EntreLeadership - The Biggest Limiting Factor to Your Business Growth

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

•       A business owner struggling to get buy in on necessary change from his CEO that is also his brother •       A leader trying to prevent his Chick-Fil-A locations from backsliding through the stages of business •       What to be prepared for when being financially transparent with your team •       Keys to recruiting and training key leadership positions in your business Next Steps 👣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 Ramsey SmartDollar: https://ter.li/4imot0   🗳️ Help us make the show better! Please fill out the quick survey form. https://bit.ly/3O8fRvh   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 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, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win in any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, from 35 years of doing this in the trenches, including today. We're going to bring you practical, tactical things to do with your business and not much else. If you want some help, we'd love to talk to you. The phone numbers 844-944-1070 or go to Entreeleadership.com slash ask. It is a voicemail, and our team will get to you and make you a caller here on the show. Todd is in St. Joseph, Michigan. Hi, Todd.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you very much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I am the CEO of an assisted living company. We are family owned and operated. Second generation.

we, our revenue last year was approximately $22 million, and we've bought 320 employees. Wow. Way to go. Congratulations. You said you're the CEO. C-O-O. C-O. My brother's the CEO.

Okay, got you. Okay. So my question is that I'm in the process of implementing some takeaways from Entry leadership operationally, working on two of the takeaways my brother and I had from going to summit this past year. As a CEO, my brother is very much the visionary of her. business. And I'm wondering how I can get him to buy into, participate to a greater extent, and see the value in the operational details as we get more organized. Okay. So you guys have obviously been talking

about this. I mean, you took that as a takeaway, right? Yes. Yep, we did. So he just says, I don't want to do it. I mean, what do you? I don't, why is he not buying it? So our two takeaways were to get rid of business debt and to become more organized operationally. So in five to eight years, we could step back from our actual positions and continue with the business. He's been very successful at us getting rid of debt in the last six months. But I thought that's been his hyper-focused. And so he hasn't cares much about the operational piece of becoming more organized. And it's sometimes when we're selling a specific property, the real estate of the property, that becomes the hyperfocus and how that building is operating versus rolling out more methodically

different measures to put into place just for more accountability. So we operate sooner. Yeah, you guys are operating like a trailblazer where you don't have good systems and processes is what you're saying. Correct. From your perspective, anyway. And so you've got, it sounds like some of the other stuff is at peak performer status, but I think that's laying down there, a trailblazer lagging behind.

So that is a normal malady for a small business going through the five stages of business. It's a normal process because most of us that start businesses, he didn't start this as second gen, you said. But most of us that we have that visionary thing that causes us to run it. And a lot of entrepreneurs hate details. They're not processing systems people. Craig Groschelle spoke about that one year at Entree Leadership Summit and did a great job talking about the systems and processes and how that turns the whole, it really puts grease in the gears of the whole organization. When you're making everything up every time you do it because there's not a template, because there's not a system and a process, it just takes so much energy.

And you know that. That's why you're calling. So, yeah. Yeah. I am not the guy that causes systems or processes to happen in my place because I would be more like your brother. The difference would be that I do place great importance on them. The chances of me personally going and doing them, though, is zero. So I have to make sure people like you on my team, my top leaders, my C-O, my C-O, other people where I'm, you know, my HR department, places where we need, even our legal department, where we need set processes. And it's not bureaucracy at all. It's duplicatable systems where we don't have to make it up every time.

And it makes everything run so much more efficiently. I get the concept, but I don't want to go do it. But I don't mind making sure that it does, and I don't mind those of you that are wired that way to cause it to happen. I don't mind knocking down the blockers that are keeping the organization from letting you do your job, which as the C.O, this is kind of your job, right? It is, yes. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think he needs to lead, the way he needs to lead is not to become you, but instead the way he needs to lead is to commit to helping you knock down any blocker, organizational blockers do do what your else takeaway was. He's done a great job of running the debt thing down. He's passionate about that. And you're passionate about this. And he just, you know, what you're not getting is you're not getting backup from him the way you need. But we don't need him to change and not be a visionary.

We need and suddenly be a detailed guy. He's not going to. And that is correct. It's just, I guess, the support and the buy-end of putting the systems in place to become more organized. Yeah. Yeah. I think what my guys would say is, look, we're all in agreement that this needs to happen. And, Dave, we need you to be the mouthpiece to push things around or to help me hold some of the other leaders accountable to cause this governance stuff to drop into place. And if you'll do that, we'll make sure the details get done. And I'm like, okay, now I get my part. Let's do it. And then, you know, then I can, you know, guys, this is, you know, this is not optional. We have branding governance, for instance, here that is a system we put in place about five years ago, and it made a lot of difference in setting our brands up and our creatives. It gave our creatives boundaries to operate within, which they desperately needed.

But I was not the guy to do that at all. But I didn't mind being the muscle that allowed, that opened up the doors that caused the, the team to be able to do it. And just tell him that's what you need. Because I don't think, you know, you both were at summit. You both drove away with these takeaways. I don't think he's obstinate about this. I think he just doesn't know what his part in it is.

Yeah, he's not obstinate at all. And I think what you said is actually perfect. I would like him to beat a mouthpiece to help us get this moving. Yeah, I need you to use your visionary gift to make one of our visions, me doing my job. You know, really? I mean, because my C.O. Really needs to do this crap because I'm not going to do it. I mean, I can push, come to shove.

I can set up chairs. I can build, I can do all of it. But it's not the best use of Dave. And it's not the best use of your brother because he falls in the visionary bucket. So, yeah, I think that's it. I think we just got to communicate and go, I need your help. And here's how you can help cause this whole organization's productivity to go up is do one of the two takeaways that we did. and I'll go do the work if you'll keep kicking the doors open.

Be the door kicker for me. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Nate is with us in Asheville, North Carolina. Hi, Nate. Welcome to the Entree Leadership Podcast. Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me on. My honor.

How can we help? I am an owner of a tax and advisory CPA firm, and we have about 12 employees. 2022, we did about 450,000 in revenue, and then 2023 we did 1.25 million. Wow, way to go. Thanks. We're in a place now where we're trying to continue to create buy-in for our team, and so trying to decide how transparent should be with the financials

and sharing numbers with our team. Okay. Specifically, what numbers are you not wanting to share or share? Are you concerned about top line, bottom line, what? Yeah, it's between top line and bottom line, but then we also do, we designate between 1 and 5% of our top line to charitable giving. And so sometimes that can generate a significant charitable gift in certain months that would exceed some of our team's salaries. And so we're trying to figure out if that could cause conflict or issues,

them saying, you know, what if I could get more, you know, how do you guys not done charitable giving? 12 team members? 12 team members. How long have you been open? Since 2019. Okay. We only had three, we only had three team members at the end of 2022. Oh, so most of them are new.

Okay. Most are new. All right. My personal evolution on that was that I discovered really early in my journey and took it too far that most people don't know the difference in gross and net. So if they hear you made $1.2 million, they think that's net.

Yep. And that, so for that reason, I didn't, for a long time, I didn't tell anybody anything. It was all just private information. And because I thought,

you know, that that was the thing. Now, as we've grown, and I've gotten past some of that, and I got some of the people off the team that couldn't add, and I got finally many years ago, I guess it's probably been 15 or 20 years ago, I got comfortable sharing the top line, but by then the top line was substantial.

I mean, we were over 50 million before I shared it. Okay? We do not share the bottom line today, except with our operating board and, you know, key members of the finance and accounting team. it's not necessary because it's not relevant. And so I don't share that. There's a privately held company. It's none of your business.

We share the top line all the time. We'll do about $300 million this year. We don't mind sharing that at all. And we do not tell people that we give. We don't tell them what percentage of top or bottom that we give to profit sharing or to charitable giving. We just do both. that because I because there's always some math nerd trying to back in and figure something out right they're trying to go oh they give away 5% of their net profit and no then that's then that means

their net profit is why if the if the you know if the charitable giving was X you can do the math and back into it right so there's always somebody you know worried about everybody else's business instead of mind in their own so we don't share that and frankly the reason we don't share the profit-sharing percentage is because we change it from time to time up, up or down, to keep it to where it doesn't blow our minds because there's nothing going out. I mean, profits are way down, and so we'll up the percentage to keep profit sharing going out, and profits are up, we'll drop it because it gets kind of crazy, you know, if it's hockey sticking up.

And so we don't share the percentage that goes to that or the percentage or whatever. Now, back to your thing, I think if you're sharing that the company has gross revenues in a tax and accounting company of a million, $2 million. If that causes an employee team member to think they need some of that because they heard that figure, you probably have a bad high. not a bad, it's probably not a bad policy that you have, the policy of sharing that, okay? If you're charitable giving, truthfully, I mean, obviously you guys are very generous to the community with your charitable giving. That's a lot. I mean, you're dumping some serious money out there. and if and since that is such a precious value to you and to the owners and the top leadership,

if someone is not aligned with that and they think, well, you shouldn't have given that to the poor, you should have given it to me, you know, you shouldn't have given that to that orphanage or that harvest food bank or whatever, right? You should have given me that. Again, I think that's a bad hire. Yeah. And so, and then down in the actual weeds, we have to be very careful, like, for instance, who cranks payroll in the accounting team? Because they see everyone's pay.

And our controller that has been with me for 20 plus years is a close family friend is the one that pushes the button on the payroll. And she also keeps my personal checkbook. so she knows everything. But she's emotionally and spiritually mature enough to realize it's not hers. And all those numbers are just numbers. And if you're going to get all down in them and get all jealous and weird, you don't need to be the person pushing that button, right? Yeah.

Is he that helpful? It is. Yeah, I think we have a core value of generosity. And we went through, we've been doing the training from you guys. on core values and mission and vision. We just finished in December, and that was one of them that came out. And I think trying to instill that into our team

and create buying and this, you know, even the money we're making is ultimately God. Exactly. That's the way we look at. We're trying to give it back to him. Yeah. Our goal is to be outrageously generous personally and to teach people to do that.

It's one of the things we've done for several decades. So, yeah, that fits. Now, I might say this, one of the things that has helped us with looking up and realizing we've got a hire that has one of these problems, which means we shouldn't have hired them, we'll introduce some of these core values in the interview process, not six months after they got hired. Yeah. And let it be a screen. And also, again, we cover, we have 14 of them. We cover all of them in detail in a two-day onboarding process. where we go over the core values in great detail.

So again, then if it starts popping into their little brain that, oh, they gave away $50,000 to that food bank, gosh, I wish they had given that to me instead. Then they go, oh, wait a minute, they told me generosity is their thing. They didn't tell me making millionaires out of the team members a thing, you know? And so at least you gave them free warning. And then if you get into it, you go, look, we told you in the hire, we told you in the onboarding, we talk about it all the time,

it is who we are. And if you don't like this level of generosity, if you think you should be taking it instead of us being generous, then you're not a we because this is who we are. And then you start having an exit discussion. And you may have to do that. And I have had to do that a couple times where people thought, you know,

they get confused as to their value. Yeah. It's like, now, I mean, you know, you know, when your mom was changing your diapers when I was starting this thing. So let's just keep this straight, okay, on who's, whose values what, okay? You know, you just, you get into that stuff, right? And it's like, yeah. And we love you and we appreciate your talent and we appreciate your hard work and we pay you for that. But that doesn't give you entitlement issues.

So entitlement issues don't go. They don't really fit in around here. Entitlement. We don't get much of it because it just doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't, fit, you know, so I think, I think that's what you're experiencing is maybe a little different hiring and onboarding process would heavily communicate and, you know, and to make up for the fact that some of these folks were on board without that, I would just do like some staff meeting discussions and go, hey, you know, one of our core values is this and one of the downsides of us giving all that

money away is it's normal human nature for you to look and go, gosh, I wish I could take that home, but you need to understand our core values about generosity. It's not a lot of about you taking it home or me taking it home. Otherwise, we wouldn't have given it away. And so you just talk about it and kind of put it in their face. And they may exit when you do that. And, you know, good riddance. That's perfect.

Because what you're looking for at this trailblazer stage is to get the, everybody on the same page with these, I mean, you're a pathfinder to trailblazers really where you are. to get everybody on the same page with these core values and get them aligned. And then it's, oh, we do that. We do that. And then you've got a team that's all thrilled with the generosity because God owns the business and we're managing it for God.

And some of the money that God gives us, we're going to allocate to good news in the community. And, you know, that's a wonderful thing. And by the way, that stuff small business does without virtue signaling, where corporate America always all they're giving is tied to virtue signaling in one way or another. They want people to know that how great they are. And you probably do it a little bit on the down low, which is okay. And I don't mind making a big deal about it as an example to say small business like yours and mine. We can be outrageously generous. It's very cool when we are. So, Nate, you're doing good stuff, man. I like your model. I like where you are.

Congratulations on getting her done out there, man. Way to go. This is the honor. Trade Leadership Podcast. Well, this is it, folks. You're about to lose your special price for Summit 24. You're going to pay $300 a more per ticket after February 9th than you will if you grab your tickets today. Trust me, you do not want to miss our 10-year anniversary for Entree Leadership Summit. We're going to be in Dallas, Texas, and it's going to be bigger and better than ever. You're going to hear from some of the world's top thought leaders like James Culls.

clear bestselling author of Atomic Habits. Mike Rowe, host of dirty jobs and somebody's got to do it. Pat Lincione, who's with us all the time. You love having Pat there. All kinds of other world-class communicators. You're going to connect with over 2,700 leaders like you. Most importantly, you'll come away with the tools you need to grow your business like never before. Do not wait.

This event is almost sold out, and prices go up $300 on February 9. Entryleadership.com slash summit. Get your tickets now. Andrew is in Philadelphia. Andrew, welcome to the Entry Leadership Podcast. Hey, thanks, Dave. I appreciate you taking my call. My pleasure.

How can we help? So I am the executive director of development for two Chick-fil-A restaurants. We have about 150 employees here. I'm new to the role. I've been in this role for three months. I actually worked with the operator nine years ago. left and just recently came back. So when I left, I would have put us at the trailblazer stage and kind of moving into peak performer. But now we're back at the Pathfinder stage. So my question

for you is just how do we regain that momentum to make some ground up there? And then what do we do to ensure that we don't slide back again? Well, I mean, Chick-fil-I has a very specific operating system that they expect you to adhere to that is very successful. Yeah. Why would you not adhere to that? We're adhering to it. I think, you know, for our specific restaurant, like with our very specific team, just kind of pushing.

The primary problem of Pathfinder is a lack of clear direction. You don't have clear direction? No, yeah, I think we do. We have a vision and all of that for sure, yeah. Okay. And then the next stage is Trailblazer, and the primary problem there is you lack the leaders and plan to scale the business. And in Euro's case, you're not going to scale with new stores. You're going to scale just in revenue within the two stores. That'll be your only option because you're not going to have more than two stores with Chick-fil-A. So you may need some leaders in a plan in place to scale that, which would put you at Trailblazer. Is that what you're struggling with, do you think? Yeah, right now we're working. We have, you know, several new leaders that we've just brought in and trying to get them developed and help them grow. Yeah, perfect. Okay. Yeah, so because one of the things you need to do at trailblazer stage, and it's, it was very difficult for us when we started first started doing it was leadership development where you're pouring into your leaders and discipling them, showing them how to lead people well, how to love their people well, how to do accountability, how to do conflict well, um, how to, how to, how to do conflict well, um, how to, how to, how to,

hold people to a task, and also how to be there for them when they're struggling and hurting personally and, you know, in a sense, pastor them in that regard. So that leadership development, training a young leader to not be a boss, to be a leader is, that's a leadership development thing, is because leaders pull bosses push. And in your all's business, it's really easy to default to push. Instead of standing around front going, this is the way we're going, boys and girls, let's go this way. Let's go this way.

I'm pulling rather than standing behind with a whip going, get along, little doggie, you know, right? Right. And so that's what a young leader will default to boss if they've never done it before and haven't been through good leadership development. The good news is, again, Chick-fil-A's got great leadership development at the corporate level that they'll share with you and help you get to that, help you work through. but, you know, the entree leadership materials do it as well.

That's why there's so much overlap between our companies. We love them. They love us. But I think what you're doing here is you're putting your arm around someone. By young leader, I don't mean young in age. I mean, they're new to the position of leadership. Right. And the position of leadership, you know, is not a corner office.

It's not a privilege. It is a responsibility. your job is to serve and make the people that you serves life better, therefore raising productivity and profits and customer satisfaction and so forth. So, yeah, that's what you're after. And I think that's probably what you lean into. So probably where you feel like you fell down is you've got a new batch of neophyte leaders in, and you've got to train them up, and that feels like you've backtracked.

Am I wrong? No, I think that's right. Yeah, and I think making sure we have the systems in place that we're using them well and helping them all grow is definitely where we're at. Leadership systems? Yeah, exactly. Your operational systems, again, are mandated, are they not? Correct, yep. Yeah, and they're proven.

You don't want to screw with that. You need to just do what Chick-fil-A says. They are the Jesus chicken place. I mean, you've got to do it, right? So do it that way. And they're really, their systems are amazing. But yeah, anytime you plug people in, you've got people issues. That's different than, you know, how you operate the restaurant itself.

Right. And that is a harder, messier, soft scale than a simple, you know, operational process. Operational processes are the easiest to implement because you're, you just inspect what you expect. This is how we do it. Now, do it that way. Why didn't you do it that way? Do it that way. There's only one way to do it.

Do it that way. shut up, do it that way. That's the, you just, you're just a hammer in that home. Everybody needs to be on that page. And really, home office fully expects you all to do that already. The soft skills, getting those neophyte leaders, those beginning leaders to get around the other side and don't be the boss, be the leader, pull, serve, love, confront, do conflict with kindness, all of that, with strength, personal strength, so that you're not intimidated by, having a difficult conversation. All those kinds of things are developed skills over time. And that's where you sit with them and help them do it the first several times they do it. Because they're not, if you just let them loose, they're not going to do it by nature.

Does that make sense? Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, so I think you're on track to do that. And the great news is as you get them trained up, actually, you're going to do this the rest of your life. Because I've got neophyte leaders in here now, and I've got leaders. and I've got leaders in here that are long in the tooth now that know what they're doing. Okay. And so we're constantly working on.

I mean, we hired an incredible person from the outside that is a world-class at what they do and in the leadership role, but they don't know how to do it the Ramsey way yet. And we're having to get the Ramsey stuff on them. And they're going to be useless until we get the Ramsey stuff on them because everybody's going to be looking at them like, What? You do what? You know, you get this cross-eyed look at them. So, and that's what you're dealing with. That's a discomfort of the new, the newness and doing it your all's way that is an act of love. And it just takes some time. There's some mentoring, some disciplining, some formal one-on-one classes, but more than anything, when they got to have a conflict and they've never done conflict before, sit down with them, help them have the conflict. Walk them through it. Maybe you do the first one. Then they do the same.

second one with you watching, you know, and it's a repeat, repeatable thing there, and you just go, okay, that's how we do it. That's how we, you know, we're kind. We don't raise our voice. We don't cuss people. But we also don't allow crap to go on and not address it. So that's the balance back and forth there. So very cool, very cool. Great question, sir. Great question. We love your all's company and we love your product both. So all good. Thanks for hanging out with us. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. If you haven't figured it out by now, if you're looking for leadership theory from someone that doesn't make payroll and has concepts that came

from a think tank, you're in the wrong place. We don't have a think tank. We just get crap done. We leave the cave, kill it, drag it home, and share it. And that's what we do over and over and over and over again. This is a true entrepreneurial operation. And that's how we run here. And so if you're looking for that kind of stuff, you'll have to listen to something else because this is, we're going to just teach you really red meat stuff. Get her done, baby.

Get her done. If you want a salad, you're going to have to go somewhere else. This is the Ontario Leadership podcast. Up next is going to be Rob and Pittsburgh. Hey, Rob, how are you? Hi, Dave. Pleasure talking with you today. How are you doing?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? Well, I just want to introduce myself here. I'm a third generation president of a heavy industrial. and commercial general contracting firm here in eastern Ohio, operating out of four offices with about 280 employees and a top line revenue of around 100 million. Way to go.

Very cool. Thank you. Our family's been in business for 66 years now, and we're finding problems struggling, replacing season project superintendents. We've had a handful of been with the company for well over 40 years, and we're seeing the retirement's starting to take place and the promotions are struggling. So my question is...

You didn't have good bench depth? Well, we did, and we do, but some of it's starting to flounder a little bit. So we're having a hard time promoting and finding new employees from the younger generations with the technical skill set, but also the willingness to take on leadership and responsibility. And what I'm trying to figure out is how can we change or help this. Okay. How many of those positions that you're talking about are there, 10 or 40? A little over 30, probably 33, 34, depending on whether they're a site superintendent or a general foreman, per se.

And the ones you've got in the seat are thoroughbreds currently? Yes. Okay. Well, one of the things we've done in some of our top-level leaders is we've made one of their job descriptions, one of their KRAs, their key result areas, to be constantly training their replacement. Even if they're 30, I want them training their replacement. It's one of the things they need to do. Who's going to replace you? and that's bench depth is what that is um and what that does is is it keeps uh leadership

development at a one on at a one to one ratio meaning that current leaders constantly looking at their replacement and there then they start thinking hey my number two is weak i mean i mean i may if i can't get them up i may have to get them out and um uh you know so you know like these superintendents, they're really good at their job, but making part of their job, mentoring, discipling their replacement. And if they're not, then they're not doing their job. You see what I'm saying? That's a different way of framing the discussion rather than, oh, by the way, you should be concerned about this. No, you're not doing your job if you only manage the job site. If you manage the job site and don't do your bench depth, you are

not doing your job. You're failing at your position. And we had to reframe that. We started at our operating board level. There's 14 of us there. And we said, okay, because my CFO told us, he's the one that woke us up a couple of years ago. He's one of my best friends, and he's been here for 14 years. And he said, since I started in business, I planned to retire at 60, that is two and a half years from now. I am going to retire at 60. And I went, no, you're not. unless you have your replacement trained and mentored, and they need to have already been in the seat for a year before you leave. And otherwise you can't quit because I won't let you.

Yeah. And we've done a lot of that too, and that's been with our CFO. He was here for a year. The replacement was here for a year with the current seat, CFO. See, that's the system you need to implement. Yeah. With these job supers because it doesn't need to be a year necessarily, but they need to be able to do that because my current CFO is phenomenal and he was here 18 months under the direct tutelage of the other guy before he retired and walked out the door.

And it's been absolutely a thousand percent seamless. I mean, so he had the job of hiring the thoroughbred to replace himself and mentoring him, training him, walking him through the weird nuances that are finance at Ramsey, which are weird. I can tell you that. And so, you know, so all of that. And in the job super's case, you know, your job is to bring these young men along and teach them your skill, or young women, whatever, teach this next person along, teach them your skill. And you can't do that in 30 minutes during your last two weeks. Yep.

Took you 40 freaking years to get here, you know? And so I'm going to start talking to those guys like, I'm going to beat that drum, just beat the snot out of it. and make it part of their job. And then go, and oh, by the way, how can I help you? Well, we got to get some better hires in here. Okay, I'll help you with that. And you've got to help me find them, too, because you're the super, and you know more about it, and I do.

So thoroughbreds, no thoroughbreds. And then I'm also going to start, are there people in the organization that can jump across the aisle and land in one of these seats, if they thought that these seats were seats of honor? Probably would be going the opposite way towards office and project management more so than to the field and project superintendent. Thought through that process, too. Okay.

Yeah, we had some younger folks that... So they don't come out of the office and go in the field and work very often. That makes sense. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So most of them are being, if there is a field guy that we see as a number of guy and a finance guy that can move into the project management role, they might move in there. But that's ever been a problem finding the estimators or the project management staff.

It's always been the field supervision, having that, I guess, the gritty leadership. Yeah, yeah. But with the technical side and taking time to train and help people, they're always wrapped up in the job. Yep. And multiple things moving around. Yep. And I think I'll go back to what I was saying earlier then, and then a whole bunch of this is going to be just setting expectations correctly, that this is part of your job. It's not good enough that you just run the job well.

You also have to be looking. And so my guess is you're going to find the thoroughbreds to put on that bench probably from subs or competitors. Yep. That's what we're leaning towards now. Yeah, you're not probably pulling them out of the office. I think you're right. I think the office guy going in the field is probably not going to work. There might be some field guys going to the office occasionally, but the office guy going in the field is probably not going to work. They don't like get their shoes dirty.

So. True. Yeah. I mean, it's a different guy, a different personality style or a different way of looking at life, values, and so forth. So that's good. There's nothing wrong with that. It's, yeah, I think you're probably going to pull from your, you're going to watch for some talented, a sub that just really stinking,

gets the job done and is underappreciated at their other place, or they used to be a sub, and you don't use them anymore because the quality fell down, but the guy that was trying to do it right still works over there, that's the guy you want because he's dissatisfied, too. That kind of stuff. I'm putting them on the bench, and I think the way you can attract them is if you formalize the process enough that you can state it in an outline that says, okay, here's what normally happens. You land on the bench. Your pay is X, and after six months, your pay goes to Y, and your responsibility changes to this. And the typical person that lands on the bench is

fully running a job within 14 to 18 months, or whatever the number is. I don't care if it's 24 months. Whatever it is, give them the actual timeline so they can see, it's like if you're a journeyman electrician, you know you've got X number of hours and years that you're going to be doing that before they put you on full pay, right? You come before you step out of apprenticeship. And so you give them that kind of a system. It's not vague. It says, well, come in and, you know, someday, maybe you'll if you just keep, if you just keep working hard, well, just make, no, no, no, no, keep it very specific because that's very attractive to the kind of person that runs a project. They like a system that is self-rewarding that they see. If I come in here,

I learn this stuff, they're going to move me along that bench into the leadership role. Okay. I think that'll help you with your attraction, but you've got to find them to even have the interview to present that. But I would also then put that in place. I don't know if all that's helpful or not. I'm not that much in your world. I mean, I grew up around construction my whole life, but so I got a vague idea of what you're dealing with. But more than anything, it's a bench-depth thing.

I would take what I did with the CFO, what you did with the CFO, and just apply it to this situation is what I'm saying. and that does make sense to me. I think that will work. So very, very well done. Hey, folks, thank you for listening. And thank you, man, our, we've been doing, I've been doing this show now for one year. The Entree Leadership podcast is several years old,

but I took it over, started taking your calls about a year ago. Our numbers are through the roof in that 12 months because of you. Thank you so much. Please continue to share the show. Click the share button if there is one on your platform or cut the link out and send it to somebody and say, hey, this podcast is helping me. I'm learning stuff and I'm entertained and whatever else. Tell your friends about it. We appreciate that. Leave a nice five-star review. One-stars aren't helpful. Your mama said, if you ain't got nothing nice to say, don't say nothing.

So come on. And, you know, please share, please subscribe and follow and do all of that. It makes a lot of difference in the algorithms. You're our only marketing budget. So please help us. We would greatly, greatly appreciate that. And thank you for those of you that have been doing that. You can do it some more, but thank you for that have been doing it. And we really, really appreciate you. Hey, remember, better a 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.