EntreLeadership - Where to Invest Your Time and Money for Growth

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Today we hear from: •      A son wanting advice on going back to work on the family farm •      An Instagram follower wondering if he should work with multiple banks to avoid what’s happening with Silicon Valley Bank •      A solopreneur wondering what he needs to know before he hires a team member •      A small-business owner wondering where to spend his marketing budget for the most return on investment •      A small-business owner wanting advice on if he should sell his $12 million business to go back to vocational ministry Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Find a RamseyTrusted tax pro: https://bit.ly/3RQZSlO •      Start your free trial of EntreLeadership Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Learn more about EntreLeadership’s Stages of Business: http://bit.ly/3yvdavv •      Have a question for The EntreLeadership Podcast? Leave a voicemail at 844.944.1070 or submit your question for a chance to be on the show with Dave Ramsey: https://www.entreleadership.com/ask   Take our listener survey and let us know what you think about The EntreLeadership Podcast being a caller-driven show. When you do, you’ll be entered to win a $100 gift card: http://bit.ly/40dV9hf Start growing in business and leadership with the EntreLeadership Newsletter. Sign up to receive tactical tools, advice and resources in your inbox every week: https://bit.ly/3IRWnsL Support our sponsors: •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE •      Payority: https://bit.ly/3IaA5SK •      Staples: https://staplesbusinessadvantage.com/ramsey Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices: https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy: https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. If you're a small business person or want to be and you've got questions about leadership, or maybe you're just in leadership at a business, hey, we're here for you. Give us a call, leave a voicemail. We'll put y'all and make you part of the podcast. The number is 844-944-1070.

844-9-44-1070. You can also leave your question at entreleadership.com slash ask, and our team will get in touch with you, and you'll be a caller on this podcast. I can assure you of this, those of you that think there's going to be a day that suddenly your leadership gets easy. I'm sorry, you're going to have to grow up. It's not. It doesn't matter what level of leadership you achieve. There's always going to be a little Chinese food involved, some sweet and sour.

There's always going to be some sweetness and some stuff that's precious and wonderful and fun, and you have victories and you're winning, and there's always going to be the sour part, the stuff you have to deal with, the manure you have to shovel. And it doesn't stop. There's not a system. There's not a process. there's not a magic bullet or a book you can read that's going to make the manure stop. And you've got to have the victories and mix them with the sweet and the sour,

because that's going to be a lot of your days. And that's okay. But enjoy the ride. Saddle up. Buckle up, Buttercup. This is what we're doing. So give us a call if you want to talk. The number's 844-944-1070.

Logan is with us in Pennsylvania. Hi, Logan. Welcome to the Entry Leadership Podcast. How can we help? Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Good, man. Hey, I just want to start off, and I just want to say I really appreciate you taking time for me today.

I'm honored. How can we help? Well, I appreciate your analogy about manure. So my question is, you know, I am looking to transition back to the family dairy farm, so we deal with a lot of manure on a daily basis. Mine was metaphorical. Yours is actual. Well, it's metaphorical and physical.

I'm just looking to get into things. I've worked in construction since I got out of high school. Dad encourages us just to get out of the farm and try different things. And so I'm looking to go back into farming with my dad and my uncle. And I just want to make that a successful transition. So just looking for, you know, what advice would you give to help? that be successful. You know, it's family, but there's also, you know, the financial aspect.

You need to make money and make ends meet as well. So what would be your duties in the family farming business? Some of those things that are still ironing out. There's a lot of just little maintenance items that are just daily duties, working with the animals and, you know, maintaining equipment. Personally, I would like to be able to grow into managing things more with my dad and to be able to grow the business from where he has it at the level that it is. Your uncle and your dad are 50-50 partners?

Yes, that's correct. Okay. I don't know a lot about dairy farming. About the only thing I know about it is it's unbelievably hard work. That is true. Those cows don't take a day off. to be milked every day. They don't care if it's Christmas.

They don't care if you got the flu. Nope, they don't. I mean, I have a good friend that grew up on a dairy farm and her dad convinced her that Labor Day was the day you worked the hardest. That's about how it was for us. It's not a day off for beer drinking at the lake. No, no, not. So this doesn't sound like a huge operation.

It sounds like two guys are milking a bunch of kids. cows and you're going to go over there and be the maintenance man. That's what I heard you describe. Yeah, so it is not a large operation. I mean, there'd be about 120 animals that they're milking every day. Are they two men making a living out of that? Yes, they are. I mean, if I come on board, we're going to have to grow the business or add something to it to be able to make a living for myself. Wow. Why do you want to do this? Um, you know, I asked myself a question, you know, if there was anything I could do and money was not an option after I looked at Ken Coleman's career assessment. Um, I said, you know, I would, I would own some land and I would run

cattle on it. And I thought, well, you know, one way to get my feet wet and that would be go back to working in agriculture with my dad and to be able to just learn how to manage things in that area. Okay, so what are you making now or what did you make at the last job? Currently, I'm making about $45,000 a year. Okay. Because what you're describing to me is the starting point in this is maintenance man. Yes. Okay.

And, you know, they don't usually make $90K. Correct. So, A, we've got to adjust your expectations to reality. And your dad and your uncle have to be willing to hire a maintenance man that they haven't had before and pay them out of their profits so that they don't have to do those items anymore. They're going to delegate crap they don't want fool with, which I can completely understand that idea. Then I think the thing I would do is I would sit down with the two of them several times and let's come into alignment about what our expectations are.

All three of us. Okay. Expectations are five years from now, what does this look like? Expectations are there's really no money here for you, Logan, unless you do something to add business. And out of the business you add, we will share X with you, percentage. But you don't need to go adding business thinking that that's where you're going to get your money from. And they decide they like that and they want to keep it all. And so you're still the maintenance man. So we need to align expectations. Where does your growth track come from in terms of you moving up through into an ownership position eventually?

How does that occur? And what are the benchmarks milestones that cause that to happen? Almost a flow chart, you know, where you, you know, stage gating. So it's saying once we reach this stage, this is what it's going to look like. And then I've got to do these other things to get to this. next stage and that's what it's going to look like and that's whether it's five years, five months or ten years. And, you know, and if they're not okay with projecting that process out into the future and you ending up where you need to end up with this thing and laying it all

out, then you don't need to do this deal because you don't want to start as maintenance man and it take three times longer than you thought it was going to take to become what you, you know, what you wanted to do. You'd rather go just, I would rather you go do your own deal. Right. Right. Align your expectations. Your uncles, your dads, and yours. And write them out. Write them down. This is our, this is our agreement that here's how, here's my ladder of progression. And if it happens a little quicker and it's uncomfortable for y'all, you're still going to do it. If it happens a little slower and it's uncomfortable for me. I'm still going to do it. I can't expect. You're not going to get moved just because of

the years you've been there. You're going to get moved to because, moved up through this growth track because of accomplishments and milestones. Yep, that makes sense. And then that gives them some protection from your unrealistic, well, I've been here. You should give it to me. You know, we don't want to do that, right? And on the other side, you don't want to work all your life and then find out they really aren't going to give you anything after all. Right. That'll make everybody mad. So, you know, that's the process I would do, is sit down with them and let's align expectations on what the growth track, what the handoff looks like.

That'd be the process I would go through. So one of the worst parts about family businesses, people assume because we're in the family that we can read minds. and we know what the other person is thinking, and you don't. George Bernard Shaw said the greatest illusion of communication is that it's actually occurred. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us on the Entree Leadership Podcast. Today's question from Instagram comes in from Matt.

He says, should we work with multiple banks to avoid what's happening with SVB? You should work with multiple banks, but it has nothing to do with SVB. SVB shouldn't be a model that you ever follow with a small business. SVB was a crash of high-tech startup and venture capital, PLAAs. It was a PLAAs bank. Small business people did not have their money in that bank. This is Silicon Valley Dubers all misbehaving under the heading of a bank,

and it came crashing down on their little duber heads. But it hasn't got anything to do with the bank I operate in or you operate in. Okay, so that's not why. You need always when you're dealing with any kind of vendor and a bank is a vendor, believe it or not, they're a vendor. That's where you do your banking. They are helping you. They're a supplier to you. They supply a service to you, checking, payroll, debit cards, whatever, right? That's a service they provide to you. And so if you are working with a key part of your business, it's always good to have more than one vendor in the business. It's always good to have more than one vendor in the service. It's a service. It's a service they provide to you. And so if you are working with, that category. Because that way you're not beholden to them if they change their pricing. You know, they come in and go, I'm going to double my pricing. Well, I guess you are, but it won't be here because we'll be going with our other vendor that looks just like you that we already work with.

And so it keeps them honest when you have more than one vendor as a provider of stuff. For instance, when we're doing publishing, we publish literally millions and millions of books. We haven't bought them all from one printing. company. We have multiple printing sources and paper sources to keep the paper pricing, the delivery dates, the quality, and so on, all honest. And if one of them starts screwing around with us, then, we can go to the other one. But we always have at least two on a major area where we have vendor relationships, maybe three, and one on deck that wants one of their other slots. And so they're always competing in a healthy way. Now, I have vendors that I've worked with for 20 years.

I'm not jumping from vendor to vendor for no reason, but I'm also not going to get in a position that I'm a prisoner of this relationship. And when you have one bank, you're stuck with whatever that stupid butt bank does. And by definition, it's a bank. So stupid butt goes in the category. I mean, it goes in the sentence, right? So it's a bank for God's sense. So you do want more than one. Okay, we currently have three banking relationships. Now, we have a primary, and the lady at that bank that handles our accounts there, I have been with her for 35 years.

I was with her at another bank, and when she left and went to this one, we moved with her. We weren't loyal to the bank. We were loyal to her, because she's incredible, okay? So we have one primary relationship and two minor relationships, and we've got some, And that way we've got a little bit of FDIC protection, but that's not the reason. We're over the limits on all of them anyway, but the, over the protection limits. But we've got relationships. That way we're not captive to a misbehaving relationship.

Because if you've only got one person doing, you know, you've got one supplier for one of your key elements in your business, and they go sideways, you do too. You're left out in the cold too. They go out in the rain. You get to go out in the rain. they decide they're going to have supply chain problems. Well, I've got supply chain problems because they do, because I only had one option. So diversify your vendor relationships and banking is a vendor. But it has nothing to do with SVP, SVB.

It's just that, you know, you don't want your banker thinking they're all that because they're a banker. By definition, they're not all that. Okay? So just, you know, and we don't deal with the, we deal with small, regional, and local banks is who we deal with. And that way we actually get to talk to human beings who can make decisions. When you deal with somebody like, oh, these ridiculous, like Bank of America, oh, gag. I got a little throat in my throat when I said it.

Bank of America. It's just, ugh, don't, no. They're going to treat a small business person like a piss ant. And because you are to them. You're a number. And you're going to get no respect, no mercy, no help. Yeah, don't do that. Deal with your people that are in your neighborhood there that you can have a cup of coffee with.

You can have them come over, have a discussion, go look, these payment flows aren't, you know, this flow on this checking is not working. You guys are screwing this up. We're going to have, you're killing me over here. And this wire transfer process you're all of God is just killing me. so ACH or whatever it is you're doing with them, right? So a bank is a vendor and it's a key vendor relationship for a small business, never have just one. Diversify your vendor relationships to more than one that are key vendor relationships.

Jason is next in Bristol, Virginia. Hey, Jason, welcome the Entry Leadership podcast. Thanks, Dave. And I just want to say it's an honor to speak to an absolute legend. And I want to thank you and the other Ramsey personalities for, definitely transforming my life. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. You're a legend. You did it, man. I'm proud of it. Thank you so much. So a little background. I work full-time in cybersecurity, and because hard work is my favorite high, I decided that I wanted to do a side lawn care,

like kind of tasking thing, and I ended up enjoying it so much that I created my own side business back in September. Wow. And I've actually been getting a lot of, you know, clientele and everything. And my question for you today is, you know, a lot of these jobs I like to just kind of do on my own. But some of them can get kind of like, you know, bigger. And as I get more clients, I am getting a lot more clients. I've started to kind of wonder, do I need help? Do I need to get, you know, my first employee or something like that? The only issue is that I don't know the first thing about hiring an employee or what to look for the legality because I'm kind of building this plane is applying it. And so I just wanted your 30 years, 30 plus years of expertise to kind of

tell me what I need to look for in a seasonal long care job where I might not need an employee on every job, but on just the biggest jobs and like the legality, all of that stuff. So I would love your feedback. Well, the legality is perfectly legal to hire people. I mean, there's not, you know, certainly allowed to do that. If they are not self-relevant, employed, and they wouldn't be, they'd be employed by you, then they're not a 1099 employee. They're a W2 employee, so you're going to withhold taxes. It's not the end of the world. It's a calculation that can be done. You can get with one of our tax EELPs, and they can help you set up a system to do the withholding, and you file, you know, you file your taxes and make the deposits

on the withholding, and you just have to do all that on time. Their 941s are called. And so That's just a paperwork thing you've got to learn to do, but it's not the other world. I think the bigger challenge for you is actually getting a quality person that wants to do lawn care on a part-term basis. Yeah. That's probably absolutely true. That's dependable. You know, that, so, you know, what are you competing with? Well, other part-time jobs that they could do is what you're competing with.

And, I mean, they jump in an Uber and turn their phone on, turn their phone off, and Uber or not Uber, and work when they want to work. and it's not hot and there's no grass flying in their face and only air conditioning. And they can make a certain amount of money doing that. You're competing with that. So you've got to have an experience and a pay structure that makes you not want to do Uber and instead ride the lawnmower. Right? Right. Absolutely. So you kind of got to think that through. Think it through from their moccasins.

If you walk around in their shoes for a little bit, walk a mile in their moccasins, the person you're getting ready to hire, what would make you? want to do this. If it was me, it might be that I got to share in the profits of those particular jobs. Like, hey, I got these jobs, and I'll split them with you, 60-40, if you'll go give you the cut.

And is that, I'm sorry, I was just going to say, if that's like a one-time job or something like that, is that just I paid them out of pocket? And I say, you know, here's what we agreed upon, or is that kind of how that goes? No, it would be that they did it every month and every two weeks or every 10 days or whenever you cut the grass. Okay, okay. Like, I've got this job and it pays.

What's one of those big jobs pay? Give me an example. So let's say we have like an acre of leaves, right? And let me just throw a number out there like four or $500 or something like that. Okay, that's leaves. That's just, that is a one-time or a three-time or something like that, right? No, I'm talking about cutting a grass, right? Yeah, well, I can mostly cut the grass, but I guess I am talking.

I'm sorry, I didn't clarify that. You're talking about one-off jobs, not ongoing? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Okay, that you might be able to get away with 1099 and some one-offs. Just cash pay them and just say, and that's as simple as, hey, you know, come over and work for me for four hours and it's going to be 100 bucks. You know, I'll pay you 30 bucks an hour for, you know, and we can knock this out together. you know, and then you get paid $500 or whatever it is, right?

I would overpay per hour dramatically to get the person to show up and to get, because it's a very small amount of money total. Especially for leaves. They are just the worst. Yeah, yeah. I can imagine. I can imagine, dude. Well, yeah, that's what you got to do.

You kind of got, again, the best way to think about how to position any of you guys out there, gals out there that are hiring. The best way to position it and to figure out how to talk to someone about coming on your team is to say, I'm going to think like them. Okay. If I was a programmer, if I was a developer, what would make me want to go to work for Ramsey versus somebody else? Well, most programmers get work 80 hours a week. At Ramsey, we go home at five.

You see your kids at night. It's a novel idea. We don't work you 80 hours a week. You have a life. and you get paid the same. Wow. That's a lot more per hour. A lot better environment.

And I'm programming on something that matters. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Running a business is hard. It was easy everybody to do it. When you start out, a lot of times, you can spend your whole day putting out fires as the chief everything officer, the CEO. By the end of the day, you've been chasing your tail all day.

You're exhausted and you don't even know why. Well, that's what it looks like to be a treadmill operator in the early stages. I remember it. Some of you are there right now. If you want to level up and move on from treadmill operator to Pathfinder, we've got to get some of the revenue not dependent on you. And we'll show you how to do that. And then moving all the way through the five stages of business, we're going to give you a detailed action plan with tools and teaching

that fits into your day and shows you how to get momentum and level up through these stages of business. How do we do that? It's a process we call Entree Leadership Elite, our digital membership for business owners. It's free for the first 30 days. You can cancel it any time after that, and it's no hassle. All kinds of incredible tools, guidance, and you'll get plugged into the Entree Leadership system. The six drivers and the five stages of business, and we'll show you what drives your moves through those stages and help you get there.

We did it here at Ramsey over the last 30 years. We've done it with tens of thousands of businesses and the Entree Leadership brand over the last 25 years. So it's free. Did I mention that it's free? You know what free means for the first 30 days? Entree Leadership Elite. You need to go sign up and check it out. Entreeleadership.com slash elite.

Entreeleadership.com slash elite. Brad is next in Boise, Idaho. Welcome to the Entry Leadership Podcast, Brad. Thank you so much, Dave, for having me. I just want to say thank you very much. You helped me and my wife become completely debt-free, which took a lot of stress off of me and my family owning the small business. So thank you so much.

I'm proud of you. Good job. How much debt you pay off? Well, our house and everything, over $500,000. Baby Step 7. Look at you. Yeah. Way to go, man.

What kind of business have you got? We own a small mobile urgent care, so I'm a nurse practitioner. My wife is a nurse, and we have four employees. I recently expanded, and I no longer work six days a week, but we have a lot of volume that kind of ebbs and flows throughout the year. So I'm just wanting to know what is the best place I can spend my advertising dollars to get the best return on investment. I currently have a lady that does like Instagram and Facebook marketing. We have a great word of mouth network in my area, but I've, paid a lot of stupid taxes over the years of doing different marketing tactics that didn't work.

And I was wondering what your thoughts were to help keep our volume high. Mobile urgent care. Yep. So I see people who are sick or injured. So it could be the flu. It could be a cut. And we have a nurse practitioner that goes to their home. So it's dock on a call.

Like old-fashioned days when the dock used to come to your house. Yep, like a little house on the prairie style. Yeah. Marcus Wellb, MD. You're not old enough. Okay. Wow. And so it's not like you don't have like a Winnebago that's set up as a little rolling hospital.

You just roll up to the house with your bag. Yeah, I actually have one van, so I'm in it right now with a little mobile clinic. But most of our visits, like 90% or higher, is done in people's homes. Okay. And this is all nurses? Nurse practitioners. So we can prescribe and diagnose and refer. Okay.

But we see like kids with earaches or a strep throat or, you know, laceration or something like that. Stitches? Staples? Uh-huh. Okay. Wow. I say, don't call me if you're having a heart attack or a bone sticking out. Okay.

Can't help you with that. You need an ambulance. Yeah. Okay. Yep. But other than that, we can come over and, wow, this is a cool. You know, my doc is a concierge doc. And so it's the same thing if I wanted to be.

if I need him to come by the office he will or I need him to come by the house he will or I can go to his office, any of those are fair, but fair game. And it's part of the concierge package, so to speak. Because of my schedule, I have to be able to get to somebody

when I need them, right? Right. I'm a little bit different. Knock on wood, I'm not sick very often. But anyway, so this is a great business model. So your customers are upper middle class and beyond, not lower middle class and lower class.

Actually, no, since we take, you know, every insurance company in Idaho, including Medicaid and Tricare, so we actually see a lot of lower and middle class people, and there's no extra charge for us to go there. So our, you know, volume does not depend on their income. Okay. So if we were to graph your customers by demographic, maybe even location, and we looked at the middle fat part of the graph, the bell curve, right? Yep. At the tip of that, tell me what the persona looks like of your typical customer that is your sweet spot.

It's a woman who has kids that live in the home between the ages of like 25 and 45. that live in the suburbs. You are ready to do marketing. You know your target. Well done, sir. Well done. Thank you. I know my target,

but very well done. I don't know how to reach them all the time in all the places. Yeah. So, well, the way I always, the way we do that at Ramsey is, we always back,

we figure out who that target is. We give them a persona like that. And then we back into it, meaning we first, we find some of them, and we ask them, you know, where do you find out?

about stuff like this. And they go, well, I get everything from Instagram influencers. Okay, then I got to get Instagram influencers. Or I get everything from Amazon. Or I get everything from Google. I searched it on Google and there you were. Well, you know you're going to be buying AdWords on Google, right? Which is a pain in the butt and you get owned by those people.

I'm not recommending that. But anyway, yeah, but I mean, it's, we spend millions of dollars here with Facebook, live ads and Google Word search. spots because it hits some of our demographics and some of our personas right square between the eyes. And so we're buying those leads in a very real sense. But it's kind of like, you know, where would you buy advertising? You buy advertising in the place that 35-year-old women with three kids watch or listen. What TV shows do they watch? In the old days, that's what you do, now that we don't know, but I mean, but, you know, that's what we're looking for is where are they getting their leads on how to fix their life? Where are they learning about hair care products?

Where are they learning about what gym to go to and work out? Where are they learning about the vacations that they want to take? Where do they read? What do they listen to? And that's where you want to be. And so, you know, if there's a true crime podcast, and that's what they all listen to, then let's put an ad on the true crime podcast, is what I'm saying. So we would back into it by interviewing existing clients and going, okay, where would we find people like you? What are some of your habits, your media consumption habits, your social media consumption habits. So your Instagram lady may or may not know how to do that, but there's plenty of ways you can, you can geotarget tons of stuff on Facebook and Google, meaning zip code right there in Boise. And it doesn't go over the entire universe because you don't really need a call from Czechoslovakia.

Exactly. So we need people in Boise. And so you can geotarget with that by zip code and start trying to, and then you don't pay as much. for your Google AdWords if you're going to go into that, by the way. So somebody that knows SEO really well, but I don't want them just throwing, oh, I once was on the internet and I have a, I like Instagram. Now that doesn't make you an Instagram expert, okay? Or, you know, TikTok or the different mediums require different approaches and you need to know if your gang is hanging out there. For instance, we broadcast the Ramsey show on terrestrial mainstream

radio, the typical listener to talk radio is a 52-year-old white male. Okay? The same show goes over a podcast, and our typical listener on the podcast is a 34-year-old technology that's married with two kids makes 130 grand, listening to the same show, but in a different place. if you go to our YouTube numbers, they're baby children. They're 23. 19.

If I'm looking for 52-year-olds, I don't go to YouTube. Okay? They're not there. You see what I'm after? And this is the kind of thing we know about those particular mediums, particularly in the genre that we're in, the leadership genre, the life, make your life better with money and mental wellness genre. the places that Ramsey exist in.

So we're aiming at that. So that's how you need to back up and think about this and go, okay, we know who the target persona is. And listen, I'll just guarantee you. It's not, it might be a country music station.

It's not a talk radio station. You're not going to find that 34-year-old lady with four kids listen to talk radio on the AMer. And I've got a great AM station in Boise. I love Boise. But that's not their normal persona of, their listenership. That's not where she is. Okay. Now, what type of music does she listen to, R&B? You know, maybe you're on the rap station. I don't know. Again, what neighborhood does she

live in? What is the racial diversity of the persona? And where am I going to pick those folk up? But, you know, 63-year-old white guys aren't tuned into R&B. Right. By and large. Okay. You might get them on the country station, but yeah, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I know what you're saying. Are there places you spent your advertising dollars that did absolutely nothing that I should avoid? Ones that were the persona wasn't. Got it.

Or something that sounds like it's a great deal, and the reason it's a great deal is there's nobody on the other end of the signal. Like I had a little radio station in this podunk little town about 30 minutes from here when I first started years ago that wanted to, us to buy time, which we hardly ever have done that in our life. But I got sucked into it because I thought it was cheap. You know, and so for a hundred bucks, I could have like 200 ads on this station. That was 20 years ago. I'm still waiting on the first phone call. None of them. It's a, but, you know, there was nobody listened. You couldn't hear the signal if you got out of their parking lot. There's a reason it was 200 ads for 100 bucks. 50 cents an ad. Oh, my God. You know? And so obviously there was nobody on the other end.

So that's how I've wasted money. And I've wasted money by just going, oh, a lot of people do this and throw it up there on the weather channel or some stupid but thing like that. Everybody watches the weather channel. No, they actually don't. You know? Certain demographics look at the weather channel or on a weather app. Other people, old people, actually watch the weather channel, which really means you don't have a life. But, yeah, you know what I'm saying?

So, yeah, I've wasted it that way where I missed. That's why I was asking about your persona, because that's where we messed up. We did not clearly know who our customer was or that they were at the other end of our marketing attempt. And so we need to aim our marketing attempt in a location or in a dial position or in a format or in a type of social media. Tick-Tac, TikTok, you know, it's super young demographic. Again, you're not going to find old people. You want 56-year-old grandmothers sharing their grandchildren's pictures, Facebook. They're there.

Number one user of Facebook, 56-year-old females with their grandkids pictures. Because they're the only ones not aware what a Facebook is. And so there you go. But, yeah, it's just, yeah, it's, but again, you're not going to find, if you want 24-year-olds, You're not going to find them on Facebook. They don't think Facebook's cool. They're on Instagram, and they don't even know Instagram's owned by Facebook, but there you go. So that's what's going on.

So you have to be very precise and say, where do these people exist? Where do I find them? And a good way to do that is ask existing customers where they hang out. Where could I find you? Out of the types of social media, which one do you choose, out of the types of television stations, radio stations, which do you choose? What formats do you listen to? What times of day? Oh, I never miss the traffic report. Okay, then I'm always going to be in the traffic report. If I found that a bunch of times. So that's the kind of thing we're into. That's what we're looking for.

Very, very good question. Brad, you're a genius. I love your business idea. It is, you're going to make so stinking much money and you're going to help so many people. The number one business ideas right now are the ones going after, I thought it was higher income. Going after higher income people, doing things for them they no longer want to do for themselves. And let me just tell you, going and sitting in an office for a doctor, oh, nobody wants to do that. You're a genius, man.

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This guy's out of control. And he's not taking it. any prisoners because I really don't have time for BS anymore. I'm getting old and I'm contentious and I love you guys and I'm just, we're going to get straight to it and we're going to make sure you get a lift and we're going to work you through these six drivers and these five stages of business and you're going to be winning at a level you've never won before. You're going to level up because of this and that's why I'm here. I want to see you do something you've never done before and I can talk to you two years later and you go, we're up two million

dollars, Ramsey. Thanks, man. I got rid of that guy who's a pain in the butt and I was putting up with him until you yelled at me and told me quit putting up of people that are pain in the butt. And there you go, man, just like that. Hey, if you want to be part of the show, too, you can do that by filling out the form and leaving us a note at entreleadership.com slash ask. Or you can call in leave a voicemail. We'll get with you. Make you a caller on the show. We'd love to do that. 844-944-1070. 844-9-4-1070. Andres is with us and in Jacksonville, Florida. Hey, Andres, what's up? Hello, Dave. Much love and respect for all that you do.

You too, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. So 2019 started a solar company here in Jacksonville. And last year, we did about 12 million in gross revenue. And really my adult career, if you will, started off in the ministry. pastoring, missionary work overseas. And we're at a point where I'm starting to contemplate both practically and in my heart, leaving the business transitioning and going back more into a ministry role and just kind of wrestling through both the decision and then what that process would look like. Okay. How can I help? Yeah, so I wanted to see if you could kind of talk me through the decision process of selling off the business, going into back to a ministry role vocationally.

And then if I did that, what could or what should that process look like? And maybe part of the question is this, the longer I've been in business, the more I've met men who are really doing a great work and serving the Lord through the business platform. So that intrigues me on whether I should stay if I'm in a good spot and if the wave of the future, future missionary impact is through the business platform. So just wanted to help on kind of processing that decision. Okay. I appreciate that setup.

Certainly being a missionary, working in full-time pastoral roles inside a church is a godly thing and a place where you can serve people and help people and introduce them to Jesus and help them through the healing process from the things that have happened to them in their life and it's very rewarding. And I would never tell someone to not do that unless the reason that they were doing it was they thought that's the only place that the Lord gets served and that the call to God's kingdom can be fulfilled because I am convinced that, the business owner who is a person of faith who's functioning with great integrity and great compassion and great excellence probably has a greater reach than the typical church does

for evangelism and for ministry because you've got resources and so if someone on your team gets cancer, you can walk with them through that process. Someone on your team is going through a nasty divorce. You can give them the mercy to not be a good team member right then because nobody's a good team member when they're going through a nasty divorce. It shuts down your brain because you can't think about anything else. And so there's a period of time that you're worthless. And you can extend mercy and grace while that person gets through that and comes the other side, and that witnesses to their soul and can lead them to a decision to follow Christ. It can lead them to a deeper relationship. It can lead them to a further maturing of their faith,

depending on where they started the process. So that's there. And honestly, you're going to have people come through your doors as customers and come through your doors as team members, potentially, that may never darken the door of a church. So it's a very, it's a very, fertile field if you want to view it that way. And so I'm convinced that that's the way we view it at Ramsey. Everybody that works here, everybody that works in leadership views this whole thing through that lens. And we don't thump the Bible on people, but it's hard to interact with us very much before you find out we're people of faith. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's been the struggle is the, you know, the four years I've been in business, I'm starting to see that, both in our business

and other people's businesses, and that intrigues me to stay to continue. But, you know, at the same time, I'm wrestling in my heart on transitioning out. And then, of course, if I did, you know, making sure that I did it correctly and accordingly, and it was a smooth transition for the business. Yeah, I think you've got to decide why you're transitioning out, and are you adequately viewing your business as a ministry because if the only way you think you can do ministries to transition out, that's wrong. You can do ministry there. Okay. It's a different style. It's a different setting. And if you're wrestling with the setting or the style, that's a fair wrestle. But can you move the kingdom of God forward through running a business

well? Yeah. You dad blame right. You can. I've done it for 30 years. It's very, very possible. So, and can you gather up some other men and women of like mind that have other businesses in the area and you all lock arms together and support each other through the trials of having done that? Because as you know, doing that is not necessarily a popularity contest. There's some people out there that aren't going to like you. Get ready. And they'll start entire websites on that fact. I know a guy. And so, you know, but the, you know, but the, you know, but the, you know, that's okay. That's okay. It's just part of it. So it's not the critic that counts. It's the man in the arena. And so this is, anyway, you know, you can create an environment of, you know, faith-filled

business owners, Christian business owners, if you will, Jewish business owners, whatever your, whatever your faith walk is, and serve God through that venue, maybe more effectively than you could in some church settings. I know more effectively than some church settings, but not all, okay? So, you know, just be careful how you define the itch that God's giving you. The, what is it, he's calling you to, and who is he calling you to, and then what's the best way to get to those people? some people have a pastoral heart where they want to work with the hurting and the downtrodden

others have an evangelistic heart where they want to reach the person who doesn't know anything about faith and will lead them to their first steps in faith and so those can be very different processes should be very different processes usually are different personalities that lean into that and so just decide for yourself which of those you are pray about that and say okay god what are you calling me to. And if there's any business practices inside your business that are making you feel dirty, clean them up so that it feels holy again. And because you can run a solar business with plenty of holiness.

It's very possible telling the truth and stuff, you know. It's possible in every business. And so you've got to set yourself up in the community of being a truth teller, of being a lover of people, a lover of the customer, a lover of our team members. and it's well known. It's also well known that you're a warrior, and you'll fight anybody that wants to take any of that on. And those things are not inconsistent.

So it's not inconsistent with running or owning or operating a business. It's just a matter of which of these vocational processes you feel like God's calling you to. If you're going to transition out, you've got to either sell it or find somebody to run it, and you need to develop a strategy to do that. But if you're going to stay in and you say, I'm going to make it this much more, about my God walk inside this, then you may start to get bold in areas you weren't bold in. And you're going to piss some people off that you haven't pissed off yet. And you're going to draw some people in that you haven't drawn in yet.

Both of those things are going to happen. It's going to be an exciting adventure for you. We need more men like you out there. Thank you. Thank you for being there in Jacksonville, Florida. That's the way it should be done right there. You've absolutely got to love it. So cool.

So cool. Hey folks, remember, better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. Leaders serve. Leaders are active, not passive. Leaders act on principle, not appearances and virtue signaling. This world needs more high-quality leaders, so choose to lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for listening to the Entree Leadership podcast.