EntreLeadership - Key Decisions to Drive Business Success

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Today, we hear about: •       How to help your team members grow personally and professionally •       A caller who has a thriving debt-free business with over $3.6 million of equipment •       The six drivers of a truly successful business •       What to do when buying a company and the previous owner wants to continue working with the team Links mentioned in this episode: •       The EntreLeadership Podcast •       EntreLeadership Elite •       Have a question for The EntreLeadership Podcast? Leave a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or submit your question for a chance to be on the show with Dave Ramsey: https://www.entreleadership.com/ask Start growing in business and leadership with the EntreLeadership Newsletter. Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://bit.ly/3IRWnsL   Support our sponsors: •       NetSuite •       BELAY •       Payority •       Staples Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •       EntreLeadership Summit •       EntreLeadership Master Series Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •       Elite •       Advisory Groups •       Executive Coaching •       Workshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where I take calls from business leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience in the trenches of running, operating, growing, and making a lot of mistakes in business right alongside you. Yeah, you're talking to a practitioner, not talking about theory here. This is real stuff. I did this today, as a matter of fact. So if you got a question, hey, you can call me.

The phone number is 844-944-1070, or you can fill out the form at entreleadership.com slash ask. Put your stuff down. We'll get in touch with you and make you a caller here on the show. Emily will reach out and make sure that you are in line. Janie is going to start off today in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Janie. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast. Hi, Dave.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I own a six-unit fast casual restaurant concept here in DSW called the Fisket Bar. And we just had our fifth birthday. We have about 145 employees. And of course, it's very important to us that we have a personal development program available to them.

But we're really running into three big, big roadblocks with this. First, we have, you know, employees who have master's degrees and employees who are at, like, a third grade reading level. and then everything in between. So finding something that's going to help everyone across that scope is difficult. Then, of course, we also are in the restaurant industry. We've got slim margins, so our funds for something like this are limited. And then finally, I myself am short on time.

Like you always say, I'm the chief everything officer. But then also I have four little, so my oldest is six. My youngest is 18 months. I've got two in between there. So, you know, short on time. So what kind of advice which you have for me in creating a program like that, given those types of constraints? What do you hope to gain by doing a personal development program? What does winning look like?

I would say one side I would have is a business objective, and then the other would be maybe a personal objective. So on the business side, we have currently in the field 17, excuse me, now 18, we have a new one the day, 18 salaried managers, and up to out 14 of them were hired as hourly employees. So on the one hand, it's definitely much better for us to develop people on the personal side and the professional side. How did you do that? Hiring. We really have just trained them hands on. We have an LMS platform, a learning management system platform. We put a lot of content on there as well. and then, of course, I do have some really, you know, key generals that are really great at developing people also. So, you know, together we've kind of raised up some people in the trenches.

But then we also have people who want to grow as a person, but they're not necessarily wanting to grow in leadership, which needs more responsibility. So I want to impart them maybe a new mindset or ability to broaden their mind so that if, if and whenever they do leave us, they can look back and say, well, I learned something there that impacted me as a person and put me on a different path in life. Gotcha. Okay. I'm not sure I've got all the answers, but it sounds like you're trying to do too many universal things instead of bifurcating this and splitting it up.

So I would have a 100 level, 200 level, 300 level, 400 level, 400 level like you're going to college. Sure. Okay. So if you're a freshman, you're someone working in the business, not in leadership. You don't aspire to leadership. Maybe you're a third grade reading level, what you said, that kind of stuff. So, you know, we might have you start there with life skill stuff.

I mean, we might have some marriage curriculum. You might have the Ramsey financial curriculum in there. You might have, you know, other relationship tools, let them take personality tests. and figure out who they are and how to, you know, communication skills, character training, those kinds of soft skill type things that enhance their personal lives. And then maybe 200 level. I'm making this up on the spot, so it may not be right. Okay.

But then, but we do not train people for leadership unless they ask to be. Yes. They have to raise their hands. They have to raise their hand and say, I want to be. be in that. Now, you don't have to be in leadership or we don't even have to believe around Ramsey that you're going to be in leadership, but we have entree leadership classes here at 7 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday or Tuesday mornings with free donuts or whatever. And sometimes it's a live teacher, sometimes it's me, sometimes it's one of our other leaders. And we're talking about leadership

skills at that point, difficult conversations, hiring and firing, all those kinds of things. And if you want to be a leader at Ramsey, you're going to have to have our set of out looking at those things. You're going to have to know how to do that the Ramsey way. And so you're going to have to go through that type of stuff or somehow get that material into your brain. And so, you know, that's an elective. It's obviously volunteer. It's obviously before work starts, all those kinds of things. And so, you know, it's available.

well, you can make that digital. I don't care because you're spread all over, you know, the metroplex there. So we're all in one building. But the point being, so we have a leadership track that's voluntary. And then we have an advancement of that that we pick the people out of and really lean into them and mentor them. And that would be like of your 18, of your 18 that are 14 of them were homegrown. some of those along the way you looked up and said, I'm going to, that one I'm going to really pour into because they're going to make it.

And you change the level of time spent, money spent, emphasis spent on that person's development. And so, because they not only raised their hands, but they were also demonstrating huge potential and other reasons. It wasn't random, you know. And so, you know, that's at least. three different buckets right there that I'm thinking of. More of a general leadership thing, a life skills thing, and then the advanced leadership thing that involves some very hands-on, very, very intentional mentoring, more one-on-one stuff than, quote, classroom material, and is spreading it out that way.

The other thing that goes with your world that doesn't go with our world is high turnover. Yes. What, the restaurant business is 300 percent typically. I've got a friend that owns about 20 restaurants, and he's got his down to 125%. That blows my mind. Mine is less than 20%. And it used to be less than 10

before all these changes in the marketplace, right? So I can't get my head around 300% turnover. But that's part of your world, too. So those people are going to get that life skills modules, and that's probably all they're going to get to. Or they might get started in some of the early stages of the leadership modules. and then they move on.

And they take the blessing that you have been with them, and that's fine. And, you know, the classic in your world that most people recognizes a teenager that works at Chick-fil-A gets a lot more than money working there, the training and the quality of people. And when you come out of that, you know, you're a different person having worked there as 16, 17, 18 years old. But very few 17-year-olds start at Chick-fil-A with the intent of being there when they're 37. So it's what Chick-fil-A can pour into them while they're there that you're looking at. So, yeah, I think you break it up into different. It might be more than three modules.

It might be six. I don't know. But think about each of the different groups and quit trying to be, okay, one thing covers all these different things because it doesn't. It won't work. And I would go a complete, you know, and in a sense, that's what we've done here. We have a 100 to 200 or 300 to 300 level of different things. that we're doing. And some of them are very soft skill oriented at the early stages, because there's a lot of people haven't learned soft skills in our culture today.

This is the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. There are five distinct stages in business, treadmill operator, to Pathfinder, to Trailblazer, to Peak Performer, and finally, to Legacy Builder. If you feel like you're running on a treadmill and if you stop working your business income stops, then that means your treadmill operator. You're at the first stage. Certainly no shame in that. What's it take to level up?

How do you move on down the line and let your business acumen, your leadership skills, the way your business processes are driven? Let it all mature. How do you do that? Well, we'll help you with a digital membership to Ontario Leadership Elite. You get a customized plan to help you. off the key challenges you face at your particular stage in business. Help you master your time, help you to delegate better, help you to hire and fire people and get the right people on the bus, as Jim Collins says, the wrong people off the bus, right people on the seats on the right

bus. So sign up for your free, I said it's free, 30-day trial to Entree Leadership Elite. There's a ton of tools in there you're going to want to try. Check out that weekly report. It's a fanfave. I'll tell you that. Yeah, you can get a lot of information from your team doing that. Very easy to do part of the 30 day trial. Get it all set up at entrell leadership.com slash elite. And did I mention that the first 30 days is free? All right. David's with us in Tucson, Arizona. Hi, David. Welcome to the Entree leadership podcast. Yeah, thank you very much, David. I have a dump truck business that I started a few years ago. Last year, we had revenue of 3.6 million. A number of employees is 20. Last year, we bought eight dump trucks, paid cash for all of them. And we're on fire. We're

like a rocket ship. We're going straight up. Man, I love it. Congratulations. For those of you listening that don't know what's happening right now, we also invite people to call and just tell their brag story. Because there's nobody you can brag to when you've got $3.6 million where the dump trucks running around. Way to go, man. Whoop, who, who, who, who, who, who, who. Thank you.

Very cool. How old is this business? The business started in 2014 on a very weak plan. I had $50,000 in the bank, and I said, if I bought a loader for $50,000 and used it one time a year, I would make more money than the interest on the money. So we bought a loader in that first year. It took off.

And by 2016, it kept on doubling and tripling and Dublin and tripling. And it really just unbelievable where it's ended up. So you're nine years in, you start the thing with one piece of equipment. And it sounds like you're like, okay, I got this figured out. I know I can make money doing this, but you don't even have any idea what you're really getting into, did you? Not this time around. So I've done it before, and when 2008 came, we were having payments on our equipment of $35,000 a month, and we said, we're not going to make it. And we started selling, we had 40 pieces of equipment at that time, and we cut it in half, and then by 50,

February of 08, we just said, we better get rid of this stuff where we're going broke. So we sold it all off, put some money in our pockets. And then when we started back up again, we didn't have much money. And my wife, who was my fiancé at the time, loaned me $15,000. And we just kind of built it from there. Okay. So, but you said now you're 100% dead free, right? now we're 100% debt-free. And you bought these new trucks debt-free? Yeah, they're not brand new. Well, I mean, the latest round of trucks you bought debt-free, yeah.

Correct. Way to go. Very, very good. And what we do is we take these old trucks, and sometimes, you know, you buy them at auction, and you bring them home, and they're not what you thought they were, and you put as much money in them as you paid for it. But now you know what you have. You got a reliable truck because you rebuilt the motor, did bushings, things like that.

Yeah. Yeah. Way to go. Way to go. So why is business so good with real estate being slow? Well, my past history, being in this business, people that used to be laborers, foremen, superintendents for me, now work for these other big companies. And we took really good care of them back in the day. And now they're paying me back by going, Dave, we want you back.

Yeah. And it came back around full circle. And now we're so established with all the large contractors in town, we're first call with many of them. And we also have about 10 to 15 subcontractors with dump trucks that work for us, and we take a broker fee on it. And so we put out 20 to 25 trucks every single day. Wow. Wow. Way to go, man. I'm proud of you.

Proud of you. Thank you very much. All right. So young dudes out there listening right now. He's in his 20s, and he's got a little bit of money scraped together, and he's thinking about going in debt to buy a couple pieces of equipment. What are you going to tell him? Don't do it. I did it.

How should he do it? If he's not going to go in debt, how's he going to do it? He's going to save every penny and work day and night and not go out neat and not go buying a brand new pickup truck. You are last. You get rewarded last. Yeah, and then later you get rewarded first. Yeah, yeah. So currently today, we'll say like this morning, I get up this morning with my beautiful wife, and we go play pickleball.

And I go to work at 9 o'clock. And today I will get off work at 3.30. And I'm working six hours a day. Some days if I want to, I hop in a dump truck and I cover someone or I hop on a loader. And because I like to do that stuff. Yeah. But I'm not in the treadmill that I have to. I do it because I like to.

Equipment is fun to me. Yeah, you're definitely at trail. Blazorpeak performer one of the two based on what you're telling me way to go man so proud of you man that is very very cool and tell me that you can't make it in america today capitalism is broken 3.8 million dollars worth of volume on dump trucks I don't think anything is broken out there except some of you people's viewpoints wow that's impressive david proud of you man love hearing stories like that This is the Entree Leadership Podcast.

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, welcome back to the Entree Leadership Podcast. Hey, if you want to join the show as a caller, all you got to do is call the number 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-1070. And, of course, you can leave a message at entrell leadership.com slash ask about what you would like to ask on the show. We don't tell you what to say. We just line up the call. And Emily and the team will take great care of you. Make sure you're all lined up and make you part of this.

Hey, guys, around here at Entree Leadership, we have observed businesses for the past couple of decades and have observed and studied our own growth over the last 30-plus years and figured out that there are five stages of business. You go from treadmill operator to Pathfinder to trailblazer to peak performer and finally to legacy builder. when we start talking about and actually do succession. As you go through, and as we have gone through, treadmill operator, I started this company on a card table in my living room, and later there were just a handful of us, and, you know,

later on somebody invented the internet, and, you know, all this, right? So as we've gone through these stages over the years, and there's not necessarily a number of years, but we have observed that there were areas of competency, that as we took those areas of competency and got better at them, we tended to move through the stages. We call those the drivers of business. The first one is your personal driver. And with this, we talk a lot about what John Maxwell says, that you're the lid on your business. I'm the lid on my business. The guy in my mirror is holding my business back more than almost anything else. So you personally have to grow.

You personally have to continue to work on your character. You continually work on your psychological well-being, your mental health. You work on your emotional and spiritual well-being, and you're reading and growing, and you know things that you didn't know. I have read so many books in the last 32 years on business that it blinds me when I think about it. forgotten more than I used to know. And so there you go. So you're constantly have to be growing. If you're not growing, don't expect your business to. And then once you've got, you know, you say checkbox, well maybe, but it's never really checked because it's an ongoing thing.

All of these drivers are continually driving on. You need to make sure that you have a real strong purpose for your business. Business is bigger than the bottom line. If you're just working for money, you're not going to last. You won't stick out. You won't, you won't plow through. I just came out of a discussion a few minutes ago in a meeting. Listen, on principle, we have to know that this move that's going to make us a lot of money is not going to just make us a lot of money, that the customers involved are going to have their lives changed. If not, then this is just a money grab, and we don't do that at Ramsey.

I just had that discussion a few minutes ago. And so that's purpose. We have to have a purpose that is bigger, bad, or cooler. than simply making money. Making money is a good thing. Go make you some money. I'm all about you getting some money. That's fine.

But if that's all you're in it for, you're a little slimy. You need a purpose of something noble, bigger than that. If you're working on you and you've got a good, strong purpose, you've got to have the right people. Jim Collins says we have to have the right people on the bus, get the wrong people off the bus, and get the right people on the right seats on the bus. building a unified team, team building, hiring and firing is the key to winning in business. The most rewarding thing you will ever do in business is your team and the most frustrating, maddening thing you will ever do in business is your team.

I mean, it's crazy the stuff that people that used to work here will say that they never would have said when they were working here. I mean, but once you get away, you know, you just, oh my gosh, right? So it hurts your feelings. I remember when you worked here and you didn't act that way. And you weren't that, you know, and now here you are being a, yeah, you're one of those. Oh, my gosh. You know, and I remember, and it's also rewarding both, the guy that left here and has opened

and is running this massive business. And he credits some of the success that he's had to what he learned when he worked here. Thank you. I appreciate that. And no, I'm not completely the reason for his success. I didn't say that. I said some of his success is due to what he learned while he worked here. People are both rewarding and frustrating. When they're on the team, they're both rewarding and frustrating.

People problems, the small-mindedness of the light is bothering me. Oh, kiss my butt. Oh, seriously. You know, the pettiness of stuff. And it's like, oh, God, get your fingernails. Get some dirt under your fingernails. Come on. Come on. Scratch a little bit.

Claw a little bit. Get something done here, baby. Come on. Be somebody. You know, get up off your assumptions and go do something. I mean, seriously. And then on the other hand, they're so rewarding because they come up with great ideas. And they're smarter than me.

And they work. And sometimes they're working harder than me and very seldom. But that happens sometimes. And, you know, I mean, they come in and, you know, and they're just good human beings. High character. high quality, take care of their wife, take care of their husband, love their kids. I mean, I just love being around people like this and having them on the team. It's the best thing ever having.

People are your biggest blessing and your biggest problem. And their biggest line item in your P&L too. So the biggest investment, I mean psychologically and financially. Then that leads us to having a plan. You better have a plan because if you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every time, Zig Ziglar said. And he was right. Winning is an intentional act. It doesn't happen by accident.

Henry Cloud says you need a desired future. Pat Lynch, he only says you need a thematic goal. I don't care what the flip you call it, but you better have a target, baby, and you better be pulling that arrow back and letting it fly straight right at the bull's eye. Otherwise, you're one of those stupid redneck kids

like I used to be standing in the backyard, shooting your arrow up in the air, straight up in there, and hoping it don't come down in the top of your head, right? and just watch it go into space and disappear and then look for it to come back down and hope it misses you. Oh, my God, that's what you're doing if you're working without a plan. You don't, don't be that dumb kid. I was. I actually did that crap.

But I grew up in the generation where we actually had lawn darts. Some fool invented the idea for children to throw pointed objects at each other through the air. And didn't think we were going to play chicken with them. Come on. What were you thinking? So, no, you need a plan. You need something you are aimed. at on purpose. And then and only then do you need a product? You need to design your product and your

service. You're offering. What is your brand proposition? What is your value proposition? What's your brand differentiation? What is the, why does your customer care to give you their time or their money, right? And boy, if you've got a product that's moving and you've got good people and you've got a good plan and you've got a purpose and you're you're on fire and you're growing as a person, then it will naturally lead you to the sixth driver, which is profit. and profit is good. Profit is gas in the tank to go do more. Because as soon as you come around that circle of those six drivers, and they are circular,

it leads you right back to personal. The more profit you make, the more you better be having your character straight. Because money will ruin a bad person? No, it actually exposes the fact that they're bad. Money will make a good person? No, no, it actually exposes the fact that they're good. That's what happens. And then purpose, yeah, your purpose gets deeper the more money you got.

more the more you have to manage the more you have to watch the more responsibility you have and the more people you have because you're going to get more people and more expensive people too they start costing more yeah yeah and then your plan oh god it goes from having a plan to now actually have to have a strategy god help me now we went from planning to strategy and then i got really scary that we were getting wonky but hey you got to have a strategy if you're going to be big you can't just have a plan and then your product's got to get better and bigger and oh by the way If your product's not iterating in a fast-changing market, you're already dead. Nobody told you yet.

There you go. And then more profit comes, doesn't it? Yep. Profit is the applause your customers give you, Ken Blanchard says. Rabbi Daniel Lapin says that when your customers love you, they give you certificates of appreciation with president's faces on them. So expect the profits to come. That's the six drivers.

And as you go through those six drivers, ever so often as you get better at each of those, they lead to each other and they get better and better and better and better and better. It spirals upward and it'll cause you to level up through the five stages of business. And you'll move from treadmill operator to pathfinder to trailblazer to peak performer to legacy builder. And that's how we have done it. And that's how you'll do it if you're going to do it. Even if you don't admit that you're doing it, the entree leadership system is actually proven facts. It's what happens in business, particularly small business.

So if you're out there with five to 200 team members, you're in one of these different five stages, you're running a 10,000 person publicly traded company. I'm really not talking to you. You're welcome to listen, but that's not who I'm talking to. I'm talking to people like me, the backbone of America, small business. We love you, and we are here for you. So be sure you check out the Entree Leadership System, the six drivers and the five stages, identify where you are and what you've got to work on to level up, baby.

and we'll help you. It's what we do. Check out Elite at entreleadership.com. It's free for the first 30 days. Have I mentioned to you before that it's free? You should check it out. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm your host, Dave Ramsey. In case you didn't know, our producer is Austin Shelby. Selby. I didn't know, apparently. And Will Rudder is running the board today. Andrew and Nathan are back there, turning. their knobs and Emily is on the phones making things happen. This does not occur without the booth people. The booth people are important because I don't even turn on the microphone at the right time

most of the time. So I have will to make sure that it goes off when it's supposed to go off and all that kind of stuff. Thank you guys for hanging out with us. If you want to be part of this show, you can call us at 844-944-1070 or leave a little message about what you want to talk about it on tradeleadership.com slash ask. and Ms. Emily will call it and put you on the air. And we'll talk to you about your business issues.

Ben is with us in Huntsville. Hey, Ben, welcome to the Entry Leadership Podcast. Hey, Dave, glad to be with you, sir. You too. What's up? So I run a research firm. I have two team members, about 700K in revenue last year. And I'm talking with a company in the space, a gentleman I've known for a couple years.

That's similar size to ours and kind of complimentary. to what we do. And he's thinking about selling his business. And I've heard you talk through this story lots of times of people, but the unique wrinkle is he wants to stick around after that as an individual contributor, and I wanted to know your thoughts on that. Why does he want to sell? He is an amazing salesperson, got into the EMET trap where he does not like running the business.

Okay. All right. Well, I think the series of conversations that you're concerned. going to have over the time that he's with you, if he stays, is going to be talking a lot about how difficult it is for a normal human to have been the boss and then not be the boss. It's just hard. It's just hard. I mean, you're used to barking and people jump.

You're used to your ideas matter more than they do later. You're used to. there's a certain kind of weird humility, not humiliation, but humility that would be required. It can be done. It can be done. I've got an operating board member that ran his own deal for years and came in here and is an excellent team member and works as a great, not only a great leader, but also a great team member with other leaders.

And so he's really good with people. And so he's been able to make that transition. but he was self-employed, ran a good-sized business for a lot of years. And, you know, he sold it and came to work here. And he made that transition. But, you know, let's just say out loud that we talked about that a lot. And, you know, we didn't stop talking about it the day he started. And that's going to be with you.

So you say, okay, look, awkward conversations and some awkward feelings. and if we don't have those you and I, then we're probably weird. It would be normal to have some awkwardness. Does that make sense? Absolutely. And if we can just keep talking about the awkwardness, it makes it go away. The benefit, I think, in this is that he bought it out, someone else out about two years ago.

So he hasn't been the boss for all that, for the entire duration. So that's, I think, a good thing here. And he doesn't want to be. the boss anymore, but he has had that part of his wiring done. So, you know, you're going to just know that it's real. I mean, I'm not saying it's not possible to do it. I just gave you an example where we did do it. But I think you just say out loud, in a normal situation, if someone had been running a

business for 25 years and they sell it, they might stay on a year to make sure that the key team members stick and that the key accounts, the customers. stick, right? And then they'll get a good handoff and then out the door, you know, inside of 12 months. That's a typical scenario where the former owner stays on and long enough to make that happen. But in your case, you're trying to turn him into a top, top flight sales guy again, right? Yeah. He is so aching to be back in that role. Every time I talk to him, that's the thing that comes through every conversation. And that excites me because that's not my area of expertise, but it's also a thing. I mean, I'm not telling you, don't do it.

it. I'm just telling you that human nature is there's going to be a few moments here or there where there's a bit of an eye roll by one of you. And we've just got to be able to go, hey, this is a little bit weird right now. Let's just pull aside. Have a cup of coffee. Breathe the second. And, okay, that's good. Now we're back on. Okay. And you just got to, you know, you got to have, you're going to have to leave the emotional margin and set the table as such to be able to have a couple of resets as you go along. The first part I'm planning I'm talking about is a comp piece because he's going to leave the, I get to pay myself a salary now, and I'm going to be sales, so it's going to be

commission driven after that. So that's going to be part of the initial part mechanically. But I think it's a good point to say, oh, by the way, there's lots of other things that are not written down. That's going to be part of this that we need to talk through. Yeah. And we just, if you're feeling awkward, you know, part of our bargain is, part of our agreement is you're going to come into my office.

and we're going to sit and talk about it. If I'm feeling or sensing some awkwardness, I'm not going to brush it on the rug and go, oh, it'll work out because it won't work out. You've got to sit down and talk about it. Because the weird thing about these things are, these little miniature conflicts is they avoid huge conflicts later. You can do minor course corrections, right?

Like a 2% course correction avoids the dadgum ship from sinking later, right? Because we don't hit the reef. And so we're just going to, I just, I believe in lots of that stuff. That's why I hate the idea of an annual review with a typical team member. Once a year, we sit down and talk. Well, no, crap, we're going to talk all the time. We'll do an annual review, but it's irrelevant because you already know

everything I'm thinking because I'm not waiting a year to tell you. Oh, my gosh. You know, so that's where corporate America screws up. I'm scared about my annual review. You don't ever need to be scared about your annual review. Ramsey, because we've already told you what's going on for you, them in there long many times you know so same thing here course correct course correct course correct and you know and you can set the comp thing up where he's salary and progressively it takes a year or

six months or something to fade over into commission and so he's not so his finances don't get some kind of culture shock or something you can set that up but but i'm just saying the the guys are used to reporting to him they're not reporting to him anymore and they can't anymore. They're not allowed to. So they can't have like a second meeting with their old boss after you've just had a meeting with them. You know what I'm talking about?

That's the kind of crap leaving that guy in there can occur. And it's human nature because they're comfortable with him. They trust him and you're the new guy. And so they don't like something they heard. They may not come to you. They may go to him and he's going to have to deflect and go, no, you're going to Ben's office. And you and I'll talk to Ben's office.

about it. Ben, Ben will talk to you about it. He's not mad. Let's talk about it. Let's all go in there and talk together. I mean, and he's got to have your back in that sense. Otherwise, he becomes a distraction, and you'll have a really great salesperson who's causing division inside the company. And it was unintentional, but it's just human nature for people to stick with people they already know and trust and that kind of thing. So just set the table by that. I mean, let's, you know, okay, here's going to be our comp plan and here's going to be our agreement. Every time you feel awkwardness, you're going to talk to me. I'm going to talk to you if I feel it.

I mean, within a few minutes, if we can get to each other. The second thing is if somebody comes to you and they are uncomfortable, it's no longer your job to mentor them or to hear them out. You can take them by the hand and walk in my office and the three of us will solve it together and then we'll all be friends and trust each other going forward. You've got to have my back and you've got to deflect their stuff to me rather than accidentally causing division. If we get those three things going,

comp, constant flow of communication, you probably can make this turn with this guy because he doesn't want the job. He hasn't been doing the job very long, both to your point. That's your points, and they're excellent points. And, you know, this will work.

But it would be very difficult to hire someone who used to run half the place to come in and run none of the place. and that's just a hard thing for humans to get their head around. It'd be hard for the team to see that and understand and compute that. It's like, uh, you know, it can be done, though. It can be done. But the only way is with lots of intentionality and discussion, don't just plug and play

and hope it all works out. If you're very proactive, in other words, that's where I think you'll make the turn with it. So very, very good question. Very cool. of you, man. Sounds like a fun deal you're doing. Getting really double the size of your firm, get some talent on board, get things moving in the right direction. Man, that's excellent, excellent stuff. Proud of you. Good, good work. Very good. Hey guys, remember better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. Leaders serve. Leaders are active, not passive. Leaders act on principle,

not appearances. This world desperately needs more high-quality leaders. So choose to lead I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.