EntreLeadership - My Salary Sucks Because of My Business Partner

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Today, we’ll hear about:  A CEO struggling to pay himself while buying out his partner  A business owner unsure how to move from wrench turner to leader  A woman wanting to incorporate faith into her business but not be canceled   A small business losing potential customers because they don't want to grow    Next Steps  📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://bit.ly/3HUgAgi    👣 Find out what stage of business you’re in: https://ter.li/axd39b  ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/y8qdo7     🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/fcazl2     🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/wcjhpu     ☎️ Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: https://ter.li/ycznhl    💵 Learn more about SmartDollar: https://ter.li/4imot0    🏅 Help us make the show better! Please fill out this quick survey form: https://ramsey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_01hjJ6UN8mnQPNI       Offers From Today's Sponsors  NetSuite: https://ter.li/x1t20q   BELAY: https://ter.li/yohiu6  Payority: https://ter.li/fh2oau  Trainual: https://ter.li/a8zexl  Found: https://ter.li/ggwmrv    Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show    🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💰 George Kamel  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  💼 The Ken Coleman Show    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy  https://www.ramseysolutions.com/compa…  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's 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. If you're a small business person, I'm one of you. I've done about every stupid thing you can do. I've got a Ph.D. and D.U.M.B. And yet, I've stumbled around and managed to grow a $300 million business. So thanks for hanging out with us.

We're glad you're here. You can send us your questions if you want to participate in the program by going to Entreeleadership.com slash ask. Or you can just call me at 844-944-1070. We'll put you on there here. We'll talk. 844-9-4-1070. Ryan is in Cedar Rapids. Hi, Ryan.

Thank you, Dave. I am the managing partner of a franchise restaurant. I've got seven locations and we've got a top line revenue of about 8.6 million. Good for you. On base to do about $9 million this year. Very cool. Doing things right, I guess. Yeah, amen.

Congratulations. Yeah, thank you very much. The question I have is, so my current managing, co-managing partner and I started buying out our primary partner back in start of 2020. and we have grown the business. At the end of 22, we were at just a little over $7 million. Obviously, we grew about 35% in 23 and on pace to grow another 3% to 5% this year. And so taking on three additional locations, more revenue, but we've kept the exact same salary.

And I'm just curious how we should approach the partner that I originally started with about, you know, maybe a bump in pay, and what's a fair salary? Okay. So you and there's three of you that are partners, and two of you are buying out the other guys. Is that right? That's correct, yep. And how much before he's bought out?

How much do you like? He owns 10% left of the company. And when will you be done paying him out? In 27. Okay. What's the 10%? What's the number? What's the cost to buy him out?

So we actually bought the last, about 35%, so he'll still own 10% at the end of this. But at 1.2 million we paid for 30, basically 35% of the company. What do you owe him today? Today I owe him, the two of us still owe him just about 800,000. Okay. All right. And does he draw a salary or he just gets his percentage of the profits? He still does a little back office bookwork where he gets a small salary, you know, just like 30,000. So it's not a big deal. But he still, you know, wakes up and he still likes to have his pulse on it,

but is also in that retirement mode where he would probably like to step away as much as possible. Okay. All right. And, well, if I were in your other partner, not the guy that's being bought out, but you, the two that are going to end up owning it, if I were in your all shoes, I would take the lowest possible, well, the salary, he's still getting percentage. Yeah. So what are you all, you're using your personal incomes to buy him out?

That's right. And the profit that you get as well. Okay. Correct. Yep. Okay. And so what percentage, when it's all done, he's going to own 10 and you guys are going to own 45 each? As a matter of fact, that's what you own now, but you're paying, but you're buying it.

You owe him a debt against that. Correct, exactly. Okay. So it's. I'm thinking through the math riddle a little bit because normally what I would do is very simple. If you were 100% owner, I would tell you to take the least out of it you could take so that you had the most profit to throw at the debt. But that doesn't work because that profit he's getting 10% of, and so that screws up that math. Correct. I don't want to do that. Okay. So you guys do need to take the

most out that you can take out in salary, and then use your profit that you get from your 45% and any of your salary that the two of you can scrape together and knock that 800 out sooner rather than later. Right. And that's been our goal. Yeah, quicker the quicker than 27 is I want to do it, you know, in like 25 or something. But anyway, all right. So, well, I think, I think the agreement that's fair is for you and the other managing partner that own 45 each to be paid for, to be paid market rate for the job that you do. Your payment for being a partner is profit. Your payment for being a partner is profit. your payment for managing is manager's income. And so you guys are running, how many restaurants?

Seven. Okay. And the two of you run, what is your title? So I'm managing partners. So I'm, you know, me and my other guy's title. Kind of managing. I own one more percent than him. So in technicality, I'm always going to be the guy that has one more percent.

So you got 46 and he has 44. 44. Yep, yep. And so when I started this with the partner that we're buying out, I started this with him in 2013. All right. But your title is managing partner, and the other guy's title is what? He would basically be our director of operations. Okay, so what does managing partner function as? CEO. CEO. Yeah. Okay, so what does a CEO of a seven restaurant group make if you were to hire one? Well, and that's, you know, we've kind of mom and popped it for so long a day.

No, I mean, that's a comp study. That's not a big deal. You got to find out, find some of the restaurant groups that have, you know, that have five or ten restaurants and what's their CEO make? Unless they're, you know, what's the, what's the market rate to hire a CEO? Let's say you guys all stepped back and were absentee owners and you hired a CEO to come in and do what you do, then you should make that. And you hired a C.O., a chief operations officer to do,

your other guy does, he should be making that. Sure. That's market rate. And then the profit that is produced goes to the owners after the market rate has been paid to the workers. And that's, and Dave, that's where we, we as the two managing guys feel that we should be at. You know, our situation is it. Well, he doesn't have a choice. He's a minority owner.

You're going to tell him what he's like. No, I know that. I know. But it's like it's not family, but it feels like family. You know, he's one of my own daughters. Well, I'll be kind to him, but this is not an unfair thing. You're not taking advantage of him. You're saying the CEO of a seven-person restaurant group should make X,

and here's a comp study that shows that. Here's five other people that do the same thing. Here's what the average. Here's what they make. Here's the range. Here's the average. Here's the median. And based on that, if we were hiring my replacement, this is what it would cost.

And so that's what I'm going to make. Okay. And this is the C-O. And this is what a C-O of a seven-person restaurant group makes. And we've done a study on that. He's an operations guy, right? He's the chief operating officer. And that's a fair rate for an $8 million business.

And, you know, and it's established, in fact, it's not something you just dreamed up and I think I'm worth more. That's not, they didn't do with that. It's got to do with their, here's what the stinking job pay. and we as the majority owners are going to pay all of our employees market rate, and that includes me. Yeah. That's fair. Okay. I mean, you could be nice about how you explain it, but we're doing this.

And, you know, it's not dishonoring to the guy who was at the party first with you. Yeah. If he thinks he's getting screwed by paying you market rate, he's got a problem. And I think, Dave, the only catch that we have is, is he, I feel he underpaid himself for the nine years he was in the CEO position. I didn't cause that. No, I didn't either. But that was his decision, right? I know.

If I'm the owner, 100%, as I described earlier, I might underpay myself so that I can throw profits at this debt and clean it up. I might underpay myself in a startup mode just to get the stinking thing off. the ground and get some retained earnings built. But now we're making $9 million top line. We've got seven restaurants and, you know, we're running a different kind of operation than we were when we shoestring this thing. Right. Exactly. Different deal. So, I mean, I'm not dishonoring his past. He paid a price to get here. And by the way, he got a million bucks for his share, million two, right? And then, and he still owns 10% of a going concern that's doing really well. I mean, he has, you. You

he's not, nobody screwed this guy. And, you know, and you don't get to say, well, I never made any money, so you can't make any money. That's, that's not, it's not logical. It's just what you do, it's what you did at that season of the business, this is what we're going to do this season of the business. And you're not, you're not doing anything around. Now, if you want to go in and pay yourself double

because you're the owner and screw your other partners by taking a bunch of the profits, well, that would be unethical. And I'd tell you not to do that, but I'm saying market rate on a comp study because if you guys step back, that's what it would cost to run this business if you hired an outside CEO-O-O-C-O. That's the way this works.

So good question, Ryan. Sounds like you've got a great thing going there. And you're a good man. You care about the guy. You care about taking care of him. And I want to be gentle with the conversation. But I'm just walking down the facts with you here on the air. This is the entree literally.

Leadership Podcast. If I ask you what your profits and losses were this week, would you know? Hard truth is if you don't stay on top of your numbers, your business is going to fail. Bible says to be diligent to know the state of your flocks and herds. You cannot out-earn disorganization or the need to handle your finances. But you can use simple practices and wise decision-making to have a successful growing business. You don't even have to become a money expert to do it. The Entree Leaders Guide to Business Finances, we're going to teach you the profit principles

and the key practices we used to grow Ramsey Solutions over the last 30 years. It's a free guide. That's a financial principle right there. It'll simplify the foundational components of managing your revs and your expenses, thereby your profits, and you can build your business and stand on some solid ground, right? Hey, go to Entreeleadership.com slash finances. download the free guide, the entree leaders guide to business finances. Entreeleadership.com slash finances.

Devin is in Marion, Indiana. Hi, Devin. Welcome to the Entree podcast. Hi, Dave. Honored to be here. Thanks for having me. How are you today? Better than I deserve.

What's up in your world? Oh, so I am an owner of a small mobile truck repair company with four employees. We started in March of 2022 and have since grown myself and two other technicians generating approximately $1.2 million in total annual revenue. Way to go, man. Thank you. So essentially after spending the last decade as a technician myself with clear guidelines to judge my productivity, I'm struggling to feel productive as I transition into more of a leadership role and developer of the business and spending less time with a wrench in my hands.

So my question for you would be, what advice would you give to a person in my position? and what does this process look like as we continue to grow? Because it's difficult for me to feel productive as I step further into like a leadership role from a lifetime as a technician. Well, I think the difference is you're going from working in the business to working on the business. Right. Michael Gerber talks about that in the famous book, E-myth. If you've not read that little book, you ought to pick it up and read it.

E-hy-myth myth. Okay. and the whole concept is that you're moving from treadmill operator to Pathfinder. You're moving up the stages of business when you do this. Right now, too much of the revenue is produced by your hand on a wrench, and you're wanting to step away from that and actually own a business that while your own vacation makes money. Right. And that's the beauty of business is that you can move the production all,

to someone else. If the revenue is all on the one guy or gal, then you're definitely on that treadmill. If you get off the treadmill, he quits moving. And, you know, you're, you go on vacation, you're unemployed. You go on the hospital, you're unemployed, you know. And so you're building a real business when you move from treadmill operator to Pathfinder, and that means that you've got to line up the delegation to these other guys. And so now you have a new job. your new job is business owner and leader. What is the job description then of this business owner or leader? And if you fulfill that job description,

you, by definition, would be productive. If you're turning a wrench and you're turning the wrench, you're by definition productive, okay? So if you're doing that, so, you know, I'm productive when I'm meeting with someone that causes things to happen in this company. that's leadership. I'm productive as a leader when I take problems and blockers out of the way of my folks so they can get their work done,

serving the team by knocking down any obstacles that are in their way. My job is to make the path as smooth as possible and or give them the tools to smooth the road out, right? And so that's your job is to, is to what, handle marketing. handle customers, handle accounting to make sure that bills are paid and that revenue is collected and that money is set aside for new tools and truck purchases. But as you grow, you're going to need that. That's retained earnings. Your job is to manage the team and set the tone and the work ethic and follow up and make sure they're doing what they're supposed to be doing. Spot checking. Don't expect what you don't inspect. So if you're doing all of those things, if you're managing the

accounting, you're managing getting new business in with marketing, you're managing the customers, which is the relationships, you're following up, making sure quality is there, you're setting the money aside for growth, and you're making sure the bills are paid and doing all the proper accounting methods and getting all that stuff, making sure someone's doing all that, then you are the orchestra director. You don't play an instrument, but you cause the whole stinking thing to happen. Yeah, right. You know, and the thing about that is you remember that when you're directing the orchestra, your back is to the crowd.

You're facing the team. Gotcha. And so your job is serving that team and making sure that the drummer's drumming and the buglers bugling and so forth or however that works. This metaphor is falling apart before my eyes. But yeah. Yeah, I've got you. I guess my biggest concern is that I just would like to,

help to maintain the margins that have, you know, allowed us to attract and retain the top talent that has gotten us to where we are. And I'm worried that by spending less time directly generating revenue, doing the work hands-on, that, you know, those margins might slip and we may not be able to continue to do. What were you paying yourself when you were doing that? Yes, yes. If you were paying yourself, then, and you're paying someone else what you were paying them as long as they're productive, your margins won't slip mathematically. The only way your margins would slip is if you actually didn't have the margin because you weren't paying yourself and you thought that was margin. And that happens a lot at the treadmill stage.

Or, and it doesn't sound like you were doing that, or you're worried that productivity's going to slip. And that is your job, is to make sure it doesn't. And that's setting culture in place. and, you know, what is it? At Ramsey, we talk a lot about what it means to be a we. We at Ramsey do this. And if you want to be a we, you're going to do that. If you don't want to do that, that's okay. But this is what we do.

Gotcha, yeah. We take care of the customer. We smile. We are kind. We stand on principle. We fight for the little guy. That's who we are. We work our butts off.

and we leave at 5 o'clock and go home and turn off our computer. We don't overwork people. We, this is who we are. If you want to be a we, that's how you do it. In your case, you're saying, hey, we take care of the customer. We go in there. We don't leave a greasy mess on their car. It's clean when you leave.

And a clear explanation to the customers given of what the work that was done, what they were charged for, and exactly why they were charged. There's no confusion. High levels of communication. high levels of quality, speed, we do it fast. We're on site when we say we're going to be on site. That's what we do. And if you have someone that doesn't do that, then they can't be a we.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I think you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, that's the thing. And so the way you maintain those margins is high customer relations and high productivity, meaning that the guys who are supposed to be working are actually freaking working. That's, you know, that's it. I mean, it's not any harder than that.

You don't, you can't, you know, you're not laying under a tree in the parking lot while you're put people over there working on that lady's car. I mean, she, and then go home, how was your day? Oh, it was really rough. I had to take two naps. You know, I mean, no, that, that would get your butt fired right there. And so that, that's how, you know, that, but that's the stuff you got to watch. And that's where your productivity will go and your margins will go.

And you'll have pissed off customers and you'll lose them too. Because they don't like. it when the guy that you sit out there to work doesn't work. That's how the consumer is. We just, we think that they ought to do like what they're supposed to do. Hey, man, sounds like a cool business. I like what you're doing and you are doing the right thing to move up that next step from treadmill to Pathfinder. Very, very well done. I'm proud of you. Keep it up, Devin. Call me anytime, man. Love to participate in your success. I'm proud for you. This is the Ontario Leadership podcast. Welcome back. Shelley from Dallas.

has a video submission of a question. Shelly's and Maripa. My business is called J.C. Burger Bar, and we're actually here from Dallas. We have about 12 team members, and right now we're at 700,000. Last year, we were 700,000. How do we put our personal mission, which is to grow God's kingdom into making sure that it doesn't offend anyone in a way? I don't know how to put our personal faith into our business. I feel like we always have a lot of red tape, and I don't know how that could be communicated

and not as being canceled. And I know he does it, but I don't know. He does it so well. Thank you. Well, I think the key for most people, I mean, number one, if you walk around and you breathe, some moron is going to be offended. So just, you know, count on that, just by walking around and breathing. So you don't have to enter politics or religious.

to piss people off. You can do it without that. So if you throw that in there, you can really get them going. But so just accept the fact that I'm, what I did is I accept the fact, I'm going to be me. And I'm still legally,

morally, and culturally allowed to be me. Then as a customer or a person in the marketplace, a vendor, you have the right to not, do business with me because you don't want to be, you don't like who I am. You have that right.

And some people choose that. I'd never do better than that day, Ramsey. He gets the Bible out. Okay. You can because I'm going to get it out. That's part of it. And I get it. I'm sorry. I wish you wouldn't. I wish you wouldn't be that way, but apparently your mama didn't raise you right. So, you know, there we go. And so I'm going to be me. Now, and I'm a person. of faith, and I can talk about the fact that I'm a person of faith, and I can do that without making you do anything. Now, if you're an immature person and you want to be offended by the fact that I have a personal faith in Jesus, and if you want to be mad about that, then that's not my problem. That's your problem. And where people mess up on this is they feel like that they have to

go tell other people what to do. And so what we have not done here is we've not said, you're required to be a person of faith, or we won't help you with your business, or we won't help you with your money. No, we'll help you, we help anybody. We love everybody. We're not mad about it.

But you don't get to tell me who I am, and I'm not going to tell you who you are. Now, if you ask me about my faith, I'll tell you about it, if you ask me about, you know, about becoming a person of faith, I can tell you about that with great joy. I would be happy to do that. But I'm not going to, I don't get on the air and say, you must do this. I just say who I am. And so you're running a burger joint with, what, 12 team members, the 700K, that's awesome. And you go to the 12 team members and to the customers, you just go,

the people that own that over there are people of faith. They're people of the book. and that's who they are and that's okay. And to me, that's like going, you know, that Taiwanese family over there owns the Taiwanese owns great Thai food restaurant. Well, that's no shock, right? That's cool. I'm not going to be mad at them about that.

I'm not a racist nut. And I don't get to tell them to not be Taiwanese. You know, I don't get to tell them that. That's their choice. They get to do that. Well, when their choice, they were born there. But I mean, but you see my point. I mean, or if a Jewish family owns this or a Muslim family owns that, that's fine.

And they loudly state that that's who they are. That's fine. Then I, if I want to be angry at their religion or at their choice of faith and choose not to do business with them because of that, that's my problem, not theirs. And so that's where cancel culture falls really short. is it's so hypocritical that it's intolerant and its attempt at tolerance. It's so bass-acquards, you know, and it's just, so, so, so, yeah, my suggestion, you're asking me how to integrate faith into the workplace is be who you are and don't try to make anybody else be something that they're not. you present who you are and if that is appealing to someone they'll ask you about your faith

and then you can talk to them about it but i don't have to preach sermons at all my customers and tell them though they're going to hell uh or or all my employees for that matter i'm just going to live my deal and that's either okay with you or it's not and i can't control that part because i'm not going to stop being me to make you happy which is what a lot of corporate America has done. They're trying to make everybody happy. And when you try to make the masses happy, you'll find that the M is silent.

So it's a problem. And you just can't, you can't do it. And so better be who you is. And be kind and gentle and loving and direct and tell the truth and be strong and smart and valuable and all of those things. and that's a good witness to your faith then. But the idea that you get up in somebody else's face with your finger

or start hitting them over the head with your Bible, well, that's highly unappealing. It's ineffective as a method of spreading your faith, but it's also unappealing, and that will get people upset instantly. So I don't tell you what you have to do. I'm just telling you what I'm doing. And that's the big difference. I think that's how we've gotten away with because we didn't get away with it.

It's how we've done it. And it's pretty apparent to all of our vendors, customers, and team members who we are. They all know it. And then they get to choose. And I'm not making any decisions based on the fear that somebody might not like me. that one went away a long time ago. So you just be who you are. And that's going to be appealing to some and unappealing to others, and life goes on.

The worst thing you can do is try to be everything to everybody, and that absolutely does not work. It's a cool question. Thank you for bringing that to us on video. We appreciate it. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us. We're glad you're here. If you like what you're hearing, help us spread the word.

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So if you don't tell people about us, we're probably going to go away, which probably means we should. So please spread the word. Oh, those five-star reviews, they're nice too. Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate that.

And if you don't like the show, just go listen to something else. But you don't have to leave a negative review. dumb. Well, I guess you could, but it's dumb. Spend your energy doing something good. Jake's with us. Jake is in Pittsburgh. Hi, Jake. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? So I'm a receptionist at a family-owned collision repair business, so we fix cars here. We have about 10 employees and do about 2 million revenue. So my question is, how can I better

manage our customer expectations. We turn down a lot of walking customers, and we have many customers who are also frustrated and don't want to wait for appointments. Okay. So they call you on the phone. You're the receptionist. Right.

And they say, my car is dinged up. I want to come and get an estimate for it to be repaired. Right. and you tell them what? So I tell them we generally schedule about two weeks out just to look at their car and then I let them know about six weeks until we actually bring in their cars for repairs. Why are you so backed up? Unfortunately, I guess word of mouth just got the better of us.

We've been open for 60 years now, so we have a lot of great customers, a lot of word of mouth. and, you know, we really don't want to get any bigger as a business, so we're not hiring any more people to fix cars at the moment. So we've grown as big as we're going to on that end. So I'm just trying to figure out a way to manage people on the end from, you know, not getting upset with us when I tell them, you know, I want to be up front with people and tell them, you know, if you told me that I'd go somewhere else.

Yeah. I'm not waiting two weeks for you to look at my car and six weeks for you to start working on it. It's broken. Yeah. I was in a car wreck. It needs to be repaired. Some of these people don't, some of these people don't,

I mean, their rental car is not going to last that long. It's true. Yeah. I think you have a business problem. I don't think you have an expectations problem. Yeah. Well,

unfortunately, in our industry, they'll call around to other shops, too, and they're just as long as we are, unfortunately. No, no, I put a car in the other day and had it repaired.

I didn't go through any of that. And it wasn't because of Dave Rams, I mean, my wife dinged up the Mercedes. We put it in, and they had to put a fender on it and paint it. And I didn't wait two weeks for somebody to look at it, nor did I wait six weeks for them to start the work, not even close. Yeah. So I don't think that's right.

But I could be wrong. I mean, I wasn't my personal experience anyway. Here's the problem you got. Number one, I think you just got to tell them the truth. If this is what y'all are going to do, it's what you're going to do. And just tell them the truth. You say, two weeks, well, that's not okay. I know, but it's all I can do.

I'm sorry. That's what our owners and our staffing right now dictates that we cannot get to you for two weeks. I am so sorry. Yeah. Well, I have to go somewhere else. I completely understand, but I'm so sorry. You can't change the number if it's not changing. No, I can.

Right. And the staff hours are fixed, right? It's a service business. There's only so many hours you can do. But it's just like, you know, you hear the same complaint, I guess, you know, over and over again, and the anger. And I get the anger from customers. I think it's not angry. I'm not angry.

I'm just not going to come. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not, I wouldn't, I just wouldn't wait that long. Yeah. Yeah. They get angry. You're saying it's going to be two weeks and they yell at you?

Well, no, no, like let's say, yeah, well, sometimes they'll yell me on the phone. They'll say, I'm going to go somewhere else. You know, I just say, like, like you said, being honest, I'm very sorry. I'm very sorry. I completely understand. Yeah. And, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't have a team to get to you right now. You know, so, but I mean, if my heating and air goes out and I call a guy and he says, you know,

it's going to be three weeks for a fix your air conditioner. Yeah. I don't think you're coming. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Because I think I want my air conditioner fixed. Oh, right. You know, so, I mean, that's what you're facing. But I guess you're facing this number, okay.

then let's i think you just have a standard process that you use and you say um you know it's going to be two weeks and it's going to be six weeks and um and they say that won't work for me i understand i'm sorry uh here's some other companies you could try um maybe they can help you sooner but we're here and we'd love to help you but that's the only way we can do it and uh and as long as they're nice you just walk them through that. I don't let our folks that take phone calls here at Ramsey get abused. The customer's always right. No, they're not. Sometimes the customer's a butthole. Yeah. And I guess, yeah. You're not going to call here and yell at somebody on our phone. Yeah. I mean, there's, why? Use your money somewhere else for counseling. You've got issues. Right. You know, so I would not ask you as the front,

if I told you this is the deal, I own this business, it's two weeks before we can look at it, six weeks before we can start. I'm not changing that. And you have to, you have to sit there and get yelled at all day. I'm not going to tell you to do that. I would tell you to say, be nice and say, okay, sir, I'm sorry, but we're not going to be able to continue this conversation and just hang up. Yeah. I'm not going to have somebody cussing me and screaming at me on the phone all day long. Yeah. Yeah. And that's sometimes what happens, you know. I would just terminate the call. It's real simple.

You just push the end button, it's over. Yeah. Yeah. And then they're just mad because you hung up on them, but they're already mad, and they already got other issues. Anybody that screams at the person answering the phone has issues. Yes. And lots of people in our culture do.

And so, you don't get to be a customer. I don't want that guy as a customer anyway, do you? No. No. So just terminate the call. Sir, I'm sorry. We don't have conversations like that here at Blankety Blankety Blank. company name. And so if you want to call back and talk reasonable later, I'll be happy to talk to you.

Those are our guidelines. And just hang up. Yeah. That's what I would tell you to do if you work for me. And I tell folks here all the time, if people call up and then they call repeatedly in their problems, I just tell them to say, listen, you're fired as a customer. We can't help you. You'll have to go somewhere else. We're not putting up with this. And so, yeah, that's the angle on it. But here's the problem. them, Jake, from a business perspective. And I was talking with one of my buddies the day who owns a huge business. And I realized that in the conversation that our whole culture has become less and less willing to wait.

Right. Less and less patient. And I'm going to blame it on the smartphone. Because I could pick up. Amazon effect here. It is. I can pick up this stinking magic wand in my hand, and I can have donuts or pizza or cold beer or anything I want, and I can have the answer to any question, and I can check and see if lightning struck near my house, and I can see, I don't have to look at a commercial on the weather channel, I can see what the weather is instantly, and oh, by the way, I can check the thermostat on my personal home on the smartphone. And I, all this is, is instantaneous. I don't wait on anything anymore.

I'm old. I'm 63, and I have become less and less patient. I refuse to stand in any lines anymore. And I just realize that about myself. And so that's the problem. You live in, you're trying to operate this business

where you're asking people to wait in a culture where they have to wait for nothing. That's a problem. And, you know, like, you want to be, you want to, deliver this in six, you know, like if you called somebody up or you, even if you got on their website and you're going to order it and it comes up on the shipping and it says, whatever it is, you're going to buy a thingy, a widget, right? And it comes up and says, we're going to ship

it to you, you'll be there in six weeks. You'd be going, what? Nobody waits six weeks to ship anything. I'll find somebody to ship it tomorrow. You know, and you drop, you drop the order out, right? You don't even finish the order and you go to a different site and try to find somebody that'll ship it sooner. nobody waits on anything anymore in our world, including me. And I, you know, I come up to a stinking restaurant without a reservation and there's people lined up. I'm like, yep, next, I'm getting back.

No, I'm leaving. I'm not, yeah, I'm not going to sit here for 45 minutes to eat Mexican food. Come on. That's ridiculous. Like there's not any other Mexican restaurants around. One on every freaking corner. It's Nashville. There's a Mexican restaurant on one corner, a Baptist Church on the other corner.

Every corner. you know, so it's not hard. I'm not waiting in line because I'm impatient old fart. You know what I mean? I got reservations or I'm not going anymore. And the whole culture is, we were laughing about this. We are all impatient more than we used to be. And I do think it's because of the speed of delivery of things.

And you guys are trying to run a very slow business in that culture. It's going to be hard for you all. It's hard for you, Jake. I know you can't control it. You're just the receptionist. But if I were in your shoes, I would just be kind. Tell them the facts. And if you're getting cussed at or yelled at, just hang up.

That would be my advice to you as a receptionist. And that's where we would go from there. So, hey guys, great show today. Remember, better or 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.