The Ramsey Show - App - Are You Feeling Stuck in a Job You Don't Love? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: August 15, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is the Dave Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. Sitting in for Dave Ramsey this hour, I'm Ken Coleman, host of the Ken Coleman Show on Sirius XM, leads into the Dave Ramsey Show daily. And I'm also thrilled to be in studio with the best-selling author of Business Boutique, my good friend, Christy Wright. We're here for the whole hour taking your calls. Slight direction change. You're not completely unfamiliar with the two of us, I assume, if you've been listening for any amount of time. We're going to take your calls about career, business.

This is a topic, both of those specific channels, Christy and I are very passionate about, and we are here for you this hour. And Christy Wright, first of all, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here. It's always fun to be with you in studio. And you and I were talking before we went live that there is just tons and tons and tons and tons of opportunity right now. Two things that I want us to talk about real quick. One, a Wall Street Journal article came out last week,

and we've got this crazy economy right now where we have more people, excuse me, more jobs available than there are people who are unemployed. It's really unbelievable. And as a result, companies are lowering the standards. They're openly saying, we're talking about big-time companies.

Oh, yeah. They're getting competitive. They're going, hey, you don't have to have have previous experience and you don't have to have a college degree we'll train you we'll pay you while we train you that's one thing secondly you're out there leading the charge helping women start and grow businesses and i hear you say all the time on national media the time's never been better that's right right. That's right. Why is that? I was just reading an article even before we went live where research, new research is showing that a lot of people in their 60s and 70s, instead of retiring, are taking what they call a side gig job, side hustle type of thing, because they want to keep their

skills sharp. They don't want to get bored. They want extra income, that type of thing. And so what's so fascinating is for the American worker, the American entrepreneur, the options are endless from these companies that are getting highly competitive to train and hire for these open positions so they can continue to grow to you doing your own thing. You know, if that means you want to do it on the side or you want to do it full time, you've got free access to millions of people 24 hours a day through social media. You have free tools, free business software, free content and teaching, you know, to teach you how to do this thing. So you don't have to have an MBA. You don't have to have startup capital.

You don't have to have a lot of brick and mortar store. A lot of the things you used to have. And so the barrier to entry into the marketplace as a small business owner, even side business owner, is so low. And there really never has been a better time to start a side or small business than right now. But even in your space, in the career space, the opportunities have never been better than they are right now for someone wanting to pursue their passion and really do work they love. So that's why I love talking to you about this stuff, Ken, because we could talk all

day about this. We have such a passion for helping people find that work that matters to them. Yeah, 888-825-5225. That's the phone number. We're clearing the phone lines. We're taking your calls about starting a business. Maybe you started a business recently. You go, okay, Christy, I've started. Here's where I'm at. I feel like I'm on mile three or four or five. What next? What does it look like? She's doing some great work helping you out. We'll take those calls. We'll take your career calls. If you're searching, if you're stuck, if you're scared, we're going to tag team on that because that's what we love to do here. And we are here for you. 888-825-5225.

Christy, by the way, I don't know if you know this. I'm giving away your books on my show. Oh, well, thanks. I gave away Hogan's book when I was on the show with him yesterday. I was very generous with his things. Well, we love to give away Dave's stuff. That's where it all started. It's like Dave's like, hey, you can give our books away, things like that.

And a lady called in, and she was saying, hey, I've always wanted to do this. I'm doing it. It's happening. But what does it look like? When's the right time to fully jump from a very good job that she did not hate? So anyway, I gave her a book to you. I was like, okay, here's the deal. You've got to follow Christy.

You need to read the book and you do what she said because you're going to get the answer to that question. But it brings up an interesting point. I think a lot of people out there are in a similar situation. I want to set this up. I find, Christy, that people who've got a great side business, people that are coming to you and going, okay, I want to build this thing, sometimes they forget that their current job is such a great launching point

or maybe moving to a similar area of their side hustle. So if they move from one full-time gig to another full-time gig, that maybe get them in closer proximity to the space they want to start a business in. And it gives them valuable experience. It propels them. It teaches them.

And let's not forget the financial platform for them to continue following you and building that side business up. I want you to speak to that on people who come to you as well. Okay, when do I jump from full-time gig to this side hustle that's winning? It's just not winning enough yet.

What do you tell them? Well, even how you phrased it is exactly how they word it. When they ask me that question, they say, when do I make the jump? Or the word I hear a lot is when do I make the leap? Leaps are scary. You fall harder, you fall faster. It hurts more when you take a leap. And so instead we talk about this a lot, but the goal would be that you stay in your full-time job. Even if it's not your dream job, you stay there. That's right. You build up that business but the goal would be that you stay in your full-time job, even if it's not your dream job. You stay there. That's right.

You build up that business on the side so much that it supports you specifically financially. So let's talk about what that means. Maybe right now in your current full-time job, your salary is $60,000 a year, but you could live on 30 or 40. Well, then you just need to build your side business up to 30 or 40, make some cuts in your standard of living, and live within that. And then you could make that step to doing your side thing full time. But it's a step. It's the next logical step, not this terrifying leap. You know, I coached a guy years ago and he did what I like to call assumptive math.

He had a side gig. He worked on it 10 hours a week and he made $10,000 for the year. He did some assumptive math, assuming if he quadrupled his hours, he would quadruple his income. He quit his full-time job, worked on his side gig 40 hours a week, but the demand wasn't there for that business. He only made slightly more than the year before at $12,000 that year and had to go back to getting a full-time job.

So don't just assume the money's going to be there, the demand is going to be there. You want to prove your idea. You want to build it up, really have the demand, the customers, the revenue, the personal income there. And then what's your idea. You want to build it up, really have the demand, the customers, the revenue, the personal income there. And then what's so cool is when you get to do it full time, it stays a blessing.

It doesn't become this burden where you approach it from a place of desperation. Because I'll tell you this, Ken, if you go into your side business before your side business can support you, your customers will feel that desperation you approach selling to them.

And it's not a good situation for you or for them. So do it right, grow slow, and it'll make the whole process more fun. It's so true. And I know one of our common enemies is fear. Yep. And what you just laid out is what keeps people from being paralyzed by fear. If you are the tortoise, the incremental growth, Dave says you want to be on the cover

of slow company, not fast company. We've heard him say that a million times, and he's right. Because the fear, of course you're going to be afraid of the Geronimo cliff dive. I don't know many people, you and I know some, who are just daring by nature. They see the cliff dive and they go, I'm in, let's do it. Head first, I'll jump off the 80-foot cliff. For the rest of us, it is mortifying. But what you're saying is so true there.

If you build it incrementally, then we just step beautifully into it. I like the idea of somebody going, hey, I'm turning in my resignation letter with gratitude. What a wonderful time this was. This was great. What a great season of my life to be able to do this. And now I step into my dream, step into that business that I've always wanted to run full time. Right. I think we picture it differently, though.

We picture it as this Jerry Maguire moment where we're going to grab the goldfish and walk out and say, Who's with me? Don't do it like that. You know, the impressive things in life start out as unimpressive things. They start out as small things, maybe even side things, but it will pay off in the long haul. Good stuff. All right. We're fired up.

The phones are ringing now. People want to get some answers. They want to get some phones are ringing now. People want to get some answers. They want to get some clarity, Christy. They want to get some confidence. Christy Wright, Ken Coleman, sitting in for Dave Ramsey this hour. We're taking your calls about your business, your career. Don't move. Your call's coming up next.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Okay, I need you to listen to this, because one normal routine that everyone does can cause total chaos in your life. Folks, I'm talking about the simple act of using Wi-Fi. When you're on Wi-Fi anywhere in public or at home, you're at risk of hackers easily seeing every site you visit and search you're doing online. It doesn't matter if you're doing it on your cell phone or your laptop. I'm not telling you this to scare you. I don't operate in fear, but I want you to be aware and take action. You need to download Hotspot Shield. Hotspot Shield helps keep your connection on your own Wi-Fi and any public Wi-Fi secure.

600 million people worldwide have downloaded Anchor Free's Hotspot Shield. Download it now. My listeners can save even more by going to hotspotshield.com slash Dave. That's hotspotshield.com slash Dave. You can be secure in seconds. Download Hotspot Shield today. Welcome back, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to talk about your life and your money. I'm Ken Coleman, joined in studio by Christy Wright.

And this hour, we're taking your calls about your career, your business. You've got a side business. You've got a business you've always wanted to launch, a little bit scared about it. Maybe you're searching for some ideas. Maybe you're stuck. We are here for you this hour, 888-825-5225. The number is 888-825-5225. Let's start it off with Shannon, who's on the line in Colorado Springs. Shannon, how can we help?

Hi, Ken. Hi, Christy. First of all, thank you so much for taking my call. I'm really excited to speak with you. For sure. changes and he's felt really stale there for the last couple of years. And he's really wanting to move to a different company, but without losing a lot of income and certainly without losing his leadership status. And I think I'm just looking for some guidance or some inspiration on how to make that kind of a move. Has he identified to you some specific companies that he would like

to move to? Or has he just said, I'm stagnant and I want to get out of here, but he's a little bit scared to move? What's going on? That's it, yes. He's feeling really afraid because his whole career has been here. So he feels a sense of loyalty, and also that he's not getting the growth from this company anymore that he used to. Right, but that's what he needs to focus on.

That's what I want him to focus on. I want him focusing on that feeling right there, okay, that he's just not growing. Because if he's focused on that, he's going to be less focused on the fear. Now, the fear is coming from some place of just it's a limiting belief. It's not true. So I like to shine the light of truth on fear. And you're going to need to sit down with him because I can't talk with him right now, but I don't know what his exact fear is. But he doesn't owe that company anything other than while he's working for them to be a good steward of his time, integrity, and work hard and fulfill his role.

But he doesn't owe them any more of his time. If he's not growing and he senses he wants to move on to somewhere else, he just simply needs to begin looking for multiple opportunities. The economy is booming as it relates to jobs. Somebody that has been in leadership as long as he has, he's moved up from an entry level to leadership, that's a very impressive growth rate. And so people can look at that, and the guy's been in leadership. So you just need to encourage him that, A, he can do it.

He does have what it takes. There are multiple opportunities out there for somebody who has leadership experience in the corporate world. And he has nothing to be afraid of if he puts himself out there, he gets the interviews, he gets some offers, and he takes one that he feels is absolutely a great fit where he can take what he does best and do what he loves most. It's that simple. There's plenty of opportunity. So it's not, like Christy said in the first segment, Christy, this is not a gigantic jump

for him. It's, I'm going to go out and look. Right. And let me say this as a caveat, because somebody asked me this on my show the other day. What do I do when I'm applying for other jobs and I'm working at one place? I said, well, go on your lunch hour. It takes a vacation time. That's right.

Put the tie in the car. Don't steal from your current company. That's right. So use vacation time or change your lunch hour. That's right. Instead of from 12 to 1, do it when you're doing the interviews so you're not stealing. But go out there, look for stuff, and if you get something, you got something and you walk away.

You don't need to worry about, well, can I lead somewhere else? You know what's funny, though, Ken? I think because when people have stayed with a particular company for a long time, and this is a great thing, they feel very loyal to that company. And so even exploring, even searching other job postings or putting their resume together feels disloyal. But one of the things, I was actually working with a couple recently that was in almost the exact same situation. And I told them, it was actually the husband, I said, here's what I want you to do. I want you to write out a list of your non-negotiables in your next move, in your job. What are you looking for?

And when you look at that and see that you can't have those things and stay where you are, it sometimes gives you the boost and the confidence to go explore. Because you realize, I'm never going to have the things I'm looking for where I am today. I've outgrown this position or this company or so on. And it can give you that confidence to start doing some searches. And like you said, Ken, it's just those baby steps of searching. You're not walking out. It's not Jerry Maguire. You're not walking out the door.

You're just going to start exploring until you find the right thing. That's exactly right. Focus on I'm stale. I'm not growing here. It's not where I want to be. And let that voice drown out the voice of fear. 888-825-5225 is the number. Let's go to Ronnie, who's on the line in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Ronnie, how can we help? I started a restaurant in 2017. We were able to make it eight months, but I missed seven weeks worth of sales taxes. And the state government went in and took every dime we had, and we ended up having to shut down. And I'm trying to figure out, because it was such a passion of mine, that I'm trying to figure out a way to parlay, because it's not that we weren't popular. We were brand building. And I'm trying to figure out a way that I could parlay that experience into a different type of career.

My life's in chaos right now, but I can come quickly. And it's not that we weren't popular. We actually really were popular. And when the government came in, we couldn't do anything. They literally took everything we had. Right. Well, let's focus real quick on your big question, which is how to parlay your experience into something else. If you had the capital and you had the experience and the lessons that you've just learned and you've got that on your side and you could start with cash,

would you immediately start back into a restaurant again? Absolutely. Our brand was big and we were – Exactly. They have a thing around here where they do the best of, and we actually placed third in the best of, and we were only open eight months. Well, Ronnie, here's what I'm saying. Ronnie, I'm going to have Christy weigh in here in a second,

but I don't think that you're looking for a new career. I think you need a new stop to regroup. You've got to get some income. You've got to lick your wounds. You've got to learn some valuable lessons on how to grow the business. In fact, Chrissy will give you some advice here in a second. You need to connect with what she's doing. But the fact that you love running a restaurant and you just kind of failed here, not kind of failed, you failed and it's big, but you can recover. I don't think you're looking for a new career, but what you need to do is bounce back

into the restaurant industry if it were me, because you've got some experience running a restaurant. So that's very marketable right now. Let's get you back in the restaurant space in some type of leadership, management role, so that you're still in that world. And while you're reflecting on some of the failures, you're learning some new lessons you're talking to people who are actually running successful restaurants and become a student of what it's going to take to work and how you can do it better and get connected with the christy rights i had to follow i had to follow chapter 13 no i understand i have to have an income to cover that that's what i'm saying so i want you to go get employed in a restaurant right now because it's it's a double benefit a you've got income and b you're getting valuable experience and you're staying in

that space that you love until you can build up and be ready to start again. That's when I'm going to pass the baton to Christy here. Yeah, I think on the business side of things, just speaking to that dream that's still in you, Ronnie, and you've said a couple times on the call even that your brand was popular, people liked what you guys were doing. I would be curious if there is a scaled back version of the restaurant and brand that you can continue to keep a little bit of fuel on that fire in the meantime in your community. So is it a food truck?

You know, Ronnie, go on Craigslist. Is there an old truck you could make over for super cheap? Is there a pop-up shop you could have at craft fairs, flea markets, something like that where people are seeing your brand, they're getting to taste your food, but it's not a full-on risk and commitment and overhead and production and operation of a full restaurant. But, man, that brand is out there, and it's still rolling while you're getting your own personal finances and experience and stuff back in order. Because you're right, you're in a season of regrouping,

but it doesn't mean that dream has to completely be on hold or die. You just might need to scale it back in your mind and scale it back in the marketplace for a season until you get it together and are ready to take it, ramp it back up again. That's absolutely right. You and I have a good friend, John Maxwell, who wrote a book called Failing Forward. And he added some content to it, re-released it. And I love the new title as much as I love Failing Forward. He rebranded it or retitled it, if you will, to sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. Ronnie, you didn't lose.

You just learned a whole bunch. And I agree with Christy. The dream is not dead. You don't need a new career. You just need a fresh start. Stay with it. You're going to do this. You're going to come back and you're going to be better

than you ever were before. 888-825-5225. That's the number to jump in on the conversation. Ken Coleman and Christy Wright taking your questions about career and running, growing, starting a business. Don't go anywhere. More of the Dave Ramsey Show coming right up. One question I get asked all the time is, do I need life insurance? Listen, the whole point of life insurance is to replace your income for someone who counts on you. So if you have a spouse or you have kids, yes, you need term life insurance.

It's the only way to protect them until you're out of debt and have built up your wealth. You're only digging a deeper hole if you waste money on cash value plans since it robs you of the ability to make real progress. And that's why I send you to Zander Insurance, and I have for 20 years. That's where I get all my insurance, and they only offer the plans I recommend. It is not expensive. It's not complicated. And Zander will be there as your guide every step of the way. Visit Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. You need to get this taken care of. I can give you the advice and I can tell you where to go. But it's really up to you to take that important step to get your family protected.

That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Welcome back, America. You're listening to the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined in studio by Christy Wright. We're taking your questions about your business. You want to start a business. You start a business, need some advice. Christy Wright. We're taking your questions about your business. You want to start a business. You start a business, need some advice. Christy Wright is here for you. 888-825-5225. If you're searching, stuck, scared, got some career questions, we will also take those as well. 888-825-5225 is the number to jump in on the conversation.

Let's go to Jeff, who's on the line in Franklin, Idaho. Jeff, how can we help? Hi. So my question is probably more for Chrissy. We started a business boutique about four or five months ago, and we did it on credit, well, partially on credit. We took our tax return and dumped about $1,000 into it, and then we bought a good chunk of our inventory on credit. And since then, we've started our total money makeover, and we got to the part where Dave goes over credit cards and my wife started getting scared about it and feeling guilty.

And I was just wondering if there's any advice that y'all could give for helping her calm down, I guess. Well, Jeff, what is your business and how much debt do you have right now? I think it's about $1,000 in debt on the business. And then our business is a clothing boutique. Okay. Awesome. And how long have you been in business?

About four to five months, you said? Yeah. And we're exclusively on Facebook. Okay. How's it going? How are the numbers? Is it doing well? Are you making money?

Sort of. No, there's no sort of, Jeff. You're making money or you're not. Tell me how it's going. I would say that we are making money, but we're not making a lot. Okay. All right. But that goes with paying off the credit card and everything else.

We're trying to get things up and going. Sure, I totally understand. Well, when you're getting started out, that's the thing in business. There are a lot of variables at play. You don't really have accurate predictions or projections of what your business can do because you haven't been in business before. Your first year is a really big learning experience, and you want to track all of your revenue and your expenses, even your marketing initiatives. If you're doing any Facebook ads,

you want to track that every single month, especially your first year so that your second year you can create a budget and projections based on how the first year went. Of course, assuming that you will grow. So here's what I want you to do, Jeff. That was a mistake. We never recommend you take out debt personally or in the business because it's all debt. It's all yours and it's all risk and it's all a bad idea. But here's where we are today. You got this thousand dollars. I think if you get serious about building the business and getting it profitable and getting some revenue in, then you're just going to pay off this debt fast. That's all you're going to do. You're going to treat it like you would your personal debt snowball and you're going going to pay off this debt fast. That's all you're going to do. You're going to treat it like you would your personal debt snowball,

and you're going to get gazelle intense, and you're going to pay it off as soon as possible. If you build this into the expenses of the business, you should be able to pay it off pretty quick. You're going to pay this off before you take home very much money because you want to get it out from under the business, out off of your risk and the fact that you have to pay this. We never recommend, Jeff, but all you have to do is get gazelle intense and pay this off.

I will say it should light a fire under both of you to get the business making more money, get serious about bringing in some revenue, growing your customer base, growing your profit margin. Maybe that means raising your prices, lowering your expenses so you can put all the extra money that you possibly can from the business into paying off that debt, and then you have that much more margin once it is paid off. It's a pretty easy scenario. We don't ever recommend you take out business debt, but once you have, you're just going to treat it like you had personal debt. You want to pay it off as soon as possible.

If you can say this, I was thrilled it was only $1,000. Yeah, absolutely. That is manageable. I think you can get that paid off really fast, especially if you get serious about your business and grow it. Steven is up next in New London, Connecticut. Steven, how can we help? Hi, Ken. How's it going? Fantastic. All right. So I've worked in technology now for about eight years doing K-12 education. And recently in the past five months or so, I landed a new job, um, working at a Votex trade high school, um, teaching technology. And what I'd like to do,

uh, eventually sooner than later is I've been thinking, well, I'm training all these kids, um, within computer industry, exactly the way that I want them. It would be nice if I could somehow have a business that I could hire these graduates upon graduation. And this business would probably be within K-12, so it would be like K-12 consultants of sorts. And I'm wondering how I could get started with this. What do you think the first steps would be and so forth? Well, I have Christy weighing on first steps. That's her thing.

But I want to ask a couple clarifying questions. When you say technology consultants in K-12, you mean that – can you describe what that is? I'm guessing here, I want to know exactly what that means. Sure. So that would be maintaining the networks, the computers. Oh, at schools. Yes, at schools, informing administrations what they should be buying for technology, and getting one-to-one Chromebook programs that they're running.

Gotcha. All right, Christy, first steps. So you're saying, Stephen, you want to hire the students that you're teaching right now in your classes? Yeah, I want to hire my graduates. That's great. That's awesome. That is a great idea because you know why?

You know which ones are good ones and which ones are not so good ones. This is a fantastic idea. I'll tell you, Stephen, it's easier than it may seem. I will go ahead and make sure Kelly sends you my book. I know it says it's for women, but the business plan applies regardless. So you just follow the plan and that will get you started. But I will tell you a really good starting point for you is I want you to write out a job description for this hire that you would potentially make for a student that you would hire, whether it's one or five or ten, however you're going to frame and build this team.

We call it a key results area here at our company. But what I want you to do is I want you to identify exactly what they're going to do for you and ensure that they are going to bring ROI into your business. Because if you're starting this business with hires, you need to be able to pay them and they need to be able to create ROI for you, return on your investment in your business so you're not taking in more overhead and payroll than the business can support because you're very used to doing what you've been doing and this is a different model.

The hiring part is easy. You let the students know, make sure it's okay with the college that you're going to provide that opportunity to them, whatever. You know, you can put together an interview process for them even beyond graduation. But I just want you to make sure that you know what they're going to do for you. And then you can interview them against that criteria and even coach and lead them against that criteria. You know, Ken, a lot of people miss this. And we see this with Entree Leadership.

So many small business owners don't have job descriptions. They don't have key results area. And then they don't know if their team members are winning. And their team members don't know if they're winning because they don't have this definition of what success looks like. So, Stephen, I think that would be the best starting point for you. And then again, we'll send you my book. You can follow that plan to get your business off the ground as far as just covering some

of your bases. But I think it's a fantastic idea and a very low-hanging fruit for what you've been doing. That's a next logical step for where your experience is and a great opportunity in front of you. I think it's a great idea. And as you get Christy's book, and we're going to give that to you right now, also make sure you try to sit down with two or three people who have their own technology company that are serving schools or nonprofits or just in the technology business.

I just want you to sit down with somebody who's doing it because you're hired by the school system. And if there's somebody out there who's providing this service, Christy, to schools, I really want you to sit down with them because that's exactly the space you want to be in. And don't think of them as a competitor because they're winning. Think of them as somebody, hey, they're doing what I want to do. And go sit down and get some practical advice from them. Get a view of the landscape.

Start talking to some schools. What if, what if, what if. Ask a lot of questions. If you do that in addition to following the plan in Business Boutique, Christy's book, you're going to be in great shape and off to a good start. And Christy, again, I love this idea of somebody who's in a current role going, hmm, I want to step into a different version of this current role. And oh, by the way, I think I can train the people to come with me. Right. That's entrepreneurship.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. You're defining your path for yourself. Really good stuff. All right. Don't go far. We're coming right back. Christy Wright, Ken Coleman, sitting for Dave Ramsey this hour,

taking your calls about your business, your career, and coming up, got a special offer that Ramsey Solutions is bringing to you. I'll tell you about that, and we'll take your calls next. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Welcome back, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. I'm Kevin Coleman, sitting in for Dave Ramsey this hour, joined by Christy Wright as we take your calls about your business. You want to start a business? You need to grow your business?

Looking to switch careers? Searching? Stuck? Scared? It's all welcome this hour. 888-825-5225. Get to your call shortly I want to tell you about a very special offer

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Why would you wait any longer to get control of your money? Now is the time to start your Financial Peace University membership. Visit DaveRamsey.com or call us at 888-22-PEACE. That's DaveRamsey.com or call us at 888-22-PIECE. And Christy, I was thinking there at the end, Stacey and I have had the privilege to lead two classes. Have you and Matt, how much have you engaged with financial institutions? So I took it a long time ago when I started here.

Oh, sure. I mean, that was it. But Matt has taken it on his own and then I've taken it on my own. But we didn't take it together. We should. Yeah, we should. But it's like you have the same values, but we haven't. Yeah.

That's awesome. DaveRamsey.com or 888-22-PIECE to get included and involved with Financial Peace University. 888-825-5225 is the number to jump in. Let's go to Kyle, who's on the line in Albany, New York. Kyle, how can we help? Hey, guys. So I'll just jump to it. So basically, I jumped on a business with my father. It's a digital out-of-home advertising company,

so we basically just do digital signage. It's all based out in LA, so I have about 70 digital screens up in businesses right now. Right now, we're not making any money because we don't have any advertising on them, so we basically have advertisers come and advertise on our screens in these businesses. I just quit my job. I quit at the end of the month. And I'm basically jumping into a company. I already invested a lot of time and some money into it. And I'm just not sure if it's a financially good move for me.

I'm 25 years old. I just left a job making close to $50,000 a year. And now I'm making nothing, moving back home with my father to work on this company and try to produce something. So what's your big question? The big question is I don't know if it's financially a smart thing to do, if I should go back to my job, or should I try to work on a startup company that is not making anything right now.

All I've done is invested money into it. I'm not sure if I should keep going on with it. Well, I don't want to answer that second part of the question until we address the first part. And if you had talked to Christy and I a few weeks ago, we would have both said, hey, give it a shot with dad. I'm fine with you moving back in with your dad if you were keeping employment, meaning you need that $50,000 a year job or another one

or one that even pays better so that you can have a little bit more time to try to develop this business with your father. But now you've quit and you've put all this pressure on yourself, and that's just not a fun place to be. There's enough pressure to try to grow something that you've invested time and money in. You want to see a return. We humans are creatures of progress, Christy. We want to see progress.

Well, that's enough to deal with. Now you're not employed. So my first thing is go get employed. If you've already made the move to your dad, I'd hate for you to pull the rug out from underneath your dad after making this commitment. I would put, I'd sit down and have a conversation with dad and put a time limit on, all right, we're going to give this this amount of time. Here's what we're going to do different. Here's what we're going to hustle. You know, come up with a plan to give it everything you've got.

But that is an extra to what you need to do, which is you need to be employed. So you don't have any kind of personal financial pressure. You're living with your dad, so that's going to lower your expenses, presumably. So go get a job and do this on the side. Christy? Yeah, I would say exactly the same thing, because it was like what we were just talking about. You want to approach building a business, whether it's a new business or a turnaround or you're trying to get this thing off the ground, from a place of strength, not from

a place of desperation. And if you don't have any income right now, Kyle, then it's going to be this desperate approach to it, to we've got to make it work. Now, to Ken's point, give yourself a deadline. We're not going to let this thing just tread water for two years and be like, well, maybe something will work someday. No, no, no. Give yourself a time frame and say, by this point, we're going to be profitable. And what that does is it lights a fire under you to get serious, try some new things, marketing outside approaches, think outside the box

to get new clients and get this thing making money by a certain deadline. But in the meantime, you can pay your bills and eat. And so it's a win-win. You need both of those things. And you can do both of those things at the same time. People do it every day. I also want to throw a question for him to you. Okay, great.

This is also kind of, we don't know what their relationship is like, but it's dad and son. They've invested in this. Sounds like both have put time and money in this thing. He's made this commitment to move across the country, living with dad and give it a shot. On top of what we've just said here with a deadline, what other conversations does he need to be having with dad that will help with some boundaries and some clear expectations? Well, I think you need to align on mutual goals. And a mutual goal, for example, would be we want to get this profitable. We want to get this making X amount of dollars, that type of thing.

However, there should be some really interesting conversations of how you get to that goal. Meaning that generation, the way that his dad does things, he may think this is the only way to get to that goal. And so son coming in saying, hey, what if we try some new things may not go over really well. So you're going to have some interesting conversations. But if you want something different than what you've always gotten, you've got to do something different than what you've always done. And that can be difficult for that owner founder to change their ways. So we see that a lot with family owned businesses.

That's great advice right there from Christy. Alignment. Make sure you two are aligned in this new season, this period where you've put a deadline. OK, let's see if we can make this win. Triple eight, eight to five,25-5225 is the number. Let's go to Richard, who's on the line in Houston, Texas. Richard, how can we help? Hi, I'm glad y'all are on today.

I'm going to interview for a franchise tomorrow, and I want to know what questions to ask. Oh, that's great. Do you mind sharing which one? Building Works. It's in the evening, and I will just basically supervise my employees. But I'm keeping my daytime job until my nighttime business equals my salary during the day. And then once I get that consistently, then I'm going to drop down to part time during the day day until I get to 1.75 of my original salary consistently. Okay, so the model of this, I'm not familiar with that company,

the model of this would be you would then be an owner, a franchise owner, correct? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so I love your question, what questions to ask. Here are a few things. I'm just going to make these up on the fly here. Certainly ask around values. What are their business values?

What are their operational values? That's going to be important for you to know, Richard, because you're going to be the operator of this franchise, and you don't want to operate something that's perpendicular to your personal values. So I would just dig there. What are things that are important to them? What are things that are important to them? What are things that they stand for? And it sounds like fluff to ask a mission statement or values, but it's incredibly insightful because why you do business and the values in which you operate affects even really tactical things like your policies and your customer service and your returns and shipping and how you take care of people.

So values really matter. I would ask a lot around that. I would ask around how much freedom you have when it comes to decision making. So what decisions can you make around the brand, around new promotions, around marketing, around new products or services, around hours of operation? So what freedom do you have basically as a franchise owner? You know, being a franchise owner is awesome because you have basically as a franchise owner? Being a franchise owner is awesome because you kind of get a business in a box. You don't have to create things from scratch. But the bad side is you get business in a box and you kind of have to play by their rules

and do what they want. And so you want to ask some questions around what is prescribed for you. Here are the rules. Here are the laws. Here's what you have to stay within these bounds. And what are you able to kind of play with and toy with and put your own personal brand, your own personal touch, your own personal values and ideas as the owner, as the business leader on that. I would definitely ask around that. And then, you know, I would ask some numbers. You know, what type of growth do they see with their franchise owners and what time

frame, who their target market is. I would just ask a lot of business type of questions and making sure there's alignment between this opportunity and you and what you want out of your life and making sure that this is moving you in that direction. Two specific questions to add to that. One, ask them what they think it takes for a franchisee to win. You're going to hear some expectations. You're going to hear a little bit of wisdom and maybe some knowledge.

And then I would also ask them, who are some franchisees that have won big in this business? Get their names. Go talk to them. That's great. That's really good. Big thanks to Chrissy Wright for hanging out. Thanks to our producer, James Child,

our associate producer, Kelly Daniel, and most of all, you, America. Thank you for listening. This is your show, and this is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly Daniel, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know that in 2017, Dave Ramsey Show listeners paid off $50 million of debt? That's pretty impressive, and it could be

you this year. Keep listening for more inspiration.