EntreLeadership - My Father’s Retirement Package Could Break Our Business

Episode Date: January 5, 2026

Today, we’ll hear about: • A son who’s concerned his father’s retirement demands are unreasonable • A businessman wrestling with his decision to fire an employee • An athletic director considering a move that could cost him his staff • A business owner resistant to the growth of his company   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 • 📄 Get the Strategic Planning Template today: https://ter.li/7z7qu6   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. 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, we'd love to have you. Fill out the form at Entreeleadership.com slash ask or give us a call and we'll get you on the show at 844-944-1070. That's 844-9-44-1070. So here we are, the beginning of a brand new year. 2026, can you believe it? Man, something about a new year that's a clean slate, a fresh start,

represents grace and mercy. Everything's in front of us, nothing's behind us. That's why they have the baby is the new year, right? It's the image that we have. What's interesting is how you approach the year and what you believe about the year is going to determine your results as much as how brilliant you are or how lucky you are or whatever else you believe in for destiny. I remember being at a motivational seminar a thousand years ago and the guy told the story about perspective and the way we approach things. He said there was a guy who had been out of a job for years, and he was really struggling, and he finally got an interview with this great company in New York City.

It was the job of a lifetime, the job of his dreams, and he was really intimidated and really worried about getting the job. So he flies to New York, and he checks into the hotel room. And just as he's getting ready to walk out the door the next morning to go to the interview, nervous, sweat in the palm of his hands, heart's beating a little fast. The phone rings in his room just as he's walking towards the door and he stops and he picks up the phone and it's his wife back home. She says, honey, I got great news. You don't have to go on the interview.

I just won a million dollars on a lottery ticket. You don't have to go. We got a million dollars. And he said, well, yeah, that's awesome. He goes, we'll celebrate. This is amazing. This is a cool moment in time. And he goes, but I'll tell you what, just for the fun of it, just for kicks.

I'll go do the interview. So he goes to the company to do the interview. And as you might imagine, he's in a little different posture. He's relaxed. His heart's not beating. It's not life or death. Matter of fact, he may not even take the job if they offer it to him because he's got a million dollars, right? and probably because of his posture, the way he was thinking, the position of his heart,

the interview went exceedingly well, and they made him a job offer beyond his wildest dreams right on the spot. And he said, well, I'll have to think about it. I need to talk to my wife and I'll call you guys later this afternoon and let you know if I need to take it or not. He didn't mention the million dollars. got back to the hotel room the phone's ringing again and he picked it up and his wife said honey i i made a huge mistake i found out that i had read this wrong and we did not win anything we do not have a million dollars so what had changed he never really had the million dollars but his perception the attitude the altitude the positioning of his heart the way he walked into

the job interview changed because of what he believed his future looked like. He went from glass half empty to glass half full or completely overflowing, whichever way you want to look at it. And he wasn't arrogant or cocky in a way that that, you know, was just off-putting, but he had just extreme confidence. But he actually didn't have the money. As a matter of fact, he never had the money and was never going to get the money. But it changed his whole approach. So what if 2026 was your job interview? What if the year was what you've got to look forward to? Because it is. And what if you approached it as if you had already won rather than approaching it from a position of scarcity and stress and anxiety? Those things are all real in business.

We all get the crap beat out of us in this world called leadership. But what if you approach that this year as if this was a monopoly game. And I might be a little ahead or I might be a little behind, but it's not life-threatening. And I can just sit here with a pleasant smile and a straight backbone and some courage and approach our conversation is completely different. I think that's what I'm going to do for 2026. I'm going to approach it as if I've already won. Why don't you join me in that? Our phone number here is 844-9. 944-1070, and you can join me here too. That's 844-944-1070. Sam is in Oklahoma City. Hey, Sam, what's up in your world?

Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. How can we help? So I'm the head of operations and third generation in our family's manufacturing company. last year we had 4.2 million in revenue and have 22 employees currently. Last year, my dad had had some serious health issues and now wants to partially retire and transfer full ownership to me. Wow. We're now in the process of trying to figure out our succession plan but can't seem to come to an agreement on his compensation after the transfer. what he's wanting, I think is going to financially break our company, and I can't get him to see my point of view. So my question is, how do I answer, sorry, how do I honor and take care of my dad in his retirement while keeping our business financially healthy?

So he doesn't have any money? Not a lot in his retirement account, no. So he's depending on this to eat? Yes. What's he make now? Uh, now it's a salary is at a 140. Mm-hmm. 140 year.

And what's he wanting? Uh, salary benefits and the, the rent comes out to just under 500. You're already paying all that? No, um, no, we're not, not the rent right now. You're, you're not paying rent? Well, it's his property. All right. Well, when you get the building.

I mean, when you get the property, you don't get the building? Correct. Okay. And so we're increasing the expenses by $350,000 a year? Yes, sir. Well, what kind of profit did you all make on the $4.2 million? Last year, we made just over $600,000 in profit. Okay.

The rent sounds high. I mean, if you went to rent that building, would it cost that? No, it's the, it won't plus the increase. recent salary and profit sharing that he's asking for. Okay. Well, it's not dishonoring to keep a company that it, because if you go broke, you can't pay him. Yeah. And if he causes you to go broke and you can't pay him, he cut his foot off.

Cut his on foot off, right? Yes. So that's a math thing. Is he that bad at P&L? Not think so, but I just can't get him to see it from my point of view and look at the budget. with me. Yeah. Okay. So what would be the market rent on the building? Market rent for all the buildings. So it is 360,000? Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, 12,000 a month. That's 144,000. Yes. Okay. All right. I did it wrong. Okay. All right. So, and he's making 140 now. So that would be 300, but he wants six, but he wants

350. Yes. You go from 140 to 280. But he's giving you the business for free. Yeah, the transfer, the child transfer, I don't remember what it's called. Okay. Well, it's not going to break the business for the business to start paying $144,000 in rent. And it's already paying him $140,000.

the other crap involved probably could be blown off another 50 grand in odds and ends but it actually made 600 while paying him 140 yes okay so if we deduct 144 if we deduct 200 from that for 144 and his other miscellaneous crap he wants the profit sharing stuff then you still have 400,000 profit, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah, theoretically. How old is he?

He's 56. Wow. What's he going to do with his life? He wants to travel and go do things with his wife and go have fun. Okay, because, I mean, we are giving Jen, too, the business for free at Ramsey. But a lot of families have a buyout where Gen 3 or 4 or whatever buys the generation out from before based on the valuation.

Any idea why you guys are not doing that? We talked about that. And my sticking point was I didn't want to go into debt for it. So instead of going into debt, you're going to pay him $140,000 for the next 30 years. It's looking like that. Plus rent. No. Okay, because you're not getting the building for free.

No. No, even if I bought the business from, I might still have to pay rent on top of that. Yeah, exactly. Unless you bought the building, too. Yeah. Okay. True.

Well, I don't think it's breaking the business. I disagree with your assessment. I do think, and you don't have to dishonor your dad to get a good, reasonable financial. deal that does not that does not bring harm to the business and the the biggest problem i've got here is i want a long-term lease at a at this rate i want to lock this rate in for a long time so i don't have to have this discussion again i don't want to do any of the profit sharing and i would pay him 140 000 a year income 150 000 a year income let's make it even okay um

for a set number of years, and then I'm done. Okay. So then all you've got is building rent after that. Okay. And we've locked the building rent down at market value 2026, not market value 15 years from now. So you've got a good rate on it, in other words. You got a sweetheart deal. Yeah, and get rid of the profit sharing stuff.

Because then when you go make a bunch more money, every dollar you make profit goes to you. Because his is all fixed now. That makes sense? Yes, sir. So, yeah, I'd pay him 150 and some, I mean, I've got a figure in my head something like 10 years. But if it was a little longer, that'd be fine. But, you know, not 30 years. That sounds too much.

20 years of stretching my imagination. So I'm making this up, though. I don't have anything to base it on. I'm just sitting here thinking, if I were in your shoes, how would I feel? Trying to think about if I was in his shoes. But he's got 300,000. dollars a year to live on and travel and that's his only income as long as you stay open if you run the thing in the ground he gets nothing yeah i'm trying not to do that i know i know but

i'm just saying i'm trying to think from his perspective this is like his pension yeah and um i don't that doesn't feel like it's going to break you guys it adds a hundred and fifty thousand to your bottom line, off your bottom line from the 600. So you still make $450, right? Yeah, yes, sir. Okay, all right. Yeah, how does that feel to you? I mean, definitely a different approach

than what I was thinking about. What were you thinking about? No, I was trying to take his numbers that he gave me and try to find the floor, and I was hoping we meet somewhere in the middle, but did you try to make him happy at the same? time. That was my big conundrum. Yeah. Well, I mean, him being happy is his decision. But, Dad, I'm trying to, and I would just be very open and say, I'm trying to balance between my need and my want to honor you

and to make sure you and mom are okay, but also not handcuffed this place on growth and on getting to go on to the next level. And it feels like some of this other tinker toy stuff you've got in there's handcuffs to me. So it feels very clean to just pay you 150 for 10 years or something like that. And then pay you rent on the building for as long as we are in the building. I appreciate it. Just the cleanliness of it. And I don't think, number one, he can't afford to walk away with nothing.

He has any money. I mean, if he has no salary from the business and no rent, he's got no money. and at 56, why would he quit? I'm going to continue to work. Oh, and by the way, I run the business, I'm going to start charging rent to the business and putting that in my pocket since I own the building and it's separate from the business

and get this business used to paying rent. And I'm just going to sit here and cash out $300,000 and stay. That's another option he could do. Because he's retiring pretty early. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I think,

you kind of figure that that way. Because at 66, then, he would only have rent money if you did 10 years, right? Yes, sir. Interesting discussion. I don't know if I'm helpful or not, but I'm just kind of thinking through the numbers with you and looking at the impact on you, the impact on the business, profitability, the impact on your dad, looking at where he's coming from and trying to find that ground. But people who are bound to determined to be unhappy, Sam, are going to be unhappy.

there's not enough money in the world to make those people happy. And so, and if he's kind of doing all this against his will and his wife wants him, your mom wants him to go travel and he wants to keep working, there's not anything you can give him and it's going to be okay. He's going to be pissed no matter what because he's already pissed. But if he's really wanting to do this and he also loves you and he loves the business that he's helped to run third generation now,

then he doesn't need to do something that's going to handcuff the business. or handcuffed the son that he loves. And so that's the balance. So he actually has to honor those things as much as you want to honor him. But the honor is not a dollar amount. The honor is a posture of your heart. And his too, by the way. So I want to honor Ramsey and honor Daniel Ramsey running this place and honor the

entree leadership team doing the entree stuff. I want to give them honor. Then they give me honor. But that's not a dollar amount. It's not like I have to pay Daniel a certain amount for him to feel honored. If he does, that's not real honor. That's just a transaction. And that's what I mean by you can't make somebody happy,

just bound to determine not to be happy. It's not a dollar amount. And, you know, overpaying someone or paying someone something that's ridiculous and him calling that honor, that's not true. That's not truth. So good question. Good discussion, Sam. Thank you for joining us, my man.

Proud of you. Keep it up. It sounds like a great business. 4.2 million. 22 team members, third generation, manufacturing in the United States of America. Salute. Sales gravy understands that managing a sales team is one of the toughest jobs in the business. You're trying to get your team aligned, motivated, and paid in a way that drives real results, not just busy work. But let's be real. If your commission plans aren't working, that mission turns into a daily battle. You're fighting to spark the right behaviors without setting your budget on fire. And instead of leading with confidence, you're stuck second-guessing every comp plan that's rolled out.

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so why are you trying to scale your business without one? Here's the truth. Without a plan, you're reacting. You're not leading. And if you're always reacting, you can't build the momentum. Your business needs to grow. That's why we're giving you Entree Leadership Elites strategic planning template for free. You'll also get the course that shows you how to use it. In under 30 minutes, you'll learn how to define the future you want and build a plan to grow your business so you can finally get out of reactive mode. No more flying by the seat of your pants. just clear, practical steps that take you from putting out fires to actually growing. Get the strategic planning template today at entreleadership.com slash strategy, or click the link in the show notes. Brandon is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hi, Brandon, how are you? I'm doing great.

Thank you so much for taking my call, and thank you for everything that you do. I really appreciate you. Well, thank you, sir. So I'm the owner of a small plumbing company. We've got 11 employees, and we do about 2 million in revenue a year. So I recently had to fire a new employee because he missed four days in four weeks. My question is, do you need any room for... He had different reasons every time, but he was sick.

His daughter was sick. daughter had to get a tooth pulled and daughter was sick again. And they didn't have a wife in the picture. Do what? He doesn't have a wife in the picture there. Okay. So my question is, do you leave any room for grace in situations like that when you have a new hire that misses work that often right after they're hired? Yes and no.

we have to assess what's going on. And so if this guy's a single dad, he's got a little girl that's been sick, that's one thing. The second thing is that there's a pattern. Taking care of your kid, we'll never fire you for taking care of your kid, okay? We just don't do that. And so there's a lot of grace for that. But if there's a pattern that says, quote, under the heading of taking care of your kid, that you're not working at all, then this isn't going to work because we need you here.

And so if this, you know, if you ascertained by looking at the leader, looking at his attitude about it and, and just kind of assessing the situation and you say, well, you know, based on that, it looks like this is going to be the way of life as long as this guy works here, then, yeah, I would have let him go. Because you can't, you know, if it's just going to be the rest of the time he works here, he's going to miss a, day a week, you know? No, that's not going to work for me. So he's going to have to get a different kind of a job because of his child care situation and because this job requires you to be here because we can't do plumbing remote, right? And so, you know, yeah, I would have done that. So anytime

we have a team member come to us and say a personal situation is a strain and are just informing us and letting us know that something's coming, then the first thing I teach entree leaders to do is to assess the scope and the size of the problem. In other words, how much impact is it going to have on them? Okay. A weird example of that is, I remember many years ago, and I wrote about this,

I had a lady walk in my office and tears in her eyes and her lips started quivering as she started talking and tear ran down her cheek, and I said, what's wrong? And she said, my baby's sick. I'm like, oh, no, I'm so sorry. And I said, so what is it? She said, the daycare called, and they're running a fever.

And this is their first week in daycare, and this is my first baby. And I went, oh, yeah, okay. This is a little separation anxiety here. Mom's not, this, this is hard to put the kid in daycare, very hard to do that, especially your first baby and you're taking this little baby over there. And then the first time they call, you're going to run right over there. And so when I'm looking at all that, I kind of smile as the old guy and go, this two shall pass.

You're going to get through this. And, you know, you're going to get used to this. And by the time you've got three or four kids, they call from the daycare, you go, yeah, we'll be there in an hour or two, you know. We'll get around to it. Be there by the time, closing time. But you don't stop, drop everything and run over there like the house is on fire. And so I assess situation.

I decided it's a small thing, so no big deal, right? go take care of it the second one about two days later another lady walks in my office same thing tears in her eyes lips dark's quivering quivering when she said i said what's wrong and tear ran down her cheek and she said my baby's sick and i said oh my gosh and i'm thinking about the other one kind of rolling my eyes but i didn't and i said what's wrong and she said got cancer oh whole different thing right right yeah yeah and so I said, you know, I called my HR director in. I called her leader in.

She was in accounting at the time. And I said, her baby's got cancer. As a team, as a family, we're all getting ready to fight leukemia and beat it. Ready here. Ready set go. And those people didn't mow their grass all that summer. Our team did. Those people didn't cook a meal all that summer.

Our team did. And she didn't work because you can't do accounting while your kids got chemo. Your brain doesn't work when you're doing that. So she got the whole summer off with pay because that's what I would want somebody to do for my kid if my grandkid had leukemia, right? And so we treat people like we won't be treated. But that's a lady that had been with us at that time for four or five years, had not missed a day. This was an extreme situation. And so, you know, and she still works here, by the way.

I've been here 20 years. And if you say something bad about Dave Ramsey, she'll kill you. so because we were loyal to her and she's loyal to us and so assess the size of the problem and then you can determine whether your company is of size and you can afford the absence and afford to extend the grace or not you got 10 people if one of them's not there you have a 10 percent drop in production minimum. Right. Maybe a 40 percent drop or a 30 percent drop, depending on how many people you got in the

field. That's, you don't really have the margin to extend extreme grace. And a day a week, that's pretty extreme. So I would have fired the guy, too, in your situation, not because I'm a big old meanie, but because his needs in his life right now do not connect with what we, with the needs we have as a company to be able to have him on staff. And so you were not heartless, I hope, but I would not consider you heartless for having done that act. I would have probably done the exact same thing. But what I'm saying about all that whole long, drawn-out story is

is that assess the size of the need and then say, can our company, can our situation, how much of this can we accept? And is their request reasonable? Or do they have a, you know, a weird thing going on. And so, you know, like we had a lady that worked here for about 90 days, and then she was having anxiety, and her request was to work from home for the rest of her career. Well, we work at work, so that doesn't work out. So you're going to have to solve your anxiety some other way.

And that's not heartless. That's more like your situation, Brandon, where we assess the size and scope of the need, and how does it compare or connect with our needs here and with our ability to extend grace? And we didn't have the ability to extend that kind of grace because it changes the whole culture of our organization if we start anybody who's having a bad day with anxiety goes home. That doesn't work because we all have anxiety all day long. It's part of what we do.

Right. Yeah. Suck it up, Buttercup. And so, but yeah, that's, is that making any sense at all? yes absolutely if you do decide to extend grace how do you communicate that with the rest of your team that is seeing that um if it's something that's not shaming we tell them so-and-so so-and-so's kids got cancer we're all praying and they're not going to be here for 90 days because we're going to chemo and we're paying them and they're on our team and we love them and you should be glad we do

stuff like that because it could be you next. And the team does, the team does it, the team, and they like that. But if you, if they think that we're just being weak leaders or something, or coward to cowardly to confront misbehavior,

then that's sanctioned incompetence. And that's bad. You don't want the team feeling that. And if they don't know what's going on, they could think it's sanctioned incompetence. So, you know, if you say,

so-and-so's kids sick, If I've got a team member who's mad because they're not at work because they're kids sick, that team member's in trouble. You know, we want good human beings working here. And childhood illness is something anybody's ever had a kid. It takes your breath away. So even if you hadn't had a kid, you know, so all that.

So, yeah, it's a, I communicated. But if it's something shaming, if they're having to go in for, I don't know, I've got two people right now that have maybe vague psychological things going on. I'll just leave it at that and are doing some on sites. They're out of there. They're not in the office and they're getting help on site somewhere. That's about as much they want to say. And that's exactly what I would say to the team too because the team listens to this.

But anyway, but I mean, why would I? I'm not going to shame someone this. trying to get help in that. That's not valuable. We just said so-and-so's working on some stuff. They're not here. And everybody just goes, okay, we trust the team because when they, when we trust leadership because they tell us what's going on unless it's something that is harmful to the person. And then it's the only time they don't. And so, you know, just lots and lots and lots of grace on that as well. So Brandon, I'm proud of you. You're asking the right kind of questions. You're why working for a small business is the best place to work in America because you

actually care. You know how much analysis or heartache corporate America would have over that situation? Zero! Negative two! I love entrepreneurs. Don't forget, guys, I started my company on a card table myself. So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention your customers. And when you're the one signing the paychecks, you can't afford to fly blind. But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was with. wasting time with spreadsheets that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other. I finally told my team, just fix it. And they did. We got NetSuite. That was years ago, and we've never looked back. See, NetSuite isn't just for tech giants. It's built for growing businesses

like yours. Over 43,000 businesses already run on NetSuite, including a lot that started just like you. And now with built-in AI, NetSuite is helping them even more. It's one system connected to every part of your business for real-time insights, not guesswork. NetSuite AI flags inventory issues, cash flow risks, even supplier delays before they become problems. So you can trust the data, stop wasting time, and make the right decisions faster. Take a free product tour today at NetSuite.com slash Ramsey. That's net suite.com slash Ramsey. Kaden is with us in Charleston, West Virginia.

Hi, Kaden. How are you? Doing good, doing good. How can we help? Well, Dave, I've got, I'm working a small college athletic department, and we're kind of facing a big decision coming up here that's me on the leadership team feels is really necessary, but I know just for a fact on the feelers I'd put. doubt it's going to be really unpopular with our staff.

So I'm looking for guidance on how to navigate that. Okay. Well, I would pick up Pat Lynch-onis book, The Ideal Team Player, because he says people need to be hungry, humble, and smart. And there's one of these players missing one of these things that is popular with the staff, and they're called the lovable slacker. okay they are humble and they're smart with people but they're not hungry and the staff always loves

this person but they're freaking incompetent they don't get their work done they got no drive they don't put the ball in the end zone to use your world right and so if you don't do that you can't hang out and when you fire as a leader when you fire the lovable slacker you feel like that they are loved by the staff because the lovable slacker goes around and spends a lot of time at everybody's desk being lovable instead of getting their work done. And so they're lovable. But people also know that they don't get their work done. And so you might find something like that to be the dynamic.

Like I think this is going to be unpopular with because they like this person, but I'm having to let this person go because. they're not getting the job done. Is that, is that, am I reading the mail a little bit? Um, a little bit.

Um, it's kind of the right direction. Basically the, kind of get more context. The, um, decision we're looking at is, the college athletics,

we're working within organizations. Um, we'd be, I feel, and the leadership team feels that, you know, a hard right turn into a different organization and a transition might be beneficial in the long term.

Um, the staff is going to see that transition in the short term. as painful and as somewhat a step down for them career-wise, if that makes sense. Oh, okay. So you're going to go to a, like, I don't even know what you're talking about, but I'm going to try to guess and say something. It's not, this is not it, I'm sure, because of where you are, but something like we're going to move from the SEC to the ACC to the ACC.

Yeah, yeah, something close to that. Which in football would be a step down. Right, yeah, yeah. Okay. And really this particular step, you know, I've been a lot of research on it. I feel like it would be more of a lateral step. But it's like the coach is not going to be as revered because they might be looked at as D2 instead of D1. Right.

Yeah. Right. Okay. That's going to be their perception. Right. Because they're just going to see that distinction. and it's going to hurt their egos a little bit. Yeah.

I don't know if this will work. I'm making it up on the spot because that's what we do here. It occurs to me, there's a story in the Bible, and I watched a guy do this in a leadership conference one time, and I've used it a lot, and it's worked well for me, about Nehemiah. He was sent, he was allowed by the king to go back to Jerusalem. The walls had been torn down,

and so Jerusalem was bare and was. was, you know, being raided by enemies because they had no walls, and Jerusalem was being plundered because they had no walls, and Jerusalem had all these problems because they had no walls. And so Nehemiah was sent back to Jerusalem with the job, with the mandate, with the certification from the king to allow him to rebuild the walls. And instead of just coming back and blowing trumpets and announcing, which is what you're talking about, we're going to change. We're going to build the walls. Instead, he kind of went on a lot. listening to her and went around and said talk to people he talked to the aristocrats he talked to

the soldiers he talked to the merchants and he goes hey have you all noticed that the walls are down and they said yeah the walls are down in other words he presented the problem and he did this he circled back a couple times to where finally they started saying hey have you noticed that the walls are down there's now saying it to him because you're seeing problems that your team that's going to be disillusioned by this move are not seeing. And you're solutioning for problems that they don't believe are there or they don't know are there. So what if you started telling them, here's a problem. I see a problem.

And don't present a solution. Just I see a problem. You know, we've got this problem because we're in this conference. This is a, we have this problem. And do that with several coaches, do that with several staff, the ones you're worried about being disillusion. illusioned by the move. And, you know, if you have the luxury of time, do it two or three times and try to get them to come to you and say, hey, have you noticed we have this problem because we're not in that conference or because we're in this conference or whatever it is. And if you can

get them to recognize and be problem aware, then you can start to say, you know, I think as the leader, I've got to help you all solve this problem. I think we've got to rebuild the walls. And And then Nehemiah started rebuilding the walls, and he had everybody's buy-in because they had become problem-aware, and they bought into the solution. But if he had just come in and announced, we're building the walls, they were going, why? We don't care about the walls. They're not problem-aware. And if you announce this, they're not problem-aware. It occurs to me.

And so even if you lose the morale of a couple of them over time, I still am going to make them through some. methodology problem aware. Gotcha. So that then when it does come, they at least know. And also while I'm doing that somewhere in the conversation going, you know, if we changed, that probably be like a blow to your reputation because you'd be a coach in this conference to that conference and that might feel funny to you and just let them know they're seen. Yeah.

I hadn't thought about that part. It takes some of the air out of it if they know they've been heard and they know they've been seen. and it's still going to be an ouchy and you still might actually completely lose one of them because when you turn the car hard right sometimes the centrifugal force turns throws people out of the car right they can't hang on to the change no matter what you do but if you can make them problem aware

go on a listening to her try to get them to participate in the solution of the problem you might actually have one of the ones you're the most worried about come to you and suggest your change conferences if you pull this off with finesse and perfectly. I don't know. Yeah, it's definitely, definitely good to hear. It's definitely here outside perspective on it.

The disclaimer is none of this ever works perfect. Yeah. Because I don't always do it perfect, and the person on the other end receiving it is like, I don't give a crap. I like where we are. I like my poop. I'm going to sit in it, just like a toddler, right? Right.

And they'll just sit there in the problem, you know? I know it stinks, but it's mine. You know, and it's like, yeah, sometimes people do that, and there's nothing you can do to fix that. That's just a toddler. And, you know, that goes with it. So you're a great leader to be asking this kind of question, Caden, and, you know, and then still have the courage to square your shoulders, stiffen your backbone, and make the call, because that's what good leaders do, even if people don't understand. But I'm going to do everything I can to do a listening tour. a problem awareness discussion and involvement by asking questions and get them to recognize

and see what I'm seeing. So at least they go, yeah, he kind of telegraphed that. I knew he was going to throw the pass over there. I knew he was going to do this. But it wasn't like, what the crap? What is, what is Caden doing? You know, it takes the shock and all out of it, which is what you want to do. Let the air out of that.

So very cool, man. you're a good man, your good leader. Thank you for calling in. I'm honored to have you in our entree leadership audience. You wouldn't build a house without a blueprint, so why are you trying to scale your business without one? Here's the truth. Without a plan, you're just reacting, not leading. And if you're always reacting, you can't build the momentum your business needs to grow. That's why we're giving you Entree Leadership Elites strategic planning template for free. This is the same template my team uses every year to plan for the next 12 months of growth. And you'll also get the course that shows you how to use it.

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Works for me, guys. We appreciate you guys hanging out with us here. Andrew's in Anchorage, Alaska. Hi, Andrew. What's up? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. My honor, sir.

How can I help? I'm an owner of a small aircraft maintenance business. My revenue last year was 550K. I have one mechanic who works for me, and my wife does the accounting part-time. I have no desire to grow the business, but I have more work than I can do. I have raised my hourly rate as high as I feel fair. I hate saying no to people who need work done. My question is, is it a good idea to hire another employee.

If I like working but don't enjoy training or overseeing, and I'm pretty much maxed out in my, what I got going on right now with my hours I work. Hmm Choose your pain, brother Okay Which one you want to do You didn't say you liked either one of them Right

Well I guess I'm trying to figure out Like I guess overseeing the guy that I have now It took me You know a couple years to get them Trained fairly well But he still needs some help But I'm just not sure

Is it okay to keep your business you know, where it is, or is it better to grow it, I guess? Do you have to grow it, I guess, is another question, I guess? You don't have to grow it at light speed, but there needs to be some sense of growth because nothing is stagnant. Okay. It's either growing or it's dying. And sometimes you don't see the deterioration because it's internal.

And sometimes you don't see the growth because it's so gradual. but I'm going to lean in enough that I create some kind of upward momentum to keep away the deterioration, right? And so, you know, I don't know that necessarily hiring another mechanic is the way to grow, the only way to grow for you. I don't know how you grow, but it's, you know, it occurs to me that you're pretty, vulnerable today if he just decided that he was moving to Omaha, your current mechanic, you're screwed. Yeah, yeah, I definitely have more work than I can keep up with my own. Oh, already, already, you know, you already are working more hours than you want to.

And so having two of them creates a more sustainable, peaceful, situation. And so it's almost as if you could say in order to have a more stable platform to run this thing from, meaning that I, you know, I don't lose the only means of production other than me. I'm going to put on another one for that reason alone. And then also we're going to make more money. The downside is my trade-off is for more stability I'm having to do something I'm not that fond of, which is training up another dude. Yep. Okay, I guess I didn't quite look at it like that. So that makes sense. Like if I hire another guy, like what, what do you typically see for your ROI on an employee? Like, what should I be thinking about there? You guys billed by the hour, don't you?

Yep. Yep. So you're billing the other guy out for more than he costs. Yep. Same deal. Okay. I'm going to bill him out at the same rate. And, you know, he may not be as efficient. It may take a year for him to do the repair and the customer interaction and whatever else the way you would.

You may have to train him not on, you may have to train him a little bit on actually being an aircraft mechanic. you may have to train him also on how to do it your way. Yep. Like we have people come in here that know how to do the thing, but we want them to do the thing the Ramsey way. That makes sense? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And that is bothersome,

but you just got to give yourself a little emotional margin and say, okay, the tradeoff is, I'm going to be a little bit frustrated with catching this guy up, but the return is that I'm not as vulnerable to one of them walking in and quitting or walking in and demanding double pay or some crap, which you'd have to fire the guy then, right? Yeah, yep, yep. And so then you'd be back to square one and messed up again.

So, yeah, I think I'm going to look at doing it and or it might be you do it after you raise prices or before you raise prices again. And I mean, I don't, a fair price is what you charge. charge and someone else will pay. Yep. That's a fair price. I agree. As long as you didn't lie to them, you said, this is so much, you know, an hour is what we charge.

And if you want to do your work somewhere else, you might get it cheaper. But this is who we are, and we do excellent work, and we're going to be on time, and your aircraft's going to be back up and serviceable again and back in the air, airworthy again. and this is what we do, and it's who we are, and, you know, we don't, we're not trying to be the cheapest. And they say, well, that's too high. You go, I know, but it's, you know, I've got to hire mechanics. I've got to keep inventory on here. My wife does the books.

We're not a big operation. This is who we are. And some customers may elect to move on, and others, but every other customer that stays is going to be a more profitable customer, and you're going to be glad that you have them. And again, you mentioned earlier you'd raised your prices and that had lowered some of your volume. I would do that again is what I'm saying, and I would look at hiring someone.

But gradually, you don't have to like do all of this in the next four days. There's nothing on fire here. But all we're saying is you're gently taking off. You're gently moving towards growth rather than gently deteriorating. Okay. Okay, that's some really good advice. That makes a lot of sense. So gentle that 10 years from now it may look like you haven't moved much.

Right. That's okay. But you know you have, and you know you're leaning in. Your weight is on that right foot. You know, your weight is on that lean forward foot. And that's the kind of thing. But it is not required that you have 25 employees to call yourself successful from one. No, or to call yourself a good business person.

No, you've defined what you want your business to look like. It's supposed to bring you joy and serve your customers. And so I'm good once it does that. And I like your attitude about it a lot. So very good. Very cool call, Andrew. And Anchorage, Alaska, by the way, last time I was up in Alaska, they told me this interesting stat. Andrew's in the right business.

More people have pilots license than driver's license. Because you can't get anywhere. by car. And so they jump in a little plane of some kind and go everywhere. And I did it. I jumped in a little plane did all kinds of stuff when I was up there. Not flying myself, but I mean, I was in the passenger seat. But everybody's got a dadgum plane.

It's crazy. And so he's in the right business. It's amazing. So very, very cool. All right, folks, that about wraps it up. 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. Thank you for joining us on Entree Leadership.