 34. How old is your dad? My dad is 64. How old is your uncle?

That's a great question. I believe he is about 57. Ah, okay. How is your relationship with your uncle? Are he still active in the business? Partly, he works about part-time. I mean, really, I mean, he was working about a half a year in reality, probably. Okay.

You're going to be partners with your uncle soon? Yes, sir. That is correct. Okay. All right, good. All right. And he knows this is going on? Yes, sir.

Yeah, that's been pretty well the plan from the beginning whenever I came to work for him. Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't know why it would be awkward to talk to him about it tomorrow. I mean, you know, and just approaching this. This is like open-handed, not demanding or anything, but say, you know, I'm walking into this half ownership with you. You and I are getting ready to be partners, and you're only 57 where dad's, you know, 64, he's

on his way out. You're working about half-time, Unk. And so, I mean, I want to learn about what your plan is for your half and can I buy it and when you're ready and what are you thinking? What's your timeline? Are you thinking 10 years? Are you thinking 10 months? Are you thinking 10 days?

I don't know what you're thinking. and I just want to let you know I'd like to be in a conversation with you and be included in the thought pattern. What's your thoughts and just ask him. No pressure, but just, you know, trying to figure out, you know, I'm sure he's thought about it. More than likely, yes, sir. If he hadn't something's wrong. I mean, he's probably not planning. Honestly, if he's not brought it up, he's probably not planning anything soon.

Yeah, and I don't think he, I don't think he is anytime soon or anything like that. He's probably thinking he's going to work to 65, isn't he? Probably. He might go, I want to work for forever. I don't know. He's a go-getter. Except for that part where he works half a year. Yes, sir.

Okay. He was a go-getter, but now he's a slowed-down go-getter. Okay. All right. Yeah, I mean, and always honor that generation and just say, What you told me when you opened up the call would be a great way to open up the conversation. What you and dad have built here is incredible. And I've always admired you as a go-getter.

These are all factual statements. And so I don't know how your mind is working about this. But I would appreciate it as your soon-to-be partner if we could talk about what your plan is and how I can help and how I can be part of that plan whenever it is. I'm not trying to push you out. I'm just trying to communicate and find out what's rumbling around between your two ears up there. You know, I mean, what are you thinking? And he may have a lot of thoughts on it. But I would just, you know, no pressure.

I'm not trying to throw my weight around. I'm doing this from a position of honor. You and dad are great. You're a go-gitter, all that stuff. And I'm not in a hurry. Nothing like that. There's nothing on fire. I don't see any big problems.

There's no ultimatum. No, none of that in your body language. your tone or anything, just very open-handed, but just, hey, how can I help you live your dreams? And what is your dream for this half of the business? Because I'm very interested in it when you're ready. What would you do if you said that? I don't really know, honestly. So we've kind of had a, I mean, we've had a few conversations about it.

And I mean, it's where I got, I'm going to work till I die, you know. He did say that. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to work till I die. die mentality. Well, I know what to pray for. No, I'm kidding. Oh, man. Yeah, that's mainly my, my big thing is, is going about it.

And I mean, if he didn't want to sell, I mean, just, I guess, assessing that with pay structure, you know, going through that and saying, hey, you're working half a year. I'm working a whole year. Yeah. And are you guys going to be 50-50 at that point? Yes, sir. Yeah, we would be 50-50. Yeah.

And it is fair that we both work the same number of hours for the same number of profit points, right? That's not an unfair discussion for two partners to have. And, you know, if you want to work until you die, that's fine. Okay. What do you plan to do it when you die? Yep. And how are you feeling? I'm kidding.

I can't resist. That's just, that's such an underhand pitch. I'm just, I would want to mess with him for sure. But my family's kind of sick that way, so we would have these bad jokes. But, yeah, it's not funny for some families. That wouldn't be, that wouldn't go over well. But anyway, the, yeah, I, like I say around here, I'm going to work until I don't make sense anymore. And one of mine will look at me and say, what do you mean by that?

Like I'm already not making sense. They're messing with you. So, anyway. So, yeah. Yeah, I would try over time, little bits at a time, just try to start having a breakfast with him once every two weeks and just build a relationship to where he'll start to want to share with you. And he'll start to want good things for you. And he'll start to think, how can I, you know, hand this over and say, I'm more than willing to purchase this when you want me to. Do you want me to purchase it from your family after you're gone?

Or can we arrange that in the documentation if you want to work until you die? Or what is it? But you don't have to cram all that up in one conversation. But I just, I'd keep an ongoing dialogue, build a relationship. He's going to be your partner. And then you can solve for, you can solve for who's working and who's on what pay scale and all that kind of stuff. And then just start talking about how this transition. because no transition plan is a bad one, especially 50-50.

That's dangerous. The other thing you could do is you could involve your dad. He's the older brother and ask your dad to get his little brother to come up with a freaking schedule. Okay. I mean, or at least give us some kind of indication like, I'm just going to work until I drop. That's just bull redneck bull crap. Okay. You're not either.

So what are you really going to do? Or if you do drop, what am I going to do with your wrist? widow or your my cousin Eddie who's crazy and now I got to deal with him. I mean, your dad can help with some of that as the older brother and ask him to help you facilitate that conversation. Matter of fact, he might even help you facilitate the conversation on the working half the time and getting paid for a full-time thing. That might be okay for him to do as he's heading out the door because he's in the position

of older brother and I would imagine that pecking order still probably carries at least some weight in a conversation more than you trying to, you know, come up from 34-year-old to get the 57-year-old to listen to you. Yeah, that actually might work better than anything else I've said as I've been rambling. So give that a shot. Good question, and I'm glad you're addressing it, and I'm glad you're being proactive. Make sure you play through on that. I've seen these things fall apart, and they're not pretty when they fall apart. So let's have a plan and execute the plan.

Don't really care what it is. But let's have a plan and execute the plan. Owning a business can be a heavy load. You want to serve your customers well, make a healthy profit, and grow. And your team, family, and customers are all counting on you. And now everybody's talking about AI like it's magic. And you're wondering how to keep up. You're carrying a lot, but you don't have to do it alone.

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Entreeleadership.com slash summit or click the link in the show notes. John is in Toledo. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, Dave, this is John from Toledo. I'm the CEO and owner of a company that sells services and rents industrial equipment. We have 23 employees and we'll do about 9.3 million in revenue this year. My question is, how do I wisely manage business debt and a company that's both growth-oriented and very cash-intensive, especially while I'm also getting interest from high-value buyers who could eliminate that debt and create financial freedom? high value buyers like somebody to buy the business potentially oh well the high value buyer is going to look at a balance sheet and so your value your business minus your debt so debt doesn't help a high value

buyer debt hurts it um and debt hurts your stability and your growth as well um i mean you can have some artificial growth and hockey stick up, but you've added instability and risk out the basso when you do that. And so I wouldn't wisely manage debt. I would do away with debt completely and operate cash from the ground up. That's what we have done for 35 years. And we've got some very expensive pieces of equipment that, you know, we started out with cheaper ones and we added as we had profit to add from.

But that way we didn't have any problems as soon as if there's a customer problem and they didn't pay, or there's a cash flow problem, or there's something else. You don't have cash problems as much when you don't have debt. Yes. So I agree. Yeah. So I'm going to buy equipment slow enough that I can pay cash for it. That's also going to make you more wise in the purchase of the equipment because if I can

only buy one piece of equipment instead of three, I'm going to really look at which one's going to ROI, which one's going to stay rented the most, and give me the least problems with maintenance. And, you know, which one has a high appeal to the customer base. I'm working with instead of like, well, I'll just try this other ones since it's not real money. It's borrowed money because it doesn't even feel like you're using real money then. And, you know, you take a lot of risks. You magnify the weaknesses of the business when you borrow into it.

And so I would be paying cash for this. And that's not going to hurt you in the event that someone comes along and wants to buy it, unless they're buying it based on gross revenue multipliers regardless of debt, which means they're stupid. If they're ignoring, let's pretend you took all $4 million worth of debt and you ran your gross up, okay? And they buy based on the gross and ignore the debt. Well, that makes, I mean, that would be dumb. That's a very naive approach to a purchase. So you only use a gross multiplier on revs is if you have a standardized amount of debt in the industry,

which would be little to none in your world because your world, equipment wears out, equipment is new. Competitors come online with a different brand that you're not carrying. All kinds of stuff happens that makes the equipment you bought five years ago trash. So most of our debt is tied up in the rental business. And these are five-year rentals and the equipment stays for anywhere from 10 to 14 years. And so we have been borrowing as we scale to because we have some, very large customers that use us to provide this equipment to their customers.

And so, yeah, so the debt is tied up in the rental business. And then we have had some. You're making the assumption that they all stay, that they all stay solvent. Just because they're large doesn't mean they stay solvent. Right. And that's, well, that's, and that's the challenge. Yeah. If they go broke, if they go broke, you're bankrupt.

Exactly. Yeah. And that's, so that's where it's getting into the personal, right. So we are, we are going through this growth cycle, providing equipment really nationally, and we have this growing debt, but we have had some approached, we've been approached by some, some large buyers that would pay us multiple, multiples of EBTA, and I could clear up that debt completely, plus some. But it's a family business.

We take care of people. Yeah, then you're out of business. I mean, they bought it and you're gone, right? Well, it's potentially, but I would probably stick around. It'd be a buy, you know. But, I mean, you'd be, you'd be an employee at that point, and you'd have a liquidity moment, right? Yes, that's, that is correct. Yeah.

And so, I mean, that's a different scenario. If you're building it to sell in the next. 18 months and you want to run debt up through the top and take a risk of bankruptcy if you don't sell it, then that's a high risk play. But personally, I'd just be operating in my business and make it look prettier and prettier and prettier and more stable. And, you know, I just think she's a prettier girl at the dance for a buyer then. That's what I think. But, you know, I don't know who your buyer is and I don't know how sophisticated they are. And because, again, I've watched people pay multiples of what way more than they should for stuff based on the

based on the balance sheet and based on the you know the net operating income that they're looking at and so because I mean EBITA is one measure and and but I I don't mind measuring actual cash what am I getting in my pocket and that's not a bad thing to measure if you're buying a property or buying a property or buying a business either. So it depends on what game you're playing. You can't play both. Okay?

If you play a game where you're running up the debt to run up the revenues to make it look attractive to somebody who's not using a formula I would use, you are putting yourself at risk if they don't buy because you're in a very high risk, tenuous situation then. You're asking for trouble. If instead you're playing what Simon Sennon Cic calls an infinite game where we're really not for sale, if somebody wants to come by it, though, we'll talk about it, but we're really not for sale. We're just over here trying to make a business that's sustainable.

Then you grow slower and you grow with organic cash and you avoid debt because your sustainability is there. And if one of the large customers decides they're going to piss on you and not pay you just to squash the little guy or they become insolvent, then you're not bankrupt. But if one of these guys just bows up and says he's not. going to pay you. And he's going to redirect the cash flow because he got a new CEO and they're going to open a new division. And they're going to build the new division on their payables. And that's happened before. And they decided, I'm not going to pay you for 90 days. Dude, you're in receivership. You're screwed. And that's what you're not anticipating is one of

these big companies not misbehaving or not becoming insolvent. And they misbehave and become insolvent as much as little companies do. So, no, I'm not going to be. Not going to play that role. So thank you. Thank you for the question. We had an opportunity a few years ago. It's a little, it's dissimilar but not. One of the largest retailers out there came to us and wanted us to create a financial package, especially trademarked, branded, co-branded package of materials to teach people about money. And they were going to put it on their shelf with their name and our name on it, right? and we would create it all. And it was a $10 million order, which for us was a lot of money, especially in those days.

And I thought, well, this is great. We get to do business with so-and-so, and it's a $10 million order. And then we kept working the numbers, and really there wasn't a lot of margin in it. We weren't making a ton of profit. We're making a little bit. But it was a nice branding play because we'd have this huge distribution and be associated with a positive brand and all these things. So I thought, okay, even if it's not a lot of money, we'll try it. And then the contracts come in, and they want to, and they want to be associated.

wanted us to produce $10 million worth of stuff with their name on it and our name on it, which means there's only one place in the world to sell it there, but they had full returns, meaning that if the sales weren't what they thought they should be, they could just ship them back and get a refund, which means I would have all this stuff in the warehouse that I've already paid for that I can't do anything with except throwing the dumpster because it's got other people's name on it and crap, right? And I'm like, so in other words, I have to eat all the risk of sales and you got an $8 an hour stock clerk putting this out maybe on the right shelf maybe not and then maybe it doesn't sell because it wasn't on the end cap where it's supposed to be no

thank you not with full returns i said i can't do this with full returns they said well everyone accepts these contract language because they want to do business with us and i said well you can't say that anymore because now everyone hadn't done it because i'm not doing it and we turned around and walked away from a $10 million order, and we cried a little bit, threw up a little bit in my mouth. Yeah, it was bad. I mean, $10 million, right? It wasn't $10 million profit, but still was a lot of money,

and it was a big deal. And we had a lot of effort in building up the idea with them and working the contract and everything. But I could not accept the risk of high returns of them being becoming not solvent, but worse than that, one of their local regional distribution places becomes incompetent, loses the crap, and then they want to send it back for a full invoice, which would be a freckle for them,

but for me it would be a deal breaker. And I was not accepting that risk. You know, you want me to take on all the risk of the whole thing. I can't. It's not logical. I'm not doing it. And so to me, this thing we're discussing, John, is in the same boat with that. it's just not worth it.

But this idea that somehow you can depend on major huge companies to always have your best interest at heart when you're the little guy, they don't even know you're there. And they don't care. And they squash you like last week's roach and not think anything about it. It's just, you just, and it's not that I'm cynical, it's just that I'm cynical.

So you just got, you just got to be real, wise when you're looking at these things and not set yourself up for a fall because that's what these situations can come down to. Good question, man. Sounds like you've got a cool business and if selling it is your dream, I hope it comes true for you. If you're a business leader and you're constantly behind, here's the truth. You're doing work that shouldn't require your time. When that happens, most leaders look for speed. Better tools, smarter software. And yes, AI can help you move faster, but faster isn't always better, and speed isn't the same as leadership. Tools can't replace your vision.

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This is from Ben in Hartford, Connecticut. Dave, I run a 14-person home services business, and lately we've been dropping the ball. Missed appointment windows, slow follow-ups, miscommunication between the office and the field. Everyone keeps blaming someone else, and I can't tell if this is a person problem or a systems problem. What's the first practical step to figure out where the real breakdown is so I can fix it without guessing? Well, the good news is you run a small enough business that you can step on this pretty hard. I simply would put everyone in a room and say, no more. We work too hard to get the customers, cost too much to acquire a customer,

and to mistreat them with misappointment windows, slow follow-up and miscommunication, stops now. And you can't blame somebody else at your job. if you're sitting here it is your job to make sure the appointments are hit to make sure that the follow-ups are instantaneous

and to make sure that miscommunication between the office and the field goes away it's your job to step on it and fix this and we are not going to do this anymore

and if you do this anymore by doing it you are stating you don't want to be here. Because I just said, we don't have slow follow-up. We don't have missed appointment windows as of right now, period. And so it's a condition of further employment. In other words, you get to keep your job if we stop doing this. Because I'm not going to tolerate it.

We're not going to live like this. Life's too short. And I'm not mad at a certain person, but these processes, that are breaking down are absolutely ridiculous. Now, you guys tell me what we need to do to fix this, so it doesn't happen anymore. And tell me without pointing at a person, because I don't think a single person is the problem. I think everybody's contributed something and everybody's contributed nothing to this problem. So as of right now, without throwing somebody under the bus, what do you think we need to do to make sure that there's not any missed appointments?

Why are we missing an appointment? What happened? Well, it didn't get on the books. Well, why do we not get it on the books? We need some better software. Okay, good. Let's get some better software. We need a follow-up.

But you're not running something big enough that you can't watch all three of these things very intensely with your hands up to your elbows down in the business, getting muddy all the way to your armpits, finding out what the flip is broken here. You got to get down in this. And when they see that you're down in it, they're going to go, uh-oh, he's not kidding. Because, uh-oh, I'm not kidding.

We're not going to do this anymore. So first you lay that baseline, then you say, okay, guys, now you help me. What can I do to help you? Because I'm going to be helping you. I'm either going to be helping you out or I'm going to be helping you out. So I'm going to be helping you.

What are we going to be doing? Help me, help you. What have we got to do? What have we got to do to get here? Because we're not getting here. If you need some software, if I need a better system, if we were short on, one person's got too much stuff piled up on them and they can't get to it.

All of that's fine. We haven't allocated for traffic because now in Hartford, Connecticut there's traffic. And during COVID there wasn't. and now we have to drive in traffic to get there, and so we have a missed appointment, or we're late, and slow follow-ups and all that stuff. So we're just not going to do this anymore.

We're going to follow up, and by the way, we have a new rule. All customer emails and phone calls are answered within 24 hours. So if one comes to your personal inbox, you answer it that day, period. I don't care for it's your job. You answer it anyway, and you make sure someone is getting it. getting the job done. You look over at your co-worker and you say, hey, we got to get this done. You heard what Ben said. We've got to fix this because we have a new standard around here and it's a standard of excellence instead of piss poor work. And we're not going to operate this way.

And so again, we're not picking on a certain person, but I can get very passionate and very angry at a broken system and at a broken lack of attention. So we don't do it this way. Now, I'll give an example of that. We had one of our core values is high levels of communication at Ramsey. We value high levels of communication. We have lots of one-on-one accountability meetings with each of our leaders. We have group leadership meetings. We have group team meetings where everybody's looking at each other going,

what are we got to do to get this? We got squads working on projects that are holding each other accountable. accountable. We've got staff meeting with the entire company every Monday morning. We have a devotional every Wednesday morning. A hundred percent, you will gather at these times. We value communication. Many years ago, we had a project that we're working on that just absolutely was an epic circus. It was an absolute freaking disaster. Everything we touched. Everything we touched, turned to poop. It was just awful. And finally, when we got the thing done and got the other side of it, I sat down with the leadership team and I went, look, this is what happened. We don't do this anymore.

And, you know, we're going to fix this and whatever. And we're walking across the parking lot after the meeting. And one of my young leaders who was kind of a, I don't know, full of himself, I guess, came over to me and he said, you know why this didn't work? And I said, no, why? I said, I think I know why. We just talked about it in there for the last hour. And I don't really want to talk about it anymore.

And I said it was bad communications, what it was. And he said, yeah, and it was your fault. I want my fault. Okay, you got some backbone. What are you talking about? And he started telling me where I had broken down. And he was exactly right. You know what?

And so you got to hold yourself to that standard too, Ben, that you're going to not be part of anything. You can't stand back in the ivory tower and just throw a grenade out and say, y'all, fix this. Now, you get up to your elbows in it and you help them fix it, but you also set a new standard, a cultural icon that says, you know,

back where they can look back 20 years from now and they'll go, yeah, I remember back in Alt-25 when we used to do that stuff and Ben came in and said no more, and it's been no more since then. and they can look back 20 years later and say we don't do that so some of our communication processes weekly reports and other things came about at ramsie from the time where we sucked and we had to fix it and not suck anymore and so that's what we're talking about here ben is you got suck right now

at these things and you got to get in there and you got to help them leadership is service you step in and serve the team by helping them and making sure that they have the tools they need to where we don't have any more misappointment windows, any more slow follow-ups, any more, air quotes, miscommunication. Miscommunication usually in this situation falls under the heading of I don't give a crap. And if you don't give a crap, you don't get to work here. Because we all care.

We all act like we own it. And you don't get to stay here. So miscommunication is I didn't care enough. I mailed it in. And I'm like, well, he didn't get it done again. I roll my eyes instead of making sure it freaking gets done. Take the bull by the horns. Make sure this happens.

Take the ball in your hands. Put the bodies in the lane and drop the stinking ball through the hoop. Knock everything down until the freaking goal is accomplished. And that's everybody on the team has got to have that mentality. And that's a fired up and wired up thing that this matters and we're going to fix it. We're not going to mail it in again anymore on these particular subject. So the good news is you've got a small enough team, one meeting, and you will begin the process of fixing it. By the end of the first week, it'll be largely gone because you're going to be stepping on these ants.

Every time one of them runs out, you're going to stomp it, and they're going to kill everyone these dadgum bugs until they're gone. And as soon as you start paying extreme intense attention to it, the needle will move on this, and you'll get it straightened out before you know it. And if a person arises to be the problem, then they're not a we. We don't do this anymore. So we can't keep you because you're not a we. Every breakthrough in your business starts with a breakthrough in you. That's why you need to come to Entree Leadership Summit. You'll get insights from top thought leaders in the leadership and business space like Will Godera, Vanessa Van Edwards,

Brian Buffini, and more, and the best best. part is it all happens at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando. To join us May 17 through 20, visit Entreeleadership.com slash summit or click the link in the show notes. Thanks for joining us. If you want to help us out, click the follow button or the subscribe button. It matters. Those algorithm thingies in the internet, they work. So those five-star reviews, it changes things. When you share the show, tell people about the show, they come listen to us. a big difference and it has made a big difference over the last couple of years. Thank you for the hockey stick growth we've had up into the right.

We appreciate you guys sharing and telling people about us. If you want to join the show, be sure you're with us at 844-944-1070. 844-9-4-1070. Jeff is in Lincoln, Nebraska. Hi, Jeff. How are you? Just another day in paradise, Mr. Ramsey. How are you?

It's better than I deserve. are not going to help. I love it. I love it. Well, listen, first and foremost, thank you for what you do for young entrepreneurs, old entrepreneurs, everybody that I know listens to this podcast really appreciate it. So thank you for the service that you provide. Thank you. I own and operate an equipment dealership here in Nebraska. I started this company right out of college about nine years ago. And Lifetime sales of the company are just over 53 million. This year, we're going to end probably somewhere just north of $8 million in gross revs with an EBIT of around $540,000.

So this is going to be our best year yet. Finally, after nine years, getting tuned in here to how we can do the best job. My question today revolves around small teams. So I have a team of five people full time here. And my challenge is, how can we better prepare ourselves for when multiple staff members are gone with little or no notice. And the context for the question comes from two Mondays ago when all of the team members were gone and it was just me. And it was a stressful day. Instead of working 10 hours, I worked 16 hours. I went home. I was a complete grump to my wife and my

kids. And I just have to find a better way to prepare not only the company, but to prepare myself for when things happen. It was a mixture between pre-approved time off and kids getting sick and personnel getting sick, doctor's appointments, so on and so forth. It wasn't from a position of, you know, abusing the privilege of time off. It was more about it was the perfect storm. And as I look back over the past nine years, this happens about once a quarter. On one day, you know, it's a perfect storm. So how as an entrepreneur who's involved, with the company every day who already has a full workload, how can I better position myself in the company to absorb those responsibilities without sacrificing customer service?

Wow. I've had individuals or for short periods of time, stuff like that happen. I've never had 100% of my workforce out for a day. That's even when we were your size. Even when we are your size. So, and once a quarter is untenable. I agree. That tells me that that tells me that coming to work is not a high priority. Well, I think as I look at the other 14 members, that could be true for one of them. You know, one's my all-star.

Definitely, unless, you know, he's on his deathbed, he's at work. Well, what was he dying, Monday? I mean, where was he? Yeah. He had a family emergency. There was a car wreck. And so it was, like I said, it was the perfect storm. There was an injury.

But that's not once a quarter. Where was he on those other quarters? Yeah, mostly for that particular individual, it's pre-approved time off, like three weeks in advance, one day off. Office manager, you know, has a grandchild who was always ill. So she's gone occasionally. The other guy has a special needs son who has. as doctor's appointments and things. And right now we have a vacancy in the other role.

It's a family problem, that's for sure. The mother and the father and former in-laws, that's definitely carrying over into this person's attendance. Okay. So, well, we've got individual cases going on here. Yeah. But basically I'm going to turn up the heat that says, you know, you can't leave me in here by myself.

Your lack of planning at home does not constitute a crisis on my part. Constit a crisis on your part. You have to be at work if you want the job. And so if something pops up with the child, your spouse is going to have to handle it because you have to be at work. And occasionally I can grant grace, but I don't have the margin for all you people to just not show up because it's not convenient that day.

Yeah, and I think that's exactly right. I'm Midwest polite, and I try to assume everybody's telling the truth and doing the best. But it's really, really tough. I think they're pushing the edge of grace here and mercy, and I think they're taking advantage of you to a point. I mean, it's probably not that big a deal, but listen, I mean, I've got people here that have had things come up, and for a season, we can let them have a thing, have a thing. but if you can't come to work one day a week on average because of your child care issue, I can't have you.

I have to have people working. So I've got to get somebody else. If you're just constantly, if there's just chronically have a medical problem over a long period of time, I mean, a season I can give you a grace. We'll work around you. We'll backfill for you, you know, that kind of stuff. But, you know, when you came to work here, we work here Monday through Friday. we work in the building.

Yep. It's been working in the building. And we don't work from work. That's who we are. And that's the job you took. And if you can't do that, I understand. But, I mean, and again, a one-off or a car wreck or something, sure, we're not mean, nasty people.

But my grandson is sick. And every time my grandson, you're the grand, you're not even the mother. You're the grandmother. You're not at work. No, that's not going on once a year for that one. you know, and so we're going to have to reset our expectations with these folk and go, that's the thing. And if something does blow up, we have to have a self-employed mentality around here where if you had a personal day off and your personal day was planned for three weeks and your personal day plan is to be fishing and everybody else can't show up because of legitimate car wreck stuff, you've got to not fish that day. I'll give you another day to fish. You've got to come help me fish.

Because I got to get, I got fish to catch. So, I mean, you know, I don't know what you're doing your personal day. if your personal day is planning to be in Paris, France or something, you can't do anything about it. But that's probably not the case. Is that reasonable of me to communicate that to them? You know, the person who had his personal day off, is it reasonable for me to send a text and say, Hey, if it's possible, I sure need to help no one else here. No, I mean, you know, unless you're up to your eyeballs and something over there that I don't know about, I need you get over here and help me.

I'll give you another, I'll give you two days later to offset this one day, but I need some help. Absolutely. But guys, I mean, so-and-so had a car wreck, and other kid, you know, blew up, whatever it was. I don't know. But whatever, and I'm stuck over here, I need some help. And really, I would just call a staff meeting and say, we're not doing this anymore, okay?

We're not going to have a thing where three personal emergencies and one, I don't give a crap, and one personal day combines me being down here by myself. That's the purpose of having a team is to have a team. And when everybody doesn't show up, for various reasons and it leaves it on me. I'm not doing this anymore. So we're going to have to have a reset on expectations,

and that is that you're at work unless something's really, really, really bad. Right. Given all of that information, would you also potentially suggest hiring one or two more people to the team to cover, to plug those holes overlap, or is this purely mentality issue? My wife seems to think that the margins are good enough. I need to hire another full-time person.

that person would be busy maybe two-thirds of the time, but the other third of the time. I would hire somebody else if they're busy all the time. And the more of the busy all the times you got, the better chances you got are not having anybody there again. That's kind of wild. But I think the thing is this, it's a small team, and they have to realize when you work for a small business, you can't say the words, it's not my job, because everything's your job when you work for a small business. Yeah. We all lift boxes.

We all answer the phone. We all show up and take orders sometimes because we all do whatever it takes because there's just freaking five of us boys and girls. Yeah. And so we all got to care deeply or this place isn't going to be here to write you a check. So we have to produce here. And so we have to increase our intensity. You don't work for corporate America who's going to piss on you the first time you mess up.

but you also don't work for corporate America that's going to put up with your incompetence and just not showing up and mailing it in. Because I don't have the margin to do that. You guys got to give a rip at a real high level or we're not going to be able to grow. We're not going to be able to get better. And if you don't want to work here on that basis, I understand. But here we work while we're at work. Amen.

I mean, it's just that's, I've had that this is just, this is the very words I've used out of my mouth at staff meeting. I say stuff like this. Not as much anymore, but I did for certain in the first 10 years here. And go, this is what we do. I had to set the culture of a self-employed mentality. We're not mailing it in. Because, you know, if my kid is sick, I can't not show up and do the radio show. Somebody's got to cover the kid, right?

I got it because the stinking microphone doesn't turn on. That radio station is kind of quiet. That doesn't work. And I think that's part of the problem is that in my position, my wife and my mother-in-law, to be honest with you, are able to handle those crises on my personal side. And the other couple other team members don't have that infrastructure and they've not set themselves up with that infrastructure to handle those crises when they come up. I don't have the flexibility for you to work here if you don't show up by four days out of five. Yeah. I don't have the margin.

And it's tough because those people are good when they're here. The one person in particular is really good and it's A plus when they're here. Yeah, but they're still not fulfilling the job. The job description is they've got to be here. Eight to five Monday through Friday. That's what we do, man. And it's like, you know, and you have some personal time off and we can't all take it at once. If everybody turns in vacation on the same two weeks in the summer, you're not going to accept those applications.

No, everybody can't go on vacation. at one time. Right, right. That's true. You know, we used to have to manage that because we'd have a whole department gone, nobody to answer the phone. You know, we're like, you can't do that. You know, you can't all be gone at the same time.

I don't care if everybody likes June or not. No, thank you. I mean, we just, this is not, we don't have any way to keep doing business. When you get back, your job won't be here because we'll be broke. You know what I mean? It's just, so that somehow they don't get that urgency that's in my voice right now, that visceral feeling. And if they don't, then every little thing that comes up in their personal life becomes a reason to not go to work because they're mailing it in. But if you got people that

really want to be there and they're helping you drive the thing forward, they're not just there to collect a check, then you can do away with some of this. So I think you've got one of the five you're going to have to replace. And I think you know who it is. And I think that'll change the culture of the whole thing too. And you know what to do it suddenly? I don't think anybody's mad at anybody, but you've been putting it off and you've been putting up with it and you've been putting up with it and you're, you're getting tired even in your Midwestern way, as you said. You're getting sick of it. And so you already know you probably got one.

You may have two. And then maybe if you can get enough business coming in, you can do what your wife said. Let's get a full-time person to work a full-time job. The more of those we've got, I mean, 10 people, you've got less chance of this happening than five. And so you're getting off the treadmill stage. You've got more of a more of a delegatable situation. the broader it gets.

And we can get you, you know, from 8 million to 16 million or something, right? That's what we want to get to. But we're not going to get there. You know, every time somebody poops their diaper, we can't have to go home. That just won't work. And so, man, it's hard. It's hard. And it sounds like I don't care.

It's not that I don't care. It's just that I don't care. That's all it is. So, all right, folks, that about does it. Let's remember a 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 Andre Leadership. If you're a business owner who's been grinding it out and rarely gets time to step back and think clearly, I want to tell you about something special. The Live Like No One Else Cruise is a seven-day experience in the Western Caribbean with me and the Ramsey team. This isn't just a vacation.

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