EntreLeadership - My Dad Doesn’t Trust Me to Make Decisions for the Business

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Today, we’ll hear about: A son frustrated with his dad’s way of thinking   A manager whose team is upset they didn’t receive profit sharing A business owner wondering what makes a good business coach A woman whose husband hid $80,000 of debt from her   Next Steps: 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://ter.li/ask-us 📚 Learn about the EntreLeadership System: https://ter.li/system-p 💻 Get EntreLeadership Elite for your business: https://ter.li/elite-p ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/enl 🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/summit 🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/masterseries 📖 Order Dave’s new book, Build a Business You Love: https://ter.li/b4kru2   Connect With Our Sponsors: 💼 Go to Belay Solutions or text ENTRE to 55123 for their free resource! 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more. 🧾 Visit Payority for a free consultation! 📈 Grab Sales Gravy's free resource to help you hire and lead better. 📝 Use code ENTRE15 to get 15% off your first year of Trainual.   Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is Entree Leadership, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. If you've got a question you want to ask on the show, fill out the form at ontratery Leadership.com slash ask or call and leave us a voicemail at 844-944-1070. That's 844-9-4-1070. Danny is in New York. Hey, Danny, how are you? Good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Wow. Okay, so my name is Danny. I work for my family's wholesale floral business. And my question is, you know, after 35 years, my dad has worked very hard to get the company to where it is. but everything's kind of close to his chest.

So now we want to hire a salesman, and it's getting very difficult to get him to give up some of the control he has that we can have information available for our salesmen to sell. How old are you? I am 28. How old is he? 57. And he started this 30 years ago?

So actually his uncle started the business, And he worked for his uncle for many years. And the business as it exists now, he opened in 2012. Okay. Wholesale. So you're selling to florists? I sell to Flores. Our biggest line of the business is grocery store bouquets.

Okay. So you're selling to grocery stores? Okay. Yes. Yeah, that's the majority. We do a lot of different things. We do everything. Okay.

And how many people work there? We have about 15 employees right now. Okay. And your dad's obviously the president, CEO, founder, whatever. And your position is what? You're putting a title on it. Probably our warehouse manager. I oversee our warehouse and deliveries and fill in wherever I'm needed.

Who's doing sales now? That is the problem. No one. How have they been making sales, your dad? Ad made them. Existing customers. Well, when did you get an existing customer? You didn't have the same customer for 30 years.

Some of his customers he has. I know, but not all of them. How do you get a new customer? The only new customers we've attracted in the last few years have been word of mouth. They came to you. Yes, exactly. And what's your total revenue? Last year, I believe we did about $3.8 million in revenue.

Team members. So what information does your dad need to give up in order to hire a salesman? I'm not sure why a salesman. Okay, so the biggest issue comes down to, for all, it's all market value, everything changes week to week. And he orders over the phone with salesmen. And, you know, I can't price something out to go pitch it to a store because the information is in his head. And I can't get it in order to come up with like... You're not doing sales.

No one's doing sales. Yes, but my thing is if I want to be able to do sales, I need to have a database so I can sit there and price things out. Okay, so these stores place an order and have no idea what they're paying for it? Or he's just establishing this week this bouquet costs me however many dollars, and it's different than last week. and he changes the prices to his customers every week based on what he pays. Yeah, like our sales, like just for example, like if we have a $1699 bouquet, he'll base the recipe for that bouquet off of the market price of stems to fit into the $699 retail. So the bouquet is the same price, but how it looks might change from really months to month depending on the market.

Yeah, okay. And everybody accepts that. Yes. So why do you need to change? Because they're paying the same for it. The only thing that's changing is the flowers. The biggest issue is like now he, like the next level of expansion is selling to the flower shops. And that's where I really need like a salesman's help.

But if I go to sell, like right now, if I walked in somewhere and said, hey, I'd like to sell you a box of daisies. And they said, okay, how much? I'd have to say, I don't know, let me call my dad. I have no way of finding out. And then when I call him, he doesn't have it written anywhere. He's got a, I don't really know how he comes up with pricing when we do sell the flower shops. Okay. But he's buying a box of daisies from the daisy farmer.

And he's paying for that. Who's paying the bill? That's my brother and accountant. One of my brothers does all of our accounting work. but it doesn't so far as I know because it's aware like it's a different side of the business for me when when his invoices come in most of it's not itemized and we're getting them normally two weeks after we've received it so now that price is already outdated yeah but how do we how does your brother know what he promised the daisy farmer what your dad promised because it's in his head

There's no purchase order system, obviously. No, no. And so, okay, I guess that really is my question. My dad's very set in his ways. My brothers and I, we want to create a system so we can log orders as they're happening with the price that we agreed to pay because he's agreeing to pay over the phone when he orders,

but not sharing it. So I guess I'm trying to convince him to work with us, to share the information into a computer system. This way we can hire. a salesman to do the work and we'll be able to offer customers pricing on the spot not you know whenever my dad has time to find it yeah so when you ask him to do that what does he say he gets kind of his his explanation is that it just wouldn't work he doesn't have a detailed answer that he's given me he you know he says it doesn't work but there's other competitors on the

island that it's working for them oh good good business business You know, that's absolutely bull crap. Good business practice is work. And what he's doing sucks. It's a horrible system. It's a horrible system. Of course it'll work. Yeah.

That's just, it's asinine. But the point is that, not that at all. But the point is, what's he protect? What's he, it's a control thing, isn't it? I think so. He has admitted to me, like, part of his rationale is like he doesn't trust so much. else enough to represent his business for him to go do sales. So that's another issue. Yeah, that's, that's fair. Okay, so we don't want to, so he doesn't want to expand. So he's planning to

die. Because you're either growing or you're dying, dude. I've used that exact phrase with him. You know, he says, he says he wants to do the sales and he wants to go do themselves. The other problem is he wants to step back from the business now. And between me and my brothers, we're able to rent things just fine, but if we want to expand that there's a future for us at the company, we need him to... If he steps back, does it not get him out of the way? No, because he, like, the biggest problem is that he's not recording, recording the price that he pays for orders.

No, but if he steps back, he quits doing the ordering, doesn't he? That's the one area that he has not let go of yet. Like, he won't let go of that part of the business. I had a very far time coming up with what question I was going to. to ask. No, I'm just trying to weed around in this, and that's funny. And figure out what's going on. But the, uh, me too.

Yeah. Uh, yeah. Okay. When you're dealing with someone with founder syndrome, which I have and your dad has, were hardheads. We're the people that gutted it out and made it while you were still in your short pants. Absolutely.

And so you're dealing with that. Um, and the best way to, to approach it is not a baseball bat. It doesn't work because founders have seen a baseball bat before and we'll turn it and use it on you. So that's not the plan. Instead, let's try honor. Dad, I want to honor you and your brother, the accountant, Steve,

whatever his name is, we want to honor you. You've worked so hard here. You've done things in freaking New York that no one else has been able to do. You built a business that has survived and has repeat customers that are happy. We have a great reputation, and it's all because of you. We don't want to lose that.

We don't want to disappoint the work that you have done. We want to make sure that it runs better. And all we're trying to do is to make it better. We're not trying to steal something. You're the dog. You're the goat. You're the one that did this. And let's try honor and then say,

you know, we really want to try something new. Would you please let us try it for 90 days? But the reason we want to try it is not to steal something from you, but instead we want to make sure that we honor you by this business flourishing and growing that you've spent your life on. We don't want to see this thing struggle. And we're scared if we don't put some systems in place

that we're not going to be able to grow at least a little bit. And we're dependent upon everything being between your two ears, and if your two ears aren't here, we're screwed. So, Dad, you're the goat, and you've got to help us, you know, you've got to help us with this transition because someday you're not going to be here, and we've got to have a system that replaces the awesome thing that you have done.

And so help us make that transition to that system so that we can do that. And something approaching it like that, that's your only shot and even then you just got to know it's hard for him to let go yeah yeah it's just emotional and as i have backed out of different things around ramsie and done less and less it's just emotional it's part of it but it's also necessary for me to do that it's necessary for him to do it to allow good ideas to come in that he didn't have and to allow growth and to allow the next generation to carry something to honor your legacy because otherwise you're you're killing your own

own thing. You're killing your own kids. You're killing your own business when you don't let stuff go. And that's founder syndrome is what that is. We hold on so tightly that we kill the very things that we love, the business and the family. And so... Can I ask you? Yeah, go ahead. You know, you mentioned that you had to do it. It's an emotional process. So what in your head did you have to let go of to be comfortable doing, to be comfortable letting go of... Well, here's the thing. When you plan your succession, you are planning to become less important. If your plan works, you're screwed because you're less important. That's a great problem. You know, I mean, so I planned for this place to not be dependent upon me, and dad gumfit didn't work, you know,

and that's emotional. So the higher version of your dad, the higher version of Dave, the better version, wants to be a blessing to the business and to his kids. The lower version is still a four-year-old boy that wants to be recognized for being the goat. That makes a lot of sense. And I have to say that to myself out loud sometimes. So we changed the show, the Ramsey Show, from the Dave Ramsey Show to the Ramsey Show

so that it wasn't necessary for me to be on it. Yes. That was emotional for me. You know who else cared? No one. And that was upsetting. We didn't even announce it. We just started doing it and no one commented.

Not the employees, not the audience. Nobody noticed but me. And that's okay. I'm making fun of myself. But that's how that works, right? And so, but you've got to do that in your higher version of you to protect the things that you love, which is the business you spent your life on and on your. your family, which you love.

You want your sons to prosper, honey. It's me talking to your dad, right? You want them to prosper, and you want them to do good. And they're not total dupuses. You trained them. If they're dupuses, it's your fault. You trained them. And so, you know, you've got to learn to trust in that stuff,

but what he's dealing with is just the emotion of becoming less important. You are dependent. The whole operation is dependent upon him pulling these numbers out of his head. And if you take that away from him, he's not important anymore. Well, yes. You know, he does a good job, but I'm noticing, you know, a few years ago we were only doing two and a half, three million in revenue. And the larger we've gotten, the harder it is on him. Yeah.

But he still wants to do it. I know, but that's my point. It's dependent upon him. And he's facing his own mortality when he says it's not dependent on me anymore. But there's got to, you've got to have some discussions about Founder's Syndrome with him directly and just go, dad, listen, we don't want to do anything except honor you, but if you don't turn these things loose, you're going to,

you're going to sow the seeds of destruction in this place. Okay. Because if we... I think you got my real question. That's my real question here. Yeah. I mean, and I don't know, I'm trying to give you a grasp of how emotional this is for him,

but it's also not to excuse him. Yeah. No, I didn't even think about, like, does he feel like we're kicking him out? I didn't even think that way. It's kind of like if your parents haven't done a will and you sit down and try to get them to do a will, they go, oh, you just want my money.

I'm working on that next. There you go. And it's like you don't want their money. I want a plan is what I want. I want a freaking plan. I don't want to spend my time in probate court because you won't write down who's supposed to get the freaking baseball card collection. Oh, my God, get a will.

You know, and so... I just don't want the government to get half. Exactly. And I don't want the government to tell me what to do either. They already do too much. And so get a will. But it's the exact same emotion. Some parents go, oh, I don't want to talk about it because you're just coming over here trying to get stuff and I'm not dead yet. And it's like, oh, brother, no, but you're going to be. And at that point, I'm screwed because you can't write down a plan. And that's the same, but it's the same set of stuff in your brain. It's your lizard brain trying to protect your importance. And, you know, the, you know, the same set of stuff in your brain. It's your lizard brain trying to protect your importance. and, you know, they don't really think the kids are trying to get their money. You don't really think that. But they say that out loud because they are used to being in control and doing a will is admitting that someday I'm going to die. Which, by the way, we've done research. You're going to die.

So you need a will. And got to get ready. And so that's the same thing of turning over pieces of the business and gradually. and so forth. And, you know, what I would maybe say is, Dad, you've got all these relationships with these vendors, these farmers. I want you to keep those relationships.

Those are super valuable. All we're asking is that I'm going to put somebody right beside you. And every time you get a number in your head, you're going to give it to George, and George is going to write it down and put it in the system. I don't even want you putting stuff in the system. You're too valuable on the relationship side. But carrying all this around,

and you being the only computer that runs the business, is going to kill us when you die. We're going to be out of business because we don't know your numbers. And that's not okay. And you're going to die someday. And so am I. It's so is everybody else here. And so we've got to have a plan.

You could have some bench depth. And, you know, I don't know if all that will work. If it doesn't work, then, you know, you just got to face it and decide what, you know, what your options are. Do you work somewhere else? Or do you, you know, ride this horse until it falls over? and see if we can revive it. You know, I don't know.

There's a thing, but it's very emotional. And we deal with it with small businesses all over America that are family-owned, that the founder syndrome is very real. It is the most difficult of all the transitions, Gen 1 to Gen 2. Gen 2 is much more business-like to Gen 3, much more business like to Gen 4, but Gen 1 to Gen 2 is emotional because it's got Founder Syndrome. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers.

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Click the link in the show notes and get your ticket. We'd love to have you. Mike's in Philadelphia. Hey, Mike, how can I help? Hey, Dave, it's a pleasure to meet you. I've been following you for 20-plus years at this point. Well, thank you, sure. Big part of my financial literacy and knowledge over the years.

And I was calling, I run a $15 million a year in the industrial distribution company, have about 16 employees, and kind of a split between a lot of 30-plus year veterans, and then kind of the new crowd that is 10 or years or less, I stepped in the management about four years ago where family owned. I've been for a few generations. And a practice that we've always had that I kind of got passed down is that at the end of the year we'd distribute our profits. So profit sharing is something we've always done. But it has always been that all profits are distributed between ownership and employee.

And in some ways that distribution was a way to bonus an employee more so. than it was framed as profit sharing, but in their experience, it's always been an ever-increasing every so often payment that comes every year to them. And so as we've grown and kind of our markets shifted, it's harder and harder to make that work. Plus, it allows us to not have anything retained for our own, you know, operating in case of a rainy day or for growth initiatives that we might want to undertake. So sort of had to step that down. due to kind of a tough year and realize that ultimately that's not the best way to do a profit-sharing model. It's not very typical to do it that way, but obviously I've gotten a lot of rough feedback and kind of

bad attitude from the longtime employees. We pay market wages, we pay full health care. I think we compensate pretty fairly, but I'm just kind of wondering what your experience has been where you've had to kind of adjust the payment, not in a upward way, but maybe in a downward way, or give out less than what someone's used to because of an operating, you know, the environment, the economy, whatever it would be. Just wanted to see your feedback on that, maybe your perspective, how you do that in a way as a leader that's, you know, I care for my people, but I also have to run a bottom line. So kind of that.

So you just didn't have as much profit to distribute. It's as simple. It's that simple. I'm sharing profits, but the profits aren't as big. Yeah, and we've always given away 100%, and that's not something we should probably keep doing. We need to retain profit for operations a little more frequently, I think, for a general price. So you need some retained earnings before you do profit sharing? Yes, yes.

And that cut into it, but also profits are down. They were down last year. This year we're back, but we're recovering from a bad year. So it's really a two-year's journey to get healthy again where we want to be. So that's been a fun stretch for the last six months. But, yeah, we're healthy. What are you having to pay? What's the cash being used to recover?

I don't understand. If your profits are up, why are you needing cash to recover? Well, we had a, overall we had a lot. So we're recovering. We operate a business with payables because customers pay us on terms. We pay vendors on terms. So the payable's got expanded a bit, and we're using the profits to recover kind of extended payment balances with vendors. So we'll clean it up over time.

Yeah, does that make sense? Like what's happening there? Profitable this year, we're paying, we're cleaning up. Okay, so you're only profitable because you didn't pay your bills. So last year we didn't have a profit, and we paid a much smaller bonus, almost nothing. So what did they say then? person. We sat down and they were, if you ever do that again, I'll walk out things like that. And I said, it's okay. It's profit sharing, guys. It's not a promise to you. It's not a guaranteed

part of your pay. If you ever do that again, I'll walk out is the last conversation I have with that person. Okay. You don't freaking threaten me. I own this. You are confused. I think part of the difficulty is that I am, these are people who have been there longer than me. I've only been there I don't care. I only have been there. They're fired that day. Okay. You don't threaten the person that owns the business.

Right. Right. I don't do threats. Okay. The profits are down. This was sharing of profits. I can't share something I don't have. If you ever do that again, I'll leave.

You're gone. Don't worry about it. Gotcha. Over. End of story. You entitled little twerp. This is entitlement. It's arrogance.

Now, let me go back and figure. that now that I've already fired that guy. Okay? He's gone. If I'm you, I'm firing him today. You go back to the office and fire him. I'm so over this guy right now. Okay? Now, because that's somebody that didn't understand.

Now, then that means that you and your family have done a horrible job of framing what profit sharing is. We made that mistake one time at Ramsey, and we fixed it. Okay? we started doing our profit sharing monthly and we stand on the stage in front of everyone. You only got 15 people though, right? Yeah. Yeah.

So you stand up in front of everybody and go, okay, guys, here's our profits. They are up 10% over last month. They are down 4% over same month last year. Year to date, we're up 7%. And what all of that means is that your profit sharing this month, is going to be a little better than it was last month. By the way, we've got some expenses coming in next month, and I don't think they're going to be that great,

just to let you know. But here's how profits work. We are sharing what our family owns with you. We are not obligated to give it to you, but we have chosen as an act of kindness to share with the people that run the business with us. So we're sharing the profits. But you're not entitled.

And everybody, the whole company says this out loud. Profits happen when revenues go and everybody says up. And when expenses go and everybody says down. Remember everybody you're self-employed. If profits are here, we'll share them. If they're up, we'll share them. If they're down, we'll share the pain with you. And we tell everybody that every month we have removed all entitled.

to profit sharing. You are not due this. It's not part of your comp package. It's an act of mercy by the owners that we are giving you some of our money to say thank you for being on the team. And we're real blunt like that about it.

Because we don't want any little snowflake thinking that they're entitled to this money because it changes the thing. And then you get the crap like, if you ever do that again, I'll walk out. Because y'all hadn't framed it right. and these guys, they took it as your integrity was breached because you had promised them money, regardless of what happened, because you hadn't communicated well how profit sharing works.

So you guys got to start being very clear about where profits come from. When profits are up, bonuses will be up. When profits are down, bonuses will be down. When profits are non-existent, we all did that together, people, and no one gets to. anything because there's no profits. We can't even pay our bills, and that includes giving you extra money. So when sales are down, we don't have an ice cream party. We only celebrate when sales are up. This is like adult stuff. It's not a freaking kindergarten. It's a business. So you guys reestablish that. And I've got a feeling, though, Mike, that you're not at the top of the leadership

team enough to pull what I just claimed off? I mean, yeah, I was given, I'd run the day to day. That was kind of a... You don't have the power to fire that guy, do you? No, I did. I fire people. You fire that guy on the spot? I didn't fire him because I had a hard time with their tenure.

You have the power to? I could. Yeah, I do. All right, do you have the power to communicate to the whole team what I just talked about. And I did that. I set him down. I said, this is where we're at this year. this is what you're going to expect. But I want to reframe whether they're due money or not.

You're not due a thing. This is a gift. I am sharing some of my money with you. It's not your money. I want to reframe who owns it. Because that guy, when he said that, what he was saying was, you promised me this no matter what happened. That's what his brain was telling him.

Right? Right. Well, and you got used to. it over to the 30 years. Yeah, yeah, but he also felt entitled to it. Right. And that's my fault as a leader. When I allow somebody to become entitled to something that they're not entitled to, I have done a poor job of communicating this. And the problem where this crap is, you have to say it over and over and over and over and over. And about the time you get sick of hearing it, that's about time they hear it. You just got to do it over and over. you have the chief repeating officer we literally our CFO wore a t-shirt on stage last monday

that said profits happen when revenues go up and expenses go down it was a black t-shirt with white letters that's how ridiculous we are about repeating this over and over so we don't want anyone to think that you know but I you know if we make a big old pile of money I'll share it with my folk and you will too right but if we're not making any money we did this together boys and girls we either went up together or we went down together. So, but we're not going to have anybody threaten us here. We don't do that. We don't have, we're not, I don't threaten them.

And, you know, I'll explain to you, you can't do this and work here. That's not a threat. That's just an observation, okay? But you don't, you don't give me a threat like, wow, you know, I do this again, and I'll just walk out. Well, I can help you with that. Let's walk out now. I can handle that.

Belligerent. man yeah that's the tail wagging the dog and i don't you haven't been here long enough to be a smart ankle like that so you need to rethink what you just said because those are firing words so you got about 30 seconds to rethink that and um or just fire me the ones good with me that kind of crap i got no use for it and um that's that's arrogance and belligerence and it's subversive in your culture if you're spending most of your workday digging out of your inbox, scheduling meetings, or scrambling to place last-minute gift orders for clients, you're not blazing a trail for your business.

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Just text Entree to 55123. That's E-N-T-R-E to 55-1-2-3. Patrickson, Houston. Hey, Patrick, how are you? Hey, Dave, greetings from the Republic of Texas. Spoken like a true Texan. What's up? How can I help?

I am the sole owner of a commercial We have 18 team members. Our top line last year was 2.2 million. We're expecting to do somewhere between three and 3.5 this year. I have two conjoining questions. How do I vet a business coach to know that we are a good fit for each other? And what is the proper role of a business coach? Our business coach is in entree leadership.

We've got executive coaches, a coach over 200 companies. We've got group coaching that coaches over 3,000 companies in group settings. And we consider them, the advice and the accountability that they give on certain situations needs to pay for themselves. And so you should be increasing your revenues, decreasing your expenses. lowering your anxiety and your stress level, increasing your delegation and the quality of the operation should be running smoother to where you're just thrilled with what you paid because of, you know, because of the assistance and the accountability. Because sometimes when you're at the stage, you're a, it can, your particular stage right there

with those numbers and you've done very well. Congratulations. You've worked your butt off, man. You're a hard working dude. That's that right. But at your stage when I was there, one of the things I experienced was there was really no one around. I was by myself. And so just having someone to bounce the ideas off of and them go, oh, well, Dave, you know, that's dumb. You can't do that guy. You can't let that guy do that.

And, you know, I'm talking to one of my buddies in business or whatever, and he's going, God, man, that's silly. You've got to fire that guy. And then next time we get together, he goes, did you fire him? I went, yeah, I did. Good, because I was going to fire you if you didn't. I mean, my buddy, you know, my buddy giving me a hard time. Just the accountability to make me go do what I knew I needed to do, but there wasn't anybody around the loneliness, so to speak.

It's a type of loneliness. It's not like I'm in the corner sucking my thumb, crying lonely. But it's just like there's nobody to talk to about this crap, right? Right. And so the coach kind of ends up being your accountability partner is one of the values. and the second thing they do is they can actually give you solid business acumen teaching on something you didn't know and look at your accounting process and go hey dude that's broken you got no PO system here you need you know you need to be having a PO system or you know you're

not getting customer invoices entered in and so your turnaround time on your cash is ridiculous or you know your ratio on your employees is a way off which yours is not by the way you're doing really good. But the, you know, if you call me up there and told me you had 200 employees and you had 2 million coming in, I'm going, how you open, right? That kind of thing. So that would be me, business coaching you right here now. But that's the same thing. So they're actually going to give you some actual information and tactical things to do that are valuable that help you build your processes and your systems. And in our case, we're going to walk you through the five stages of business, from treadmill operator to pathfinder to trailblazer to peak performance. And,

former to legacy builder. And, you know, you're sitting square in the, you know, you're probably Pathfinder Trailblazer somewhere right in there right now. And the treadmill operator is, you're past that one. You're not at that stage anymore. But, you know, usually around your area probably, you know, it's probably a trailblazer. You probably need more leaders in the business and a better detailed plan to scale. That's probably one of your biggest weak points right now.

And so a coach could look in from the outside. from Ramsey or somewhere else and recognize, okay, I got to be able to be there for Patrick and help him build his leadership team and be there for Patrick and help him do some strategic planning out past, you know, next month. Next month is tactical. That's not strategic. But this time next year, what are we going to be doing and what are the things we've got to do to get there? And what are the, you know, we've got to move the business. Have we got to add a sales team? Have we got to reset the commission structure. I don't know. There's nine million parts, as you know, Patrick, you're doing this. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you get down in the weeds with the coach, and they should be able to give you

some things that you kind of have an aha moment. But I would say that's only 50% of it. 50% of it is you guys both agree on something that you felt good talking this over with your good friend, the coach, and then you go do it, and they're going to ask you next time you're on the phone with you, did you do it? Hold you accountable for tough decisions. And even the toughest of us need that. That's what I would look for. And that's how we built our coaching model. Now, there's other people that do it different ways, but that's how we built our coaching model. I'm always going to ask a coach, you know, what have you done in business? And what other businesses have you coached and what were the results because I'm hiring them and say, okay, I coached a business over here.

They were three and a half after 10 years with me. You know, they're doing 30. Okay, so they 10xed it in 10 years. And he was, the coach was part of that. They didn't do it, but they're part of that. I want to hear some stories like that that things are better because that coach was around. And, you know, no, you're my third customer.

No, thank you. You know? Or I've never run a business and I, you know, I'm brand new to coaching. no, I don't need that. It's not a, no, thank you. That's not a thing. So it's like hiring a real estate agent's never sold a house, you know. Or, you know, getting a life coach who never had a life, that kind of thing.

And those guys are out there. I promise you, they're everywhere. So, yeah, what you're looking for is somebody that can add value and hold you accountable. That's, to me, that's our coaching model at Ramsey. and if you were signed up to be one of our customers on that, that's what you would get. And if we have not added value and held you accountable to pushing into the discomfort of change, and then we're not doing our job. And that's what we go for.

That's what we reach for. So really good question, Patrick. And thanks for doing what you're doing, man. You're killing it. That's a great jump from 2.2 to 3.5. Very good. You're rocking it. If you want to grow your business, you need a proven system that actually works.

That's why you've got to join the Master Series live stream October 20th through the 24th. My executive team and I are opening up our playbook and will show you the exact tactics we used to grow Ramsey solutions into a $300 million company. You'll see how we lead, how we strategize, and how we grow profits. and how we build a unified team that's fired up about our mission. It's like having my leadership team in your office training your leaders for five days. This is in theory, it's practical step-by-step tactics you can start using in your business on Monday. The best part is you only need one ticket to stream the event with your whole leadership team. That's like getting 10 tickets for the price of one without paying for travel.

But there's no time to sit on the fence. go to Entreleadership.com slash live stream and get registered today. Or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. Guys, we got one marketing plan and you're it. We need your help. Spread the word on this show. Click subscribe, click follow, click share, cut the link out and send the episode to somebody if you like what you're hearing.

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You are it. You're our whole deal. Sarah is in Cleveland. Hey, Sarah, what's up? My husband and I opened a business about seven years ago, and we started as a furniture company, and then we added a hardware, and when we added the hardware, we moved it to a different location. So we didn't do the math as closely as we probably should have. And I don't do any of the financial end.

And I'm just coming into now where we've got more debt than what we can handle. So I'm kind of wondering where we start. Like we're scraping by. We're making it. But summers are always slow for us. and yeah, I just haven't had any insight into it, so I'm making decisions, and he's allowing me to when he's doing all the bookwork, and it just, when I looked into the debt ratio that we have, like, it's...

So he's running up debt, and you didn't realize it because the bookwork was on him? Correct. What kind of debt do you have and how much? I think we've got 80,000 and we're in a smaller we're not in Cleveland we're in a small suburb of Cleveland so it's not a huge area

where we're getting a lot of business but we've got about 80,000 dollars who do you owe the 80,000 to? Credit cards and loans that I didn't know that we had and it's basically we're paying interest to credit

cards every month now. Well, I mean, 80,000 is you have a bank loan or you have 80,000 in credit card debt? You don't know the breakdown? No, we've got 42,000 in credit card debt at like 27 to 30 percent interest. And then we have another, let's say 40, I've got it right here, another 40,000 in loans at 14 percent interest. And who are those loans with? Two of them are with QuickBooks.

so they were no origination fee, and then the other, the credit cards are with Capital One American Express. Okay. And so. And I will say, I found this out in April, and in May I was able to pay one off, and in June I was able to. So we are making headway. I just feel like I'm pouring all of everything that we have. Do you know what your profit was in 24? We did one and a half million.

No, that wasn't profit. Right. I don't know that, no. Okay. I'm going to guess probably 30%. She had $300,000 come in and you went $80,000 in debt? Possibly. I mean, we have pay roll.

We own both of the buildings. How much debt did you pay off last month? Last month I paid off $3,000. And the month before? $1,500. And that's all you could do? Right. That leaves us scraping this month.

And the, how much of you guys paying yourselves? Not enough. We are taking salaries at about $50,000. Each? No. Total. Yeah. Okay.

So there's no profit? Yes, exactly. Your profit's 50,000 plus 3,000 a month. On a good month, yeah. Yeah. So if you make a million dollars and you only make a profit of $80,000, that's an 8% profit margin. Most businesses can't stay open doing that. And I'm seeing why?

And so you've either. Is the hardware business, is it less, do you have any idea if it's less profit per unit or per item than the furniture business? Which has the best margin? Do you have any idea? They're both about the same. Okay. It's just that my sales are so much more than, he can $32 and have 30 transactions. And I have one transaction every two or three.

days. How many employees do you have? Well, I don't have any, and he has two. So that's the other part. How could one of you, do you not own these things together? We do, but there's a little bit of an issue there. I had employees, and the last one, I ended up firing her for behavioral issues. I'm sorry, why does he have employees, and you? I mean, I thought you owned these businesses together. Because it's incorporation, so I'm incorporated, and then when he opened the hardware, it's an LLC. So you own the furniture business in the corporation and run it, and he runs the hardware? Right, but he's owner of both.

So we're both owners. He's president and vice president. So you don't run these things together? While we were supposed to. So we would have employees then, not you and him. So the total of employees employed by both organizations is what? Four, including me and him. Two, okay.

And you had one that was fired for misbehavior. Right, right. And I at that point realized that we couldn't afford to hire. So now it's getting worse because now... You have any idea what profit you used to make on just the furniture business? Um, probably 30 or 40 when business, when the economy was doing really well. Like when we first So it wasn't supporting even one good job. 30 or 40 percent margin. Oh, on how much gross?

Um, about three million the first couple years. Now you're down to a million. Mm-hmm. What happened to that? Well, I can't market. I can't run the business. I can't. can't get more business because I'm the only employee here because I'm doing the sales and the all the estimates and ordering and everything. I'm not able to run the business like I was. Because you fired the one girl. Right. And then realized that we were in a financial bind and couldn't rehire. So one person was the difference in a million on these two businesses.

Both businesses combined are only making a million dollars. Oh, no, I don't know what the hardware sales are. I don't know what sales are. Okay. But all of it together is only yielding you $80 grand, or just your thing is yielding you $80 grand. Right. Which one?

He's probably breaking, just me. He's probably breaking even because he's in a pretty aggressive payment plan for the building that he bought. So he borrowed $80,000 on your business or his? No, we are in a land contract. For what? For his building. No, I'm talking about the business.

Who borrowed the $80,000? He borrowed it against the furniture business or the hardware? The debt is all the furniture. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there's so much bad going on here. I don't know where to start.

Kiddo, what a mess. All right. This is separate, but it's not separate. No one's watching the accounting. No one knows what's going on. You don't even know your numbers on the hardware store. He's aggressively paying off a building that he doesn't own on a land contract. Meanwhile, you did away with $2 million worth of revenue over one stupid employee.

because you've got a little bit of credit card debt while he pays off a building over on the other side. So I think you all got to decide what business you're in. If I had just your business, I could recover it in 20 minutes, not counting his hardware. But you'd have to take all the books over, run it again, and you can get that business back up to $2 million

by yourself and then hire somebody in the process to take it on back to $3 million, and you could pay off the $80,000 in debt in 20 minutes. I can revive that furniture business. I think this hardware business is hell. It sounds like it's going down the tubes and nobody knows what's going on. But you guys have so separated this

and then not separated it and don't know what the flip is going on with your numbers, either one of you. And he borrowed money on your furniture business, although technically you both own all of it. I understand that. And I want you to own it together from a marriage standpoint.

But, you know, it's separate, but it's not separate. You don't know the numbers on your own thing you're supposed to be responsible for. So I think you guys have got to decide what business you're in. If you're going to separate and run the business over here, the furniture business to the side, I think you can recover on that. You don't have any numbers on the hardware,

so you can't tell what's going on there. And I don't know if he borrowed the $80,000 on your furniture because his hardware store wasn't making it. And I kind of think that might have been what happened. Because I think this hardware thing is up a creek. That's what it sounds like. And it's a land contract, is the worst possible deal you can do.

If the guy you're buying from gets sued, you lose everything. And you didn't do anything wrong, even though you're current on your payments. So never do a land contract. Horrible structure for buying something. And you don't need to buy a building on a business. You haven't even owned yet. Haven't even made profitable yet. So y'all have done so much wrong on the hardware side.

I think your best bet for survival is for you to separate your efforts. let him try to survive over on the hardware, but he may take the whole family down with that. Oh, kid, I don't know what to tell you. I think someone needs to get deeper in with you than I can do on this podcast because you don't have all the numbers and I don't have him on the phone

to chew him up for the stuff he's doing wrong. So I want to love both of you well and give you some truth, but you need to get a clear plan and a clear understanding both of you of all the numbers and exactly what it takes to keep the hard. business afloat and running and what it takes to grow the furniture business back to what it was in

its glory it's ridiculous to give up two million dollars worth of revenue over one employee that's ridiculous and so and i don't think that's actually what happened either i don't think one employee was generating two million dollars worth of revenue so i think you've got to get further into it than that sarah there's a lot going on here you all got to work on i'm sorry i wish i could be more help but i can't i can't get my hands around what's happening here. I apologize. I wish, again, I wish I could be more of a blessing to you. I hurt for you because I've been where you are confused and stumbling, but you need lots of clarity and lots of detail, both of you putting everything out on the table, and then from that, the plan should emerge for you and maybe get a good coach in your corner. Maybe that'll help,

too. Wow. Ouch. Folks, remember better a wary warrior, than a quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us on Entree Leadership.