EntreLeadership - My Dad Refuses to Talk About Succession

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

Today we’ll hear about:  A son having a hard time talking to his dad about succession planning   How Dave Ramsey prevents a business from growing too fast   A leader questioning how to continue in his current role  A business owner struggling to staff his team during off-seasons    Next Steps  📚 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   📖  Build A Business You Love Interest List: https://ter.li/m4w06f   Offers From Today's 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!  📝 Use code ENTRE15 to get 15% off your first year of Trainual.    Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show   💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💰 George Kamel  🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman   Learn More About Your Ad Choices   Ramsey Solutions 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 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. I've done this stuff today. If you have a question and want to be on the show, fill out the form on Entreeleadership.com slash ask or call and leave us a note at 844. 944-1070. That's 844-944-1070. We'd love to have you. Wesley is in Akron, Ohio. Hi, Wesley, what's up? I'm part of a family business insurance agency working there for about 13 years. We have nine employees right now. Revenue is getting close to about a million dollars per year. and a business is continuing to grow rapidly a lot quicker than we ever thought it would.

And the conversation of Succession Plain has come up. But I was wondering your advice of trying to take out this business or take over this business without taking on any debt. My conversation with my father who owns the business around it has been a bit muddy and confusing about it. And I just don't really know how to move forward with this. What does muddy and confusing mean? He's not willing to talk about the terms or not willing to talk about the price or what's all that mean? Yeah, he's talked about the price of being somewhere between $2 and $3 million, like two to three times total revenue. But when he's talked about it, he's like, I have it all written down.

I'm not ready to go over it with you yet. But when the time will come, we'll talk about it. like that. How old is he? A little bit, I'm sure. He's 55. 5-5. So, yep, yep, 5-5. Well, I, you know, I know insurance companies like yourself are multiples of gross, and I don't know if three is the right one. That sounds awfully high to me.

It's a bit high. I mean, we're, the type of franchise that we have, because we're doing other acquisitions, we're between one and 1.5 when we're buying other people. And a lot of the value of the agency is the team and me included on there, too, which kind of muddied a little bit. No, the team doesn't have any value unless they create profit. Sure. Profit, a multiple of profit is the only thing that 100% of the time has value. And the only time you'd use a multiple of gross revenues is if it's an indicator of profit.

Sure. But you don't buy teams. Yeah. Unless they're creating profit. I mean, let's say you were losing a million dollars a year. Who gives a crap about the team? Yeah, makes sense. So, okay, so, well, my guess is your dad's probably going to work another 10 years.

Yeah, he's already been winding down a little bit. But, yeah, I think that's a plan is he's got another about 10 years or so into this. But in the next 10 years, too, we're hoping to double, or even triple the size of the business. And that's the trajectory that we're continuing to go on. And is that going to raise the price even further that you have to pay him? Correct. Yeah. Okay.

So you're helping him build a business as he winds down, and that costs you? Yeah, correct. It's kind of like I'm digging my own grave, it feels like sometimes. Yeah. And so I've kind of, I've resoluted in my mind that, because I'm mostly, straight, I'm like straight commission. And I've been straight commission since for about 10 years.

And that's fine because I get paid what I'm worth, but I've just had to come to resolve that I'm just an employee until I, and because it just kind of works me up just a little bit. So I'm just an employee at this point. And then if they're, you know, if it comes down a future

to buy it out or figure it out, I guess we have to figure out at that point. But he talks to me like, hey, you're a partner, your partner in this business, stuff like that, but I've not really compensated. I feel like I was a partner because I'm just getting paid what I kill and drag over here. So that's what I guess that's maybe part of my confusion

and frustration with it. There are four principles that we find that are in place in successful succession plans. One principle is that it's gradual. You all are violating that. And so you need to talk to him and say we need to put in place, even if it's a 10-year plan and it's gradual, we need to develop a plan that you and I are both in agreement with because the team not knowing what's going to happen at the end and me not knowing what's going to happen at the end and the customers not knowing what's going to happen at the end is not cool, dad.

Okay. It's going to harm the business not having the plan. The second principle of successful succession plans, number one is gradual. Number two is extreme levels of communication, and you all are violating that. You have feelings about being asked to act like a partner, and yet you're being treated like an employee. You have negative feelings about that. You need to communicate that. Dad, you can say partner all you want to say, but right now, I'm an employee.

and you need to say that outside of your head in your mouth. Okay? And then he needs to, and then, Dad, when we don't communicate, when you don't communicate to me what the plan is, you've got it all written down, but you're not ready to go over it yet. I'm calling BS on that, okay? So you need to communicate that to me because the most successful plans are communicated.

And then I can see if it's something I want to do. might not want to do it. So we need to start to talk about that. And I'm not trying to run you off. I'm just trying to figure out what this plan looks like five, 10, 15 years out. And then we need to start, once that is in place and you and I are in agreement, we need to start communicating that to the customers and to the employees. Because you're going to lose your star employees if they think the old man's going to hold on to the keys until he lands in the grave. They're not going to hang around to watch that because everyone knows that doesn't go well. No. So you're violating those two things. And I got to tell you, there's no sin on your dad's part in violating those. He's 55. I would say 90% of the small businesses violate those. But also succession plans are very difficult for that reason. If you want a successful succession plan, that is two of the elements. Extreme levels of fanatical communication and gradual movement on the plan. I'm 64.

we started working on hours when I was 48. So we're 16 years into our succession plan, and I'm still here. That's gradual, okay? And we've talked about it so much, we're all sick of it. Everybody's tired of hearing it, by God, you know? But at least everybody knows what's going on. There's no confusion. it's very stinking clear.

And the frustration comes with confusion is unbelievable. And let me tell you, your customers, and you can pass this on to your dad, your customers and your team, when they don't know what's going on, they write a story in their head that's much more negative than reality actually is. When people don't know about something,

they always write a more negative story than it really is. That's true about anything in business, but it's definitely true about a thing. a succession plan. Last thing is this. I think your dad's a standard dude. I don't think he's doing anything really substantially wrong. I'm just telling you how to make it take it from a, you know, he's about a five or a six out of ten. He's at least recognized that there needs to be a plan. That's more than some do. So, so, but I'm just trying to get him from a five or a six up to a 10. The last thing I'll say about that is this in his defense. The most difficult

of the different generational handoffs is the first gen to the second gen, emotionally. Now, the most difficult tactically is like, you know, Gen 4 to Gen 5. You get all these different players involved, okay? But the founder, the guy that your dad, when you were in diapers, is out there scratching and clawing and hustling and grinding and stepping and fetching. Absolutely he was. Yeah. Absolutely.

And so that guy that can do that, he, he, It's hard for him to let go. He's the founder. The founders are hardheads. I'm a founder. I'm a hard head. And so I'm always right, even when I'm not right. Sounds familiar.

Yeah. And that's the guy who could do stuff from the ground up, right? They can eat dirt if they have to, you know, and spit out dollars. I mean, you can go, you get her done, man. And so I will tip my hat to him and say, as a founder, this is an emotionally difficult thing, but it is a requirement if you love the people you work with and you love your son to make this not about you, dude, you've got to get more noble and start to talk about gradually handing this off with lots of really, really, really clear communication. And that's the

direction I would go with this. Then I'll give you one more thing, and I didn't even intend to do this until you spoke up, but you made me think of this because you did a good job with it. A way you can help the founder turn loose is always pay. paying them honor. Yeah. You know, always speak highly of your dad to him. Talk about how you admire what he has done to get it where it is in front of him. And pay honor to the founder.

It helps them to deal with the emotions of turning loose as something that they formed with their own hands and the calluses on their fingers. So you're a good man, Wesley. your dad's a good guy, but y'all got to work on this or it's going to screw both of you up. So you've got to step into the discomfort and the awkwardness of this for the good of what's going on. That's definitely, definitely the way to go. This is the Entry Leadership Podcast. My friend John Maxwell says leadership ability is the lid that determines a person's level of effectiveness.

In other words, if you want to increase your impact as a leader, your business, then you've got to grow your ability to lead your team, which is why you should always join us at Entree Leadership Summit. And John Maxwell will be one of the headline speakers, and he, along with myself, and 10 of the top leadership experts and thought leaders and writers in the world. This is the premier freaking leadership conference in the nation today, boys and girls. I mean, we're talking John Maxwell, Jim Collins, Dave Ramsey, Pat Lynchione. The lineup on this is, I mean, it's a mic drop. You're going to be refueled and with fresh vision.

I get in the audience and take notes at this thing because these are the people I've learned from. They've taught me freaking good to great and Jim Collins, my God, people. I mean, that's like one of the Bibles of Business Leadership. and then you got the grandpa of business leadership, John Maxwell. I'm telling you, there's just a few tickets left, so I don't know why I'm hyping it up so much. But anyway, May 18 through 21, if you want to come, we can still get you in. Get your tickets, join me and Maxwell and 2,700 business leaders like you at Summit.

Go to Entreeleadership.com slash summit to reserve your seats, or if you're listening on YouTube or a podcast, just click the link in the show notes. If you want to join us here on the Entree Leadership Podcast, go to 844-944-1070, 844-9-44-1070. Trent is with us in Kansas City. Hey, Trent, welcome to the Entree podcast. Hey, Dave, how you doing?

Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Well, my name's Trent. I'm with Bobby and Noah as well. We're all three co-owners. We have two auto repair shops. We employ 15 people. We just bought another auto repair shop, and we also have a car lot opening on January 1st.

Wow. Our question is, what are the key KPIs we should be watching to measure if our growth is too fast, too slow, or just right? Okay. The rule we use around here, and it's helped us with this, and we'll have to talk it through with you guys, is exactly what's going on. But the military has a rule in the middle of a battle. There's a battle line, the forward soldiers fighting on the front lines, and they do not advance the line, the battle line, faster than they can get three things to them. Gasoline, food, and ammunition.

And so if the battle lines, if the soldiers advance faster than they can get gasoline, food, or ammunition, they're going to get killed because of the lack of one of those. You follow me? Yes. So I don't want to grow my business faster than my supply lines. Now, in my case, around here, what we did is we flipped that metaphor and we said, okay, what are the things at Ramsey that if we get past those, we're growing too fast and we're going to tip over because we're getting top heavier or we're getting it out over our skis? You follow me? And so with us, the three we figured out is it's technology that runs the business, runs the systems of the business and things like the website and so on, cash and quality

humans, people. So if we grow so fast that we end up hiring a bunch of doofuses because we get in a hurry, we're over our skis and we end up having to draw back, right? If we grow out past our money and we get all stressed out on the edge of the money, the cash is running low, we're not going to do that at Ramsey, but people do that, right? That would cause your stress. And around here, if our technology doesn't keep up, we end up having to backtrack and reset to the old technology until we can get the stuff moving to go forward.

So with you guys, I would suspect at least two of those are true. that you've got to have quality people to man those shops, not only mechanics, but leaders in the shops, and on the car lot. Right. Because if you got people in there that are screwing up the cars or they're buying bad cars to put on the car lot or they're making bad deals on the cars or selling the car lot, then you're going to lose money because your people are screwing it up

because you grew so fast that you put a doofus in there instead of going slow and getting a good solid thoroughbred turning the wrench or managing the wrench turners or so on. Is that making sense? That makes sense, yeah. So don't grow faster than you can get good people, or that's too fast. You're over your skis.

And with you guys also, it's going to be the cash position. Because you get around a freaking car lot, you're going to get in debt and a heartbeat if you're not careful. Yes, I've learned that. Yeah, everybody wants to run a floor plan. Everybody wants to sign up. with the bank and, you know, oh, we could, if we had three more pieces of inventory, oh, just slow down.

Just slow down. Grow at the speed of cash. Grow at the speed of cash. And I would say those are two with you guys that probably are the same as us. I don't know if you've got a third one or a fourth one. You might know better what that is. What do you think it might be? I mean, definitely the bays can limit us.

If we get too many big jobs going, the bays can limit us up. That's definitely one thing. and then finding people who are competent, but also carry our values as a Christian company. That's hard because you find people that are really good of fixing cars, but they curse and they're not good around family. It's difficult, but that's the keys. Yeah, nobody wants to work around there because they're scummy.

Yeah. Right. Yeah, I understand. That's hard. Yeah, so the people is a limiting factor. The bays, let me think about the bays. So if you're scheduled too far out, you're going to lose customers because you can't, somebody's got a car broken, you can't say we'll get to you in two weeks.

Right, right. And if we got too many big jobs, like if we have, you know, if we have, let's say we have 18 bays, and we've got, you know, 10 or 11 of those bays tied up with big jobs like engines or transmissions, you can't pull a car in there that you need, you know, a quick strut job or brakes, anything like that, when you got the bay tied up. And then engines got to run before you can pull it out. Yeah, yeah. So if you got your number of, you.

customers beyond your capacity might be a limiting factor then, right? That might be a supply line. So it's like a scheduling issue. And you know what's going to end up happening there probably that might help solve for that is you start figuring out what your high margin jobs are and then you don't mind turning away the low margin jobs. So for instance, if those engines that are tying up those bays are a high margin job and the struts a low margin job, which I suspect it's probably the

opposite of that. But if that engine is tying up the bay for two weeks and it costs you 22 strut jobs or 10 strut jobs, you don't care because there's so much margin in it. Or vice versa, I don't need to take that engine job. I need to send that to somebody else that's in that business so I can keep those strut jobs running through there because I got a lot better margin in them and I can do 10 of those while I do one engine or whatever the number is. I'm making that up. okay that's probably not accurate in other words i don't know what the crap i'm talking about no you mean the yeah the struts are definitely higher higher higher uh margin jobs yeah and in our technicians like them better because it's that they're easier yeah and they're in and out so you know

you may want to limit the low margin slow jobs that stop up the base right and just say that's not you know you need an engine rework and here's a company over here i'll send you to that's a friend of ours and they're going to do a great job for you because we've got to keep this bay open. That's assuming you're full. That's assuming you're full, right? Always. We're always full.

Okay. Yeah. Because you do a good job and you're, you know, you don't lie and stuff. Yeah, there's that. Right. If you take care of people and we don't upsell. You can't beat them off with a stick in your world if you do a great job and you don't lie. That's right.

That's right. Yeah. So, you know, what I would do is do some analysis on the jobs on this third one and say, all right, if I've got the bay tied up, the average engine job takes X number of days, and that means I can't do Y number of these other quick, high margin jobs like brakes and struts. And so based on that, I'm only going to take so many,

I'm only going to allow so many bays to be tied up with an engine out of my 18 or whatever I've got available. Does that make sense? That makes sense, yeah. And then so if an engine one comes in, that means you're going to turn it down. you're going to send that business to somebody else. And you've got to find some friends you can help make their business better

because you would rather not have that, you'd rather not have 18 engine jobs going. Right. Or 17 or 16 or 15 or 15. You'd rather just have two or whatever the number is. I don't care what it is. But you guys put some, a little bit of math crunching to that and a little bit of discussing of your philosophy

because every one of these things in this supply line, metaphor that we're using. In my case, technology, people in cash, in your case, cash people in bay usage or whatever we want to call this third one, every one of these requires saying no to something that is good. Right. I can't grow because I would rather not grow right this second than grow. My only option is to grow with a donkey that's going to cause me trouble in my team and I would rather not grow until I get that soft.

So you're saying no to growth because you don't want your soldiers to be out there starving to death without ammunition and gasoline because they get killed and you're going to kill yourself. You're going to get out of your skis. But it requires this emotional discipline to say no to growth until I can keep my supply lines lined up, until I can keep these bays running at the, the efficiency level, we've all decided they need to run. The ratio of high margin, quick jobs to low margin, slow jobs. What's that ratio? Until we get dialed in on that and until we get

dialed in on cash and on people, we don't add the next thing. We don't add the next thing. And that's a hard emotional discipline, but it'll keep you from being your own worst enemy with growing too fast. You guys are studs, man. Way to go. I'm so proud of it. you. Great business. And you're thinking so high level, you're going to be so big. You're going to make so much money. You're going to help so many people. I'm so proud of y'all. Well done, Trent. Good job, guys. Very good stuff. Very good. This is the Entry Leadership Podcast. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. If you're looking for leadership theory from a college professor who's never made payroll, you've got the wrong podcast. I do this stuff every day.

and I make payroll and have for 35, almost 40 years now. And so this is not new to me. And I face the same stuff you guys are facing. Sometimes I got more or less zeros on it than you got. And sometimes it's been a decade since I've done the dumb butt thing you're doing. But anyway, but I did it still. And so I've got a PhD and D-U-N-B. I know what it is.

So we're here to help you. That's what we're doing. I love small business people. So give me a call. 844-9-44-1070. I love the concepts around leadership. Question of the day is from Brett in Arizona. I was asked to relocate to help improve culture in an office of 40 team members

and make the office profitable after it hasn't been for years. The expectation was that I would take over the VP role of that office. However, a year later, the current VP still doesn't have a number. exit date and goes around me when making decisions. Senior leadership has asked me to continue taking on more of the current VP's work. How do I continue to be a good leader when it seems like the goalposts keep moving for me to take over this role? Well, Brett, I probably wouldn't. They've signed you up for a lose-lose deal here, brother. And so I'd start looking for a position somewhere else.

And in the meantime, I'd start having some discussions with, who was it called? Senior leadership. Okay, so my discussion with senior leadership would sound like this. You sent me over here to fix the profitability and culture problem, and you left the cause of the profitability and culture problem in the building, the old VP. So now you get to choose. Do you want me to fix the culture? and profitability problem.

If you do, this is his last week. If you don't, this is my last week. Either one's okay with me, but I can't do both. It's not unkind and you're just being clear because what it amounts to is your senior leadership's a bunch of wusses. They know what the problem is

and they won't do anything about it. It's the old dude that won't fail because the culture problem is a problem and the resulting lack of profitability is from the old VP. And then they left the old fart sitting there. Well, no wonder the stupid thing's a mess because your senior leadership's wusses.

So I'm going to help them install a backbone or I'm going to look for somebody that has one. And we're just going to say, guys, I came over here willingly. I was told what to do, but the very problem that is causing all of this is still in the building, and I can't fix it.

And I'm not going to sit here and beat my head against the wall. Because you're going to end up blaming me for this, and I don't want to be blamed for it. So you can decide I need a date certain on this VP's exit, and it's really, really soon, like days, not weeks, not months. And if you want to move him to corporate office, let him hang out with you, that's

fine. I don't care. But he needs to leave this location and have no input into this location anymore if you want me to fix these things because they can't be fixed as long as he's here because he calls them to start with. That's kind of obvious, at least the way this is worded, that that's what's going on. Now, and Brett, if you stay without doing that, now it's your fault. You can't blame it on the old VP, you can't blame it on the senior leadership, because they've already said who they are. And then if you just go along with it, now we said who you are. So you need to leave or you need to demand the right kind of changes so that you can be successful. Leadership's job is to put you in a position to win, not put you in a position to lose because they're weak. That's their job.

That's how they serve. My job, as the CEO of Ramsey, when I'm dealing with one of my leaders in this place, is to knock down blockers for them, not create blockers for them. And the OVP is a blocker here. It's a problem child. So I don't know if you'll be as drastic as I'm suggesting, but I'm old, and so my hesitation to do that quickly

is very, it doesn't exist. I would do it instantly. I have these conversations frequently, and it's just like this is what we're going to do, and if we're not going to do that, then this is what we're going to do. And you get to decide. And then some people decide to do something that surprises me. And then other times they go, you know what?

That's right. I think I'll go with that. And so that's what I would do in your situation, sir. Appreciate your email question. It's a good one. Listen, you people out there that are leaders, take a lesson from Brett's situation. Don't send somebody to battle with an unloaded good.

gun and then be shocked that they get killed. Come on. That's what these idiots did. They put a good guy in the building with no bullets. Come on, man. Seriously. The senior leadership fail. This is the Entree Leadership podcast.

Hey, guys, if you want to help us out, you can. We need the help. I know we sound like we need help, and you're right, we do. subscribe, click the follow button right there on the old YouTube or the old podcast platform, okay? Share the show, let people know we're here, send a link. If your platform has a share button, use it, and if you can leave a five-star review. All of these things help the algorithms and help this show get pushed to the front and people find out about it. And here we go, boom, boom, we take off and we start winning.

Thank you for that. Jake is in Peoria, Illinois. Hi, Jake. Welcome to the Entree podcast. What's up? Hey, thanks for having me, Dave. I appreciate it. Sure. How can I help? So we, my family owns and operates the grain elevator, and we have seven full-time employees. We're needing 12 to 15 employees in the harvest season, and we're really struggling finding good, dependable help during that season. So I was just curious your thoughts on that.

Well, ever since it's been grain elevators, that's been an issue. So what have you done before? So currently we're using a temporary agency that just finds people for us and bring them in. And, I mean, if we go through 10 guys a season, that's a good season. And it's just been hard the last couple of years. I mean, 10 years ago, what did you do? I mean, 10 years ago, I just started on. No, I know.

But, I mean, was your family running it or somebody else? Yeah, no, my dad's been using this temp agency for 25, 30 years. Okay, so he's running, he's running a staffing agency for two decades. Yep. Okay. Yep. And that's now not working. Why?

Because it's just harder and harder to just train people in the middle of our busy season. It'd be nice to have a little bit more dependable people to show up and to work and to get that done and just not have the inconsistency. Because when they don't show up and we don't hear from them for two or three days, then we've got to pull our main guys from their main jobs, and it just stresses and already stress time. But Jake, the last two decades, has that not been the case? No, I have.

My dad just hasn't addressed it. Oh. Okay. All right. So we're operating, but it's this way, and it's works, but it creates a level of stress because of the turnover and the lack of training and the lack of dependability. And I'll guess and say the people are probably less dependable than they were 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Would that be true? I would agree with that, yeah.

Yeah, that's just a cultural thing, I guess. I'm guessing. Right. Huh. Huh. What's gross revenues on the elevators in a year? Yeah, so we're between 12 and 15 million just depending on commodity pricing. Right. And what's your profits, do you know? We float between 250 and 500,000, just depending on, I get high prices and basis levels. Pretty low margins, then. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And you currently have full-time, how many team members?

So we have seven full-time. And what do they do in the down season? So, yes, so we work really hard for two months, and then we work, I guess, even harder in the other nine to get, or the other 10 to get them all empty. And so we have two sides of this. We have two facilities, so each has a crew, and then we have a fertilizer plant as well. So it's loading trucks, fixing equipment that breaks, getting the ready for the harvest. Okay, now wait a moment. It's a seasonal business.

So how long is the peak of the seasonal business? So I always say we are... Like harvest, right? Yeah, Labor Day to Thanksgiving. That's our go, go, go, go, go season. Okay, so you have three months of a really wild and crazy, almost like tax season or something. And then the other nine months are slower.

Correct. I mean, still 40 hours work, but... No, I'm just saying. Okay, and during those... What are those people doing during the nine months again? If there's no harvest coming in, what are they doing? Yeah, we're loading trucks. fixing equipment, keeping facilities clean, making repairs and improvements, those sorts of things.

Loading trucks with what? Grain. Selling the grain. Okay, so you fill it up during, and then it takes nine months to unload it? Yes. Okay, I didn't know how the business worked. I'm trying to learn. Okay.

No, that's fine. All right. And so you're storing it and selling it off as people need, as needed. Yep. So what is the work that is happening during peak season to fill it up that's different than the unloading? I really am ignorant about this, Jake. I'm sorry. Yep.

No, no, no, that's fine. So the best way, in our opinion, to attack this is how our full-kind guys that know these systems in and out, what they're doing is monitoring how well our bins are, how dry the corn is, how well our dryers are running, making sure our equipment is working properly. And then we hire the staffing agency people, they just dump the trucks. It's very simple. It's very easy.

All we have to do is just dump the trucks, clean up after it's dumps, and then wait for the next one. Got it. And so one guy can do all that. It's just, it's very stressful. Okay. I do not know where to find three months of labor

because I've never done it that is dependable that you only work them three months. So the only things that pop into my head, I don't have a good fix for this. It's seasonal labor. I don't know where to find it. The only fix I know is to diversify your business and have, like you said, you've got fertilizer plant.

That's a different product completely. And have other things that you're doing during the nine months that keep everybody busy and raise the level of your staff. but you're diversifying your business. You have different products that you're doing, not just siloing. And I guess the fertilizer plant might be an example of that. And so the more of that kind of thing you can do

that allows those people to have some downtime at their inverse of the seasons, in other words. So a simplified example of that would be, and it's super simplified, so forgive me, but it is. It's the lawn mulls. mowing guy, the landscaping guy, that he cuts grass in the summer, snow blows in the winter. Right. Okay.

And so he keeps everybody on board. They snowplow and snowblow in the winter. And he's in an environment where he needs to do both. So he finds a complementary product line that in the off-season keeps his people busy. And then he can just keep them around year-round. So something along those lines is what comes. to mind. The other thing that you might investigate, and I don't think there's a lot of room here,

but it may be you could add one or two more full-time people giving up some of your profit because they're there all the whole year, but decreasing your stress by that number. So how many temps are you guys bringing in? in the middle of the hot season? Probably six to seven. Yeah, so if we lowered that to four to five, that lowers the stress level. And I would make the case that possibly the turnover

and the downtime created by somebody not showing up and all that is probably costing you as much as keeping somebody else year around. Now, I don't think you staffed the whole thing that way. I don't think you go hire five people. That's not what I'm saying, but you might add two and lower your temp base and thereby lowering your stress. It sounds like when you're doing that, you're going to lower your profits, but you might find that the freaking dealing with the temp agency on the others and all that other crap is eaten as much as a couple salaries is eaten. That's possible. I'm not positive, but that's possible. Again, I don't know what the flip I'm talking about.

So I'm spitballing this with you, just making it up, because I don't know your world and I don't know the industry there. And honestly, we don't have any seasonal people we hire. We do have products that are complementary. So we have things that like right now, or not like right now, but I mean, like if you go back to Christmas and you look at Christmas and December, we've got retail and no live events. in live event season, retail's down and live events are up. So, you know, we can repurpose people throughout the building on those different things that way.

Still serving the consumer, but serving them in different ways that are, the seasonal aspects are complementary rather than competing. And we have tried to do a little bit of that here. It might have been accidental, to be honest with you, but we still did it. We just figured out that's when people needed

whatever and we went and did it. But it's that idea of the snowblower versus the yard cutting guy, that's the thing you think through. That's how I've been looking at our business for a long time. So good stuff, man. Well done. Hey, folks, remember better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast. The podcast.