EntreLeadership - Keys to Recovering from Business Failures

Episode Date: January 1, 2024

Today we’ll hear about: •       A business partnership that resulted in a mountain of legal and financial issues •       How a homeless veteran turned successful business owner wants to be more generous •       Why every entrepreneur has to fire themselves •       Dave’s philosophy behind quitting and why he doesn’t believe that “winners never quit” Links mentioned in this episode: •       The EntreLeadership Podcast •       Time Management Tool •       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 •       Trainual Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •       EntreLeadership Summit •       EntreLeadership Master Series Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •       Elite •       Advisory Groups •       Executive Coaching •       Workshops Find out what stage of business you’re in and what you can do to level up with our Stages of Business Assessment. 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 Ontario 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 from the trenches right alongside you. If you got a question, well, we'd love to have you. You can fill out the form at ontraryleadership.com slash ask. We'll make you a caller on this podcast, or you can leave us on phone number. You can call in, leave a voicemail. We'll do the same thing. 844-9-4-1070.

Be the number. That's 844-9-4-1070. If you're new to this party, this is a party for small business folk. If you're big time and you manage 25,000 people, I bless your heart. Good for you. I can't help you probably. I can probably give you some insight. But this is for people that have a place that's 5 to 200 folks.

54% of the domestic product in America today is the economy, 54% of the economy is produced by businesses with less than 500 team members. Over half of the economy is supported by and created by small business in America. It is the backbone of America. And this is your show. I'm one of you. I do this every day. The intro says, I'm doing it from the trenches. Well, the only way of trenches there is if you shovel the maneuver.

are out pretty regularly. And I do that with you. So that's how that happens. Again, 844-9-4-1070 is the number. Larry is going to start us off this hour in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Larry. How are you? Dave, I'm better than I deserve.

Cool. How can I help? Well, Dave, I am a partner, an LLC partner in a construction business in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. We do anything from painting remodeling, doing additions, building new speculative homes or custom homes. So it kind of runs the gamut, residential way over here. We've got three employees aside from my partner and I. Three?

Our growth revenue. Yes. Okay. Okay. Growth revenues between two and three million a year. Okay. My business partner just failed personal bankruptcy. Funny thing is, left than two years ago, his parents died and left him a sizable inheritance.

That's a little over a million dollars cash. What happened to his LLC interest in the bankruptcy? That's a good question, because I don't even know the ramifications of it at this point in time. part of what I wanted to talk to you about. My concern is that the bankruptcy court can come after a company assets. Absolutely they can. Absolutely they can. All right.

And likely will if you've got substantial assets. What are the assets of this LLC? Yeah, it's not much. Probably 100,000. I mean, we've got property that's got deed of trust liens on them. Not really an asset. Do you know what kind of bank? How bankruptcy he filed?

11, 7, 13? I do not know that yet, Dave. When did he file it? I should, yeah. It's been within the last month. Do you have any documentation as to what happens in your business? Any detail of how partners interact in default and divorce and bankruptcy, disinterest? Do you have any kind of documentation on this partnership,

or y'all just got an LLC drawn up and took 50% each and walked away and never did any documentation at all? All we did was a boilerplate limited liability operating agreement when we started the company. Do you have that? I do. Did you read over it, see if it says anything about bankruptcy? I've read through it. I don't see anything about bankruptcy. Okay.

All right. Um, well, we don't know what we don't know here, and that's a lot. Sure. So number one, you have a serious legal and financial problem, very serious, not to mention a major, not to mention a major personal problem with a ongoing dysfunctional toxic partnership. Okay. Understood. Let's back into this one at a time. Okay.

Number one, we need to find out what bankruptcy he filed. Okay. If he filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, his personal assets, you have to find out what the personal asset exemption in Oregon is. In most states, it's around $10,000. Anything that he owns, including his share of the LLC, above that will be confiscated by the court in order to pay his bills. Oh, wow. Okay. So the bankruptcy court's probably going to force you all to sell this property or you to buy out his half. Okay. What is the, how much, what kind of, you said, $100,000 worth of assets, right? Do you have any money?

I have money. Do you have any money? Only what's in my 401K and some, you know, paid off vehicles and such. Okay. So what is the, you said there's property. Is it a piece of real estate? It's mostly vehicles in our company. Company trucks, tractors, dumb trucks, things like that.

Okay. Cool. So be prepared for half of those to leave. Really? Yeah, really. Okay. He filed bankruptcy. He lost his half.

And the bankruptcy trustee's going to be knocking on your door. He's first going to put a lien on all of it. And then you're going to have to prove you own half of it and negotiate which half, what the, you know, $50,000 worth of stuff. you get to keep 50,000 once you prove it to the bankruptcy trustee. You're going to need a lawyer, okay? And then you're not to figure out which $50,000 worth of equipment you keep because the bankruptcy trustee is going to auction the rest of it off to pay your partner's bills. Okay.

And if it's a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and I'm betting it is. Okay. And then the next thing your lawyer needs to tell you, after he helps you work with his trustee, is what this does to the disposition of your partner's half of the LLC. Are you going to have to just shut this LLC down and start another one with your half of the equipment and get to get his name off of it, or does his name go away in Oregon based on this bankruptcy?

I don't know the law on this, but you're going to figure that out. How are you going to no longer be his partner? Because his half of this is all going away. So he no longer is going to be your partner. You understand? Yeah. I'm pretty sure it's coming to that. No, no, it's not coming to that, honey.

He did that when he filed bankruptcy. It's done. It's not coming. It's here. It's arrived. It drove up in the driveway and his honk in the horn. It's here. Yeah, I've got credit line being shut down because of it.

Yeah. It's definitely real. Yeah. You're going to be operating by yourself, which, by the way, is probably the biggest blessing has ever happened to you. I probably wouldn't have chosen this method to get rid of him, and you wouldn't have either. but this is an amputation that's long overdue. Okay.

Am I wrong? No. You know, I know it's overdue, and my mind is like, should I be asking him if I can buy him out? He doesn't own it anymore. Larry, what happens when you file bankruptcy is you no longer own anything. Anything you used to own is surrendered to the court to pay your bills. He doesn't have anything for you to buy. The bankruptcy trustee might have some stuff for you to buy,

but he doesn't own anything anymore. It's gone. So you owe him zippy, zero. Okay. So the question is, is it better to try to keep the company by doing whatever to part ways, or should I just dissolve the company and start my own company? You need to ask your attorney that. I think you should dissolve it and start your own company probably.

And you're going to do that with 50% of the equipment because the other 50 is going to go to the bankruptcy court. And his ownership in the old company that's dissolved is going to the bankruptcy court. Okay. But that way you can go start fresh and you can go to your lines of credit and you can go to your vendors and set up new accounts in a new name that does not include the guy that filed bankruptcy. You're Scott Free. You're clean. You don't get burned in this. unless you try to be co-dependent and keep trying to shovel money towards this black hole known as partner.

Correct. He's done, man. He's roadkill, and he did it to himself. And he didn't bother to include you in the discussion because you don't even know what the hell's going on here. That's correct. One last thing I just want to say, I have no idea what kind of bearing this has on the situation, but his parents amassed considerable wealth and have passed and all of their children, including my partner, got their inheritance.

Long story short, his brothers, I got two brothers of his that manage their money wisely and are willing to invest in our project with us. I don't know. No, thank you. How willing they're going to be. Why do you want any more of this? Well, there's nothing in this has been. fun. Dude, go do this yourself. You're capable of doing this yourself. Square your shoulders,

straighten your backbone, step into this. You are capable. You do not need these co-dependent bozos dragging your butt down. Run free, my man. Run free. Thank you, Dad. Get free of these people. Move on. I mean, the only one that was functional in this entire family you're describing was the people that died, they left the money to their dysfunctional children. I do not. No, thank you. No, thank you. No, thank you. I will pass. I'm sorry, Larry, I'm sorry you're going through this. But here's the thing. The bankruptcy law is federal law. It trumps all state law. Just like you're playing a rook and you got a trump card. Okay. He just played the rook. He just played the trump card. And it takes a takes over everything.

He has lost control of everything he had control of. Any asset he ever touched, anything he ever touched. And to the extent that it's connected to you, you're going to have some tearing and some cutting to, like, decide with the bankruptcy trustee who now owns half of your trucks, on behalf of your partner's creditors. When the bankruptcy trustee comes in, you're going to have to sit down with an attorney likely and negotiate with them and go, okay, here's the LLC document. I own 50%.

Here's all the vehicles. Here's the inventory list of the vehicles. And I want this $50,000 worth and you can have this $50,000 worth. And the bankruptcy trustee is going to go, well, okay, because the bankruptcy trustee doesn't know squat about trucks anyway. They're just trying to sell them off and get a little bit of money for the creditors. And if you can scrape together some money, you might get a really good deal. on those trucks. You might buy $50,000 worth of trucks for five or six thousand bucks,

but you're going to have scrape together some cash to offer the trustee to buy these assets, not from your former partner, but from the bankruptcy court, because the bankruptcy court now owns everything your former partner used to own. That's how this works. The day you file bankruptcy, all of your assets transfer title by law into the bankruptcy court's name. The bankruptcy court's name, Bankruptcy court then relinquishes them based on exemptions. Homestead exemption on your home equity and personal exemption on your personal assets. This is if he filed a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and I'm betting dollars to donuts.

That's what he filed. So there we go. Larry, I'm sorry you're going through this. You're a much better man than you're giving yourself credit. You do not need this. You need to move on and go be you. Ten years from now, you be and you's going to be a really cool thing. this second, it sucks to be you. But in 10 years from now, if you'll step into this,

it's going to turn out really pretty. With this much manure, there's got to be a pony in there somewhere, man. Seriously. Wow. Open phones and you call us. We'll talk at 844-944-1070. Ladies and gentlemen, we say around Entree leadership and have for 25 years, the only ship that won't sail is a partnership. And I present the last case. As, evidence as to my genius when I say that. Okay? Stuff happens in life. Divorce. You end up being partners with your partner's ex-wife. Death. You end up being partners with your partner's ex-wife. Disability. You end up being partners with your partner's ex-wife trying to take care of your partner who's now in a wheelchair. Drug use. Your partner's doing cocaine and screws up the entire universe.

Disinterest. Your partner is a lazy butt moron and sits on his hands all the time and doesn't do anything. You get to do all the work and he gets half the money. These is the crap that happens in partnerships. And you can cover it in a partnership agreement, but then you have to go to this wonderful thing called court with these wonderful people called lawyers to get this fixed. And you know the difference in a, I mean, man, oh, don't, oh, seriously. You just don't want to go there. You're much better off to grow smaller, start smaller. Be a little more scared because you're by yourself because you don't have your friends standing beside you. If your friends standing beside you, let them work for you. But not on half of your deal. This is how poor Larry got into this,

and this is how a whole bunch of you get into this. Here's what I know from 25 years of doing this, coaching small businesses. 10 years from the day you start a small business partnership, almost none of them survive, very close to zero. The only ones that we see in the marketplace, partnerships and small businesses that survive are law practices and medical practices, and they operate with different operating systems

than a couple of old boys in Portland, Oregon that built some houses and did some rehabs. They have a completely different operating system. And so, you know, we see docs survive and we see law firms survive. And those are true partnerships. We see them survive longer than 10 years. But the number of you that open a heat and air thing or two veterinarians open together, or three, whatever, two of you go together and do this thing. And we're going to buy a farm with my brother.

And oh, my God, you people, you get yourself into a ditch. It's a mess. And please don't do it. Just because he's fun to drink beer with doesn't mean you want. want to open a business with him. I'm just promising you. You're much better off 10 years later, 15 years later, to have grown slower, to have been more scared by yourself, to have been a little bit lonely, not had the camaraderie or whatever, and look up and not had all of these other things from disability to death, to drug use, to disinterest, to bankruptcy, known as default, one of the

other D's smacking you upside the head. And this is just a dadgum mess, you guys. I feel so bad for Larry. Larry's a good guy. Larry, you're better than you think you are, man. Please, square your shoulders, strap on your tool belt, and go run your business. Get away from this dead gum garbage pile. This is the Entry Leadership Podcast.

Thanks for being with us, America. This is the Entrary Leadership podcast. If you were here for the last call, I don't know how you would be here now if you weren't here for the last call. but you got some, you get this is the stuff we get here every day. This is what we do in Ontario leadership every day. We coach people in all of these situations. And I can promise you there's not another podcast on leadership, not another podcast on small business in America.

A, even knows how to answer that freaking question, but B would even get that call. So this is not theory from your college professor. This is me and Larry trying to figure this out together, and you get to listen in. So thanks for hanging out with us. Chris is next. Chris is in Myrtle Beach.

Hey, Chris, what's up? Hey, Dave, how are you, sir? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Hey, sir, real quick, two years ago after 16 years of military service, I started a pressure washing company and a Christmas light installation business. We are four employees now. First year did 200, and second year we're on track to do 400.

Yay! Look at you, Stud! Yes, sir, yeah. So my question, sir, is basically, you know, we've been so blessed, especially coming from the place I was at, I was actually lost pretty much everything. And it opened my heart to the homeless veteran ministry. Amen. Yeah. So when you came out, you had a hard patch. Yes, sir.

Yeah, I basically had a 10-year marriage and in divorce. And between, you know, I was kind of listening to the last call, but, you know, the court and the lawyers lost everything, you know, a short story. And it's been amazing. You know, I just, I woke up one day and I said, hey, like, this is not going to be my story. So I worked every, I've been working every single day for 16 hours a day, you know, doing whatever I can. provide for my family and it's been amazing because I've had such a surplus that I can give back to the homeless veteran ministry and we have one that we work with. Good.

Yeah, and you know, they build the tiny homes for the homeless vets and I want to give back, you know, I already give back with my time. You know, we go in, we hire these people whenever we need employees when we're busy. Yeah, good. Yeah, and we, you know, we go and we clean for them, we press to wash, keep up with the houses, and we do financially contribute. And that's basically my question, sir, is how, what is the best way to go about contributing into the little home ministry because I want to keep giving what I can? It's still a huge need. They don't have enough homes for the amount of veterans on the street. and I want to do whatever I can to help financially. Well, you're a good man. Thank you for your service, too, by the way.

Thanks, sir. I appreciate it. So you know your numbers. You told me you did 200 and then you're doing 400. So you know your gross revenues. Do you do a good set of books, a profit and loss statement, a budget? Yes, sir. So we've been net 30 both years.

So first year we netted 60. This year I'm projecting. 120. Yeah. But what I'm saying is, is are you doing a written budget to where you can tell me next month, I think I'm going to bring in this much money, and these are going to be my expenses, and then that number is going to be my profit, which is what I brought in minus my expenses. Do you have that projected into next month, the next month, and the next month? Yes, sir. Typically, we do. With the Christmas light installation season, it is been kind of difficult because it's such a, how do I say? It's a short season. Yes, sir. It's not steady.

Yeah. But I mean, what I would tell you to do is if you backed up a little bit, and here's what we do at Ramsey, we started doing it 25 years ago when we were your size, is there's two or three financial instruments that you need to move, that you need to have to move from the treadmill stage up into the path, understage in the trail blazer stage. And that is accounting, the accounting documents, okay? So number one is most people in business, even treadmill operators, do a P&L, a profit and loss statement, which is looking at last month and last year what we brought in actually, what we actually spent, and therefore what our actual profit is.

Most people do that just to get their taxes done, okay? That's number one. That's the first accounting document that most people do. The second document that I want you to do after that is a checkbook reconciliation, so you keep up with your dadgum checking balances and you cash reconcile. The third document is what I was talking about a minute ago, which is a budget. And that's the reverse of the P&L. It's looking out the windshield and saying next month in February, in March,

in January, in May. I'm going to walk through each month and say, I think based on what we did last year, we're going to do X in income, and we're going to have Y in expenses. Therefore, we're going to have Z for that month, that particular month, that unique month, and it'd be very unique during Christmas light season for you.

Z is your profit. Now, I'm telling you all this to answer your question, because when you do that budget, when you put in there what your expenses are, fuel, repairs on equipment, salaries, generosity. Put generosity in as a line item in the business. I want to automatically give X dollars or X percent each and every month. I want to set it aside. and you make it a system, make generosity a systemic thing, a system, a process that's automatic. Does that make sense? Yes, sir, absolutely. If you project it like that, it'll be easy to do, and you won't feel like you, because if you don't do that,

you could do too much and mess up your business and starve your business of cash because your heart's so big for these veterans, and I appreciate that heart, or you could do when you do do something, you wonder if you've messed it up because it's not attached to anything. It was just your emotions and you just went, oh, I'm going to give them $10,000. Oh, there it is. Okay. Oh, I wonder if I just screwed up something. Well, you don't need to wonder.

It needs to be part of your system and part of your planning. And when you do that, it's going to be easy for you to be generous. And men and women like you, Chris, who have a heart for the community, they make the best small business people ever. you're the heroes of the small business landscape. Corporate America, when they give, it's generally for virtue signaling. When you give, it's because you're a good man. There's a lot of difference. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast.

A recent Entree Leadership study found that 40% of small business owners regularly finish their workday, physically and emotionally drained. That's four out of ten. I remember that. I remember being stuck in that. When we were little in the first few stages of business, I was working my butt off, man. I would go home after putting out fires all day wearing my little fireman's hat, running around all over the place, putting this fire out, that fire out,

collapse in my easy chair and sharing would go, what'd you do today? And I'd be going, I got no freaking idea, but I've been doing it all day. And that's what it feels like when you're in that treadmill stage, man. It's hard. it only stopped when I got my time management skills up and I was able to work on the business, not just in it. If you want to grow your business, one of the first skills you've got to master's time management, it helps you level up from treadmill operator up to Pathfinder, the first stage to the second stage of business.

Our free, did I mention it's free, ultimate guide to time management will walk you step by step through everything you need to know to get a basic time management system in place so you can get out of the fireman business. You can end the daily cycle of chaos. And you can finally find some time to work on what really matters in the business is to just being a dog chasing its tail. Entreeleadership.com slash time and you can download your free guide to time management. Entreeleadership.com slash time. Jennifer is in Chicago. Hi, Jennifer.

Welcome to the Entry Leadership podcast. Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be on the podcast. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you being here. How can we help? Yeah, so I'm a salon owner in the Chicago suburbs, and I own one location, and I'm working on scaling my business.

and I wanted to know what APIs or systems do I need to be testing or tracking in order to know I'm ready to open up a second location. I currently have 10 employees. Last year we grossed 680,000. This year we've had some great growth of 800,000 so far this year. Wow. I just recently retired behind the chair after 20 years so I can focus from building my team and trying to be the best leader that I can for them.

Yeah, you have officially moved up into Pathfinder heading towards Trailblazer. Way to go. Very proud of you. Way to go. You got to be like flexing some muscle in the mirror, girl. You're kicking it. It's exciting and scary, and it's always just a learning. Oh, it's always scary.

I mean, John Johnson, the editor of Ebony Magazine, says the entrepreneur is the only one that can go from sheer terror to sheer exhilaration and back every 24 hours. Welcome to my world. Welcome to your world. I love it. I'm proud of you. Way to go. Way to go. Okay, you can only duplicate the things that aren't due to your personal brilliance.

All founders have a quirky personal brilliance. I do and you do. There are things that make us unique. in my case, I can draw, shoot, and re-holster before you even know what hits you. I'm so quick on the draw. You follow me? That's a quirky brilliance of mine. It made me great in talk radio.

It makes me great at entrepreneurship, making great decisions. And if they're wrong, I'll just make another one. I'm fast and driven. You've got other things that make you quirky and brilliant. But those things are not duplicatable. You can't delegate that. that's lightning in a bottle. And you've got some of that, and you need to figure out what only you can do.

Because that is a limiting factor. The things that, anything that you can figure out a way that someone else can do it, you've got to systematize it and detail out the processes. When you systematize things that you thought only you can do, but then you discover other people can do them, Now you've got a delegatable process and a scalable process. It's not scalable if you're the only one that can do it. You become the bottleneck.

Does that make sense? Right. Yeah, my goal next year is how can I fire myself from almost every position besides just being that visionary and really directing the ship? Exactly. So about 20 years ago now, I was 15 years into this endeavor. and in my prayer time I was asking God the same questions you're asking right now. And I'm saying, okay, what is the deal?

And I heard in my little head real clearly, I'm supposed to be on the air and being talent, which I've continued to do and write books and speak and so forth. That's one of my jobs. But my job inside of Ramsey is to work on big things, broken things, and new things. and everything else someone else needs to do. If it's not broken, big, or new, I shouldn't be in the meeting. And I had to quit because I like doing the operational stuff. I like, you know, cranking out the widgets and making sure that the, you know,

the manufacturing is working. In your case, how many heads are we cutting? What's the technique? What's the art with the hair? That's crap. You're not in that business anymore. You're now working on new things, big things, and broken things. And in your case, one of the things that's broken that I pointed out earlier, it's not broken,

but it's a requirement for you to move to this next level is for you to work on taking things that you do down into little bitty bite-sized pieces that are explainable and turn them into processes so you don't have to do them anymore. Love that. Systematize and process. Systematize and process. And it's not to take the soul out of it. it's to make sure your DNA and your soul is in the process. So we have a process, for instance, at Ramsey. We have successfully launched probably more number one books than just about anybody else in America

that is not a major top one or two publishers. We put out one or two number one national bestselling books a year. The process of launching one of those books and creating one of those books is a detailed process. It came from the way I launched financial peace with help of many others. I didn't know what the flip I was doing in 1994, you know, and then it came from the success of the total money makeover book tour, the things we learned from that. And it has come from the adjustments in the book markets since then. Bookstores disappeared as an example. So the market's changed. But still, we launched a book a few months ago by Dr. John Deloney, and it was the number one book in

the nation times two. In other words, number two sold half the volume. We not only were number one, we absolutely destroyed everybody else. And that is a system and a process that caused that to happen, including Dr. John Deloney's quirky brilliance in the book. But the book is incredible. That's part of the process, though. So, you know, I've had to detail that down. So in order for Ramsey to launch a number one national bestselling book does not require my personal involvement. Tadda. Isn't that weird? But I've broken it down into, it's like 500 little steps, little things you've got to do.

Now, I'll sit in a meeting occasionally just to make sure that they're pushing all those 500 buttons or whatever they are, but it is a very detailed system. And the same thing's true here. So the things in your shop that are working, we need to write them out longhand, be able to hand them to somebody else and say, this is the way we do it in the $800,000 shop, and we're going to open another shop, and we want it to be at least $800,000. So by God, we're doing them this way. It's a system. It's a process. When you get all that in place, you've got a scalable event.

That's how people franchise ideas. is Subway has, there's not two ways to make a Subway sandwich. There's one way. When you are a Subway franchisee, you are required to follow the exact process to bake the bread, slice the salami, put it on the bread, where the counter is situated, how the customer watches you do it, the portions they watch you do, the portions they don't watch you do. It's exact. So every subway in the freaking universe that you go into has the exact same sandwich. That's what you have to do. Otherwise, it's not scalable.

And that's detailing out the process and franchising it in a sense. You don't have to technically be a franchisor. That's not what I'm talking about. But, you know, if you're going to scale business, that creates a delegatable environment. You're making Subway sandwiches. In your case, you're cutting hair. You're doing nails. You're doing whatever else is involved in the salon. And so, way to go.

I'm so proud of you. You are getting it. Man, what a... I mean, you're running a business that's almost bringing in a million dollars. Wow. What a great country we live in. Wow. And even the communists can't argue with that.

I mean, it's amazing. Way to go. so proud of you. That's about as good as it gets you guys. I love small business people. She started this thing, man. She's been cutting hair. It comes out from behind the chair.

And it's asking these really high-end, sophisticated, intelligent business questions. Way to go. Way to go. Wow. I love it. I love celebrating with small business people that are winning. I don't love it, but I also get to sit with small business people who are crying. It's not working.

Some of you have had that kind of year last year. You're dragging butt, man. Your tail's hanging. It's been hard. Mortgage interest rates were up. You're still trying to recover from the Fauci pandemic. You know, we're still backing around trying to figure this thing out. The labor situation in America, oh my God.

I don't really want to work, but I want you to pay me, and I'm going to tell you how to run your business. Oh, shoot me. Oh, my gosh. The great resignation. Then all the people want to come back because they have the great regret. Nope. Sorry, you left. But now we've got, you know, we're trying to rehire.

We're trying to fill stuff. It's been a hard year for some of you. Some of your vendors went broke and they just about took you with them. Some of your customers went broke and they just about took you with them. customers went broken, they just about took you with them. Some of you, it's been really, really hard. So I get asked all the time should I quit. Well, I don't believe in the saying,

Winners never quit. Winners quit all the time. They quit doing stupid stuff that didn't working. And if your business is stupid stuff that didn't work and you want to quit, I'm okay with that. Go get you something that's not stupid stuff. We quit doing some stuff last year, and then some of it was stupid stuff.

stupid stuff. And we said, we're not doing it anymore. It didn't, it didn't work. But if your business is something you've invested into spiritually, emotionally, financially, financially for decades, you love it. But this is a rough patch. And your business is not stupid stuff. It's just really hard right now. Whatever you do, don't quit. The number of times I see people quit right before they have a breakthrough. They were just about to turn the corner. You almost pushed through. And they ran out of gas.

A hundred yards from the finish line. A hundred yards from the breakthrough. There was a free Uber ride up there. And they were going to get to ride in a car for the next 10 miles. It was going to get easy. And they fell over in the ditch 100 yards before. the number of times I've seen that is sad. So I'm going to tell you this.

If you had a tough year last year, if it's been rough, if you're struggling, I understand. Me too. Sometimes I've had those tough years. Sometimes I've had years that were tough emotionally. Sometimes I've had years tough financially. Some years I've just had a year that was just full of manure.

And sometimes we're just on victory. mountain flashing our gold medals everywhere too okay that's okay too if that's you i'm not mad at you i'm cheering with you if you're flashing your gold medals have at it baby i'm happy for you i want you to win but i'm talking right now to those of you that's been it's just you're just about out of gas so the first thing you got to ask yourself is is this business coming from down in my gut or was it just coming because i thought i could go make some money if you thought you you could go make some money and you didn't and you want to quit oh well quit that's no big deal get you something else to do but most of us that run a small business there's more to it than that

most of us got something down in the DNA that's just churning there's gears grinding it means something to us to be an owner to be an entrepreneur it means something us to do the thing we're doing right now we're invested not just financially it's It's not a transaction. There's a soul involved. If that's you, and you've just hit a rough patch, please don't quit. Whatever you do. Push one more day.

Take one more step. Get up one more morning and do the next right thing that you know you're supposed to do. Push through. I mean, you're looking over there. You got somebody's causing some of this. Fire their butt and keep going. They're the problem, not you. keep going.

You know, I've been putting it, quit putting up with it. Don't do it. Don't stop. Don't stop because someone else said to stop. Many years ago, I quit doing exit interviews when people quit. Well, they quit and I didn't. I'm still here. Why do I care what they think?

I got stuff to do and them bitching and moaning about me doing stuff I don't have time for. I got stuff to do. Well, you can learn things. Probably not, but I might learn a little something. So our HR people think it's important, so they do exit interviews. Well, why are you leaving? Well, okay, good. That's great.

I'm here. I'm not quitting. You are, and next thing, baby, next thing. So, you know, this is in the same vein. You've got to figure this out. Where are you on this spectrum? If this is down in your gut and it bubbled up originally from your soul, from your heart, not from your wallet, not from mathematics. Oh, I think we can make some money.

No, this is, I have to do this. You can't keep me from doing this. I can't not do this. I have to do it. Then don't stop because somebody quit or you had to fire somebody that was half but doing stuff. Don't stop because some customer misunderstood you. And for God's sake, don't stop because some moron on social media had an opinion that lives in his mother's basement. Don't stop. Push through. America needs people with backbone and a culture full of wussies. We need people that can step up and get stuff done.

We need people that can knock things over. We need people that care deeply about their team, about their family, about their team's family, about their customers, about their customers' family. with the corporate America doesn't give a crap like small business does we need people like you to push through don't stop don't quit don't quit you might be that close to a breakthrough to something busting loose. And you look around five years later and go, man, I almost quit. And this whole thing almost didn't happen.

Wow. Don't be that guy. Don't stop. Look back five years from now, standing on a different mountaintop going, wow, I was in the Valley of Manure and I almost missed this. I almost missed it. I almost quit. Don't stop.

Don't stop. push through. The culture needs people of courage. The culture needs people of character. Business needs people to do things right. And you're the people. The people that listen to this podcast, you're the ones that do this stuff. So don't stop.

We love you. We're glad you're here. Hey, remember, better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders. Take courage. and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.