EntreLeadership - My Employees Keep Wanting More Time Off (Bad Sign?)

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Today, we’ll hear about: •             A woman whose team thinks they deserve more PTO •             A business owner deciding if now is the time to sell her business •             How Dave Ramsey handles a disengaged team member •             A man unsure if he should hire someone to fill a key role in his side hustle   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 ·  📺 Join EntreLeadership Master Series Livestream: https://ter.li/tx6maw    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 got a question you want to ask on the show, you can fill out a forum at Entreeleadership.com slash ask, or you can call us, leave a note, and we'll get back to you and get you on the show. 70 is the number. That's 844-944-1070. Denise is in Philadelphia. Hi, Denise. How are you? I'm great, Dave. Thanks for taking my call today. Sure. How can we help? Well, my husband and I started a pest control business here in Pennsylvania. About 2011, just he and I in the dining room as most stories start. and since then we've evolved to nine technicians, a salesperson, two office people, and our revenue last year was 2.3.

Way to go. Good for y'all. Yeah. We're proud and we got good people. Good. We have really good people. And trust me, that doesn't happen every year. Right now I can say it, knock on wood.

Amen. Well, my question is, and I think I've noticed a bit of a shift. since COVID, but I'm having a hard time navigating what employees are expecting in the way of benefits, specifically in a small business climate, what is a reasonable amount of PTO for my people to expect? Well, I mean, personal time off is sick time and vacation time combined. And, you know, in a small business, you know, depending on how long they've been with you, I mean, we start off with a couple of weeks, and it goes up to three, four, five weeks over time. You know, somebody's been with me 20 years or whatever.

And, you know, so it does, they build that. But, you know, our experience has been the, depending on the age group that you're dealing with, they view this differently. Is that what you're running into? I certainly am. I mean, I'm at the. old crotchety age of about 60 and certainly you know folks that are younger have different expectations we we give them an employment letter that states the tier on you know where you are with one year two years what do you get what do you get them at one year so one year we're just give we're giving

them five days they they just walk through the door they start with this they'll have five days for that year to start and then the next year what 10 And then the next year, 15. And then when we hit 5, we're at 20. Yeah. And so I'm where, and I've always considered, and I've raised that over the 15 years that we've been in business. That's been adjusted.

So what is the, what's the pushback that you're getting this, that's caused you ask the question? I'll tell you what. I've got, you know, a small group here, you know, less than half of my folks, they're using their PTO in the first six months of the year. and then they're continuing to request time off the last half of the year, but they say it's not paid time, so they feel as if that's an acceptable thing to expect.

No, it's not. I hired you to get a job done. There you go. And if you don't get the job done, I don't need you. Okay. Well, I'll give you some time off without pay, a lot of it. Infinite amounts. I think.

that every day, but I don't say it, Dave. No, I mean, we've had that conversation lately, too. We've got, as you know, we've got over a thousand folks, and there is a group that we're running into that is running through the PTO and then coming in and requesting exact same thing. And our policy has been only if there's a medical emergency, otherwise you just need to be at work. We hired you to work. And we need a certain number of hours of production out of you a year,

and that involves five days of PTO or ten days of PTO. And if you can't give me that production, and just because, you know, I'm going to go on vacation now that I've run through my PTO, but it's unpaid, so you shouldn't be concerned. No, I'm concerned. You're supposed to be at work. Yes. That's a problem.

Yes. Couldn't agree with you more. And I've been. And that's not old and crotchety. That's just called owning a business. Well, yeah. I mean, the work's got to get done whether or not you. So what I would do is say to them, look, what if half the people in the company did this and just didn't show up?

I didn't have to pay them, but none of the work got done. So I wouldn't be able to pay them. Hello. That's right. So this is a dumb butt idea. You know, kind of defeats the purpose of having a job. I've declined. I've declined a request, and he's requesting a special meeting.

I'm concerned it's not going to go well. Yeah, it's not. He's going to get fired. Because I need people to work. And when the heck did paternity become a thing? Yeah. Because now I'm living that. See, now you and I are both over in Grotchity, okay?

Now I had a baby. I went to my own doctor's appointments. And guess what? My husband took a couple days off. You sound like my wife. Somebody had to pay the damn bills. You sound like my wife. he's got to go to work and he's got to pay the bills.

But these guys in this day and a guy was, I drove by, I saw the baby and went back to work. That was her memory. Didn't happen, but that's her memory. That's how she remembers. Well, the mortgage isn't, the mortgage isn't getting paid by itself.

Hell of time, by life balance. Yeah. And so some of these folks that I'm talking about, that's, you know, I've already agreed. They burned through their PTO and I said, listen, baby's a big deal. I'm going to give you a number. other week unpaid, you know, just because I said, you know, I get it. So that I get, but I've given

that and I'm still being requested more. Let's just everybody understand that me and Denise, if the baby was sick, it's a whole different answer. Whole different thing. But I just want to go home and change diapers. No, you're going to have to get your work done. No. And, you know, I have, I've had an employee that was hospitalized in and out of the hospital for a month. He came back a month and a half later, and he had his job. That wasn't his fault. He was ill. He's a good man, and we took care of him.

In that case, it Ramsey, we probably continued to pay him. But on the other hand, I just want to go, I want to go on a hike. I want to go on this real special hike. I've always wanted to do it, and so I'm going to take an unpaid time. No, you're not. Just take a hike. Just take a hike. I mean, that's it.

You know, we're done. I got your fishing trip. Yeah. You better get the, you better get the commercial license. you can make a living doing it. The difficult thing is, these are good employees. The other thing that we're doing now,

the thing we're doing to preempt this now is we're doing a better job at onboarding explaining this is not going to happen. So before it even comes up, like when you first start your job and we're bringing you on, we're saying, okay, here's how we do things. We do not do unpaid time off.

Right. Okay. If you have a crisis, we're probably going to give you what we call grace, period, which is where we pay you while the crisis is going on, because we love you and we want to take care of you. You just want to go on a hike, you want to go on a fishing trip,

and you burn through your PTO, sorry, it's not an option. The only way you get to go on the hike is you don't work here anymore. So take a hike. And we tell you on the front end that that's what's going on. It's one of their employment letter. I put it in writing. Holy cow. So then you're going to have to make an example.

and so when this difficult conversation comes up, you're going to have one less person and everyone else in the building is going to know Denise is serious about this PTO policy. Yes. Because you're going to hold to it and just go, I'm sorry, honey. I'm not trying to be mean.

We have work to do here. The pests don't get controlled if you're not here. This is a pest control company. And so we need you here to control the pests. And if you're not here, regardless of whether you're getting paid or not, we can't control the pests. And that's a problem. You're a technician. That's what we do.

And so the work's not getting done. The customers aren't getting served. We don't make money. No one's winning. And you're all fishing. That's not okay. It's not a plan. We're not doing that. This is grown up time now. You're no longer in high school. You no longer get summers off. Your mommy isn't doing your laundry anymore. You're now a grown up. So it's time to do that. Time to step up. And sometimes Denise, they exit. And we have to go, well, that was a bad thing. We didn't do a good job when we hired them. Because if we had hired them properly, they would have known all of that,

and they wouldn't have ever even asked. So I've got to do a better job communicating it, not just in writing, but verbally. And I've also got to communicate it by holding to that standard and saying, no, it doesn't work. You can't just not come to work. That's not okay. Well, it's not unpaid.

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You got PTO. You knew that when you came in. You knew what the package was. And you're going to live with him. It's pretty deadgum simple. And Denise and I are not just being crotchety.

We're actually trying to operate a freaking business, not a kindergarten. That was crotchety. Okay, it's a new management technique. I'm going with it. Hey, most of you didn't start out in sales. So when it comes to hiring and training a great sales team, well, maybe that's not your rodeo. That's why you need sales gravy. Sales gravy gives small businesses the same premium training that Fortune 500 companies get without the Fortune 500 price. Sales gravy was founded in 2006 by 16-time

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Savannah is in Baltimore, Maryland. Hey, Savannah, what's up? Hi, how are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yeah, so I'm in a really interesting, very blessed position. So I've owned a day spa in Baltimore for 18 years now and have been through all the ups and down. that an entrepreneur would have.

And honestly, at COVID, I thought we were going to shut our doors, and that was my exit. I haven't had an exit strategy yet. Post-COVID, we came back just so successful, just got our team back together. I've got 30 employees. We did $2.3 million in revenue in 2024. Going to be at 2.5, maybe 2.6 this year. looking at profits at we're at about 800,000

after ad backs. You know, I throw some stuff in there, and I know about the ad back and kind of how to value my business because I have brought on an M&A firm to help me through sort of the next step and what should I do? And I've been listening to you for years,

and I know that I could, you know, sell to someone local or, you know, do some owner financing, but I wanted to see kind of what, you know, a larger corporation might want to do with my business. and here's the deal. The reason I'm calling is that I work probably, honestly, four to six hours a week. Right now I'm away.

I have a very, very strong team. I'm, it's just the entrepreneur's dream. I'm making money finally. It's not that I'm not doing anything, but like for you. And it's growing. And it's growing, but there's a maximum. Okay. So it is, we are a goldfish.

and a fish bowl because we probably will max out with the business model we have at honestly, like I can squeeze $2.8, $2.9 million out of the place if we don't open another location because we're only, you know, we've got X number of rooms. So I started going down the rabbit hole looking for when is the right time to sell my business because we are on top now, right? Like I don't want to fire sale. Like we, I can wait. And, you know, they come in, and there's like some kind of cruddy multiplier. I mean, to be honest, like, why would I sell my business for 3x when in three years I can make that much more, I can make that much money and then sell my business in three years? So the question is just, when is the right time?

Because I'm not, I'm never going to get 10X, you know, and I'm not opening more locations. I'm only 53. You know, I just, I'm in a really good place, and I'm glad I'm calling in a good place. but what should be my next step I sense you're still having fun running it oh I don't yes I mean I don't want to run it I mean but I'm not really running it what's the need to sell

why the need to sell timing the market right like God forbid something else happens I don't know like I told you I'm not even home right now like I'm kind of on vacation and I go in once a week. Yeah, but I mean, let's fast forward a year and a half. You're putting a million dollars a year in your pocket. Mm-hmm.

Why would you sell it? I mean, let's pretend that the horizon on the thing is only 10 years and I only put $10 million in my pocket. And then we just close it. I mean, whatever. I don't care. I mean, or then you sell it for 3X, you know, or whatever. But you enjoy running it and you just put the cash in your pocket.

That's not a bad thing. There is no wisdom that says there's no universal wisdom that says you've got to get out just because you're on top. Right. So when does someone like me get out? Maybe never. When you want to? I mean, when do you want to? But why would I want to if I can do it?

Well, I mean, if it ceases to be fun, that would be a reason. Yeah. It was not fun for many years. I mean, it was not fun. I mean, I wanted to quit so much. Okay. It was awful. But I'm past that, right?

Okay. You got a team built that's trustworthy and delegatable. So you've moved through the stages of business. I mean, you've done a good job. You're at the peak performer stage. And you've got systems and people and vision and values and culture all dialed in. And so it takes four hours a week to keep the wheel turning. That's a great place to be.

There is no thing that says you have. have to sell this, okay? And I kind of think you might be empty if you did. I'm not sure it would give you the joy. If somebody writes you a $5 million check, I'm not sure it's going to give you the joy you think it's going to. Well, I need to figure out what I'm going to do next for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And where are you going to put $5 million that creates a million dollars a year? Right. See, that's, it's just a math. I'm just doing simple math. I don't think I'll get $5 million for it. No, I'm not. I don't either. I don't think it's worth that. Yeah. I think it's worth three, I mean, I think it's worth four to five times the net value or the net profits.

Right. Minus, minus, minus. I mean, then there's all the minus. It's worth, it might be worth five. You might get five out of it, but probably not through M&A because they're going to, they're trying to do some kind of roll up. But the, so, I mean, you might, but I, you know, again, I would not sell it for three. That'd be dumb because you're going to make a million next year.

Yeah, no, I wouldn't sell that for three. Unless you just hate it and you're pissed off and the world's bad and whatever and I'm just running from it with my hair on fire, then you'd sell it for three. But that is a quote unquote fire sale at that point for whatever reason, emotional or otherwise. So, yeah, I do not have a need for you to sell this. I don't hear anything here that says this has to come to an end or that somehow you missed the peak or some kind of crap like that. I just don't think that exists. So I think, you know, if you're not having trouble operating and you can put a million dollars a year in your pocket,

I keep running it probably. If somebody wants to give me five, we'll talk about it. But if somebody wants to give me three and a half, I don't even want to have a conversation. It's not worth it. So the answer to your question is, when would I sell? When I got enough money? And if I don't get enough money,

I'd rather have the million a year. It's not that hard to get it out. out of here. I mean, and thanks to you, honestly, I mean, I'm here, honestly, because of Dave Ramsey, and I can put most of that away. Yeah. Wow. I have another company. Well, I mean, most of, literally, because I have another business and my husband works. Oh, wow. You put all of it away, minus taxes, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you start banking three quarters of a million or six hundred thousand a year. Jim, I need. I mean, you have some money and stuff, you know, I mean, that's pretty cool. I'm proud of you. Well done. And then I just keep going until like. You don't.

want to anymore. Well, I mean, because there's nothing, I mean, yeah. I mean, I just don't want to go through another COVID or, you know, but whatever. I mean, you just, you know, I get it. I don't want to go through another COVID either. But it's part of business is the outside variables that we can't control that impact us. And that's just part of the risk of the thing. But you've controlled the controllables.

You're in the peak performer. You're riding this thing really well. You've got it systematized. You got a good team. You've got a good culture. it's giving you joy and if I'm in your shoes unless I got five I'm not even looking at it because you don't have any need to walk away now at some point down the road if you do want to bail then we start talking real seriously about getting the price right instead of being but by then it

may be making even more I don't know you may find a way to expand the physical location a little bit to put more rooms in and take it on up past three million and gross which probably is a one point two based on your margin ratios here because most of what you make at that point is going to the bottom line because your fixed costs are covered. So it should be pretty strong. That's what I'm thinking, but I, you know, this idea that everything should be built so that it can be sold and I can maximize my profits at the top is a very utilitarian view of business and it doesn't have much sold. And so I don't think you have any reason that you have. have to sell this on FOMO that I'm fear of missing out on, you know, the peak or something.

Did I sell it at the peak? I don't know. I sold it when I wanted to sell it. And that's where you need to be. That's the way I would go with this. Hey, thank you for the call. You're running a great business. I'm so proud of you.

Way to go, peak performer. Savannah. Whoa, rocket. Our question of the day is from Tanya in California. Dave, I suspect one of my team members is quietly checked out. They're still doing the basics, but the energy, creativity and ownership are gone. How do you confront someone who's still technically doing their job without feeling like

you're nitpicking? Well, it's a requirement here at Ramsey that we don't have anybody working in J.O.B. Doing the bare minimum to get your pay is not acceptable. You don't get to stay. You have to be engaged. It's a cultural icon. It's one of our values that I am self-employed. I'm engaged.

I care about my work. I care about the output. I care about the people on the other end of my work. I care about my team that I work with. And I have all the energy, creativity, and ownership of someone as if I'm self-employed. And that is a core value here. And if you're not functioning one of those core values,

that's not nitpicking. It's a big deal. Because here's the problem, Tanya. Everyone else knows it too. And when you sanction this, you're inviting more of it. You remember the thing a few years ago where this thing came out quiet quitting?

Yeah. And I came up with a phrase during that time I told our team, we will have quiet firings to go with your quiet quitting. We'll be done. Because, you know, if your spirit leaves the building, you should take your body with it or I'll help you. And I'm not mad about it, but I'm here. And when I'm here, I'm all here.

and you are too. That's not nitpicking at all. It's a requirement. It's a job performance issue. And so no one wins the Super Bowl, mailing it in or quiet quitting. This is someone doing the bare minimum. I'm going to come in as late as I can come in,

leave as early as I can leave, and work as little as I can work while I'm at work. I'm mailing it in. No one wants to watch a sports star a sports team do that. You can tell when somebody doesn't care. It's a big deal and it's contagious as crud. It'll run through your organization if you don't stamp it out.

So I suspect one of my team members has quietly checked out. They're still doing the basics. How do you confront someone who's still technically doing their job? Well, the difference is, is I don't think they're doing their job. Because part of their job is to be engaged and bring in 110%. and excellence and caring. And so I would just sit down and say, at Ramsey, we call it a difficult conversation.

This is going to be a difficult conversation. No one's getting fired today, but we have some things we need to work on. It appears, based on all the exterior evidence and just observation that you have checked out and that you don't care and that you really aren't giving your best. You're kind of mailing it in.

Tell me about that. And let them talk. They may go, yeah, I think I hate you. You know, they may go, I think this is a cult, and I don't want to be here anymore. They may say all kinds of things. You have no idea what they're going to say back. But you just open the door and let them talk. And that may be the last conversation and go, well, I changed my mind.

Someone is getting fired today. And I have the right to change my mind. So, but, you know, what we're doing is a discovery here. We're trying to figure out what's going on. And if we can't correct this, then we're going to have a different, difficult conversation that is going to involve someone leaving the building and that's going to be you. So we need to work through this together and I'll try to help you. I'm your leader.

I want to serve you. Is there some kind of an environmental issue? The team you're working on is there a problem that I don't know about that's caused you to lose faith? That's caused you to not write that thing. So, you know, no, you can't stay. So there's something about those of us when we own a small business that we feel like we're not allowed to confront certain things like this. And I jumped the fence on that a few years ago,

and now I not only feel like I'm allowed to, I'm obligated to. So years and years and years ago, 20 years ago, roughly. I'm standing in staff meeting, 250 people, and I'm talking in staff meeting, telling everybody what we're doing. And I'm watching this girl, and she's yawning, and I said something, and she rolled her eyes.

And I thought, well, that was kind of weird. Okay, and I just kept going, and then I went to her leader later, and I said, hey, that was kind of weird, and I don't know exactly what to do about it. And I was kind of walking around the edges of it, and I'm like, maybe I didn't understand, or maybe I was saying something that was stupid or whatever. I don't know. It's possible, but I guess we ought to talk to her about it. And the guy went and talked to her about it, and she basically vomited all over him that she hated work in there. and I'm like, yeah, okay, all right, good. So then we can fix that for you.

And so, yeah, you're not here anymore. And so, but I, you know, I almost didn't, I almost thought, well, I'm being challenged because I'm on stage talking and I'm offended that someone in the audience wasn't buying what I was selling. No, that really wasn't it at all. But it was a leader observing that someone had checked out,

and then it is my obligation to be proactive with someone that has checked out and find out why, and is this fixable, and can we get you check back in, or do we need to do a permanent checkout? And it's better for everyone if someone that's not there is not there. Everyone likes it. No one wants to work with people that are checked out. No one wants to work with people that are mailing it in,

that are half but doing their work, because it makes the team look bad. It makes the production in that area look bad, So if you're excellent at your job, but you work with a dupusus who's mailing it in, then you don't, you know, your team doesn't look good. You don't feel good. You don't want to work with them. And so when the leadership steps in and goes, hey, they're not here anymore, you go,

well, thank God. You know, I'm a thoroughbred and I don't have to work with a donkey. And so that's what it is. So no, you're not nitpicking, Tanya. You're doing your job. Your job as a leader is. to manage and create culture. And when you're managing and creating culture, you are going to get what you tolerate. So when you tolerate someone checking out, quiet quitting, whatever the flip you want

to call it, you are tolerating lack of productivity, lack of care, lack of energy, lack of creativity, and it is infectious and it will spread through your organization. And then you'll be emailing me going, Dave, I have a problem with my culture. Yeah, because you did not remove the bad apple and the whole barrel got stunk up, baby. That's what happened. And so it's your job as the leader to address this with this person. It could just be that they're having a bad time at home, husband's sick, and they're distracted with that.

Well, then we give them some grace, right? And we're not all smart aleck about it. But it could be that they're just being a butt and they're immature and they don't like working and stuff. And so that work thing is bothersome to some people. So we need to help them with that. Like find somewhere else to not work. That's a good plan.

We can do that. But again, you dig into the – and find out the information. Just ask about it. What's the cause on this? And if I can help you with the cause as the leader, that's my job. And if I can't help you, you know, we got to correct it because we can't stay in status quo. I mean, we give you a little grace while you get through some personal stuff.

But meantime, you've got to smile and bring your best anyway. and we're going to work with you and help you. 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 Entreeleadership.com slash live stream and get registered today. Or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. Scott's in Houston, Texas. Hey, Scott, how are you?

Dave, how are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up? David, this is a great privilege. I appreciate it. I am a owner of a small e-commerce company. We're going to do about a million top line this year, and that's just with myself and two virtual assistance.

I'm trying to move past the treadmill operator phase. How do I correctly manage cash flow so that I can both start to pay myself and hire my first employees? What's your profit on a million dollars? About 170. Okay, cool. And what do you need for your family to live?

Maybe zero or ten. This is my side job and my wife works full time and we're all the way on to Baby Step 6 personally. And what do you make at your main job? About 80. Wow. What are you paying the virtual assistance? About $1,500 a month.

They're international. Each? Yes. So $3,000 a month. If you hire someone, is it to replace them, or what are you doing? No, sir, they'd be in charge of buying the inventory for me, which takes up maybe 80% of my time. It'd be a totally different job.

Okay. What's it take to hire them? In terms of dollars? Mm-hmm. Probably 60 to 70. Okay, so you only make 110. Exactly. Or you only make 100 that you don't need anyway.

I'm just nervous to do it going from the treadmill operator to the pathfinder, letting go the reins a bit. Okay. That's different than can I afford it. But that's also paying myself zero. No, it's not. You make 170 profit. Yes, sir.

Pay some 170, you make 100 profit. paying yourself 100. Is there a ratio or a percentage that you would recommend how much you pay yourself versus how much you keep in the business to keep growing it? No. Not at this stage. It's what works out. You've got a different situation because this is a side hustle.

So that gives you a lot more flexibility. So let's talk through all of it. So you want to put, you want to hire someone to do this, and you want to set some money in retained earnings. So the 170 you made last year, did you bring it home or what did you do with it? The 170 is a projection for this year. I'm only about 18 months in. Oh, okay.

All right. All right. So what was your plan with the 170? What are you planned to do with it? I've been basically flying by the feet of my pants so far just trying to, you know, build this thing with cash and debt free. I figure it's time to grow up and create some sales. systems here that I don't have so far. Okay. All right. So let's add two things to the systems. Let's add a delegatable position.

We'll talk about that in a minute for $60,000 to get someone started. And let's add to your P&L that we're going to take, just make up a number. I don't care, 10% of your net profits, 20% of your net profits, and hold those in retained earnings. We're going to build a savings account inside the business. You've got to pay taxes on it. welcome to small business. And even though it stayed in the business, it's all taxable. So we're going to pile up 20%, or 10%, so we're going to put $20,000 away out of $170.

I'm going to make up a number, okay? And so every time I make a profit, I'm going to put this percentage add to retain earnings. So retain earnings is systematically growing. And I'm going to hire somebody for $60K to do this. So that's two things that are building systems to move you up and out of treadmill because you've now got a delegatable situation and you're building a financial system that allows you to grow and create some sustainability in case there's a bump in the road. Okay?

Now, then let's go over to the 60K guy or gal. You bring them in. Number one, we don't hire them and walk away and hope they figure it out. We're going to stay in their back pocket for six months, teaching them every single minute detail of exactly what you do. Because what they do is the, only revenue generator of this whole stinking thing. And if they do it wrong, they're going to screw up the whole business. And I'm going to tell them that. I'm going to tell them that over and

over. This is really important that you get this. Because if you don't get this, we're not going to be able to work together because the whole reason for you being here is to take this over, but you have to do it right. And so I'm going to train you. And it's going to feel like micromanaging, but it's not micromanaging. It's training until you prove you can do it. As you prove you and do it, I will lengthen the rope of freedom and give you more and more and more room, more and more and more things to do without me looking over your shoulder. But I'm going to have to see you do it many, many, many, many times before I'm going to be comfortable giving you the keys to the kingdom, baby.

Fantastic. And you just talk and talk and talk and talk. And so in other words, they're really not going to produce any results that you wouldn't have produced by yourself in the first six months because you're going to be sitting in their lap anyway. You got it? Yes, sir, I do. There's no relief.

You can't just hire someone and go, poof, sprinkle some unicorn dust on them and they go do their job. It doesn't work that way. So you've got to teach them not only how to do the job, but how to do the job the way you want it done. And they have to ask WWSD, what would Scott do? What would Scott do? What would Scott do?

In this situation, what would Scott do? And once they know the answer to 98% of those, you'll never have to do it again. you can delegate to someone easily when you trust their competency and their integrity, and the only way a sane person can trust someone's competency and integrity is by hanging out with them and observing them. Makes sense to me. Yeah. So then you've got somebody that's solid and they become a key player in your business and you have moved officially from treadmill to Pathfinder at that point.

and because that's the thing to do. You're not the only revenue producer and the only producer of whatever. So, yeah, you're, but, and honestly, I'm going to pay them 60 and I'm going to pay them some spiffs of some kind that, okay, we're currently doing a million. If we do a million and a half, I'm going to give you a $20,000 bonus. I like that. And I'll just go ahead and put that in writing in your deal. And then we'll rework it next year. and we're going to do this together.

We're figuring this out together. But I'm willing to share with you if you add value to this place. If you make it bigger than it was before you came. And if you do that, yeah, I'll share with you. If you kill something to drag it home, I'll split it up. You can have some and I'll have something. I mean, that's okay. I don't need all these dollars.

What I need is progression and growth. And when I get that, then I'm getting an ROI on my team member. That payroll is actually creating a return on investment. and then I'm now growing and running a business. And then you can add another one and another one and another one. And then you can bring your assistant in-house and go away with the $3,000 expenditure and trade it out for a $4,000 expenditure

for one person in-house that's here and in-person and so on. And you can start to build out the team from an administrative standpoint, a financial standpoint, a marketing standpoint, operation standpoint. And now we're starting to look at eight or ten people want a $10 million business. Go from owning a job to owning a business, right? That's the one, man.

That's the one. You're right on track. You already knew the answer. So I'm proud of you. This is cool. I love that where you are. And it's got a lot of upside. And that's what's so exciting about it.

You don't have to do anything here, but you can choose to to create something that is more sustainable and not so dependent on old Scott. And it's much more fun, by the way, when you do it that way. When it's all on your shoulders, it takes a little of the joy out of it. So that is absolutely the process. Hey, good show to gay folks. We appreciate you guys calling in and be part of it. 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 joining us on Entree Leadership.