EntreLeadership - We’re Getting Screwed by Our Business Partner

Episode Date: September 2, 2024

Today we’ll hear about:  A business owner whose partner does no work but wants the profit  A man trying to decide if offering financing would be immoral  The three signs your business is growing too fast  A man trying to get his father to listen to his business ideas    Next Steps    📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://ter.li/askus    👣 Find out what stage of business you’re in: https://ter.li/axd39b  ✉️ Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://ter.li/y8qdo7     🏢 Attend EntreLeadership Summit: https://ter.li/fcazl2     🎤 Attend EntreLeadership Master Series: https://ter.li/wcjhpu     ☎️ Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: https://ter.li/ycznhl    💵 Learn more about SmartDollar: https://ter.li/4imot0     Offers From Today's Sponsors  NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/Ramsey  BELAY: https://www.belaysolutions.com/entreleadership  Payority: https://www.payority.com/entreleadership  Trainual: https://trainual.com/entre  Found: https://found.com/entre    Listen to More From Ramsey Network  🎙️ The Ramsey Show    💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show  🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour  💡 The Rachel Cruze Show  💰 George Kamel  💼 The Ken Coleman Show    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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches, right alongside people just like you. If you want to talk about small business and talk about leadership, you found the place. By somebody who actually does it. This is not a theory place. This is a doing place. So we're here to help you. If you want to participate, give me a call at 844-9-4-1070 with your question.

844-9-4-1070. Or you can leave your question at the website. We'll get back to you and set you up to be on the show. Entreeleadership.com slash ask. Joshua is in Vancouver. Hi, Joshua. Welcome to the podcast. What's up?

Hey, thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm Joshua. I'm in the tourism business in Vancouver. And, yeah, I've just got a bit of a dilemma with a business partner. I was hoping you can maybe help me with. I'll try. Tell me about it. So we started our business back in 2018, just to handshake agreement because we were young

and didn't really know what we were doing is me and my brother and a friend of ours during the pandemic in the tourism industry kind of decimated our business. And so our business partner decided to leave the business. He said he didn't enjoy working with me and my brother like he thought he had. And he said he wanted out. At that time, you know, our business was really worth nothing. And so we didn't really think much of it until my brother and I started working in the business again and building it up. Last year, our revenue was about $800,000.

And this year we're projected to be about $2.1 million. So we're growing it, you know, quite drastically. and from the beginning, you know, we had this agreement with our friend. The whole thing's a handshake. Yeah, just a handshake, exactly. So what ownership entity owns the business? So we all own it 33%. We do have like a shareholder.

Oh, so it's not just a handshake. You actually have a written document that is an ownership and this goober owns one third of it. And he walked away and you did not take it back from him. That's right, yeah. Why? And we've been trying to, but he hasn't been responding. We've been trying to the last two years. In 2021, he offered us to write off his debt.

The company was upside down. And he said he'll sell it to us for, it was a brown. He was asking for us to buy it off him for $60,000. And the business was worth, you know, negative $200,000. So it's like we weren't willing to do that at that time. And now, I mean, the business is on the right side of things but yeah it's not uh yeah we're we're we're kind of we're kicking ourselves obviously okay so he walked away has provided the original handshake agreement

god help you guys was uh that you guys the three of you guys went out to happy hour and had a couple beers and decided to open a business and everybody's going to work in it and then he decided he didn't want to work in it. Yeah, exactly. And he walked away. So he lost his ownership at that point because this was all predicated on all three of you carrying water. Right. And he quit carrying water three years ago. So, I mean, I guess what I'm missing? I'm asking, is that the deal? Yeah, that's the way I look at it. But I'm worried that we, we might find ourselves in a lawsuit of him saying, well, hey, I still own a share of this.

You haven't actually bought out my shares. You do. He does technically own the shares of that company. So what would I do? I would close that entity down and open up another one that looks exactly like it that you and your brother own. Yeah, we've thought of that too. Is there any risk to that, like opening up another company

that looks the exact same in him saying, like, in him saying, well, hey, they're still operating the same businesses we had before. They're just trying to, they're just, you know, opening up. There is no operating agreement. There is no general partnership agreement. This guy can sue you because anybody can sue anybody for anything. But that doesn't mean he can win. There's always a risk.

But that's the problem with stupid but partnerships. Partnership is the only ship that won't sail. And so it's just, it's why we tell people, to never do this because it always goes sideways like this. So the number of general partnerships in small businesses survive one decade is almost zero. It's very close to zero. And so what you're experiencing is classic case study

of how to not do things, how to not do a deal, A, with no written documentation of any kind, no exit strategies, nothing covered for divorce, disability, death, disinterest default, and he's definitely in the disinterest and default category. And so, but the morally, and for that matter, you'd have to talk to an attorney, but in my mind, legally, this thing, the handshake agreement that led to a 33% ownership was predicated on all three of you working and adding value to the business. He ceased to do that three years ago.

And so he ceased to. to validate his ownership three years ago. So if he wants to sue you for shutting this down, fine. But I would shut it down tomorrow. Like, you know, you said it's a travel company? We do, we do tours. So we do, you know, biking tours, walking tours. Okay.

So let's pretend that your current company, I don't want you to name it. But let's pretend that it was named. after the first three initials of the three guys, J, B, and C, tours. Okay? I'm going to reopen J and B tours tomorrow and take over the same URL, the same website, the SEO,

everything, I'm going to step right into all of it and just close the other one down and it's just sitting there as a shell that owns nothing and operates nothing and creates no income. There's no way I'm going to grow a business with this guy owning one third of it. Well, that's nice to hear. Yeah, I mean, because that's, that was, you know, that was what we were thinking of doing.

And I, yeah, I don't know. I feel like, is there, I don't know, is there a moral obligation? No, you do not have a moral obligation. His moral obligation was to work and do one-third of the work. He has not done that. He's not fulfilled his moral obligation. He is in default. Yeah.

Your moral obligation, your moral obligation to him left when he went into default. when he no longer did his part. You don't get to form something based on we all work in it, and then you don't work in it anymore, but you want to cash in like a dead gum parasite, like a tick on the butt of the organization. Yeah. That's wrong.

Yeah, he's definitely hindering the growth of the business. No, he's not. He's not doing anything. He's not hindering anything. He's just making y'all worry about what he might do someday, and you're worried that you might be growing his one-third and that someday he gets to cash in on all your work. And that's a valid worry. I would shut that crap down. Now, if you want to do one thing, you can. It's up to you.

But it sounds like you've got contact with him. But I would sit down the two of you with a cup of coffee with him and say, all right, dude, here's the deal. The deal that we did for one-third was based on the fact that all three of us work and cause the business to grow. You don't work here anymore. And so we are getting ready to close the business down and reopen in another name and keep going without you. And you're going to get zero. However, in the name of our former friendship and in the name of not having to fool with all that, we'll offer you $10,000 today in cash right this second to sign over your shares. If you don't, your shares are going to be worth zero because I'm closing it tomorrow. That would, in person, in person, both of you brothers looking at Goober and telling him

the way it is. I would, I would love that, but the only communication you've had with him is actually to his lawyer, though. He hasn't responded to a call or an email. Oh, he has a lawyer. His dad is a lawyer. Oh. Okay. Yeah. You know, you know, then I take back everything I said. Freaking hate lawyers. Yeah, we have an email to me. communication from him and his dad. And his dad is the difference between a catfish and lawyer. One of them's a scum-sucking bottom feeder and the other one's a fish. The, oh, God, unbelievable.

Yeah. No, you need to, you need to just shut it down. Go get you an attorney and reset your ownership and reopen tomorrow on a different. Slightly altered name and move on. And then do we expect his dad to come after you, but good luck. He's going to try to bluster and be a, you know, be his BA lawyer crap, and then I'm going to hire an attorney and just fight them to the death. No.

You're not wrong. And don't be sitting there growing a business and giving a third of it to a parasite because his father's a lawyer. No way. Not intimidated. Quite the opposite. I'm pissed. Long way from intimidated.

Now I'm ready to fight. So no, close it tomorrow, Joshua, and get you, get an attorney reopened in a different entity name, slightly change it, scarf all the SEO and move it over there. There's nothing he can do about it. He has no basis for this. He will lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. That's my opinion. I'm not an attorney.

If you want to get a legal opinion, you can get one from one of those catfish people. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Nothing hurts a business like a misaligned leadership team. leaders who don't lead like you do or who need their handheld, oh God, through every decision cause more problems than they solve. If you're tired of babysitting your leaders, then you've got to join the Entree Leadership Master Series live stream. We will show you how to grow real leaders with actual backbone. Now, it's what we have here. We have like grownups and stuff working here. When you and your leadership team stream this virtual event, you'll come away with bought-in leaders

and a custom plan to scale your small business together. Go to Entreeleadership.com slash live stream to get your ticket today. Jim's in Milwaukee. Hi, Jim. Welcome to the Entree Leadership podcast. Hey, Dave. Thanks for having me. I'm a residential remodeler, family-owned business.

We have four employees. We work with a number of contracts. contractors and we do about $1.3, $5 million of business a year revenue. Good. We're really looking to grow. And we've just noticed a lot of customers lately who are asking us if we offer financing. And, you know, we operate completely debt-free and we don't know if it's morally correct offer and just kind of looking for your advice.

So what kind of remodeling jobs do you do? Residential remodeling, interior and exterior pull-home. So you'll go in and got a kitchen and buy. put a new kitchen in or whatever. Exactly. Okay. It's not morally wrong to offer financing, but I don't think it's necessary in your world for growth. Okay.

It just adds an element of hassle. And so here's what you're going to get. You're going to get a customer who you got the, you helped them get the money, and they maybe couldn't afford the deal, and so they're going to be a complete pain in the butt. Right. Have you noticed that broke customers are the worst ones? Absolutely. Yeah.

And you're going to attract more of those if you have an in-house financing plan. Now, if they go to the trouble to go to their bank or their credit union or whip out their credit card and take a cash advance to pay you, then that's up to them. But I don't think you're morally wrong for doing it. I think you're inviting a customer base that you don't want if you're offering financing. And I think on top of that, you're really good at remodeling and construction. And I don't think I would add this component to my day-to-day operations of my business that would be a pain in the butt operationally to deal with.

I think you'll be better off spending your calories on construction. Makes sense. I think you'll make more money that way. and you're going to deal with the lower customer. Now, if you wanted to set up something and say, you know, we don't, but we do have a relationship with such and such a credit union down here. Or, you know, the local bank has financed for a few of our customers, talk to Jim at the local bank, or talk to Henry at the local bank, right?

And give him his business card or whatever. If you had a little bit of a relationship like that, but you just kind of, it's a referral, you're not the one taking the application and processing it through some, outside finance company that you are having to interface with. That's a lot of extra work for you. And they will lean emotionally back into you then if they don't like that financing deal. So I think it's better off if they make their own financing decisions.

But again, I don't think it's because you're immoral. So if you own a restaurant and you take credit cards, I can't take credit cards. I'm Dave Freaking Ramsey, okay? that would be very hypocritical if I took credit cards. That would be immoral. That would be immoral. But if you own a restaurant and you don't believe in debt but you take credit cards, you're not doing something wrong.

You're not immoral then. That's a decision somebody. Or if you own a car lot and some of your customers finance cars, that's not immoral even if you don't borrow money. That's fine. But I'm in the business of telling people not to get into debt. For me to help people get into debt would be. really be wrong. That'd be big time hypocritical. So I've got a different standard, though. So our website,

we only take debit cards and have a very clear statement on the website about that for anybody that gets confused. So anyway, Jim, I think for those reasons, I'm going to concentrate on my calories and on my expertise. And if you wanted to facilitate it by having a relationship with a local bank or credit, union you can send them to and say some of our customers have used these guys, they've had a good experience, you can check them out. That might be nice to have around, but then you don't have to do all the processing, and they are going to own the responsibility of the financing, and all you need to be is paid. All you care about is do you get your draw, and do you get your upfront deposit or whatever your terms are on the renovation that you're doing for folks? I assume you're getting some upfront

hold money to cover some of your cost of goods, some of your construction materials at least. So you're not cash flowing their job. And then you're probably getting a draw, depending on the size of the job, in the middle of the job, or maybe two draws, and then a final payout at punch. That's a pretty typical scenario in your world. So, by the way, I think we're at the, I think the business position that you're in, the space that you're in is absolutely amazing. I think you're going to do,

I think you're going to be able to triple that dead gun business before you know it. Because if you do renovations and you help people with construction, if you price yourself a little bit high and you show up on time or early and you finish on time or early and you have good quality and there's always somebody on the job, there's not three weeks with nobody showing up over there and that kind of crap. If you keep the job looking like an ant hill, people crawling all over it, and you finish earlier on time and on budget, you will get so many referrals, you'll have so much business, you won't know what to do.

I mean, you're going to grow a $10 million business, Jim. I'm so proud of you. It's a great space, and I hope we can help you as you go along. We really appreciate you joining us, man. Great question. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. Dominic is in Austin, Texas.

Hey, Dominic, how are you? Hey, Dave, great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Hey, so I'm an owner-operator of a pool cleaning company in Austin, and we, you know, I've been in business for about a year, and we keep hearing, you know, don't grow too fast, make sure you're not growing too fast. And just wanted to get your opinion on, you know, what we can do as a business to make sure that's not happening and, you know, what the signs are of maybe growing too quickly.

Okay. At Ramsey, we tell ourselves we have to keep three things ahead of our growth. Otherwise, we're out over our skis. We're growing too fast. Okay. Number one, we don't want to grow faster than our cash. Okay. We don't want to be stretched thin on the finances because we grew too quick.

Right. Yeah. Or put ourselves at risk. Number two, can't grow faster than I can hire good quality people because people cause your business to grow inside. And if you can't get enough help and you end up taking on more jobs than you can service because you don't have good quality human beings to show up and do the work right on time, as promised. And in your space, you know what I'm talking about. There's only two kinds of people in

pool business, complete bozos and excellent people. There is no middle ground, right? Yeah, you're absolutely right on that. I've worked for a few larger pool companies in the past, and that's definitely a pain point we've had is hiring and hiring the right people that are going to go out there and do the job that they're supposed to do. If you take on more accounts than you have quality people to service them, so you take on bad people because you're trying to hurry up and get everything taken care of, you're going to spoil your own business because you're going to spoil your reputation because you grew too fast in air quotes. That's what that means, okay?

So if I go faster than my cash or faster than my people, and in our case, I don't know if it applies to you, maybe it does, but a little bit, but in our case, we can't grow faster than our internal technology infrastructure. Right. So if we grow faster than we've got the digital ability to process all the stuff, then the thing falls in on itself. And again, we have a service problem with a customer. In your world, that might be I can't grow faster than I can purchase good quality equipment to keep the jobs being, to keep the pools clean. Right, right, right.

So like if you doubled your, if you doubled your volume, you'd have to double the amount of equipment you're operating and or, you know, bring on, new technologies that were faster or whatever, but you can't grow faster than the quality and the size of your equipment. You can't just run your equipment ragged. You've got to stay up with it. And the analogy that we use with that is in the military, if you're fighting a ground war, a ground battle, that they tell you that, and I've never been in the military,

but military guys have told me this, that you don't let your fighting men and women, the advanced line of the battle go faster than the supply line of gasoline, the supply line of bullets, and the supply ammunition, and the supply line of food. Right. Because if you have a hungry,

if you have hungry troops out there with no gas in their tanks, in their equipment, and no bullets and they're hungry, they get, they die. you lose the battle. You lose the battle. So you advanced your lines past your supply lines. And so I use that as my analogy to say, okay, what's the parallel in a small business?

Well, it's cash in people and equipment or technology or something is that third one. And you could make up four if you wanted to. I don't care. But what is it, you know, that would cause me to get out over my skis and go head over heels down the slope. And so that's what you're looking at here. And I think that's going to be the challenge in your world. You're probably, you know, you're probably small enough at a year old that the cash is a real limiter. The amount of cash you have to grow with is a real limiter. And certainly hiring. I've never, in 30 years of operating this business, hiring has always limited our growth. We've always

always had more things we wanted to do than we could find people, high-quality people, that would join this crusade that fit the culture, you know, that I didn't have to babysit, you know, all that kind of stuff. We have more trouble finding enough of, we have more ideas. And nowadays I've got, the money's not a problem. I've got plenty of money. But it's just people is the biggest limiting factor to implement the ideas. So our recruiting and hiring is is our biggest limiting factor. And truthfully, some of the internal technology crap drives me crazy too. But that one's fixable.

But I think I remember being your size and I didn't have the money to do it. I saw territory. I could go take that, you know, I can go take that piece of ground, but I didn't have the bullets and the gas to go get it. And so I had to wait until I had the supply lines. That's what growing too fast means. that's where you'll get in trouble and get out over your skis. If you have enough money and you have enough people, you can't grow too fast.

And you have the right technology, the right equipment. If you've got a supply of all of those things coming at you to be able to serve the customers, but what ends up happening is that people stretch themselves too thin. They take jobs, they can't cash flow, they take jobs, they can't supply the workforce to or the equipment to, and then the customer's pissed off. And the thing starts, you start to get a bad reputation and, you know, you get this reverse, this negative momentum, and you start to smell bad. And that's what growing too fast is, that's what people are talking about.

So I think if you'll watch those things, Dominic, you're going to be just fine. Congratulations. I think you're, by the way, again, like the last guy, your space that you're in, pool cleaning, pool restoration. God, man. Just really, it's a low bar to be excellent in that. world. It's just, there's so few of them. So do it right and you'll just be huge. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Thank you for joining us. This is the podcast for small

business folks on leadership and growing your business. For small business people, buy small business people. Yeah, I got a thousand folks and we're 300 million in revenue, but in my heart, I'm always been and will always be a small business person. And I glory in that. 54% of the gross domestic product, all goods and services, over half provided in the United States, are provided by businesses that have 500 or fewer team members. Small business is statistically, economically,

and mathematically the backbone of the American economy. If you're a small business person, you're a freaking hero. And we thank you for what you do for your community, for your employees. we thank you for how good people can do business in a free market society. Thank you. Kyle is in Salt Lake City. Hey, Kyle, what's up?

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? Yeah. So, to make a long story short, my dad and I are the owners of a power sports dealership. There's county and him and I, there's five of us working. and our revenue last year was $230,000.

And, you know, we're one of the oldest dealers around, and as a result of that, you know, my grandfather and my dad, they've done things their way for so long that now I feel like I'm having to clean up the mess and make a situation better if possible. What did you say the business is? Power sports. So like boats, watercraft, outboards, snowmills. And you only sold $230,000 of them?

Well, that was the revenue. You know, we're smaller than most, I would say. But we're, you know, we're dedicated to our customers. Wait a minute. I mean, that's like 10 boats. Right, right. You know, like I said, we're small. You know, smaller than most of my grandfather wanted it.

Or side-by-sides or whatever. You sold 10 units last year. Not even one a month. No, it's not quite accurate. I would just say our overhead is pretty high with like the flooring and just, you know, general advertising and so long. So we probably sold around 40 wave runners, 20 boats. And then, of course, Southworts and go on. something's messed up in the numbers you're giving me, okay?

Maybe two or three million is your revenue? You don't do 40 waiver for 200,000 bucks, dude. That's actually one of the reasons I was calling. Because with how small our business is, and when my grandfather passed away 10 years ago, because he handled the bookkeeping, and then that kind of all just fell in my lap. This is not bookkeeping.

This is sixth grade math. Okay, stop a minute. Okay, if you're going to call me up and tell me you know how to run the business better than them, but you can't figure out how $230,000 is not your top line. You and I need to stop there for a minute, okay? So your top line in this business has to be bazillion dollars. Did you say $230,000?

That is not revenue. revenue is the total of all sales. I guess I must be misunderstanding the question then. Okay. Revenue that comes in is what your customers pay you in money. Mm-hmm. You follow me? And so it's the total of all those boats sold and all those sea does sold,

which you understand is a whole lot more than 230,000. Well, I must be digging with gross. My gross was about $3 million. Thank you. That's your gross revenues. Okay. And then after your cost of goods sold, you might have a net profit of $230,000. That's, I was misunderstanding, so I apologize for that.

Okay. All right. We got to get straight on that before I can move into this. Okay. So now, and so now it's a third generation. Is your grandfather still work there? No, he passed away 10 years ago. You told me that.

I'm sorry. Okay. And how old is your dad? He is 64. Okay, and how old are you? I'm 33. And how long have you worked in the business? My whole life.

Okay. And what is it you're wanting to do that your dad is unwilling to do? It's just expand the business. You know, I feel he's content how things are and, you know, our customer base has grown so much to the point that... So if you could sell twice as many wave runners and twice as many boats, he would not want to do that. that? He would argue that point, but I would have to agree with you. I'm asking that as a question. I'm sorry. Oh, no, you're right. You're saying he would not want to if the opportunity presented itself. Correct. But he would say he would say he would do it. Because he's been here

his whole life and his rut's so deep now that it's now at Grand Canyon. And, you know, I want to grow the business and make more... Well, my work. What do you want to do to grow up? What is it you're proposing to do? The main thing would be just get more employees. You know, how would you get more employees if you don't make more sales?

I'm trying to figure out because, you know, I don't have the same experience like you guys do or, you know, I'm still learning things myself. So I know our, I know one thing we needed to do a long time ago is expand the building space and make, you know, like an office for people. I mean, something like you said, I can't remember when you said it,

but you mentioned that you got to make the workplace fit the employee, not the employee fit the workplace. You know, I'm trying to make it more attractive to folks, but it's hard to make changes when I'm not the majority owner of the business. Yeah, but none of that, none of that expands revenue. Right. You're just, all you're doing is raising expenses. So you can't hire more people

and you can't change the, office space and update it to make it more culturally friendly for the team that works there, which I don't disagree with either one of those things, but you can't do those things without a proposal to bring in revenue to pay for them. Right. So how are you going to make more sales? What are you proposing to do to make more sales? It's actually service, and so it is getting more mechanics,

and then we can take on more service work. That's where a lot of the money is. You're running away service work? Yeah, we're just, you know, we're forced to, like, my schedule right now, we're like a month out before I can get someone in on the schedule. Okay. We're that busy, so. Do you have the physical space to add a mechanic?

You have another bay? We don't. No, that's one of the issues. So it's not just adding a mechanic. Somehow we've got to reconfigure the building to add a bay. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, is there any land there that you can? could add a small metal building to be your third next bay?

So where we're at, it is small, but I've actually been talking with a builder because there's an old building next to us, but we own it. The plan would be to tear it down, build a new, you know, new building there to expand a lot and just make it a better environment for everyone. because right now, like one of the bays we have is outside and, you know, with a hundred-degree heat, it's unpleasant. So that building that's next door, why could you not just push some of the walls down and turn it into a couple of bays and throw a couple of mechanics in those bays in that building rather than push it down for right now and go make some money? It was an idea. We've looked into that, but this building's, this building's so old.

It's from the 40s. I don't care. I'm not trying to run it for 40 years. I'm trying to not spend money until I make some money. You keep knocking down buildings and rebuilding stuff and not adding revenue in our conversation. Expanding the lot is not necessarily going to add revenue. Are you turning away customers to buy things?

So you're not running out of inventory. No, no. We're actually pretty good on inventory after all the nonsense during COVID. Yeah. So expanding your... a lot to hold more inventory doesn't make sense. Right. Unless you come up with a marketing plan to sell more inventory.

Right. Okay. So, Kyle, to answer your overall question, your dad is not in a rut. Your dad's using wisdom. And he's challenging you to say, bring me ideas that pay for themselves, that bring in more revenue than they cost. That's what we do in business. We want ideas that make me more than they cost me on the spot, not maybe, not hopefully,

but make me more than they cost me. A lot of what you have proposed to me on this call have been just expenses. They were not revenue producing. And I tried to guide you back to a revenue producing thing, but, oh, no, the building's 1940. No, go make some, show him how if we do these three things, going to make three times more than these three things cost us. And it's almost immediate. And your dad will do that because he has business acumen. But you just wanting to spruce the place up and basically cut your revenue, I mean, cut your net profits down by, we're going to take out of

that $230,000 bucks. We're going to spend $100,000 and everybody's got a nicer office. No, I'm not for that either. Put me in the same rut with him. I'm with you. I'm with him on that. Don't do that. So, but if you can come in and sit down and say, okay, dad, here's a proposal to add, take the old building over there, and for a year, we could make this on two mechanics, and then let's take the money that we make on those two mechanics and push that building down and expand our lot and put some bays in and let it pay for itself as it goes. And then maybe we can expand our inventory and have a marketing plan to sell more inventory. And so run your service bays out further, upgrade everything.

Do it with cash that you're making from your ideas, not taking it out of the profits. Bring in more money than your idea costs. And I think your dad will probably go along with you. But I think what he's pushing back on is you don't have a revenue idea to go with these expense ideas. At least in the discussion you and I have had today. Now, maybe I misunderstood you, but that's what I understood is we did this. So let's go back to the drawing board on that, and I think you'll probably get better progress with your dad. at that point. And it'll make you a better businessman in the process of doing that. So good stuff.

Hey folks, good show. 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 Entry Leadership Podcast.