EntreLeadership - Why a Small Business Is the Best Place for People to Work

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Today, we’ll hear about:  How to overcome seasonal demands in a $28 million business  A future business owner thinking about firing an employee when he takes over  Dave Ramsey’s thoughts on overcoming disappointment   A business leader trying to navigate burnout     Next Steps  📞 Have a question for the show? Call 844-944-1070 or send us a message: https://bit.ly/3HUgAgi    🏅 Help us make the show better! Please fill out the quick survey form: https://ramsey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_01hjJ6UN8mnQPNI  👣 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://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 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 have a question you want to ask on the show, fill out the form on Entreeleadership.com slash ask. or you can call and leave a voicemail at 844-944-1070, and you'll be a part of this program. I am the CEO and the owner and the founder of Ramsey Solutions. We've grown this $300 million business from a card table in my living room to where it is today, which means that over that 30 years,

I've done a lot of stupid butt stuff. And so I know stuff that doesn't work. I got the scars to prove it. have a Ph.D. and D-U-M-B. And I've survived a lot of my best ideas that really sucked when it really came out. And a few of our ideas were actually good ones, and those are the things you know us for. And just old-fashioned, hard work, perseverance, and I just refused to quit, got us here. So that's who you're talking to. If you want to talk to someone has a theory about business, you'll have to talk to someone else. I'm an actual practitioner. Again, the phone

number 844-944-1070. Ryan is in San Angelo, Texas. Hi, Ryan, how are you? Dave, I'm well. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Oh, man, I'm glad to talk to you. So I am an ops manager at a family screen printing and embroidery company down here in Texas. We've got usually around 160, 170 employees.

We top line around 28 million. Whoa! Yeah, we've been at it for a while. my dad started a company in 1988 and go back a minute screen printing and what embroidery what is your product line we serve k through 12 schools so the spirit wear industry we do some commercial stuff as well but the bulk of our work is serving k through 12 schools wow good for you so 28 million top line and what's the how many team members it fluctuates and that's what I'm calling about but we average around 160, 170. Okay. And how much of those are production workers actually doing the

screenware and the embroidery? That's what fluctuates the most, but we're around 100 probably right there. Okay. So like over half your staff is doing production and the fluctuation, I guess, is based on the school year, right? Yes, sir. Yes. So with school sports and events going on, we see about three peaks in the year, February, April, and then the fall, pretty much. We have the majority of our work comes in the fall. Wow. Way to go. So your dad started this and you're running it now? I am running. You're running ops. You said you're running ops. Anything that's made or moved pretty much. So all of this labor fluctuations on your shoulders? The vast majority, yes, sir. Wow. Wow. Nice gift. Okay. Yeah, it's wonderful.

Stress. I love it. Okay. Okay. So, So your question is how to handle that fluctuation? A little bit. We're in a smaller... San Angelo's not very large. It's not small, but it's not very large. You're not doing $28 million out of San Angelo. You've got nationwide or at least region-wide customers.

No. Just Texas, pretty well. Texas and some of the surrounding states. Okay, but I mean, you're not doing it all in San Angelo. You're doing Texas. No, no, no. Okay. Yes, sir.

The state of Texas. And Texas got a couple high schools. Okay. Just a few. And a lot of them like football, yes, sir. Yes, I do. Good. So we're just, like everybody, we're just having trouble staffing.

And we've got an Amazon plant opening up here. We've got a lot of job market competition and a seemingly small labor pool. And I just wanted to call and get your thoughts on making our staffing culture more sustainable, more exciting. Just what the trends you're seeing on staffing. better and maybe, you know, reducing the distance between the peaks and volumes. I know there are two kind of different problems, but we feel them both. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes, they are two different problems. Now, what do you do with the folks when the work slows down? So we're in a dead season right now with the summer and we see a little bit of turnover and folks leave, but the majority of folks stick

around and we we do our best to guarantee 40 hours but the work is definitely not there for that okay let's deal with that one first and then i'll come back to the other one okay because i think they're related but but not directly they're not they're not it's not a one-for-one trade-off but the uh the the it sounds like you guys have been so successful in this singular area of business but your skill set of your team and of your equipment could be used for so many other things other than just high schools. Right, right. And so I think you need to diversify your product line

and get some products that are not as seasonal, some customers that are completely that you're not used to dealing with. Corporate America or, I don't know, licensing for... I've got a friend of mine that owns a whole bunch of licenses for sports mascots for mascots. And he can create... He's allowed to create, he bought the licenses from the different colleges,

and so he's allowed to create a T-shirt with that mascot on it. Right. Okay, that kind of thing. And so he's diversified, and he didn't diversify, that's his only business. He does that all, started with the SEC, and he's moved beyond that. Of course, the SEC keeps growing, so that's helpful. But the, yeah, so anyway, something, I'm starting to think like that. I'm going to get, but this is above your pay grade.

This is you and your dad sitting down with the leadership team and saying, all right, what product lines can we go into that we can utilize these people that are just as profitable and fun? And let's take this from a 28 to a 48 million just by working on our downtime and having sales on our downtime from two or three other ventures. And you may have some false starts. You may try three different things and two of them don't work. You pretty well count on some of them not working. Yeah, I think that's what we're seeing. Yes, sir.

Yeah, but I think you've got to find some other product lines that are, that, that, do away with the seasonality. And so like around here, we've got stuff that are highly seasonal. And, you know, retail stuff obviously all happens. We have a huge Christmas boon, people buying books and stuff on the website at Christmas, that kind of stuff. And, you know, in July, nobody buys nothing, you know. So that's a very seasonal thing on our website as far as the retail direct-to-consumer stuff.

But the offset of that is all the wholesale stuff that we do and the not direct-to-B stuff that we do. So we've got all these other product lines that are not, you know, live events. We don't do many live events right around Christmas. People are getting in debt. We try to get them out of debt later, but we don't do a lot of live events in July. They're going on vacation, getting in debt. But when they come back in the fall, they need our help. So we go to an event, right? And so that's, you know, our stuff's pretty seasonal in that regard. Some of it. Now, just those two things. But something like an entree leadership event, we can do those at different times because people, it's not as driven by a consumer value

because it's more of a B-to-B product, this particular podcast. Okay, so all of that to say, I think you need to get the best minds in the business. There's 60 of you plus production people, so you need the top five people, your dad and you and three others in the room going, okay, what's the next chapter of this wonderful story that we're writing look like? And it involves diversification. Now, then once you're doing it. that, we've got more profit, we can change our pay scale for our production people because

they're working. And not only do we wish we could give them 40 hours, we'd give them 40 hours, and we're paying them more. So that's going to help with retention. And then the other thing is true for all the small business folks listening, and that is small business people too often, not always, but too often. It took me a long time to learn this lesson. We almost high hire apologetically. We almost hire like, well, you know, we're not like those big companies. We don't have this big health care plan, and we don't have this fancy whatever, blank-blank benefit plan. And instead, my proposal and my brand differentiator, and it's taken me a while to own this and really believe it,

and I do own it, and I do really believe it, is that small business is the best possible place for anybody, work because you don't get screwed. Corporate America will pee on you. Now listen, I'm not mad at Amazon, but Amazon has 80 bazillion people, and they don't care if you exist on the planet or not. If one of your production people, wife dies, y'all care. You take care of the family. You go over there. Somebody over there gets hit by a tornado. Y'all care. You take care of your people. Corporate America, corporate America doesn't even know how to do that, much less give a crap to do it. Sure. And so you don't really, Amazon can't compete with you because you actually treat people right.

And you don't treat them like a unit of production, like a robot that can be discarded the first time that somebody blinks. Sure. You care about your people. And I tell people that in the interview process. If you want to work for corporate America, corporate America is you're working at J-O-B. I'm going to do as little work as I possibly can for the most possible money I can because I know they're going to screw me.

It's a trade-off. When you work on small business, you're working with people that care, family that care, and you bring your all and you care, and you roll up your sleeves and you punch stuff and you make it happen, man. And that's who I'm interviewing. That's how I'm interviewing, if I'm you.

And go, listen, if you want to do production someplace else, there's lots of factories that'll hire you, and they might pay you a dollar more, an hour, they might pay you this or that, but they don't give a crap if you stub your toe, and they don't give a crap if your kid gets cancer, and they don't give a crap if your mama dies. They don't care, and we actually care. Now, we have to get our work done.

We work hard, but we care about our people. We love our people. And that's the cultural change, and it goes with a paycheck, by the way. So we've got to do the other part to get the income up to be able to increase what we're paying. You've got to pay competitively, but when you pay competitively, have to have double backflip twist off the diving board off the high board benefits because the benefits are as you're actually a human freaking being instead of a dadgum robot and the first time somebody wants to raise their stock price they do it by cutting payroll and they do it every day in

corporate America so you got a great advantage over amazon and again i'm not mad at amazon i don't think Amazon's bad people, but it's impossible to have 900 bazillion people. I don't even know what they hire. Good God. I mean, they've got centers everywhere that have 7,000 people in them. It's like, you know, how in the world? But, you know, if you've worked there, you know, it's a trade. You're trading your time for their money. That's all we're doing. It's just a transaction. There's no soul in that at all, baby. And that's your brand differentiation when you're hiring and you're small business people. Small business people quit apologizing. Quit apologizing. You have more to offer than corporate America has to offer. And by the way, 54% of Americans work for a business that has

500 or less employees. Most people work for a small business. So that's how this country's, that's what's grown this country. It's what makes it great is people like Ryan's dad and now Ryan doing 28 freaking million dollars worth of embroidery and screen printing. That's just awesome. What studs, man? This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. You know, many years ago, a guy asked me this question. He said, Dave, do you have a company mission statement?

And I said, company mission statement? It sounds like something in a corporate brochure. He goes, no, it's not. It's something that people have if they're smart. So what do you mean? He said, well, if you're smart, you actually have a. mission and everybody knows what it is because you made a statement about the mission. It's not a brochure filler. It's a statement of who you is, baby. It's also a statement of who you isn't.

So you need a company mission statement. If you don't have one, it's time you did it. Just like that guy told me, right? If you're smart, you need to do this. Your company's mission statement is it's driving force. It tells everybody who you is and who you isn't and why you're in business. We're not in business to do a lot of things, but we are in business to help people around here. It'll unify your existing team and make it easier to know whether or not a candidate is a good culture fit for your company. Here at Ramsey with almost 1,100 team members on the payroll. Our mission statement is memorized when you come on in your onboarding. We do this ridiculous Boy Scout thing where you memorize the pledge, right?

It's kind of dumb. It's kind of cult-like. But, hey, at least you know by God while you're here and nobody's confused about it. So if you'd like to know how to write and build out a proper company mission statement, then go to ontraryleadership.com slash mission and download the free mission statement builder. I wish I had had to just sit down and figure it out. A free mission statement builder at entrellorship.com slash mission. Jacob is in Baltimore.

Hi, Jacob. Welcome to the Entry Leadership Podcast. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? I am an employee of a millwork and cabinet-making business, and I'm in the process of buying the company from our owner

when he retires in 2025. We have 14 members, including the owner, and we grew up 389,000 last year. The owner's stepdaughter is a payroll administrator, and she wants to move into contract employment while working from home most of the week. I don't love the idea of this range. and I don't see your position as absolutely necessary to the company.

Is it wrong, in your opinion, to let her go when I become the owner, or is there some arrangement that I can work out that's good for everybody? Okay. Well, so when do you close on this? We're set for just after January 1st, 2025. Okay, so you've got about six months. Okay. And are you the leader of the organization currently?

other than the owner? I suppose I'm like lead production. There's one other guys... So this lady does not report to you currently? No. So how is it that has come to your plate right now that she wants to work from home? They're just talking to you about that as part of the sale?

No, that's her... Now she works about 12 hours at work and the rest of the time from home. Mm-hmm. And that's how it's been for years. Oh, for years? Yeah. Okay.

And since you do not oversee her, how is it, how do you, are you sure that her position is not necessary? I think it's because, I mean, I'm there when we go through the projects. I know what's going on behind the scenes as well. And so I know she does work from home, and she's very receptive to ordering or sending emails making phone calls. But I just don't think that the amount of work that she does justifies, you know, her pace, out right now. Okay. So you don't feel like she's putting in 40 hours.

That's correct. Yeah. Which is true with most work at home. Yeah. Work from home means I actually want to work part-time but get paid for full-time. That's generally what it means. So, I mean, the number of people that you can find that I actually put in 40 hours when they work from home is very rare.

That's why my contention is it's not going to worry. It's not going to be a long-term play. There's going to be some things that. do it, but not, no. Okay. Okay, rule number one is I don't want to surprise anyone. I don't want to be sudden and I don't want to be rash and I don't, therefore, because that can be unkind. And I have been in situations where I let someone go and I thought I had told them this isn't working. This isn't working. You're not doing this. You've got to get this done. You've got to get that done. And they didn't interpret that as a deal breaker. I was trying to say this is a deal breaker.

Now, that's not the case here, okay? But I'm saying, in that case, somebody can be surprised, but I didn't think they should have been surprised, but they could still be surprised. So the trick is to not, or the rule is to do your best to not let someone even feel surprised. So, I don't think that her that you rearranging everything immediately after the closing is proper. I think part of your purchase

there is you're going to endure gradually affecting her situation. Okay. Gradually sounds like over a period of six months you have six conversations as I say, you know, you've always done it this way. You're a great person.

I like you. but I'm more of a work-at-work person than I am a work-at-home person, and I'm not feeling this. And so you say that over and over and over again, and she starts to realize, oh, you know, Jacob's got a problem with this. And then when you start tightening it up a little bit more and you start going, okay, look, I am coming to the conclusion that this is not, you know, six months later, after you've had several conversations, she may just quit when you start. start some conversations.

Okay, but if she doesn't, and you continue to say, okay, here's the deal. You know, I have, you know, I respect your stepfather or I respect the original owner, and I like you, and I respect you, but I'm just not comfortable having team members working from home. I'm going to move everybody into the office, and that would include you. Okay. And so, you know, and we don't have to do this right now. We can do it over a 60-day period of time, but I need to let you know, after six months you're having this conversation,

I need to let you know that, you know, over the next two months, you're going to make different arrangements. You're going to come in more, and you're going to set up child care, or set up whatever you need to be able to be here during office hours physically in the building because we're going to adopt a we work from work policy. Okay. And she may say, you know, I don't want to do that. They say, well, the people that work here are going to work at work. And if you don't want to work at work, then you're not going to, you know,

you're making a decision to not be here because I'm giving you plenty of notice. I've let you know this is an issue. And it's not a personal thing. It's not even a reflection on your particular job. It's just a philosophy that I have that's different than the other owner had. And I truly believe in the value of people being in proximity of each other. for my productivity and a company culture standpoint. And by the way, I do believe that personally, Jacob.

All of our Ramsey people work from work. We don't have remote workers, okay? And that's the reason is I do believe in proximity that there is an increased productivity, an increased quality of culture and relationship and trust, and all of that translates to things moving better. So you just begin having a gradual conversation, and then eventually you say, okay,

over the next 60 days, we're going to do this and she keeps coming back out. I'm not going to do. I don't want to do that. I say, well, if you don't want to do that, you're opting out. Okay, are you going to opt out? If you're going to opt out, then you would give her a generous severance package for her choosing not to be working from work, which is your, as the new owner,

and your newly announced six months later philosophy on business. And there's nothing unkind or wrong about that. Because we did it very gradually. You feel how gentle that was? Now, she may still be pissed because she may be a person that has become, based on the fact that her, is it stepfather? Is that what you said?

Yeah, stepfather. Yeah, she may feel like that, you know, that the new guy just, you know, beat up on his daughter. And, you know, she may feel entitled to this role. I don't know. I don't know her. But the only reason she would be angry though is if that's the case.

Because otherwise it's just, she goes, oh, you know, the new guy, you know, he wants us working at work, and I don't want to work at work. So I want to work at home, and I'm not willing to do that. So, I mean, we've had five people leave in the last couple months that wanted to work from home. And we don't offer that. So they just decided they're not a we because we work from work and are you a we? And that's how, you know, it's not mean. It's just a decision.

And so I'm not mad at them. They decided they didn't want to do that. And that's okay. It's like a free country and stuff. So, you know, that's the thing. So that's what you're looking at. And that's going to be hard for you because you're kind of feeling it's fun to be the new owner. And you're going to find out want to be a man of action and don't.

Don't be a man of action. Because the rest of the team is watching how you handle her. And some of them may dislike her, some of them love her. It's a small team. And if they feel like you pooped on her, it's going to mess up the rest of your morale, and you don't want to clean that up.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. Yeah. Thank you. That's what the gradual gives you. And it gives you every chance. And be generous with her if she decides to leave. She's been there a lot of years.

Give her a ridiculous severance package. Because you will, I've given out some severance packages that people looked at me and said, what? You're nuts. Why would you do that? Because when I'm 89 million years old, I'm on my deathbed, I will never think I might have, by any stretch of the imagination, mistreated that person.

I was always overly generous. I'm 100% sure of that every time. Now, some of them didn't think that. Some people are mad. Some people get their tail on the twist, but I know what I did. And I can live with me because of that, you know, when I make a decision to be generous in those situations. You're a good man, Jacob.

You're a good man because you ask this question. If you were just some kind of little hot rod who's going to run over everybody, you wouldn't even ask the question. But you're smart enough because you've got a good heart and you're wise enough to think through the implications of this because there's always someone else watching.

How you treat your team matters because the rest of the team is always watching. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. When we were doing the Entree Leadership Summit a few months ago, our film crew, if you want to call them that, our video team went around talking to small business folks and gave them the opportunity to drop a couple of questions by video into this show.

Here's one of them. Arlen Campbell, I'm from Southwest Missouri, Joplin Monette, technically. Our business is still tech building systems. And what's your top line revenue? We are about $35 million. How do you overcome... the disappointment that comes with trusting people that you really put in places, and then they just disappoints you.

I don't know that you ever completely overcome it, but I would love Dave's thoughts on that. Wow. I think there's a rule that the ones that are closest to you in your personal life or in your business life, either one, they have the ability to put the knife in deeper. You know, like I got a piece of hate mail the other day from a guy in some tiny little town in Alabama that I have never met.

And so I don't have to overcome any emotions about that because I didn't have any emotions over that. I don't give a rip, okay? Because he's not close enough to me to stick me, you know what I'm saying? And bless his heart, but I mean, you know, we get hate. me all the time we bail it around here, use it for Kenlin. But the point of that is, you know, I got an email from a preacher that had 35 people in his church, and he's mad because we use the wrong version of Scripture to suit him. We should use the King James version, because that's the

one Jesus wrote, apparently. Have you ever looked up and actually studied who King James was, by the way? But anyway, so, yeah, so we're going to hell because we're using the wrong type of Bible. You know, how much I care about that is about zero, okay? So, but the ones that can hurt you, Arlen, are the ones that are close, and they're the ones that you've counted on and the more you've leaned on. And so, obviously, I mean, in most of our lives, they'll be our spouse. They're the closest to you. How do you recover from the betrayal of that? People do, but it's an emotional, psychological, spiritual recovery when someone that, you're the person that.

that's that close to you. Et to Brutei, right? I mean, you get knifed in the back by something, by your best bud, you know? And so the, and I think the ones, to be transparent over the 30 years of doing this that I still have, that I still have, not an open wound, but a real wound from,

are the ones that, not that let me down in the sense of they could, wouldn't do something because there's always something all of us can't do or we can't do it the first try and it's harder for some people to do a certain thing than other people and that kind of thing. Somebody that lets you down on performance, that's not, that one doesn't hurt. But someone that deceives you and lies to you and then does damage to what you're trying to accomplish. Those are the ones that hurt. And I don't. don't know if I have a good formula for that.

Because truthfully, I'll just be very authentic or transparent here. I always blame myself because I was so stupid I let them do it. You know, how do you let somebody deceive you at that level? I always feel like I did, like I was inept because how did I miss that this guy or this gal is a complete freaking psychopath, you know? How did I miss that? I thought I was somewhat intelligent, but apparently I'm dumber than a rock. How did I miss that?

So I started almost shaming myself out of it, and that makes it worse, Arlen, so that's not helping your question at all, but that's the truth. So, you know, and sometimes around here when we go, we had to fire somebody from misbehaving and doing so and so and so and I'm like, you know, that's bad. It's good that we caught it and we didn't allow the misbehavior to happen inside, but what's really bad is we hired them. So where was the screw up in the recruiting that we let the person in here in the first place that would do something like that. And so that's self-blame again for something that where someone else acted out.

But we go, we exposed ourselves to it because our recruiting process let them through the net. So, golly. Yeah, the worst thing, you know, I've got horrible employees. Well, you hired them, dummy. You know what I mean? That's the whole thing. And so worse than that, you kept them. So it's a me problem in that sense.

But, you know, you can't completely take ownership when someone's just a complete deceiver. I'll just be nice. But the, it's about as nice as I can be. But so, yeah, I think it's human nature and it's wise to say out loud that the people closest to you and the ones you have counted on the most that deceive and betray hurt the most. You know, if I have, I've got 1,100 team members, and if somebody's been here three months, I might not know them today. That's not unusual.

Now, I guarantee their leadership team knows them and that kind of stuff. But if they said something horrible about Dave Ramsey and went running out the door with their hair on fire or whatever, I can live with that a lot easier than I can live with somebody's been here 25 years or 20 years, and I've worked with them on a bazillion projects. I know their kids. I know their dog's name. I know their mom and dad. I know everything about, I mean, and then they go do something, you know, that's a lot harder.

That's just, that's the reality of it. And that's the difference, again, in small business in corporate America. Corporate America won't let you get that close. But, you know, you can't get a dagger to someone unless they're in a hug. And so you got to be hugging them. And you can't call you. The other thing is that the last part of this rant, our answer on this question is I don't,

I'm fumbling around. I don't know if I got a good answer because I've experienced it too, like every one of us have. And, but the rule I always look at is I go, okay, if they're far away from me, why am I letting this bother me because it's ridiculous? That's dumb. If they're close to me, how did I not,

how did I miss the clues that allowed, that said that this person was off? And then it's just life that some of the people, some people are just misbehaving psychopaths. I mean, they're just that, and you can't go, it's just what it is. And then the last part of it is, then you have to make an act of your will

of emotional, mental health, wellness, you have to say, you don't get free rent in my head. You're evicted. You don't live here anymore. You don't live in my head. Now, you may have to evict them several times because they may pop in there while you're having your morning coffee again. You may have to go, wait a minute, you're evicted. I told you you were leaving. You can't live there rent-free. And, you know, I've had situations personally where it's taken a while to get that eviction to stick.

Emotionally and mentally clear the memory of this whole thing or the constant processing is something you can do nothing about. I could have said and I should have done and y'all know how we do that but that's dumb you just can't spend all you don't spend all your calories on that spend your calories on the future on the good stuff on helping the good people and I have to remind myself of that it's an intellectual act of your will to be emotionally mature enough to say you don't live here rent free I'm going to take the portion of this that's on me and I'm going to move on with that scar and I'm going to learn from it rest of it's on you you're a dead gum fool because you shouldn't have done that you'd have been

rich if you'd have stayed in this position and you'd have had a wonderful life but you screwed up and you just move on and but the closer they are to you the harder it is that's rule number one and the deeper the pain is rule number two is be emotionally mature enough to evict them repeatedly until they leave your head don't live their rent free anymore and then rule number three is just because somebody made fun of you don't stop dancing still dance. Still turn the music up loud and make a fool of yourself on the dance floor. Still dance.

Still go do it. Go do it again. Don't quit taking a chance on people just because you've got a bad one occasionally. There's good ones too. Don't quit taking a chance on people. Still be on the dance floor. Still be doing it. Go back.

Go back. Go back. And then count your blessings because you've got a lot of good ones around you that aren't jerks. And then you move on from there. That's all I can do. I don't know. That's a combination of spiritual and forgiveness advice. You're forgiving yourself. You're forgiving them because you're releasing them from their ability to live in your head.

And that's what forgiveness does. I don't hold grudges against the people. I just, but that doesn't mean I'm also going to hang out with them. You steal my wallet. I'll forgive you for stealing my wallet. But I'm not going to leave my wallet near you again. You're a thief. You know, that's not, that's forgiveness. There's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation. I can forgive you and have no desire to be reconciled with you. So that's the whole process that you work through with these people. But it is part of taking the chance of love is that your heart will break. If you don't love, your heart won't break.

And then you're just corporate America. We've talked about that today a lot, seems like. You don't want to be there. You want to have a soul. but you can't break your heart if you don't put your heart out there. Put it out there again. Put it out there again. Do it again. Do it again.

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Hey, if you can be of help, we would appreciate it because when you tell people about the show, it really matters. We've seen the numbers go up dramatically when you do that. So thank you, thank you, thank you. David is in Philadelphia. Hi, David. Welcome to the Entree. Leadership Podcast.

Hi, how are you, Dave? Better than I deserve, man. How can I help? So I run a handyman business. I'm the owner. Last year's revenue is about $650,000. Right now, I have four employees. Last year was up and down, started with one at the beginning of the year.

You know, it had its ups and downs, but we're at four solid right now. Looking to add a routine home maintenance aspect that I'm hoping will be more scalable and less dependent on me because right now it's a lot of the business dependent on my creativity. There's someone doing this very successfully who has it pretty much all systemized and is willing to sell me a license for $35,000 plus for oil peace. And I want to hear your thoughts if I should go buy this from him and fast track my way into adding this on to my business as opposed to trying to do it myself and potentially hitting burnout before I get there.

Well, I wouldn't be hitting burnout. I mean, you might get tired, but that's different than burnout. Burnout is, I've got no hope. Tired as I've been working a lot. The thing is that I keep kind of flitting in and out of that burnout stage where I'm with, where I'm currently at, because I've built this giant as I like to see it, but a lot of it's dependent on me right now. Yeah.

Well, that's not solved by a magic bullet from the outside. That's solved by you changing your structure and creating a more delegatable process where you move from the treadmill operator stage to the pathfinder stage. Right now, you're on the treadmill. If you get off the treadmill because you're sick or go on vacation, everything stops, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And so, you know, all the revenue is based on you showing up. And so you've got to fix that whether you get into the other business or not. The other business doesn't stop that. The way I see it is if I add this on and I can make that my primary business and it's already systemized, then I can get off of that treadmill stage faster than if I have to create it all from scratch myself. Well, adding a line of product doesn't get you off the product off the treadmill stage. Well, get you off the treadmill stage is getting people in place that you can delegate to and they're creating revenue when you're on vacation.

And that's, you know, the people that you currently have aren't ever going to be doing that with what you're proposing. Your current line of business is always going to suck the marrow out of your bone until you fix this. Yeah, but I think that my current product is my creativity. Is I think the real problem, more than the guys. I don't understand. What's a creative handyman?

Oh, so someone asks me to figure out how to vent their over-the-range vent outside, and there's just six other people who came in and couldn't figure out how the heck to do it. And I get in, I figure out how to do it. But it's a little bit of a brain. What percentage of your 650,000 is doing something that nobody else knew how to do? Most of it's fixing a dishwasher, repairing a deck, and hanging the door, isn't it? you have a good point okay so the creative part is not what's holding you back from delegating you're still doing a bunch of the other crap right that's interesting yeah so i think if you said i'm going to take the creative stuff and i'm going to work on my job for the next year is to make everyone else run autonomously and my job is to check the jobs not do the jobs my job is to check the people and make sure they're doing the job the way i want it done and follow up with customers and be sales and marketing,

and take the 10% of our revenue, the 65 or 80,000, and it is unique venting system or a unique way of solving a problem. You have a spatial genius, meaning that you can see things in 3D, and so you know how to fix things that other people don't see. That's what you're talking about with creativity. And that is a unique gift, and you need to keep that gift around,

but the use of that gift gives you energy. It does not drain you. It's the other stuff that's draining you. It doesn't drain me at all. It's probably the, come on. It's the most fun. Yeah, really. I mean, come on, man, can't you see that?

Because you can walk in a room and see while five other people are standing around there scratching their head, you know? And because that's what a spatial genius can do. I've got several friends that are spatial genius. And they just, they can see stuff that other people can't. Because the way their mind is designed by God is to work in 3D. And it's almost like you did, like you're a CAD drawing running in your brain. And so a 3D CAD drawing. So anyway, I would say, I want you working on $80,000 to $100,000 a year worth of

creativity, and I want you delegating a rest of it way better than you're delegating it now. That may involve hiring some different people or some more people and giving up some profit, but to get the mundane off of you. The dishwasher that's leaking, the toilet that's leaking, the door that needs to be hung. And that's where there's serious money in the handyman world, because I don't care how much they put this stuff on TV, the typical person can't handle a screwdriver. The average American is a, you know, a handyman idiot these days. In the 1950s, everybody could fix everything.

You wouldn't even have a business. So how would you recommend going into delegating these things more? because I have created systems. A lot of that's there. I'm not jumping on the tools every three hours, but there are a lot of calls, and there are some like, oh, why'd you do that? Why didn't you bring this with you and do it that way?

Yeah, well, that's continuous training. And the more competence someone is, the longer they've been executing something, the more you can trust them with it. And you can't just delegate to someone who's never done it in front. They may have done it great somewhere else, but they've never done it in front of you. If they do it in front of you once, that doesn't qualify. So it's going to be a process of building out your team the rest of the way

in a level of competence, meaning that it's not just competent to fix the dishwasher. It's competent to put the blue booties on before I walk in because the ladies that's, I'm fixing her dishwasher, you don't want her pissed off because you want her to bring you back. and how you treat her and did you, you know, did you take a bath and shave before you went to work today? Hello. And, you know, that kind of stuff. And so if you do that and you show up on time

and you smile and you have just a tiny bit of people skills, you can charge almost anything in your world. You've already discovered that. Because no one in your world shows up on time and does what they said they were going to do. They leave the dishwasher. They go home, they go to pick up apart, and instead they go home.

And they call them back later and say, I'll come back in two days. Meanwhile, the lady's really getting progressively angry and eventually then ensures that her husband is angry and your whole world shuts down. This is the training you have to do. It's not the fixing of the dishwasher. And so it's the handling of the people in the process,

and that's what you're good at. So it's a human thing that a massive handbook is not going to solve. Oh, no. You're building it up. you're repeating over and over again. It's very human. Exactly. Exactly.

It's mentoring. It's apprenticeship. And it's not just can you weld. It's can you hand the people you're handling the people you're welding for? And these are the people that become very successful as they have a high EQ, emotional quotient ability to deal with others and animal relationships. Now, once you've done that, and it's going to take you a year, then we can visit the other issue.

And now I'll answer your original question, okay? No, I would not pay somebody $35,000 to create a subscription maintenance process that's really not rocket science, and I certainly wouldn't pay them an ongoing royalty. I think you already know how to do this. You're just trying to get, you're trying to find a silver bullet for the other problem, and I think it's not worth it. I think you're smart enough to build something like that. The only time you pay someone a franchise fee is if they know something that is so unique in the market,

that no one else knows it and you can't figure it out. There's only one way you can make a subway sandwich and it has to be green and it has to be yellow and has to be sliced a certain way. And then you have a unique proposition and then you have a nationally known brand and you can franchise your brand. But just because this guy one time put together one system

and now he wants to make money off you the rest of his dadgum life, no, thank you. I would handle it myself. I think you're a better entrepreneur. than that. I think you can dig this out. But I don't think you can dig it out while you're trying to dig out the other thing, too. Because I think you're trying to go at it from a weakened state, and that's why you're looking for a weakened state, meaning you're not delegating, and the mundane stuff's burning your butt. And so you're looking for a silver bullet over here to the

right to solve all the whole thing. And the one thing hadn't got anything to do with the other one. So that's my opinion, and, you know, it's worth what you paid for, brother. I think you're a great entrepreneur, and I think you're a good people guy, and I think you're a real candidate. We're going to put you in Entry Leadership Elite as my guest. I'm going to pay for it, and so I'll have the team pick up and get you signed up

because you need to really go from treadmill to Pathfinder. You are on the verge. You've got all the different little pieces, the nuances that you're exactly a case study of why we do this. So very, very well done. All right, folks, remember better a weary warrior, an 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.