EntreLeadership - Should I Try to Save Our Failing Family Business?

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Today, we’ll hear about: •             A son trying to decide if he should stay in the failing family business •             A woman concerned that she’s giving too much grace to her team •             Dave Ramsey’s simple way to get your team to communicate effectively •             A businessman struggling to delegate to his team   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 ·      📃 Build your KRA for free: https://ter.li/ks4jnp   Connect With Our Sponsors: 💼 Go to Belay Solutions or text ENTRE to 55123 for their free resource! 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more. 🧾 Visit Payority for a free consultation! 📈 Grab ⁠Sales Gravy's⁠ free resource to help you hire and lead better. 📝 Use code ENTRE15 to get 15% off your first year of Trainual.   Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show💰 George Kamel   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is 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 got a question you want to ask on the show, you can fill out the form at Entreeleadership.com slash ask or call and leave us a note, and we'll get back to you and make you a caller on the show at 844945. 4-1070, 844-944-1070. David starts us off in Rochester, Maryland. Hey, David, welcome to the show. How you doing, Dave? Good to hear your voice. You too, sir. How can I help? Yeah, so I am 28 years old. I'm working in the family business. What we do is we do concrete and asphalt work in the city there. And I am coming up on 10 years here in about a couple of weeks, working for the family business. And, you know, it has its ups and downs, but I guess more so my question is, is it time for me to

move on or is it time for me to continue on with the family business? Okay. Why would you move on and why would you stay? Well, why I would stay is it's kind of always been talked about becoming an owner. and the last few years, basically what I've been told is, you know, the business has been struggling to a point to where I would be obtaining a burden. And I've become to realize I want to be an owner, but now I'm starting to realize, I'm like, do I want to own this or do I want to own something that is truly my own?

Okay, so it's not making money? Yeah, it's been a really rough last couple years, especially last year with this weird dip we had in the economy. We felt it for sure on our end. We were probably just shy of about a million less in revenue last year than we were the year previous. Okay, so what is the top line in the business? What's it made? Top line. Last year was 2.2 or 2.3 in the year previous.

Your revenue went down 50%. Just about, yeah, we had a really rough year last year, and even, you know, my paycheck and, you know, my family's paychecks were definitely hurting from it. And some of that's due to the economy, some of that I think was due to decisions that were made that, you know, from top down. Well, you say that like it's some fake thing. You're talking about your dad screwed up. It's my dad and brother together. How old is your brother? My brother is 36.

So you're going to end up owning it with him. Yeah. And, you know, I love and respect them both, and I have great relationships with both of them individually as well, but I just don't know if I agree with some of the decisions that have been made. I guess I don't know if I am allowed to go or should go into the thick of it, but I just, this is kind of stemmed back. What is your title at the office?

What do you do? I'm the operations manager. Okay. So if they're making decisions that are screwing up profitability and you're the operations manager, whether your family or not, it's your job to go into the thick of it. Yeah. And that's maybe where I've, and that's probably where I fall short. Okay. So let me ask you this. If the scenario changed and you said, okay, I get to have a voice at the table and together we start making decisions that I consider wise or I can't stay. Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't disagree with that. I feel like there's definitely been times where I have, being an operations manager even is a loose title. I'm really a glorified foreman. It's kind of more so my role. Every day I'm out on job sites. How many 10 members do you all have? We have about 10 back in the shop and then about 5 to 6 in the front office.

And you're running the 10 at the shop and your dad and brother running the office. Yep. Yeah. You are a foreman, yeah. Yeah, it, yeah, that's, I say that as my, you know, on my business card, but it's really a glorified foreman, so. Yeah, yeah. That's okay. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah, it's not a bad thing. Yeah.

It's just where you are. And, well, I mean, I think the, okay, there's two things going on. One is you don't have a seat at the table. Two is the company's not profitable because of decisions they've been making, and it makes it unappealing to want to take it over. Mm-hmm. Okay, and those two things go together. So we need to get this thing profitable and appealing to take over, and a part of that is that I need to be involved in the decisions, and I have to have some hope for that,

or it's probably time for me to take off. Yeah. One of those two, and either ones are those is okay. It's not an act of I hate you, I'm mad at you, it's not a, there's no unkindness or evil words that need to be said. It's just this thing, you know, you said you don't want to turn it over until it quits being a burden, and I think I know why it's a burden. At least I got an opinion anyway. And so I think we've got to make some different decisions, that million dollars that we lost

last year in revenue, that ain't cool. And I want to help with that, and I want to help from an owner's or a future owner's seat. So let's form a little board of directors, the three of us, to run this business together in preparation of my brother and I taking it over when it's profitable later. And if we can't do that, if I'm going to be in the shop and be a foreman, while I perceive you all are making decisions I'm not on board with, then that probably is my signal that I need to try something else. And I'm okay with you one, Dad, whatever y'all want to do. But this is how, this is how I'm feeling right now, and I need to just hear this out with y'all. Yeah. What are they going to say when you say that?

I don't know. To be honest with you, I have a hunch. My, you know, it's a family business. and we get real long really well, but sometimes things can get squirly and tempers flare. And, you know, that's kind of the ins and outs of a family business. No. I don't think it would be like that. It's not the ins and outs of a family business. Yeah, that's fair. It's ins and outs of people have tempers.

Yeah. Yeah. And not on the same page. I mean, there's a lot of, I mean, my brother is five kids with a sixth on the way here. And, you know, my dad is way beyond, you know, retiring means. I wish he retired a few years ago because he deserves to take my mom out and do amazing things, but he's a hard-working man. Do they have any money?

That's a whole other can of worms. Well, that ties into this can of worms. It's all the same can of worms. It is. They've reinvested a lot of money into this business just to keep it afloat, just to float that wintertime. And, you know, there's been plenty of times. where my brother or my dad or sometimes even myself will get paid late or, you know, they wouldn't get a paycheck some weeks because it's just that.

In my personal opinion, if I'm being completely honest, I feel like we should have closed the doors two years ago. Oh. If I'm being completely honest. I mean, I'm not in the business, but I see a lot of the ins and outs. I see the stress and the toll to take them. Then why would you stay? Because I love my dad and brother.

That doesn't. You can love your dad and brother and not work there. Yeah. The other side of that coin, too, is this year, this start has been much better and quicker, and we have a really solid team outback. And so I'm seeing the fruits of that. So you just told me you should close it. Should you close it or not? That's where I'm at this floating point here. And that's kind of why I reached out. It's because when I inquired, I wasn't sure if I was going to have a job the next month. And then now we're full-fledged, full-bore. And I'm like,

Is this going to be an actual good year, or is this going to be the last eight years where it's like we're short in the winter and we hope we have a good summer? It's kind of been the same process. I don't know. I'm kind of getting a little sick of it. You're done. You're done. You keep talking yourself out of it every time I talk you back into it. So I think you're done.

I think you've lost hope in your dad and your brother's ability to run this in a way. that is profitable and you don't think it'll change. I think you're done. If you want to sit down and talk to them and try to straighten it, that's not a bad thing, but you need to hold it with an open hand to be gentle and kind. And I have a low expectation because I don't think your... Henry Cloud says we have necessary endings

when we lose hope in the future. And everything you point back to is hope in the future, hope in the future. And don't equate your love for your faith. family with working there. Those are not the same things. As a matter of fact, it can be an act of love for you to not work there if you're unhappy. So, or you've lost hope in their abilities. You disrespect them, but I respect them. No, you disrespect to them. You don't believe in their business acumen, either one of them. And so, and you're the youngest one in the bunch. So,

I don't know what's going on, but that's, that's what I'm hearing, dude. So I, I I think you're through, but I think you could talk to them about it gently. And if a temper's flare and blow up, then maybe that's your answer. Because I'm not working for somebody's yelling at me. I don't care who it is. Okay. Done with that. This yelling, screaming cuss and temper thing?

Nah, I'm done. I'm done. This conversation's over that instant, no matter who it is. I don't care who it is. So you don't have the right to do that because of DNA. It doesn't give you that. So that's where we're going with that. Anyway, thank you.

Good stuff. Oh, man. I'm sorry you're facing all that, David. It's... Yeah. Well, one thing about it, a shortage of money or an extreme amount of money, either one magnifies the problems in a business and that includes a family business. When it comes to shoes, tires, and of course, business payroll services, one size definitely does not fit all. Your business's payroll is foundational to your success. You have got to get it right. In every way from, employee retention to compliance with labor laws. That's why Paiority partners with you to understand your business goals and align with how you want your payroll managed. Payority's friendly, professional staff doesn't take a one-size-fits-all approach. They tailor your plan to your specific needs, which is great for business leaders because you have enough to worry about. And getting your payroll system in order takes one more time-consuming burden off your plate. So whether you already know you need

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That'll make it happen. Melissa's in Little Rock. Hey, Melissa, how are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm the owner of an independent running specialty retail store and a race-timing business.

And a what business? I have run a race-timing. Like if people run a... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Oh, yeah. Specialty retail. Does it have to do with running as well?

Yes. Okay. So you're all into running. Okay. All into running. But I have nine employees, including myself, and we do about 700,000 annually in running. revenue. My question is, how do I handle multiple extended employee absences that are negatively impacting

the business? Why are they out? Well, mostly it's health reasons. There's a lot of issues. It could be surgeries. It could be, you know, it's a variety of things or it's someone in their family, you know, that's experiencing, you know, these health problems and things. like that.

It'd be one thing if it were one person, but it's multiple, and I'm just a small retail store. And it, you know, yeah, it's gotten a little out of hand. Yeah. At your size, you can only absorb so much of it in the name of grace. And then you can't continue to absorb it all because you won't have the money to pay the people that are there because the work's not getting. done. Okay. So at our size, we can extend ridiculous grace for someone that has a legitimate

health issue. Okay. Like we've had people out on, you know, fighting cancer for months on end, okay? And we continue to pay them. But we've got the ability to cover it and not, it doesn't cause us to go broke. You know what I'm saying? But when I was your size, I couldn't do that. I didn't have the money to do that. Like you said. And so what I did in those days, and I guess what you're going to have to do, is go, my grace can only go as far as the math allows it. And that's what your frustration point is. And so I'm going to tell people that.

I'm going to say, the validity, how valid your absence is does not matter after a certain point. I can't cover it, even if I wanted to. I'm really sorry that your spouse has cancer and you're having to help them. It's horrible. I'm crying with you. I'm praying for them. But you're not working for four months. I can't do it.

I've got to fill the position. I've got to get the work done. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so that's not unkind. It's the math is the, math is a taskmaster. I mean, it'll whip your butt, you know? And that's what you're facing here.

So I think you just got to have a talk with a team as a group and say, listen, we've had a lot of time off for different things. And it's going to make us to where I can't continue to operate. And so, you know, you've got a set amount of personal time off PTO. After that point, you're going to take your time off unpaid. And if that's too extended, I'm going to have to fill the spot because I have to get the work done. where we are now is that out of PTO, out of, you know, and all that, and I'm just... Yeah. Well, and they're, so they're not getting paid when they're off now, right?

Correct. Okay. So then you've just got to say, how long can I do that before I've got to fill the spot? Okay. How long? You know the answer. Yeah. I do, too.

It's a month. Okay. Right? It's not longer than a month, is it? It is right now. No, I'm saying it's not reasonable at your size for, okay, they go through their PTO, which means they've already not worked for a month, right? How much PTO do you give them?

I give my full-time employees three weeks. Okay, so there's a month, all right? And so then they take another month unpaid, so now they've not worked for two months. That's the most you can do. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. After that, you can't continue. And I will tell you this.

Among our team, we also will draw a line on some of that. Even though we don't have to mathematically, we just do it as a matter of reasonableness. Look, you're just never here. So we probably ought to call it out loud and say that. You know, and it's not a single thing. It's 14 different things because some of these people are just perpetual. And sometimes it's all legitimate. but it's just like, my God, your life looks like a country song.

It's just, I'm sorry. This is awful. It's horrible. And I feel bad for you, but I also can't go on not getting this work done. We need this work done. And so, you know, for now, we're just going to have, you know, if you take more than this off, we're not going to be able to sanction even without pay. And so, you know, and you've got to look at it on a case by case and go, okay, this one's

one I really need to step up and invest in. But this other one, it's like, oh, my gosh, I'm just out of patience. And that's okay. You own the business. Let me tell you, Melissa, they can't work anywhere else. Corporate America will fire their butt with no feelings. At least you've got feelings. Right?

True. You are not a bad person for setting out a guideline here and saying, okay, I'm going to, you decide, but I think listening to you, it's after PTO and unpaid for one month, that's about all I can do in a year. I've got to replace you otherwise. With a rare exception of you look at it and go, well, you know, I feel like God's told me to invest in this. But that's a rare exception. I've had a few rare exceptions around here, and I've had a few things. I went, no, you know, you're just sick all the time.

And it's awful and I'm sad. And I've got to get this work done. and so I can't, you know, you've been here 90 days and you've been here four days of the 90 days. That doesn't work. And I've had that, you know, the first 90 days, they're not here but four times, you know. And that's just not, that's not cool. It's not that, and usually it's not, you know, you and I are not discussing people who are just lazy. We're talking about people that have legitimate health problems at home or themselves, correct?

Correct. Yeah, that's the thing is that none of them I would look at and go, oh, you're, you know, you're flacking. Exactly. Yeah, it's not somebody being a bum. Somebody being a bum is easy. They're just done. You come to work or don't come to work, one of the two. This is, you know, you're not your place to work anymore.

So, because you don't work. So that's how that works. So anyway, yeah, I think the thing is, welcome to leadership. Sometimes it's hard. Usually it's hard. Most days it's hard. because small business people like you and me, we care about folks. We don't just cut their throat.

But you also have this math thing, and you're seeing a pattern here that I've got too large a portion of my workforce, not at work, and I can't get our work done. So I've got to tighten up on this, or I'm going to go out of business, and all these people are going to lose their jobs. Yeah. And that's the reality. So you've got to make that decision.

The good of the whole outweighs, the good of the one. And when you can't afford to do it, you can't afford to do it. You don't have the money. You don't have the manpower. You don't have the bandwidth. You don't have the margin. And that's not evil.

It's just the stage of business you're in. And I'd like to tell you it gets easier. It gets more complicated is all it gets from here. But you're doing a good job and you've got a good heart and you're a good leader. They should be privileged to work for you. This is the Andrele Leadership podcast. This episode is brought to you by Trainual. Whether you're running a department,

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and more time leading, head to trainuil.com slash entree to book a demo and get 15% off your first year with code entre. That's t-r-a-in-u-a-l-com slash entree and use code e-n-tri for 15% off. So almost 40 years ago, my church had this cool idea that the volunteers were going to take a personality assessment. And we took two kinds. We took a spiritual gifts assessment. If I recall, it was called HALTS, H-O-U-T-S, I believe. It's a long time ago.

But it was, what is your spiritual gift, the giftings and Galatians and so forth in the Bible? And then we took a thing called Disc. It was the first time I ever saw Disc, the D-I-S-S-S-S-S-S-S. It takes about 20 minutes to take the little survey, and then it gives you insights into the type of personality you are and how you make decisions. I came home. I was all gleeful when I had the results, and I read it, and I went, this is this thing read my mail. It knows who I am, and that's pretty cool. And I handed it to my wife, and she said, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

And I went, yes, what? And she said, this is what's wrong with you. I said, no, this is me. This is me. This is not what's wrong with me. and to this day, she's convinced her personality type is the right kind and everyone else is the wrong kind. She's not figured out how the disc works. So we laugh about it. We mess with her all the time in family gatherings. Then, of course, we have the Enneagram come out, right? And we have all the other assessments. Strength finders is wonderful.

Our friend Pat Lynchione has Working Genius, which is an incredible thing for how you do, how you get work done, how you view work. All of these assessments are great. I recommend I'm kind of an assessment junkie I like. Because they give you insights into other folks, how they tick and makes you have patience with them because they're different than you. Duh. And it also helps you know how to communicate with people if you know what enneagram they are and how they're going to process decision making, how they're going to process emotions and so on. And so we started using the disk profile many years ago, not to the exclusion of the others, but when you join Ramsey, you take this little test and boom, it prints out where you are on the D-I-S-C.

And we actually put it up on your work area. So when we walk into your work area, we can look at it, see your personality style, and at least have a clue how you're going to process the conversation I'm getting ready to have when I walk in your office. Or vice versa. When you walk in my office, you go, oh, I probably need to talk to Dave that way if I want to get through to Dave because he's going to process this way. So leading up, leading down, leading sideways, whatever it is,

loving people well, knowing how they think and how they tick is a good thing. If you've never taken this, you can get it on our website. It's very inexpensive. Lots of people use it. And again, I think you ought to do a bunch of these things. I like this one because it's very simple. Is it perfect? Oh, good Lord, no, none of these things are.

Is it from the Bible? No, that's not what it is. It just tells you an idea. So the D-I-S-C stands for different personality styles. They're in four quadrants. D is the decisive. I is the interactive. S is the stabilizing or steady.

C is the cautious or conscientious personality. Let's talk about them for a second. I'm a high D.I. Off the chain. Like a 98-99. I'm an I when I'm on stage and I'm a D when I'm running the business. Okay.

So D's are the decisive. There's actually a book out that we read to our children growing up, the treasure tree by Gary Smalley. and I believe it was Gary Smalley. I think it is, yeah. And it had different animals. The D is the lion. Rar, okay?

Very driven, assertive, fiercely competitive, doesn't do details. We drive projects beautifully because we just drive, drive, drive, drive, drive. We're fast-paced. We're skeptical. We make decisions very quickly and easily, and if they're wrong, we'll make another decision. And we are,

there's an axis, by the way, running through these four quadrants. One is people-oriented to task-oriented. The other is fast decision to slow decision. Okay, the D is task and fast. Fast-decision maker, task-oriented versus people-oriented. And that's where we fall. That's what I'm doing when I'm running the business. Some of the stories I tell about Ramsey when I'm coaching you folks

is from the D perspective coming out in me. The eye is the otter. They're a party looking for a place to happen. If you don't have eyes around, there is no fun in the room. Fun comes from eyes. They invented fun. They are the fun masters. They are fun-loving, sociable, persuasive,

may not naturally stay focused on details. People think they're ADD because they all are. No, I'm kidding. Care deeply about what. what's going on with their teammates. They feel before they think they're people-oriented. They think really fast. They make decisions fast,

but they make it through a people paradigm rather than a task paradigm. About 10% of the people are Ds, about 25% are I's. Ds focus on when, eyes focus on who. If you have someone in charge of parties at your company and they're not an eye, epic fail.

If you have people in charge of projects and they're an eye, epic fail. The Ds need to be running the projects or somebody else because there may be confetti involved, but the project will never be done. We will have two ice cream socials, but the project will never be done. This is the eye.

Eyes are wonderful, and they're funny, and that's the part of me that comes out on stage or on a microphone, where all the sarcastic humor comes from, all that, the entertainment, they're very entertaining. The S is the golden retriever. Very steady, very loyal, big, beautiful eyes looking at you, looking into your soul. They're loyal team players.

They like to get along. They hate conflict. They're supportive. They have strong listening skills. They're slow at decision making because they want to make sure no one's feelings are going to be hurt. They're people-oriented and slow on the axis of decision-making. They ask why. about 40% of people are S's.

A lot of you are S's. They have great ideas. You have to pull it out of them because they don't want to offend you. They never talk politics or religion at the wrong table, ever. They will never say something about Trump in front of a Trumper or vice versa. They just don't do it.

The S's are the nicest, kindest, most wonderful people. I just love S's. They're so great. I have none of it. I do not understand it at all. But you need them around. You can count on them forever, and they're the ones that intuitively know if something's going wrong and you need to be patted on your little head.

They just know it. They can tell, do you need someone to pray for you? I think Jesus told me to pray for you. No, he didn't. It was just an S. They just felt like you needed that. That's all it was. Jesus was not involved at all, although the prayer would be a good thing.

That's, that, this is, this, I love these people. They're wonderful people. and if you don't have S's on the team, you've got no steadiness. This is where all steadiness comes from. See, the cautious, conscientious personality. They are process, their rules, their structure. That's their love language. And if you violate their love language, they have a little bit of Pharisee in them.

They will get on you. They will tell you about the rules. You broke the rules. You're not allowed to break the rules. They are the head of the HOA. They will drive you nuts. I love them because they have all good data. They slow you down.

They make you make decisions based on hard data, not feelings. Feelings are for children. You do not have feelings when you're a C. We go by the data, we go by the rules. Facts is Facts is, Facts, ma'am. That's the way it is. Thank you, Friday. That's the way it works.

Project focused, moderately paced, if not slow. They refuse to move sometimes because they get paralysis of the analysis. They are fabulous to have on the team. This is who you want doing accounting and writing code, baby, because it'll be right, and there's only one way to do accounting, right and wrong. Two ways, actually, but there's the right way and the wrong way. There's no creativity involved for you eyes. If your eyes are doing accounting, you're screwed, okay?

And if a D does accounting, they don't do accounting. They don't do details. They don't want to hear about it. Just tell me after it's over, right? And so you need Cs in the business, you need Cs in your life to slow you down and help you make decisions. on the actual facts, particularly when there's a lot of drama going on. They're the ones that bring wisdom to the table.

They are actually wonderful people. They do care very deeply. They just don't show their feelings because they only have a feeling once a year. And so that's what they're doing. They're wonderful. A dysfunctional C is a big time pain in the butt Pharisee if you're dysfunctional. A dysfunctional D is an overbearing tyrant. A dysfunctional I can't stay on task.

long enough to have any value. A dysfunctional S avoids conflict to the point they become an enabler. And so D-I-S-C. So if you're walking into someone's office and you see that they are a D or a C, you know they're going to be task-oriented, not people-oriented. They're not going to worry about your feelings. If you walk into their office and see they're an I or an S, you probably ought to be thinking about feelings because those people got some.

and be thinking about that way. If you're going in with a D or an I, and you want to make a decision slowly, you're going to have a problem. Both of them are going to make a decision quickly. And some of you that you're in sales, what you do with a D and an I, you don't close them.

You just go, OLA, and get out of the way. And they will run through the door, and you will close the door behind them. And we have a sale. You don't have to, that you just get, OLA, just wave the cape and go, Ola, and get out of the way. the way. The other people, they get right to the edge of the sale and they pause. The S wants to

consider all the people's feelings before we buy. And the C says, do we have all the details? I'm not sure we have all the details. I'm not sure life is long enough to get all the details I want, but I need all the details before I can make a decision. And they get paralysis to the analysis. So if you're selling to people, you need to understand their style. Your style doesn't matter. You're serving them. So how are you going to serve them? You meet them where they are and you understand. Is this stuff perfect? No, but it's insightful, just like the Enigram, just like working genius, just like strength finders.

All of these things are insightful. This is kind of the, I don't know, the beginning of that whole assessment craze that has now gone on. Everybody's got an assessment for something. And I was speaking a leadership thing the other day, and every speaker was selling an assessment but me. And I kind of thought, well, I don't maybe need to get an assessment, but I don't have one. This is it.

And it's just, the point is these things are not fix-alls and they're not perfectly accurate, but they do give us general insights in a good overlay for leading teams, for hiring people, hiring people into teams. Like, I'm a high D at work. If you're perpendicular on the thing, you're going to have conflict. And perpendicular from me is the S. Okay, they're very people-oriented and slow to make decisions. I'm very task-oriented and fast to make decisions. So you've got to think about these things when you're putting someone in key positions right next to you. And it helps guide you in your hiring decisions and what seat on the bus which you know get the right people on the right seats on the bus get the wrong people off the bus all that kind of stuff this helps with that

it's not a fix-all we do consider this as one of the elements when we're hiring but it is not certainly not a deal breaker or a deal maker oh we've got to have them they're a high deed no no no no because a dysfunctional one of these will screw up everything so that's and all of us have been immature or dysfunctional in these things at one time or another in our life So you can check all this out at Ramsey Solutions.com. You can buy the assessment. Pretty cool. You can understand each other's communication styles.

Avoid unnecessarily conflict. Lead and motivate more effectively, the D-I-S-C. Fun stuff to take a record. Does leading your team feel like hurting cats, even if your business is winning financially? A misaligned team will create new fires for you to put out every single week But with Entre Leadership Elite, you'll align your team and hold them accountable so you can stop hurting cats and start scaling your business. To join Elite, go to Entreeleadership.com slash Elite or just click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or on podcast.

Kevin is with us in Austin, Texas. Hey, Kevin. What's up? Hi, Mr. Ranzi. Great to talk to you, sir. You too, sir. What's up? So my wife and I own a small business. And we provide turnkey material handling solutions for the warehouse and distribution operations. So we've been in business for 15 years now. We have about 10 employees and at about 15 million last year. Wow.

Good for you. Thank you. How can I help? So my question is, how do I become comfortable delegating jobs that I've done in the past? or only I've done in a past rather. Training long enough, mentoring, disciplining long enough that you become

very comfortable with two things with a team member on that job. Competency and integrity. Competency means they can do the thing that you are wanting, that you have been doing, as well as you are almost as

well as you. Integrity means they're going to do it like you, not exactly like you personality, but aligned with your values. They're going to tell the truth. They're going to love the customer well. They're not going to cheat steel. They're going to be a whole person that is mature that you can hand something to. Until you can trust their competency and integrity, which requires a little bit of time together, usually a lot of time, handing it off to them before you trust that is not wise. It's not micromanaging to train someone. Micromanaging is once they've proven themselves in competency and in integrity, and that's not a 20-minute exercise. But once they've proven themselves in a firefight to have your back and to do it the way that Kevin does it, and they can answer

the question, what would Kevin do? And they can do it that way. Then you're ready to hand it off to them. The more complicated and customer facing, an important customer facing, that the position is, the harder this is to accomplish because you have to spend more and more and more time with them. All right. So let me give you an example. Okay. You can fix a computer at Ramsey if it's broken and you're on our tech team. That's fairly simple. You either can fix the freaking computer or you can't. Okay?

And so our tech leader in that area observes you where you were hired supposedly with some technical knowledge and you can either fix the computer or you can't. Okay, you can either turn the wrench or you can't, right? And so we observe that and we should get them up to fixing computers because that's what they're paid to do

or replacing or, you know, hitting this piece of salt, reloading the software, cold restart, whatever the magic is that does that, right? And they should be able to demonstrate that fairly quickly and we need to be able to turn them loose or we got a problem. So the simpler the task, the quicker you should be able to delegate it to them. The more sophisticated and detailed the task, the harder that is. Does that make sense? No, of course. Yeah.

And so leading your company like you would lead it as the final handoff in a successful. session plan, oh, that would be the hardest one ever. Right. So for me to turn this over to Daniel Ramsey, the president, and that's, you know, we've been working on that one 10 years, baby, 12 years now. And so, and it's not even all in his lap yet. So there we go, you know. And, but that's the ultimate as you turn it over to someone else, your job.

But in the meantime, there's a hundred or a thousand other jobs we can turn over to someone else, and that's the idea of hiring someone so that they can do it. If you can't turn it loose once they have demonstrated competency and integrity, now that's on you. That's an emotionally immature person that gets too much satisfaction from being the dog. And they desperately need to be important, and they can't turn it loose. They can't hand it to someone else. Is any of this making sense?

No, totally. Yes, sir. Okay. So give me an example of where we're going to turn some of this loose. Give me one. Okay. So one of the things that I do is when I go to a customer, I have to be able to assess what their needs are. If I walk into a warehouse, I have to be able to assess where their opportunities are for, you know, a problem and needing a solution. Where you can add value? Correct.

Can we be of service here or do they already have their crap together? Yeah. Right. Okay. Good. I like that. And there's probably, what, 50 components of that? I mean, sure, there's a lot of different things that you could look at depending on what they do.

I mean, you could probably say that 80% of the opportunities fall within 10 items. I'm making this up. Probably. I'm making this up. It might be 12. It's not 42. No. Okay.

If the whole list is 100, the 80, 20 principles going to apply. out of the 120% of them are going to have 80% of your opportunities, if, you know, something like that, I would guess that's true in most situations. No, no, no, that's true. Okay, so that's what we, that's where we start. We've got to train them on the most important 10 or the most important 12. This is the big 12. This is the big 12.

This is the big 7. I don't know what it is, but you've got to learn the 17. And you've got to look for those, the first 35 seconds you're on the floor, baby. You're looking for these 17. As soon as you walk into this man's warehouse, is where we can add value. And out of those 17, you're going to find four of them in 35 seconds. Watch. Look here, here, here, here, see it? Boom, boom, boom. Here's your target. Acquire the target. Put the beat on it. Put a laser on it. Go, go, go, go. And you just train them to think in force

ranking from a most important to least important opportunity. And then once you go through the 17, you got the big ones. You got something to sell from then to the guy and go, I can add value in these areas, and I can show you that in eight minutes. And then there's another, there's another 26 things that we can probably add some value to, but I'm going to dig a little deeper into a more thorough analysis, and then let them walk hand and glove with you and learn how to do the full analysis as well as the first thing you walk in, draw and fire? Did I touch a nerve? Does that make sense? Is that, does that apply to your world? Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Because that's how I would do it if I was in there. So, yeah, because, I mean, I think you've been doing this for over a decade, right? Yeah, about 20 years. Yeah. And so it's second nature to you. But when you start making this list down and they read it the first time, they're going to think you invented fire. Oh, God, that's so insightful. You know, but for you, it's just like a yawn. But you do quantum physics on this stuff so fast because it's what you do. It's your thing. It's how you made $15 million freaking dollars last year because you're a stud in this area. And so if you're Peyton Manning or you're Tom Brady, this is how you throw a football. These are the mechanics to get this thing to spiral and leave my hands and be 47 miles an hour

and drill a freaking hole in that guy's chest when it gets there. If you've ever caught a football from a professional quarterback, you'll never want to do it again. Okay? And so, you know what I'm saying? So this is like, oh, my God. But there's a series of things that create that physical motion with that football, right? And they can explain it in detail,

but there's only a few people on the planet that can actually accomplish it. and you're that guy. You're freaking Peyton Manning walking in there in this warehouse, and you can see stuff because of your 10,000 hours of experience that Malcolm Gladwell talks about. So this is going to be fun for you because now you're going to become a teacher rather than just a doer. You're going to teach other people to have what you feel like are natural insights,

but they are a forced ranked list is what they are. Right. I think breaking it down into the 80 to 20 is really helpful too. I think that's something that I haven't really paid a lot of time or spent a lot of time doing. If you've never been in a warehouse and you're in there for five minutes, how many things do you see that you can add value? Five minutes. Usually, I mean, dried off the cuff, I mean, probably five or ten easy. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It's exactly what I'm talking about.

It's that your first hit. And that's the low-hanging fruit, man, is what it is. It's what this guy doesn't know that, it's what the customer doesn't know that you know. And so immediately we can make ourselves valuable right then. And that tells me that when I pull the thread on that sweater, I'm going to find seven or eight other things under the hood. And that's also how I find problems inside Ramsey. I start digging around and I see something with my insight.

And they go, whoa, how'd you do that? 30 freaking years of doing this. That's how I saw it. And then I saw it and I pulled the thread on it. And then I opened up the hood and oh my God, you've got insects under here. It's a problem. You know, and that happens inside my business sometimes. and, you know, and it's like stuff I know that somehow we didn't get transferred,

and I've got to go back and redo it. So anyway, it's delegating, you systematize it, and then you teach it, and then they prove to you that they did it, and then they proved to you that they did it again, and then you delegate a part of it, and then you delegate another part of it, and then you know you're not turning your customer over to a Dufus, and you're not turning your customer, your brand over to a Dufus,

and they're not going to mess up either one. And that is how you do it. I wrote a little quick read on delegation off a talk I do on this, and I will send you a free copy of it. Hang on the line. We'll pick up, make sure we got all your particulars, and we'll send it out to you. It's like 37 pages.

It won't kill you to read it. It's not bad. It might be 75, but it's not much. But it gives you some of the basics we just talked about, but it does not have some of the things we talked about also. So you guys go back and re-listen to this episode. episode because that was really good. Kevin is amazing. I'm proud of you, Kevin. You got a great, great business.

Excellent job, buddy. Well done. Hey, folks, remember better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high-quality leaders. So take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership Podcast.