EntreLeadership - They Get the Job Done . . . but They’re Annoying

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Today, we’ll hear about:  A caller deciding whether or not to hire a high performer who’s irritating  A franchise owner worried about his employee's financial choices  Dave Ramsey’s thoughts on how you are both the problem and the solution in your business   A son looking for advice on how to negotiate his salary in the family business     Next Steps  📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message:  https://bit.ly/3HUgAgi    👣 Find out what Stage of Business you’re in: https://ter.li/axd39b  ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/y8qdo7     🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/fcazl2     🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/wcjhpu     ☎️ Learn more about EntreLeadership Executive Coaching: https://ter.li/ycznhl    💵 Learn more about Ramsey SmartDollar: https://ter.li/4imot0    🏅 Help us make the show better! Please fill out this quick survey form. https://ramsey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_01hjJ6UN8mnQPNI    Offers From Today's Sponsors  NetSuite: https://ter.li/x1t20q   BELAY: https://ter.li/yohiu6  Payority: https://ter.li/fh2oau  Trainual: https://ter.li/a8zexl  Found: https://ter.li/ggwmrv    Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show    🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💰 George Kamel  💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  💼 The Ken Coleman Show    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy  https://www.ramseysolutions.com/compa…   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Entree Leadership podcast where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win in business and in leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of mistakes in the trenches and a few victories in the trenches, and that's why I'm still alive and still here. So if you actually want a think tank about theoretical things about business, you're in the wrong place. I'm what's known as a practitioner. In other words, the stuff you and I are going to talk about. I did it today. I'm the CEO of Ramsey. So thanks for hanging out with us. If you want to be a caller on this podcast, we'd love to have you. 8449-4-1070 is the number, or you can leave us a voicemail and or leave us a little detail,

and we'll get in touch with you at entreleadership.com slash ask. Reagan is in Seattle. Hey, Reagan, what's up? Good to be here. How are you doing? Honored to have you. How can we help? So I am in the early stages of taking over the family business. We're a paint contractor with 70 employees with an average annual revenue of 12.5 million. Good for you. Now, here's my question for you. I'm hiring for my team and I interviewed a skilled candidate I've known for a while.

While they could be a good fit, I'm finding their personality traits challenging and somewhat irritating. Is it worth hiring someone with an impressive resume and experience despite a difficult personality to manage? No. No. Well, that was quick. It's a small business. By definition, you're going to be spending a lot of time with an irritating person. Why would you do that to yourself?

True. I mean, now, let's talk about it a little bit. But, you know, to me, the culture fit and the ability to get along with others is more important than the skill set. I actually want them to have both, but people make the mistake all the time of thinking they have to hold their nose and put up with people who don't have any people skills or just strange or whatever they are. People I don't like in order to get a job done, and you don't. And I don't know where that comes from. I think corporate America does it, and that's why we sometimes a small business think we need to do it. And we're actually better than they are,

so we don't need to do it. So, um, What's the position you're hiring for? So the position is a project manager. Going to be reporting to you? Reporting to me, yes. And then working with our field crew and customers. Okay. So the level of irritation or the type of irritation, what is it, is it something that can be worked on?

Or is this just a strange bird? Well, let me give you the two examples. These are the two takeaways I took from this individual. They talk excessively. That was a big one. They talk excessively. That was a big one. At times, I don't know if we're having a dialogue or a monologue.

Maybe that could be worked on. The other... That could be nerves in an interview. That's true. It could. But I have known this person for a while, and they are a chatter. Okay. But it could be somewhat nerves.

The other that I've picked up is a victim mindset. And that leads me to believe that this. individual will need constant validation. That could be something that they could eventually outgrow, but I don't know is there underlying things there that would just make them a high-mainment. When you're running the project and your customer facing, you don't have that as an option. You can't play victim. You have to play hero.

You're there to save the day. And when something's wrong, Superman jumps into a phone booth and pulls out his cape he doesn't run and go oh somebody else fix it right i mean that's we need we need a superhero in these cases so um yeah i um here's the other thing there's the intangibles that you've got rattling around in your spirit that you've noticed that um you've tried to bucket them in a way where you can talk about it in those two categories talkative and victim but there's other stuff that's just that's a little harder to put your finger on, but it just causes you to know.

I can hear that in your voice in the way you're talking about this. Am I right? Yeah, you are right. Yeah. Yeah, don't hire them. I could see this individual being in the hallway and maybe I just hesitate going out

until they go back in their office. Yeah, see, that's... You don't want to build a place that you own and don't want to go to work there. Yeah, yeah, you know what? You're right on the money there. Yeah, that's... And then you're going to have to deal with them, and then they're going to be a victim of you because you're going to fire them.

True. And then that's going to be a bad long-term play because then they're going to be out there running their mouth about you, although it was them. I think this is one of those things where there's a proverb that Andy Stanley did a whole book on. And I can't quote it off the top of my head exactly. but it basically says the wise scenes danger and avoids it the fool goes forward and suffers for it

and so when your spirit is disturbed about something like this, about a decision that's a wise person recognizing danger and avoiding it and if you'll learn to trust that it's a very valuable thing to let the spirit speak to you that way. So yeah, I'm I'm 100% sure you should not hire this person. Okay. I wouldn't hire them. I wouldn't hire them if I had

come to the same conclusions you have. Okay. And I've avoided that lots and lots of times. So, hey, that's a great question, by the way, and you've got a great business and you're a great leader for asking the question. And by the way, by definition, a project manager that is leading people and is customer facing is it does not have the skill sets if they have an irritating personality. A good ability to deal with human beings in that setting is one of the skill sets.

This person lacks that, so they don't have the skill set to do it. They may have the technical project management understanding, but part of it is people leading and leading the customer, setting expectations, working through problems, keeping the crew on. Crew's not going to want to work for this guy or gal.

They're not going to want to work for them. So they technically don't have the skill set of a good project manager. Because a good project manager has fabulous people skills. They have to because you can't manage projects except through people. That's how it works. So good question. I like your question a lot. And I think what you guys are doing is amazing.

Way to go, Reagan. Good stuff. This is the Entry Leadership. If you're struggling to know what the right next step is for your team, then you're in good company. Most business owners deal with seasons of uncertainty. But that doesn't mean you have to keep blindly stumbling from one obstacle to the next. I know how to get you from where you are to where you want to be in 10 years. It's called the Entree Leadership System. It's the roadmap that takes the guesswork out of business growth. So you can build the life and the business that you really want.

If you'd like to learn more about how to solve the right business problems at the right stages of business at the right time and the right way, go to entrell leadership.com slash system. Entreeleadership.com slash system. Sean is with us in Phoenix. Hey, Sean, welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast. Hello, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world?

So I'm a small business owner. I own seven domino's locations in the Phoenix area, and I've got 142 employees. And so what I'm trying to do is find a way to provide kind of common sense financial education to my employees. I see a lot of them that maybe struggling to get by and then go out and buy a brand new car they can get good interest rates or different things like that. And while I give them some of my input on stuff, I don't necessarily feel like I'm the best person to be given just kind of common sense financial education to everybody.

And so I'm trying to figure out a way that I can provide that for my people, for anyone that wants it. And I've looked around and talked to a few third-party companies as far as like hiring somebody to come in and talk with my people and things like that and haven't been able to find anything that works. A lot of them really just kind of want to come in and sell their product and spend half the time talking about their business instead of like what can help them do better financially. Yeah, there's a field called financial wellness.

And financial wellness has become a category of benefits in companies around. America. We were one of the pioneers in that financial wellness movement. We actually own financial wellness.com. That's how early we got in the game. And so the product that we have that does what you're talking about is does not sell anything, but we sell it to companies as an HR benefit. It's called Smart Dollar. And companies your size all the way up to Costco, all the Costco employees have been through Smart Dollar or had it available to go through. And basically it's a digital online process, and our guys set you up with it. We can include coaching if they want individual coaching built into that.

But basically they can go through our financial curriculum, which is common sense. Obviously, get out of debt. It's working our baby steps and get on a budget and live on less than you make and the stuff you're talking about. It's like going through the financial peace university class at your church, only this is for a benefit in corporate America, and so it's not church. It's a different product line. And it's called Smart Dollar.

Again, we've tens of thousands of companies carry Smart Dollar right now. We've got millions of employees across America that have access to it. Where companies buy it and put it out available. And then the trick is that we help you with, but it's a struggle for everybody, is to get people to actually go through the class after you pay for it, right? I mean, you've got to get them to lead a horse to water, but you've got to get them to drink, right? True. And that's always an issue.

Just warn you ahead of time. But our guys at Smart Dollar Team, I'll put you on hold, and the team will pick you back up and get you hooked up with those guys. They can walk you right through it. If you don't want to do it, it's okay. But it answers the need that you've got. That's why we built it. And again, I've got a whole team of people here that that's all they do is put that in.

Businesses as few as, you know, 40 or 50 people up to businesses that are the size of Costco, U-Haul, all of the U-Haul employees are going through it or have the ability to go through it and so on. And that works for like entry-level positions on up? It can, yeah. The problem you'll have is you've got such high turnover at some of your positions because the restaurant business just has that, your drivers and some of your front-line people. You know, last number I heard the restaurant business has a 300% turnover ratio. Does that sound right? for the industry mine is definitely not there okay that's good okay i'm on the lower end of it it works for

anybody learning how to handle learning how to get on a budget and get out of debt and use common sense works for anybody at any level the trick is are they committed enough to uh to your organization that they will plug into something like this and um um you know and i you can our guys will work with you help you ascertain if we can help or not. But that's how we do it. We plug in a financial wellness curriculum because, like you alluded to, companies are finding and have found for, gosh, this has been going on for about 15 years we've been in the space, that an employee who is not broke, an employee who is not living paycheck to paycheck, an employee who isn't behind on their bills, is more productive because otherwise they're at work.

thinking about MasterCard calling them or the student loan people harassing. Yeah, exactly. A lot of stress and like anything I can do to help my employees is definitely something I like to do. Yeah, it sounds like it. And it's, the weird thing is it actually ROIs because whatever you pay for the system, put the curriculum in, if you get enough folks through it, their increased productivity because they're focusing. And in industrial settings, even accidents go down because again people are focused on work because they're not focused at things are broken at home and um so the you actually end up with low less turnover they stick with you

because they're not jumping from job to job for a quarter an hour and you end up with more productivity the ones that are there um and uh and you're doing a good thing obviously a principled thing uh and so all of that ends up it ends up making you more than it costs you over time. The ROI is actually real. We've done two studies that prove that out, two pieces of research. So it's a very interesting field, and it's a great question on your part to be thinking of that, a great heart on your part. And next time I'm in Phoenix, I'm over there a bunch because we've got a good market there. I'll try to make sure I get in touch with Domino's. I like your pizza. So there you go, man. Hey, Sean, thank you a bunch, man. Hang on the line. Our team will pick up

and we'll get you in touch with those smart dollar guys. in the whole process there. Very cool stuff. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You hear me always talking about the Entree Leadership System. Let me remind you what that is, okay? There are five stages of business.

The treadmill operator is where you begin, where you're on a treadmill, and it's all up to you. Then you level up to Pathfinder, Trailblazer, Peak Performer, and the fifth stage is the legacy builder. where we start talking about succession planning and those kinds of things. The way you level up through those five stages of business and the speed by which you go through those five stages of business, Ramsey's been through those five stages. We're at the legacy builder stage now.

Everyone starts, if you start a small business, you start at the treadmill stage where it's all up to you. And you want to get out of that one because it's exhausting. The way you move through those is there's six drivers of business. business that drive your business. And they are in order and they spin the wheel for you, much like if you think about the flywheel concept that Collins teaches. So the six drivers, the six things that drive business and drive you up as you get better at them through the five stages are the personal driver about you, the driver of purpose? What's the purpose of your organization, the people in your organization, getting the right people in the

organization, the wrong people out of the organization, the plan, which is the strategy, the budgeting, the vision, the product itself, what's the good or service or goods or services or product mix that you're going to be offering, which leads us then to profit and then leads us back to personal. The first driver is the personal driver. Your business will never grow beyond you. You're the problem. Your capacity, your level of education and knowledge, your issues of character,

your maturity, your spiritual walk, your ability to deal with people, you're the lid on the business. John Maxwell talks about that in the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. The third law is the law of the lid. I'm the problem of Ramsey.

I'm the CEO and the founder, and I'm the biggest problem in the building. Whatever my personal limitations are, limit this place's ability to win and grow. And so a leader that is not growing is not leading. A leader that's not getting better, more mature, bigger capacity, more patience, more wisdom, more knowledge, a leader that's not a reader, is not a leader.

You're just a boss. You're just taking up space. Even if it's your business and you started it, if you haven't read a nonfiction book in five years, you suck. As a leader, you suck. It's your problem. It's your fault that this thing is sitting there. The great news is you're also the solution if you're the problem. So you can fix it. You can focus on growing as a leader. You can focus in professional development. You can start talking about how I'm going to be better managing my time. You can take better care of your body and your wellness, your mental wellness and your physical wellness. And you've got to be working on all of those all the time. I'm 63 years old. I'm still read like a maniac. I've been leading for 35 years. I'm leading a $300 million company. I still read

like a maniac. I've got to know something tomorrow that I didn't know today to take this place to a place tomorrow that it isn't yet. And if I don't know something about it, it's not all on me, but when somebody that's a genius that comes into my office and presents me with something, if I don't have some basis of knowledge, I blow them off and that could have been the thing that rocket ship this whole place. The guy just had a great idea. The gal just had a great idea. And I'm too ignorant, not knowledgeable, that's what ignorant means, to know what they just said

because I haven't read anything. I haven't studied. I haven't listened. The only input I've got is freaking news channel, which will make you want to live a rubber room. So no, you need to actually be feeding your spirit, feeding your brain, taking care of your body. You're growing, you're reading, you're learning, you're changing because you're the problem and you're the solution.

That's the personal driver. You're not successful if you're not growing as a leader. Always learning. Spending time with other high-quality leaders. get some people outside your organization and form your own little group of people or get in one of our groups with entree leadership and they'll set you in a group of other high-quality leaders at your stage and you can bounce ideas off of them and iron sharpens iron. Get some coaching. Get with our entree leadership coaches and get lined up.

They can coach you. They can say, because you know, the problem is when you're leading, you're in it, man. You're in it up to your first. reconnect and you can't see the forest for the trees. And a coach 400 miles away on a Zoom call can look at you and go, dude, right there it is. It's right in front of you. And you go, huh? Right there.

Look. Oh, my God. It was right there all along. I had not. But your perspective is not there because you're so close to it. You can't see it. And someone that can pull back can see and tell what's going on. So coaching, getting in groups with other high quality leaders.

constantly be learning and reading, going to conferences, go to Entree Leadership Summit, go to Entry Leadership Master Series, go to John Maxwell stuff, go to anything like that that's going on out there. There are great stuff out there, man, and plug into this stuff. So, and you've got to take care of your time. If you're not prioritizing your time to where you've got time set aside for you to get better, you're just never going to be there. So you've got to be pouring into the people that you're going to do run the day to day

because you can't run the day to day and get big. Somebody else is going to run the day to day, and you're running the guys that run the guys that run the guys that are running the day to day. That's how leadership grows and works. But it's an intentional act. You have to be thinking about these things, not just showing up and running from desperation to desperation, from fire to fire to fire.

And, you know, when you're early in business and you're just starting and you're learning your leadership path, all you are is a stupid fireman. You're just running from fire to fire. What'd you do today? I have no idea, but I'm exhausted. Just running circles chasing your dadgum tail, man. I know. That's what I did.

I finally had to get up above it. And the way I learned to get up above it was reading a book or talking to somebody else and going, dude, you're just a fireman. You've got to get above it. I read a book called the E-Meth. I recommended it to you all the time on here. Michael Gerber, and it's work on your business, not just in your business. And that's the whole thesis of the little book, but for some reason, at that point in my life, it was revolutionary.

I learned something that I didn't know before, and it took me to a place I have never been before. That's called growth and the results of growth. You're the problem in the organization, you're the solution in the organization. That's the first of the six drivers, and it will drive you toward, purpose, it'll drive you to get the right people in the seats, it'll drive you to develop a plan and a product that actually works because you had a plan and the right people and you've got a purpose. Oh, and then the natural byproduct of all that is you're going to make a profit because you're helping people. And then you get to look at yourself in the mirror again and go, okay, I leveled up and the stupid thing

caught up with me, and now I'm the problem again. And so we get to start the six drivers over again. Then we spin through them again. Then we spin through them again. I've spun through them. those six drivers are leveling up as I went along in 35 years. I probably spun through those things six or eight times. And a constant iteration of Dave. The version of Dave that is married to Sharon Ramsey today is a lot better husband than the little redneck hillbilly that she married 43 years ago. Thank God he's gotten better at being a husband.

And she'll tell you that. The guy she married wasn't much. I mean, I don't, she just, there's no. I mean, whoa, girl didn't have good judgment. And so, but, you know, the thing is, it, we get better, though. You either get better or you get bitter. And so you're growing, you're a better husband, you're a better dad, you're a better leader, your business acumen is increased.

I mean, I couldn't even spell digital a decade ago. And now I run a digital company. Podcasts weren't even invented. The internet wasn't even turned on when I started. And so, and there weren't any people. walking around with little magic wands in their hands when I started. And so you think I haven't had to learn something? Crap, I have to learn something just to turn my phone on, you know?

So you guys, I mean, really, you got to be growing, you've got to be learning. You're the problem. If you, you think if I was operating at the same level, I was operating 30 years ago when I was 33 years old, that this place would be anywhere. No way. You've got to get better. and don't expect your organization to grow around you and past you. They won't.

You're the problem. You're stopping up the whole stinking deal. And you can fix it. You just got to lean into it. You've got to get coaching. You get in a group. You start reading books. You start going to conferences and just make learning a passion.

I'm going to learn about leadership. I'm going to read everything John Maxwell writes. That's a lot. I'm going to, John writes a book a week. I'm going to read everything Jim Collins writes. I'm going to read everything Malcolm Gladwell writes. I'm going to read everything. Just keep it going down the list, right?

What leadership books have, I've read every one of those. Every one of them. I have not read every John Maxwell book. I think he's written 85, but I've read several of them, and John's a friend. Everything Henry Cloud writes, you know, and I have read everything he's written, and everything Jim Collins. So, you know, all and on and on, on. You know, you don't get better unless you do that.

So just make it your new life hack. And that's the personal driver, and it gets the whole thing called business started. It gets it moving in the right direction. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. If you want to help us out, spread the word about the show, share the show. click the share button, if you have one,

take a little slice out of the old internet there and make a copy of the link and send it to some friend and say, listen to this guy, he's teaching me about business, subscribe and follow. All of those things help us a lot here if you like this podcast. If you hate it, of course,

you wouldn't want to do any of that. And what are you doing here? So anyway, all right. John's with us in Birmingham. Hey, John, what's up? Hey, Dave, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I hear you. Hey, Dave.

So we have a aggregate hauling business here. We did about, let's see, we did just shy of $3 million last year, and we're on track through $4 million this year. We have 12 employees. What did you say you do? What's the business? Oh, aggregate hauling, so like gravel. Hauling.

Oh, okay. Yes, sir. Sorry. That's okay. I misunderstood. Okay. Anyways, so I've been... You had a how many employees?

12. Okay. And what do you do at the business? Just a little bit of everything. And I think part of my problem is I don't really have a full official title. I've been working with my family for about a year and a half. And my question is, so I quit a pretty lucrative job a year and a half ago to work with the family business. Why?

Well, I was kind of dis-examination. satisfied with my previous job, and my dad was just like, hey, man, I've been asking you, just come work with me and try it out. Let's see how it goes. Okay. What were you making before? 80, 83. And what are you being paid at the family business? Last year, I did about 45. Okay. So far, Dad, I don't like it.

Oh, this is why I came to you, sir. Well, you signed up for it, but good God, man. I know. Now, quality of life, I say, you know, I come home in a better mood, even though I'm working longer hours, but I'm sure my plight is obvious here. Okay, so what, you said you do a little bit of everything, but what does your day consist of?

Tell me some of the three main things you spend your time on. Yeah, so start off bright and early about six of a class. clock I get there, I hop in a truck, I run deliveries, run routes. And then about 3.30, I stop, do office work. And then if there's any mechanical repairs, I work on those. What's the, what's office work consist of? Invoicing, running payroll. We do have a bookkeeper that does more of the in-depth. So I just mainly invoicing. Okay, so you're doing receivables and the bookkeeper's doing payables? Yes, sir.

Okay. You're the only one doing that? My father is doing it as well, but it kind of varies week per week, depending on what's going on. How many of the 12 people are drivers? So a bookkeeper and your dad? So the book, I'm sorry, the bookkeeper is a, she's contracted. Oh, okay. So she's not an employee of us. I got you. She has her own business. All right. Who's the two that are not drivers?

That would be my father and my mother. And what do they do with the business? My father does everything. He will drive when there's a driver down and does a lot of other paperwork. And I guess he could say sales. He's the face of it. You know, he's the one that built their reputation. My mother, she is just kind of there.

What's that mean? She gets paid for sitting on her butt. What do you mean? Essentially, yes, sir. She's got ownership in it is the deal. Yeah, I mean, you can be an owner and not be at work. I guess we'll put it at that. I mean, she is a W-2 employee, even though she owns part of it.

We don't do any kind of profit. Okay. You made $3 million, gross, you said, right? We did that in revenue. In revenue, yeah. And what's your net, do you know? Not off the top of my head, no. I'd have to dive into that.

Okay. Is there a P&L being produced monthly? I knew what you were talking about. Okay. A profit and loss statement showing the revenue that came in that month minus the expenses that were paid that month equals the profit for the month. Yes, sir. There is.

There's one. I just don't look at those pretty often. Okay. That would tell you what your profit is. In other words, okay. If you were looking at it and if it was being produced monthly, the bookkeeper may be doing that on contract. They may be producing that monthly for you.

They're certainly doing it once a year for taxes. Okay, so yeah. And what did you do before for $83,000? I worked as, I was actually in the service department at a freight liner dealership. We were just a high-volume freight liner dealer. And you did what in the service department? I was an advisor and an estimator. Okay.

All right. How old are you? 27. Okay. All right. What's a truck driver make that works there? Oh, 19, 21 an hour. More than you.

Now, that's a part of it, too. You know, he gave me the whole speech of you have to start at the bottom. And, yeah, there's a few. We're actually hiring some right now in the process of hiring some, and the amount we're talking is more than I make. Okay. All right. Well, I think if I were in your shoes, okay?

I would sit down with your dad and maybe your mom too. And at the office, not at the kitchen table, the family, but at the office and have a professional business meeting. And it sounds something like this. Guys, this is not working out. I enjoy what I'm doing and I enjoy being here, but the pay is ridiculous. And I don't understand where we're going with this

because I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. and, you know, we've got to start putting some systems in place to grow this business. And, you know, and I should be paid at least what other employees are paid that do the same job at a minimum. Okay. So the rule, John, in family business that we teach people in family business and that we adhere to in Ramsey is, family members that work in the business do not make more than other people that do the exact same job and family members that work in the business do not make less than other people that work there now if a family member is an owner they can participate in the profits that's different that'd be like

your mom okay but if you have a job like so rachel quixer Cruz, my daughter is a Ramsey personality, and the Ramsey personalities are paid based on their sales of their books, based on appearances that they do, and based on speaking fees and other things, okay? And they get percentages on each of those, royalties on each of those. Rachel gets the exact same percentages as the other Ramsey personalities. Now, she may sell less books or more books than one of those, so she might make actual more money, but she has the exact same job and as the other Ramsey personalities and the exact same pay.

Rachel is also one of the owners of Ramsey. And whether she's a Ramsey personality or not, by being an owner, she gets some of the profits. If she didn't work here, she'd still get that. Okay? You separate ownership from your day job. And at the day job, you should be paid, everyone there, including your dad, including your mom only what the job pays, not less, not more. And so if your job, and dad and mom, I need you to

help me define what my job is, okay, it seems like I'm doing some accounting and some truck driving, mainly truck driving. And so when I'm driving the truck, I should be paid at least what truck drivers are being paid. If you're unwilling to do that, then we're going to have to call this and I'm going to have to go get a job. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. Because I think your dad's making a mistake. I got you. And he should clearly define what your job is

so we can tell if you're doing it or not. If you hold you accountable for competence, okay? And he clearly defined what you're doing, what is your job in your job description, okay? Well, we need you to drive truck until 3.30, and then we need you to take care of these accounting functions. of the invoicing, okay? And so a part-time bookkeeper doing invoicing makes this,

and a part-time truck driver makes this per hour. And so we're going to put those hourly rates together, and that is your job description and your compensation plan. And that's a professionally run business, and your dad should be doing that. You should do that with everybody in the business, by the way. Everybody that works are, including you. And you shouldn't overpay people, and you shouldn't underpay people.

Now, so the owner's kid doesn't get taken advantage of and the owner's kid doesn't get a free ride on lack of competence, and the owner's kid doesn't get paid more because he's the owner's kid. He gets paid for the job he does. Now, when you become an owner someday, you can participate in the profits, but only then. Right. Okay. And so I don't know. I think you guys had very different pictures in your minds as to where

this was going to go and what it was going to look like. And you are living in your dad's picture, not your picture. That's why you called me. Is that right? Yes, sir. Yeah. When you said, I'm going to take this job, you had one thing in your head, and he had this in his head. Now, I don't mind his statement of you're going to start at the bottom. My son, Daniel, is the president of this company. I'm the CEO. He started at the bottom. He started in ad sales. actually when he was 16 he had to paint the stairwell because he needed money for a car and I paid him what I would have paid a painter to paint the stairwell which was overpaying him because he sucked at painting but anyway I paid him by the job and it took the poor guy forever

because he didn't know what he was doing but anyway we finally got the stairwell painted and he got the money for the car at 16 years old but so he's been never been afraid of hard work I've never been afraid of starting a ramsie kid at the bottom there's no silver spoons right So then when he came out of college and decided to come here, he started in ad sales here. And he got paid the same commission that the other ad salespeople got paid. And the first year, he was the worst salesman we had. By the time he finished a couple of years later, he was the top revenue producer in the company. He learned his skills.

And I didn't hold him back and say, now, you just need to start at the bottom and make no money. No, you start at the bottom, you start take that job, and you start, take that job, you do that job before we can talk about doing something else. That's starting at the bottom. But it doesn't mean you have to be underpaid. Now, you don't need to get paid 83 just because you made 83 before unless this job pays 83. Right. But I think you're underpaid because I think you're paying your truck drivers more than you guys are getting more than you're getting paid.

And that's not right, John. So I think you and your dad need to get your pictures aligned where we are and where we're going. And if you can't get alignment on that, then I think your dad's got a wrong situation here and you're probably not going to want to work there. And, you know, that's, you know, you have proven that you can make $80,000 in the marketplace. So you didn't like the other place, but the income was different. And so you know how to do an $80,000 job. Somewhere. And that doesn't mean you're worth $80 to this company. If this company pays what you do driving a truck and doing invoices 55 or 65, then that's what you're worth.

and that's what you get paid, and that's starting at the bottom. And then after you drive truck and run the invoices for a while, and get to meet some of the customers and start handling some of the stuff your dad's doing, then you move towards ownership and move up in leadership, and so on. So there we go. That's how we do it. But I think you need to sit down with your dad and mom. I'm guessing your mom, since she comes down there and camps out, probably has some say in this.

So I want both of them to hear the whole conversation. I think that's probably wisdom. And you just, you start with gratitude. I'm grateful. Thank you. It's been a fun ride. But I started this with one thing in mind. You started it with another in mind.

And I'm living your dream, not mine. And making half what I used to make ain't cool. And when you're paying the guy next to me doing the same job, more money. That's not cool. We're not going there. So there you go. Good question, sir. Good question.

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.