EntreLeadership - Roadblocks and Distractions That Steal Your Profits!

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Today we hear from: •      A business owner who doesn’t feel like delegation is working •      Dave Ramsey on the labor crisis in America •      A solopreneur who is struggling to find a marketing breakthrough •      A business owner wondering what the best banks for small businesses are Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Delegation by Dave Ramsey: https://bit.ly/3UAKpYw •      Last week’s episode with Mike Rowe: https://bit.ly/3HcOCfz •      Understanding America’s Labor Shortage From the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: https://bit.ly/41T3vM9 •      Register for America’s Labor Crisis livestream: https://bit.ly/43W201i •      EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey: https://bit.ly/3E2ndbP •      Find a SmartVestor Pro: https://bit.ly/41uexaO •      Learn more about EntreLeadership’s Stages of Business: http://bit.ly/3yvdavv •      Have a question for The EntreLeadership Podcast? Leave a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or submit your question for a chance to be on the show with Dave Ramsey: https://www.entreleadership.com/ask   Take our listener survey and let us know what you think about The EntreLeadership Podcast being a caller-driven show. When you do, you’ll be entered to win a $100 gift card: http://bit.ly/40dV9hf Start growing in business and leadership with the EntreLeadership Newsletter. Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://bit.ly/3IRWnsL Support our sponsors: •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE •      Payority: https://bit.ly/3IaA5SK •      Staples: https://staplesbusinessadvantage.com/ramsey Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. This is the Entree Leadership podcast, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. You got a question and you want to talk leadership and business. We love small business people here. I've been one all my life, and I think we are what makes the economy drive in America.

It's the best place to work in America. It is the best career opportunities in America, the biggest upside in America. And it's how ideas and service get to the consumer most efficiently. So we're here to help. It's that simple. If you've got questions, you can fill out a form at entreleadership.com slash ask. Or call and leave a voicemail, and we'll get back to you and make you a caller on the show. 844-944-1070.

844-9-44-1070. The essence and the spirit of the entrepreneur, the essence and the spirit of the small business person is someone who believes still. They believe in the American dream. They believe in opportunity. They believe that it can still be done. They believe that if they get up, leave the cave,

kill it and drag it home, that they should have no shame about their success. When I was a little kid, mom and dad were in the real estate business, and they would drag me to these sales seminars and positive thinking seminars and the Zig Ziglers and the Earl Nightingales of the day. And it changed my life. I learned so much from those men, and many of them later in my life became friends, the ones that were still with us at the time. Before Zig passed, he was a friend and his family still friends of ours. And yes, I'll name drop. It's okay because I'm a huge Zig Fugler fan. So there you go. Still a fan boy. And, you know, the same with me. These others, one of the others I got to share a stage with in Los Angeles a while back is the fabulous Les Brown.

Oh, if you get a chance to watch Les Brown on YouTube, you ought to do it. Man. Oh, man, oh man. And Les at one of these events, and you can watch him do it on YouTube as well, read a creed by Dean Alphange or Alphange or however you say it. And from the turn of the century, I don't do it as much justice as he did it, but I ran into it the other day. they actually handed out like 8 by 10s or 5 by 7s or something with this creed on it. 12 years old, I took a shop class and decupaged it, if you know what that is, put the clear coat onto a piece of wood, right? And it was in my, I wish I still, I wish I could find that thing.

I don't know what happened to it in my childhood trinkets that got away, that as they do, as you get to be an old man. But here's the, here's the, here's the, here's the, It's called I Do Not Choose to Be a Common Man. I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon if I can. I seek opportunity, not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled, by having the state look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk, to dream and to build, to fail, and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed against. existence, the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence, nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master, nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud, and unafraid, to think and act for myself, to enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this with God's help I have done. All of this is what it means to be an entrepreneur in America. Love it.

Works for me anyway. If you don't like a little cheese in your factory, you're in the wrong room because this is a bit of a cheese factory around here at times, and I'm unapologetically cheesy. I love it, and that kind of stuff to this day, that was 50 years ago. I heard that the first time. I would have been 12 years old. I'm 62. And there you go. And I still love it. I'm still jazzed up by just even reading it to myself. There you go. That's why we brought it on here today. Christine is with us in Long Island, New York. Hi, Christine. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast. Hello. Thank you for having me, Dave. Sure. What's up? Okay. So I started a business about three years ago. I was actually in the podcast when it started to take off. You gave me great advice, of course. My business is, is basically I helped nursing students pass nursing school, their licensure exam to become, like, a registered nurse. I'm a registered nurse myself. So I started the business about three years ago,

I guess three years ago during COVID. Yeah, like I said, it's kind of, it's continuing to take off. Last year, we grossed $8 million. We have 15 employees. Most days, honestly, I feel frustrated, like, because it seems like I'm the one who does everything the best. I'm the one who makes the most sales. I'm the one who connects with the customers the best. And it's like, it's just, becoming too much to manage to be the face of the company and to try to run everything. I try to delegate and teach them like the multiple people we have. Honestly, even with teaching them, it doesn't really do as, like the content doesn't do as well as when I create it. So just feeling very overwhelmed and defeated when it comes to like delegation and and just teaching like my team.

It is hard. It is hard. Way to go. Eight million dollars. Look at you, girl. Boom. So now let me make sure I get this. You are training nurses?

Nursing students. So I'm training them to be able to pass nursing school so that they can become nurses. Okay. Like to pass their bars or to pass their classes? But like kind of both. Yeah, it's called the NCLEX. So we have flashcards, like bundles, books, online resources, yeah, to help them pass their exams. Okay.

All right. Wow. Interesting. I would have thought you would have just gone to school and learned how to pass your classes. I didn't know that you had to get. So what do you charge for this? It really depends. We have a book, which is like our bestseller.

It's about $100. We have some different flashcards that range anywhere from maybe 50 to 80, depending on the class. And then the training that you have, that you're teaching, that some of your people aren't doing as good as you would cost what? You mean my team members? Yeah. Did you say you had team members doing training? No. So they're not, some of them are making content, like social media content,

and they're just helping, like, kind of executed on social media, if that makes sense. Okay. So they're putting content out there that is not a product type content, but is lead magnets. It's your marketing process through social media. Yeah. Okay. Right. So I have people help me make the content.

I also have people help me do like the lead maggot and that next and the ads and things like that. So both for sure. Okay. All right. I'm going to send you a copy of the quick read we just put out. It's a little short one chapter book on delegation. All right. And the thesis of delegation, I finally figured out right before it, right before it killed me.

Because I was just about to lose my mind, okay? And like you are, I kind of had, I can smell the first. frustration, right? I get you. I thought I was a horrible leader because I wasn't delegating well. I wasn't a horrible leader. Now, delegation can only occur to the extent you trust someone's competency and their integrity. Now, what you told me is you can't trust their competency completely because their level of content production is less compelling than the content you produce. So their competency is not at a 10 out of 10. It's at a 5 or a 6.

And you're putting stuff out nines and tens. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So what that is is not a lack of delegation. That's a lack of training. And after being trained, if they can't get their game up, it's a lack of firing because you need to fire them. if they can't do their job.

That's not mean, but you can't keep incompetent people on the payroll that cannot, they don't have the capacity to get good enough to do their freaking job. That's their job to get, you know, you have to get competent, just like those nurses aren't going to pass that test if they don't get their competency up. You can't run around incompetent in this world and continue to call yourself a success unless you're in politics. And so the, but aside from that, you know, that's the only way, that I know you can get away with it. Maybe being a weather forecaster,

just kidding to you, my friends that are meteorologists. But yeah. So the thing is, so what you've got is you've got one of two problems. You've either got to do a better job of mentoring, disciplining, training, and being very clear about what excellence looks like at your place and getting them up to that, or you're going to come to the conclusion that that particular team,

member is never going to get there because they just are not they don't have the chops they don't have the gray matter to pull it off or they don't have the natural skill set in that particular thing they they were once on facebook now they think they're a social media expert i've met a bunch of those okay i have a log in and so now i'm an expert because i mean most of gen z and millennial think they're social media experts because they've grown up with a freaking phone in their hand it's native to them so true and so and they're simple and they're simply not. They're simply not. They don't know what compelling content is compelling content, whether you put it out, regardless of the format. So that's what you're looking for. So you've got

some training to do and or some rehiring to do to get the competency up. Because you didn't tell me you couldn't trust their integrity. You just said they were not up to par, right? Right. I think it's teaching. I think it's hard kind of like I'm trying to do my daily tasks, well, teach all these people. And here's the problem with delegation. The problem with delegation is it takes up so much stinking time on the front end, but you're making like a deposit to the end of the bank, and you're going to make your withdrawals later. And so when you're doing this training, it takes up your time when you could have actually been doing the post yourself. Mm-hmm.

And, but if you get, if the training is right, and then you kind of get it down where you can, okay, I can create another one of these with some training and some mentoring and, you know, some, you know, let's see what's working on these posts, which ones aren't working, and why are they working? Why aren't they working? And it's more of those, you know, if you'll go ahead and invest in it, delegation is the thing that will give you the most joy from your business, because, you're not. you're going to have quality people that you're proud of and that you can turn loose and you can relax a little bit. But it's hard on the front end to get them there. It's worth it, though,

do it. It's worth it. So the fact that you don't delegate to someone, folks, if you're a business person, because you don't trust that they can do the job because they haven't proven that they can do the job, that's not on you. You're not a micromanager. You're a wise business owner. A wise business owner, a wise business leader does not delegate to the incompetent. That would be a stupid but idea. Don't delegate stuff to somebody that's going to screw up your business. That's dumb. And so you're not, you're not a control freak. You're wise. And I used to think, I'm a control freak. I can't seem to turn loose anything, but I didn't have anybody at that point that I could turn loose that too. And the more complicated and the bigger, the thing is that you're delegating, the harder it is to

get the person up to the point that you trust their integrity and you trust their competency and you are ready to turn it loose at that point. It's easy to turn loose, though, when you completely trust the person. You know, you get more work done. and you cannot have to do things you don't want to. You know, it's real nice. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast.

If you haven't listened to the last episode, Mike Rowe was on with me from Dirty Jobs. You don't want to miss that. On May the 4th, we're going to be doing a free live stream for business and small business, and anybody that wants to watch, for that matter. Mike and I with five other national experts on America's labor, crisis. So don't miss out on that. The real reason that people aren't working. This end from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce quotes from them about America's labor shortage. We hear every day from our member companies of every size and industry across nearly every state that they're facing

unprecedented challenges trying to find enough workers to fill open jobs. Right now, the latest data shows that we have over 10 million job openings in the U.S. and 5.7 million unemployed workers, which would, by definition, folks, mean that we have a negative unemployment rate. And yet we still show positive unemployment. We still show unemployment being in the 3 to 5 percent range, which economists have long called full employment, by the way. But it also illustrates what Nick Eberstadt says in his book, he's a Harvard and London the School of Economics Economist, who has done a bunch of studies on this data. And one of the things he discovered is is that our current measure of unemployment is antiquated and inaccurate.

Because obviously if we have 10 million job openings and only 5.7 million unemployed workers, we would have zero unemployment. Obviously, it would be a negative unemployment. We have a shortage of workers. We have a lot of jobs, but not enough workers to fill them, the chamber says. If we, if every unemployed person in the country found a job, there'd still be 4 million open jobs, what we were just saying. Overall, in 2022, employers ended up adding an unprecedented 4.5 million jobs, but at the same time, millions of Americans have been leaving the labor force. In fact, we have nearly 3 million fewer Americans participating in the labor force today

compared to February of 2020, which begs the question, what the hell are they? they doing? These are adults. How do they eat if they're not working? Who's feeding these people? Well, think about it for a second. It'll come to you. You are. Their mama is feeding them. They live in their mother's basement. And in the greatest turn of irony I've ever heard, spend their days playing call of duty. Think about the irony of that. It'll come to you. This is what we're going to be talking about with Mike Rowe on May 4th are these types of things. We've got, according to Eberstadt, we've got 7.2 million able-bodied males, I won't call them men, from 25 to 54 who have decided working is just not for them.

They're not even in these numbers that I'm quoting here. They're just somewhere living in their mamas, maybe their girlfriends. taken care of them. Maybe they got a sugar mama. Maybe you and I are taking care of them because they have claimed to be in need of help from the government for whatever miscellaneous reasons. But these are able-bodied. This is not a legitimate disability. That's not what I'm talking about. That's not in the numbers. When interviewed these males ask what they do with their time, six to seven hours a day on a screen. That's where I got my call of duty thing.

This is a problem. We have a shortage. Now, I'm not saying you folks that own businesses want these people to work for you. I don't think we do. I'm just thinking that if they were working at some of the other jobs, some of the good people could come work for us. Because those jobs will be filled. I'm just thinking. I mean, we have a labor shortage, and it's a societal problem.

And here's the other problem. Dr. John Deloney will be with us on that night as, well to talk about there's a problem this it's you know we get a little bit disgusted a little bit fired up about these males sitting on the sidelines when we have a labor shortage but it's also very sad because among them are some of the highest addiction rates among them are some of the highest rates of depression among them are some of the highest rates of suicide it turns out hard work gives you dignity confidence activates the dopamine in your body and the hormone structures in your body that couch potatoing doesn't do. It turns out calluses

on your brain and on your hands are good for you. They give you a little swagger that you don't have when your girlfriend pays all your bills or your mama does. I'm serious, folks. I'm just, this is a real societal problem. We have raised a, um, a, a group of people in this country in every generation. They span all the generations. It's not a Gen Z thing. It's not a millennial thing. So I'm not trashing those generations.

There's members of every generation we have spent the last 100 years or 200 years in this country trying to make life easier and it worked. Now we've made it said, Dad, Blame Easy, that these people don't even have to do anything. So my suggestion is that we start making it hard for them again. it's good to do hard things it's good for you to do hard things and again we'll be talking about this you'll get to hear all this again because I can't

I just can't shut up about it it's driving me nuts but it's a societal breakdown that's now reflected in the simple fact that some of you that are running businesses simply can't find someone to do work at your place and we know where they are I just told you where they are they're on the couch

they're there the human beings are out here floating around, they're just worthless. And it's really sad for them. We've done them a disservice allowing this situation to occur. I mean, think about it. When are you the most jazzed? Anybody that's listening to this podcast this moment, when are you the most jazzed? It's when you score a freaking touchdown after you ran over four people to do it.

I mean, it's when you win the freaking game. after clawing and scraping and busting stuff and getting bruises. It's, you know, even digging a ditch, when the ditch is at least complete, there's a victory. There's at least a completion. How many of you, when you cut your grass, stand out in the street and go, I'm good? I mean, at least you accomplished something. Hello? The accomplishment of a task gives dignity to the human psyche.

It releases the proteins, the hormones, the dopamine drill. at a real level, and then you discover real friends are not on Facebook. Real customers are not trolls on Twitter. And activist is not a job title. I'll help you with that. Oh my gosh, guys. So there's a lot going on with this, and there's a lot of things that we, the people in America, have to do. And it includes some of us that are electing people.

It includes some of us that are leading people. We have to lead better. And listen, don't run your business and acquiesce to this movement of mediocrity. We're going to make it okay to be mediocre because we can't attract labor otherwise. Dumbud idea, you're getting ready to run yourself out of business. Let me tell you, the standard at Ramsey is excellence. If you can't do the standard, we'll do it without you. because I've been doing it a long freaking time, and I can do it again if I have to.

I was here without you before. I can be here without you later. We're going to do it right. We're going to bring it. We're playing for the Super Bowl. Shut up. Listen, people want to join a leader like that. The good people do.

Now, if you're looking for a way to quiet quit, we'll help you. It won't be quiet, but you'll be gone. I mean, you don't need mediocre Monday. I can help you with this. You can just stay home. If you want to not work from home, we can help you with that. Go home and don't work. That'll work for me. This is how we do it at Ramsey. And I'm not going to change the standards because the culture has an illness called stupidity and mediocrity. And helicopter parents have birthed this and participation trophies have birthed this because we've taught a generation that your value. because you breathe. You're valuable to God because you breathe. You're not valuable to the economy. The economy will kick your butt if you think your participant provision trophy is of value. It'll kick your butt up around your neck. You can wear it like a collar. This is ridiculous. I mean, you're going to get hammered in the real world out here if you can't learn to work and score

touchdowns. If you can't learn to bring it, complete projects and excellence and take care of customers and love your people well enough to cause that to happen in your environment. That is what we do. And that's what you guys got to do out there. It's don't lower your hiring standards. I mean, this crap of we have to create these environments that are so uber comfortable and we have to have safe spaces. I don't want anything safe.

Listen, I do not choose to be a common man. I am not trading this stale utopia of communism for the calculated risk. I'll take the risk. I have failed at so many things this week, probably during this podcast, that I will survive and I will go do it again. And you will too. That's why you listen to this. That's who you are.

And that's who we're here for. So, guys, we appreciate you. And I'm just telling you, if you're running into labor problems, tune in and join us for the labor crisis, but I don't have a silver bullet. I'm going to tell you more of what I just told you. Don't lower your standards. Bring it. Just set us lead people, love your people, take care of your people, but don't coddle your people.

Parents, you're not doing your children of service leaving them in your basement at 28. Little eagle needs to fly. An eagle that stays in the nest too long eventually is known as a turkey. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Okay, here's the formal invitation. Thursday, May the 4th, I'm teaming up with Mike Rowe and five bestselling authors and experts on the state of work in America today. We're going to address this labor crisis, give business leaders solutions for how to find and hire the right people in this whacked out environment.

If you're a business leader, you don't want to miss this. If you're even just a person who's concerned about our society, don't miss it. It's a free live stream. You can register by going to ramsysolutions.com slash labor crisis. We'd love to have you. Bethany is with us in Houston, Texas. Hey, Bethany, welcome to the Entry Leadership Podcast. Thank you so much for having me.

I'm a brand new solopreneur investing my own cash to start my online coaching business. I've only been in business for a few months, and I've made about $22,000 so far. And I think I have a great product and service for my target audience. but I've also heard that business is 20% the best product or service and 80% marketing. So Dave, how do us newbie entrepreneurs find a marketing breakthrough when we're running our business debt-free and also working from a car table in our living room? Yeah, I think whoever told you that's a marketer. Ah.

Because one of my buddies says great marketing helps a bad product fail faster. That is good to hear because I think. marketing is been my biggest hurdle. I am new to business. I'm coming from the education world, but marketing has been like the biggest thorn in my side. I am 100% confident that I am serving well, and I have a great product and service. It's just how do I get it out there? Okay. I think the thing that we have to learn to do maybe more than marketing is just sales. Now sales, the difference in sales and marketing sounds like this. Sales means you're talking to someone in person, at least in your head.

When you do a post, you're talking to a human being on the other side. We're not just throwing out a general marketing campaign. Marketing is we design the different elements of how we're going to do sales is really what it amounts to. And so, and what we end up, sometimes what we end up when we concentrate on marketing is we end up sounding to our customers a little bit like Charlie Brown's teacher. wow wow wow wow wow you remember that yeah yeah and i'm a previous educator so yeah and so what what you're looking for when you're moving a product new or otherwise is what is the customers felt need

very simply what is it we're trying to help them with okay and so we could go over to one of our products and say all right if somebody's in debt what is their felt need. They want to get out of debt. But that's not really their felt need. The debt is the symptom. The problem is they feel out of control. They feel stressed. They know that they're working too hard and not getting any traction because all their money is going to other people instead of into investments. And so I have to get under the debt, which is the symptom, and say, what's the real problem, and if I can touch that in their heart, that's communicating their felt need to them.

And then they'll rise up, reach over, and become a customer, and we can walk with them and help them very easily then. Because that's what happens. So, you know, in other words, you know how to coach them once you've got them, but what is the coaching doing for them and be careful that you're not selling to the symptom that instead you're selling to the actual felt need. What is it down inside of them? It could be that they're wanting to live their dream.

It could be that they're, you know, ultimately the reason their need coaching is so that they can get their revenue up. Well, revenue's not a problem. It's a symptom. And so why is all of this? Oh, so that I don't have to work for the man anymore if you're coaching, if you're coaching other solo entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs, right? Yeah.

And, you know, what is under all, what's the underlying need, the underlying motivation? So if you ever hear me on the Ramsey show over with my other hat on talking about money stuff, you'll hear me say stuff like, hey, change your family tree. I'm dropping down under the debt, under the budget, under the investment issues. And instead of talking about those tactical things, change your family tree is a heart thing. That's a felt need. I don't want to retire broke. I don't want to retire with no money, and my kids have to take care of me. That's down inside your guts.

And if I plug my marketing on that, instead of saying, hey, we'll show you how to adequately invest your mutual funds. Just shoot me, right? And so because there's no emotion to that, there's no visceral reaction to that. And so if you can get those key words and phrases that are rapid, around the heart of your customer, not the brain of your customer, drop that into the narrative of whatever social media marketing you're doing or whatever lines, whatever narratives, in other words, the copy points that you're putting out there, then you're going to see this stuff light up and you're going to get a multiplier effect. Because again, if you're just treating the

symptoms, you can spend a bazillion dollars and get minimal results and minimal conversion rates and minimal, you know, whatever digital measure you want to put on it if you're doing a digital marketing campaign and click-throughs, whatever. And, you know, the problem with the digital world is it really is good at doing massive amounts of nothing. I've spent a little bit of money just testing the waters of social media marketing, and I was not impressed with how that turned out. Yeah, you know, and they came into one, me the other day, in one of our, meetings and they were saying, hey, you know, we got this up to a 2.1 conversion rate. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're telling me 98% of the people didn't do it. I said, yeah, but 2.1.

I mean, the industry averages 1.4. And I said, well, the industry sucks. You mean, 99% don't usually do it. And 98% didn't do it for us. So we're thrilled. Come on. That's a suck bar. Yeah.

That bar is so low. It sucks. And so, you know, but, you know, I get it. I get it intellectually. My point was that we don't want to just throw massive amounts of money and have 98% of the people walk away. That's never our goal in marketing. If you're doing that in sales, you'd starve the death. And so that's what I want you to do.

I want you to kind of make sure that your marketing has a sales element to it with the narrative, with the touch points, with the visceral wrapping your hands around the heart of your client. and if you can do a post that causes them to get disturbed, frustrated, angry at their situation, tearful, to emotional about their situation, you can activate that they really are afraid down inside and they just have been having a good, you know, putting on a good show. But instead you cut through and you go, hey, I know how this feels. So when I tell people like, you know, 30 years ago, I went completely broke, I remember standing in the shower as hot as I could stand it and stood there crying because I was so scared I couldn't breathe because I was so stupid with

money that I couldn't pay the light bill and I got a baby and a toddler and a marriage hanging on by a threat people get a hold of that that's way different than I have a program to show you how to get out of debt see the difference is we're wrapping our arms around their situation give them a hug where they're hurting or giving them hope or give it playing the rocky music so they'll charge the hill or whatever it is those are the things we're trying to tap into with actual sales rather than marketing. And that's where I would tell you to spend your time and your money. And be aware when you touch one of those things and it goes off, when you get a positive,

huge, like, whoa, I just hit a nerve. And then you'll say that for the rest of your life. Some of the things I say on the radio and I say in our marketing campaigns, we have said for 30 years over and over and over because they worked. And I'm like, just keep, keep shooting until the gun's empty, right? I mean, come on. And that's what we're doing there. So that's the process I would tell you to get at Bethany.

Hey, thank you very much for your call. And congratulations on your success. It sounds like you're coming out of the gate really strong. Very, very cool stuff. That's how it's done. You want to participate? Give me a call. 844-944-1070.

Leave a voicemail. You'll be a caller on this show. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Thanks for listening, America. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Dave. Ramsey. This is born from a number one best-selling book called Entree Leadership, which is the playbook of how we have grown this business called Ramsey from a card table in my living room

to a major national brand with 1,100 team members and about $300 million in revenue a year. This is how we did it. Now, did we never make a mistake? No, we make mistakes all week, every week. we just do enough to survive them. Those who don't make mistakes work for those who do. You're going to make mistakes if you're running a business. Count on it. And don't kill everybody that makes a mistake. Everybody's going to make a mistake.

Out of the guy in here the day made a huge mistake. It cost me $140,000 of one stroke of a dad-blame keyboard. Oh, my God. How about how to... And he's like, well, do it? I need to resign. I'm like, no, I just invested $140,000 in your education. Lord, no, you don't need to resign because he doesn't make that kind of mistakes regularly. It's not a pattern. It's just, that was just a thing, you know. We all make mistakes. We have to, but I do this every day,

by the way. I'm not a professor with theories on leadership. I am a freaking leader. I do this. I lead about 250 leaders that lead 1,100 people every day. So this is a practitioner thing around here. I actually make payroll and have for 30 years. So if you want to get involved in that, that's what Entree leadership is, and we're really, really glad you're here. Hey, if you're liking this show, help us out, follow it,

subscribe it, share it, leave a five-star review. One-star reviews are not helpful. Mama said if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say nothing at all. Just move on if you don't like it. Spend your time on something else. It's fine. We're good because not likely I'm going to be changing a lot. So just come on.

We'd love to hear from you. And if you do all those things like it, follow it, five star at all that. It pushes it forward in the Internet algorithms and helps us with the marketing because you're pretty much our marketing plan. So help us out if you like what you hear. Sarah is in San Antonio. Hey, Sarah. What's up?

Hey, Dave, thanks for having me on. Sure. How can we help? Yeah, my husband and I own a graphic design and web design company that does just under a million a year. Good for you. We have nine employees. Cool. Those are part-time.

And, yeah, and I have a question about small business banking. Okay. What are the best banks or brokerage houses where small businesses can take advantage of a money market to earn interest on cash in the business? Be careful not to major in that. Spend enough time on it that you don't feel stupid with what you're doing, but you're not going to get rich with this category. You're going to get rich doing graphic arts with nine people and bringing in a million dollars in revenue and raising that to $2 million

in revenue. That's where your wealth is going to come from. It's not going to come from making 0.37% more on your savings because you had a euro float on the thing, which is what you can actually do, by the way. So the answer to your question is we use, regional and small banks for Ramsey's banking. I do not deal with crap like Bank of America.

They're bozos. I don't want anything to do with those guys. And they treat you like crap because they don't have any respect for you, and you're a big fish in a little pond when you go to your regional bank there in San Antonio. Maybe even a good credit union would be okay. And in terms of what I do with our retained earnings, we always are having a discussion with the banker quarterly. Okay. What are you going to pay us on this money that's just sitting over there?

Because we don't have an option. It's got to just sit there. It's not there as an investment. I've got other investments. The retained earnings is sitting there to protect the business and to grow the business and cover cash flow fluctuations, et cetera. It's not there for investment. maximization. So, you know, where can I pick up a quarter of a point or a point in a, or, you know, three quarters of a point or something like that. And we've done some Euro floats

where they pull the money and float it in Europe and float it back every 24 hours. And we'll put limits on that. Sometimes we'll take a portion of it if we get it too big and sit down with one of our smart vestor pros and drop some of it into a mutual fund, just something like an index fund and let it lay over there and it'll earn a little bit more. But it's got a little more risk on it. I can get that money moved in about 48 hours, 24 hours, something like that. If I need it and very seldom do I have a huge hit. I've never had a huge hit that I needed money in 24 hours for. So I can move it over if I've got this declining cash,

and I need to move some of it back to a more liquid situation. But by definition, it's liquid. So by definition, it's not going to make a lot. And the other thing that can happen is you can end up spending more time on it than the actual money that you make as a result of the time you've spent. You'd have been better off working. Yeah. So now spend enough time on it.

Sit down with SmartVestor Pro, say, okay, where can we park some money over here? Look at the rates. They'll have a money market mutual fund. You can look at that. They'll have an index fund or something like that that you can park some money in and pull it back out. But I wouldn't have more than 25% of your retained earnings outside of there. You need the money laying in your local bank.

and then talk to your local banker and say, you don't get this up, I'm going to shop you. And go ahead and shop them every so often. Keep them honest, right? But again, when I shop them, it doesn't, you know, let's say in a million dollars, a million dollar top line that you're sitting on 100K and you move at 1%. You know, it's a thousand bucks. You miss that on one bid on a job. Okay. Can I ask a follow-up question to that, Dave?

Sure. Would you, is it safe to do business in personal banking with the same bank, or would you keep those with separate institutions? I have my personal with my major bank. I always tell people to have more than one bank in business, once you've got a little bit of size and you've got some size. Again, just to keep them honest, but also it keeps me from getting lazy on my banking relationship, meaning I'm looking at it. I'm making sure they're giving me this stuff because the other guy's always trying to get his foot in the door. And so we usually keep about three banks online, but we have one major bank that takes care of everything. And that's also where my personal account is. It doesn't bother me a bit that it's all there.

You know, they're perfectly solvent. I don't have any issue with any of that. Again, it's about, here's the way, here's what a bank is. A bank is a vendor. and if a vendor is a key part of your business, they're a big part of your business, then you don't need, you don't ever want to be captive to a single vendor because you only have one relationship and you have no place to go. Because pretty soon they're going to start telling you what to do instead of you telling them what to do.

And so I've always got on major vendors on anything, you know, we buy millions of dollars of paper a year for printing, for books. believe me, we have more than one supplier of paper. I want these guys bidding against each other. I do have one primary relationship that we do most of that with, but I am not married. Sharon is my wife. I got one wife. And so the rest of this is up for grabs. And so, you know, you got to keep bringing it. You got to keep giving me fair deal, fair delivery, fair pricing, fair service. I'm not ridiculously hard to get along with. I'm not ridiculously hard to get along with. I'm not holding everybody to the nth degree, but I always need to have options with vendors.

It gives you power. And banks are a vendor. So always have options. Have other things that you can go to if you need to. That's how I would have at it. Hey, folks, great, great podcast episode. Don't forget, Mike Rowe was last week. If you haven't listened, go back and listen to it.

We appreciate you being here. Remember, better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. Leaders serve. are active, not passive. Leaders act on principle, not appearances. This world needs more high quality leaders. So choose to lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.