The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Grow My Business? (Hour 3)
Episode Date: May 20, 2020Business, Retirement, Relationships Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup: http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting: http://bit....ly/2QEyonc Interview Guide: http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network: http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's the Dave Ramsey Show,
where debt is dumb, cash is king,
and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW
as the status symbol of choice.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.
Thanks for joining us, America.
Christy Wright, Ramsey personality,
number one best-selling author of the book Business Boutiqueique is my co-host today on the Dave Ramsey Show.
Open phones, questions for her.
If you're trying to get your confidence in an area, trying to push through the fear in
an area, particularly in and around business, she's here to help.
But in any particular thing, she also knows the money stuff with this one.
So we're going to work together to answer your questions about life and about money the phone number 888-825-5225 that's 888-825-5225 katherine's in ohio hi
katherine how are you good thanks for taking my call dave and christy our pleasure how can we help
so i have a question about helping my in-laws retire with dignity. So they're
immigrants and they came here with basically nothing. Older adults, they were in their late
50s when they arrived. And my mother-in-law is working, but they don't have any savings.
And we just, we want to be in a position where we can support them to really have a
dignified retirement. My fiance and I got engaged just recently and we're working through the baby
steps and putting ourselves in a good position to support them but I just don't know exactly
how to help them to do that retirement with dignity. Okay so how old are they now? 63 and 65. Okay. And what kind of an income are
they earning? She earns about $24,000 a year. He's not working. Why? He's had a lot of trouble
with not having the skills needed coupled with a language barrier.
What country are they from?
Iran.
Okay. All right.
And you are engaged to their son?
Right.
To be married when?
In about a year.
And your income and his income is what?
We're both sitting right about $60,000.
Each?
So $120,000 a month.
So about $120,000.
Okay.
All right.
Cool.
Well, obviously, anything that they can do for themselves takes the burden off of you.
And the more they do for themselves, the less the burden is on you.
And, you know, the best thing you can do to get ready for them is just like they say in the airplane,
when the oxygen mask drops down, first thing you have to do is put it on yourself,
meaning you have to build your own level of wealth and get yourself straightened out
before you can help them.
Only the strong can help the weak.
Exactly.
And so, you know, you guys walk the baby steps.
But knowing that in the back of your mind, a portion of your wealth is going to be used
to subsidize or take care of them or whatever in this process.
I don't know what they qualify for if if they've become citizens, or do they have Social Security?
What are they going to have coming in 10 years from now?
And then what are you willing to do to supplement that?
They are citizens, so that does help, certainly.
Okay, good, good.
And I'm just wondering, where do I couch that money?
So our situation is I'm in Baby Step 2, he's in Baby Step 3.
We'll be out of Baby step two in two years. So at that point, where do we want to start? You know,
where's the best place to kind of... The same thing you would have done anyway, you're going to save money and invest money. And I mean, if you want to do a portion of your 15% into retirement
that's not in retirement, but is in mutual funds, because you may need to access it before you get
to retirement when they do.
You're going to use some of your nest egg to take care of them.
You can, but basically I'm not giving them a lump sum.
I'm going to dole out probably out of your cash flow.
You know?
Yeah. I mean, you're going to say, okay, we're going to put you guys on a budget,
and you're going to be on $2,000 a month, and we're going to take care of your bills for $2,000 a month.
And then if you want something beyond that, you're going to have to figure out a part-time job of some kind
and push past your language barrier or whatever prejudices you've run into or whatever it is, right?
And we've got to create some income here, folks, because, I mean, you're not going to be able to put them on $8,000 a month. You're not going to put them on uh eight thousand dollars a month
they're not going to have you're not going to have it right yeah exactly besides that's not
necessary so um you know i just think you start thinking along those lines of you know what what
is their monthly budget going to look like for food shelter clothing transportation utilities
and how much of that do i have to put in after they get Social Security,
and I'm probably going to be cash flowing that if I'm in your shoes.
Yeah, I would say, Catherine, communicate everything with your husband, your fiance,
your husband, with your in-laws. Everybody needs to be on the same page because it would be really
easy for this arrangement to get sideways because they thought and he thought and you thought
and we all thought different things.
And, man, resentment, well, it's just a breeding ground for resentment.
So just communicate, communicate, communicate on the front end.
Check in three months in, six months in, a year in.
How's it going?
Just make sure everybody is reading from the same playbook
because you just don't want that to put a strain on the relationship.
Yeah, you need to get it real clear on what the cultural uh background what expectations that that brent
that brings uh because you know uh english anglos whites have a different set of expectations than
hispanics on taking care of mom and dad um exactly and uh and middle
easterners do too and so you need you need to get your head around how the other three people in
this conversation are thinking your husband and his parents and uh i mean it may be the worst sin
on the planet for you not to do this to not take care of them in his mind and in their mind. And
in your mind, it's like, I'm really doing you a dadgum big favor because if it wasn't for me,
you'd be out on the street when instead it's an entitlement in their mind. And so that's what
Chrissy's talking about is to get alignment on those things. And, you know, they need to hear
where you're coming from culturally as well, not just, you know, impugning their culture upon you. But it's a fair guess to say that this is an entitlement mindset in a lot of cultures.
That's not true in white Anglo-America, by and large.
And so it's not racial.
It's just the background and the upbringing.
And, you know, are you of Scotch-Irish or German descent?
Or are you of Middle Eastern descent or Hispanic descent?
Because that affects the way people are wired in their households on how they think about this stuff.
You know, for instance, we're big on, you know, kids 18 years old.
Why are they still here?
You get out and do it, right?
Hispanic culture, if the daughter is doing that, then she's looked at as being immoral.
Wow.
If you wouldn't push your daughter out to become a streetwalker, you know,
and a lot of portions of Hispanic culture, we discovered that when we're working in the Hispanic world with the Spanish portion of financial peace.
And I'm like, kick them out of the house.
That's what we do for hillbillies, you know.
Hillbillies, kick them out of the house.
Get out there and get on your own, Junior.
And they're like, no, it's a whole different way.
And they're looking at me like I've lost my mind.
So the nuance of that is worth investigating and understanding,
and it'll help you figure out how to set the mathematical goals around this too.
So, good question.
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and get this month's dave ramsey special visit grip6.com that's grip6.com Christy is with us in Missouri.
Hey, Christy, your question for Christy.
Yes, thank you so much.
I'm new to Academy and love it.
But until recently, I have intentionally kept my business really small and I've relied on
word of mouth to get new clients. But now I'm ready to take on new clients and I'm overwhelmed
about where to start and what to do. Awesome. What's your business, Christy?
I do freelance graphic design, usually print media, including magazines and
books. Okay, cool. So when you say you want to grow it, do you have specific goals? Have you
kind of got some numbers or ideas, especially based on right now, kind of what the trends are
going on in your business? I've based my goal on how many hours a day I can work. And so right now I can do like four hours a day.
So my goals would be based around that.
Okay.
Well, you said, I think you mentioned that you've relied on word of mouth in the past.
Have you actually activated that?
Do you incentivize referrals or has that just happened organically?
It just happens organically.
Okay.
About how many clients of which are, which are base right now do you have? or has that just happened organically? It just happens organically. Okay.
About how many clients, what's your base right now do you have?
It's really small.
I have about seven clients.
Okay, that's okay.
But I have repeat business.
Sure.
Well, that's awesome. One of the really easy, low-hanging fruit ways to kind of get some marketing going and get some things
happening is just to actually intentionally activate them. So if they're repeat customers,
then you can give them an incentive off their next order if they refer a friend and that friend
signs up for a package or buys from you, becomes a client, that type of thing. So that's a really
low-hanging fruit. Are you using social media and email
marketing right now? I have not been. Okay. Well, I think that'd be another great place to start.
Start actually building your brand. I have a ton of lessons on this inside the Academy. I have a
ton of articles at businessboutique.com, but I talk about this a lot, building your brand
and using social media to move people down the funnel where they go from being in white space,
they don't know you at all, to where they know you, like you, and trust you.
And as you qualify those leads, you find people that are in your target market.
You'll just start to see that pick up.
It may not happen overnight, but you'll start to turn the knobs on your marketing to see what's working,
what's not, what you want to do more of or less of.
Dave, what would you?
Just remembering that referrals are what we all do
on things that we like. If you saw a great show on Netflix, you tell your friends about it. If you
saw a great movie, read a great book, went to a great concert, listened to a certain
song that came out, you tell your friends about it. That's a referral.
And you do that because you think you're doing your friends a favor to turn them on to this cool thing. And the trick
is you are the cool thing. And they are doing their friends
a favor to turn. Versus, have you ever had one of those salesmen who
tries to force referrals out of you and you're like, I'm not throwing my my friends to you you're going to go over there and shmarm them i'm not going to do that to
my friends right well that means that that you know they're not you know they're qualifying for
you then is what they're doing and so you know you just need to say gosh if you had somebody that you
were so excited about our stuff that you could tell them about it, or let me tell them that you're excited about it, holler, you know, I'm trying to grow my
business. Would you help me? And you know what? People want to help a small business person that's
hustling. That's right. Uh, that, that, you know, it's like, it's a patriotic thing almost, uh, to
just step in and, and give you some help. And, uh, but it's just like i saw this great movie you know i you know i had this great meal
at this great restaurant um that's a referral and if the restaurant asked me to do that and it was
a great meal and i wouldn't have thought of it if they hadn't asked me to do it then they created a
referral they wouldn't have gotten otherwise yeah i did this for academy during launch uh whenever
we had our open enrollment back in march i I told our existing members, has this helped you?
Go tell your friend.
You know other friends that this could help.
Go talk about this to your friends.
Tell them this is their time to get in.
A lot of people joined at this last enrollment because existing Academy members told their friends about it.
So it might just be as simple, like you said, as just asking.
Yeah, just excited about it.
I mean, the number of times that someone goes to Financial Peace University because someone else told them about it instead of us is very high.
Right.
Very high, which means that we're doing good.
We're helping that person.
They're going, gosh, you need to change my life.
You've got to go.
Yeah.
You know, you've got to jump in the 14-day free trial, you know, that kind of stuff.
All right, Andrew's with us in Colorado.
Hey, Andrew, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Thank you.
Hey, I have a quick mortgage question for you. Just came across your
podcast recently, but right before that, my wife and I, we decided to refinance our mortgage.
Only thing is that we threw my wife's student loan into the mortgage about 38K. We, without
knowing, we followed every other baby step, emergency fund, 15% retirement, kids college,
no debt.
So my question is, should I pay off the mortgage more aggressively since we put the student loans in the mortgage trying to figure out what to do?
Yeah.
So what you're saying is that you realize we would have told you not to do that,
but you did it before you found us.
Correct, yes.
Okay.
All right, because I would have wanted you to pay that off in baby step two.
But you're there now. And so, you know, it's just now you have a mortgage.
I wouldn't worry about how you got the mortgage.
I'm just saying now you've got a mortgage.
It's your baby step six, and, you know, we need to get the mortgage paid off.
But, no, I don't think it's more aggressively.
You know, you are, because you rolled those in, you got out of debt, quote, unquote, faster.
You're not out of debt.
You moved the debt.
But you moved through the baby steps faster, I guess is a better way of saying it.
And so you've got that cash freed up.
So, you know, baby step four is here and get your emergency fund in place.
No, I'm not going to shame you for what you did before you ever met me.
Because before I ever met me, i did some really stupid stuff you
know so it's like you were just saying dave about when we were talking about mortgages earlier that
part of the baby step process is the marathon like when you run a full marathon which both you and i
have it's 26.2 miles you can you can speed up on some certain sections but you're not sprinting
26.2 miles you're going to stop have some water you're going to pace it at a normal pace and so
that's that's the mortgage. That's what it is.
I don't think just, you know, regardless of the story of how you got the mortgage, it's still there.
Yeah, it's still a mortgage.
It's going to take a while.
It may be in the back of your mind and may give you a little extra push to, you know, go a little bit harder.
But that's okay.
But I don't know that you say, do we turn the intensity up 25% more than you would have?
No, no.
You're just there sooner, so you're going to get out sooner.
You're to the step sooner, and that's the direction to go.
So, hey, good question.
We appreciate you joining us.
Felicity is with us in Colorado.
Hi, Felicity.
How are you?
Hi, Dave and Christy.
How are you two?
I'm good.
Good.
How can we help?
Great.
I am 12 years old and a member of the Business Boutique Academy.
No way.
That's amazing, Felicity.
You're 12?
Yes.
You're a star.
Oh, this is so cool.
I'm so excited about this.
Okay, Felicity, we'll stop talking.
What's your question? My question is, how do I save money for my business if I don't have a business yet?
Okay, well, do you know what you want to do?
Yes, I want to be a proofreader.
A proofreader.
Cool.
Okay.
Well, here's the good news.
You don't need any money to do that, Felicity. That's a service-based business, and you're going to charge for your services, your knowledge, your expertise, your skills, the service you're providing to people. All you really need is, I would guess, a computer. Do you have a computer?
Yeah. from day one. Okay, so how do you know what a proofreader is at 12? That's a better question.
I didn't even know what a proofreader was when I was 12.
There are adults that don't know they need proofreaders. Is your parents in this business or something, Felicity?
No.
Okay, how do you know what a proofreader is?
Where'd you learn about it?
I learned about it from my mom because she gets on Facebook a lot.
And they need proofreaders on Facebook.
That's for God's sakes.
Some of them just need editors.
Some of them don't even just need to be there.
But you're an amazing young lady.
You're going to be fine.
You're going to be fine.
You're going to be a multimillionaire.
It's amazing.
You're going to own a huge business.
That's the coolest.
Anything you want to do, kid.
There's nothing stopping this one.
Wow.
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Welcome back to the Dave Ramsey Show.
The phone number here is 888-825-5225.
My co-host today on the Dave Ramsey Show, Ramsey Show. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. My co-host today on the Dave Ramsey Show, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, Christy Wright.
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You can use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Now, today's question comes from Abby in New York. She visits DaveRamsey.com to ask, she says, how does Christy balance her business
and marriage? I think for a lot of women, our minds are always running and it's hard for us to
shut off the business side of the brain and give our spouse the attention they need and deserve.
I think we work hard in finding that work and life balance when it comes to our kids,
but sometimes we forget to do the same for our husbands.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Now, Dave, I'm excited for you to chime in on this one, but I'll tell you, for me, I
don't really separate the, when I think about my family and making that a priority, I don't
really separate my kids and my spouse.
I just make sure I'm giving both of them my time.
But one of the things-
But nobody says mom...
Everybody says mom guilt. They don't ever say husband guilt.
They don't. They don't.
But parents... Wife guilt.
Mom guilt or wife guilt. They don't say wife guilt.
They don't feel bad. Nobody's feeling bad.
They just don't feel bad for the husbands. I think this is wrong.
Here's what's interesting. Matt and I have been
so intentional about a couple
things, and they're not that
impressive or that
difficult Sunday nights are our nights we try to go on date nights you know at least once every
two weeks and every spring we take a vacation just us and you know I was amazed Dave because
last spring we took this vacation we went to Fort Lauderdale we went for like three nights four
days and it wasn't a big fancy trip we just do this every year around our anniversary but I got
so much feedback on social media saying how can you do this how can you leave your kids one woman wrote me she said
how can you leave your kids i haven't been on a vacation with just my husband in six years
and i thought well for us it doesn't feel like this difficult thing to do because we've always
done it we created a habit to say our marriage is a priority if we don't have our marriage our
kids don't have a unified team
good parents for us so it's in in our mind it's the oxygen mask thing you take care of yourself
you take care of your marriage to be able to be great for your kids and it's an outpouring of that
that we're able to be good parents so i think it for us as simple as it is we say it's a priority
and we actually show that with our actions and our time yeah um it is kind of a boundaries thing yeah um we we
you know like rachel is born we did not have trouble um and sharon didn't but i guess we're
a different generation maybe a little bit we didn't have trouble leaving them with a babysitter
yeah it did not freak us out i mean we have trouble leaving them with a babysitter. Yeah. It did not freak us out.
I mean, we didn't have trouble leaving them with their grandparents for the weekend while
we went and did something.
It never entered our mind that we were bad parents for doing that.
It would have entered our mind that were we not able to separate from the children occasionally,
that they may be killed.
Yeah, that's a fact.
Yeah.
You know, it might be dangerous for them.
So we needed to be separated from them occasionally.
And so I think that that is a boundary thing.
It's healthy boundaries and it's healthy for the kid to be able to exist on the planet with other loving people around them other than their mommy and other than their daddy.
As important as mommy and daddy are.
So I think that's it. And you and I have, you've done some wonderful teaching over the years to
leadership teams and I've watched it on balanced living. And you and I have talked about this
subject a lot. You know, balance is an illusion. There's no such thing. It's a matter of being present where you are. And
I remember when we were early married, we're starting this business. I worked all the time.
I mean, I was gone all the time and didn't have a choice. And Sharon will tell you that
there's some points in our, not for a decade, but a two two year period of time or three year period
of time when this business was coming off the ground after we went broke or trying to trying
to recover um i had to work right and uh she felt like a single mom for that period of time she'll
tell you it was tough and so to to combat that we had to do what you did and and honestly today even as empty nesters as papa dave and
mimi grandma and grandpa right uh we we manage our calendar even more tightly than we manage our
budget uh we say this is what we're doing this is what we're doing next week this is where we're
going to be this is what we're doing and with that we're setting uh we're setting up what we value yeah
you know the bible says your your treasure is where your heart is what you do with your money
says what's important but also what you do with that calendar says what's important yeah being on
the same team and on the same page you know you've heard me say this before but i tell people
life balance is not doing everything for an equal amount of time it's about doing the right things
at the right time and one of the things you know we talk about a lot, but there are seasons. And I think people underestimate the
importance of seasons. When you're, you might be in a season where you're game on in your business,
you're in a season of getting out of debt. Right now, many of you are in a season of survival
with the pandemic. It's a season. It's not forever. Then there's going to be a different
season. And as these priorities ebb and flow, you create a life that reflects what's important to you.
And there is some version of balance, but it's not because on any given day you had everything perfectly divided.
That's not realistic. It's not even desirable in many cases.
But I like how she asked, too, specifically about how do you turn it off?
And I think we feel a lot of guilt when we maybe talk about the business.
But I would just encourage you, Abby, you know, when I talk about my work, last night I was talking to Matt
and I was telling him about getting to speak this morning
for Entree Leadership University.
That's not me bringing work home.
I don't see it like that.
I see it as me getting to share a part of myself with him.
So I just want to encourage you,
if you're sharing something you're excited about
with your spouse,
that's actually an awesome conversation
to invite them into your world.
You don't want it to be the only conversation you ever have,
but don't feel guilty for sharing that.
It's an element of integrating these two worlds that you love very much.
Yeah, very good.
That's exactly right.
So we went to, we were young married,
and we went to a Gary Smalley marriage conference years ago.
Gary's passed away now.
We became friends later.
But John Trent, I think it was John Trent and Gary Smalley.
And I believe it was Trent that was painting the picture.
He said, you know, if you take the sword that you wear while you're at work,
that you're doing battle with all day long, you're using the sword all day long,
and you come home and you don't transition and take that sword off, and you use
the same sword on your spouse or on your three-year-old that you were using at work,
it's an inappropriate use of that instrument. And in the old days, you know, you think of
somebody in almost a Civil War setting or even a medieval setting.
They walk in the home after being gone all day fighting battles, and they've got the sword on.
What did they do?
They took it off, and they put it on the two pegs above the mantle.
Or in a pioneer day, they would take the musket, and they didn't turn it on their family.
They put it above the mantle signaling there's a transition here.
That portion of the day is over.
The family portion is here.
And, you know, a real good idea is to not have the television on while you're doing that.
A real good idea is to not have the laptop open while you're doing that. A real good idea is to lay your stupid phone down while you're doing that. And, you know, make eye contact. If you
spend three minutes in high quality eye contact and conversation,
as soon as you walk in the door, you can make a transition.
And then you've made some deposits.
And if you need to stop for a minute and answer an email a little bit later on,
it's not the end of the world.
Yeah.
But if you sit down, walk in, never make eye contact with your spouse or your kids,
sit down, set up your computer, sit down at your computer and keep working.
Yeah.
Why'd you even come home? Yeah. yeah well it's so interesting too because these
worlds are important to us and the needs are never ending at home uh and certainly in our in our work
and what i've noticed i do a lot of times say if i used to do this i would always focus on where i
wasn't so if i'm here i'm like are my kids okay am i at home is everything okay i should have done
this at home then i'd go home like oh i didn't catch up on those emails. I didn't hit that deadline. If you live your
whole life perpetually looking through the rearview mirror,
of course you feel guilty because you're
always focused on where you're not. So it can
really be as simple
as flipping your focus to look through
the front windshield of where you are. Be
where your feet are. Right now
I'm here. We're getting to do the show. Tonight I'm going to
be home and be with my kids on the floor looking them in the eyes.
If you can shift your focus, you can shake the guilt.
And you can, and then you also won't accept a guilt trip.
Yeah, yeah, right.
From someone else.
Because you know that it's not right.
No, I'm here.
It's okay.
Yeah, I'm in it with you.
It's okay.
I'm not that person.
And so I don't accept that labeling from you.
Yeah.
And whether it's you labeling yourself or someone else labeling you.
It's good stuff.
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Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 40, 29.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength.
Thomas Edison said, when you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this, you haven't.
Love it.
Kathy is with us.
Kathy's in New York.
Hi, Kathy.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hi, Dave.
Hi, Christy.
How are you?
Hi, great.
How can we help?
My question to Christy, and certainly Dave's input too, so I'm in New York City.
I'm an eBay seller, and I Dave's input too. So I'm in New York city. Um, I'm an eBay sales,
um, I'm an eBay seller and I also coach eBay sellers. And I don't know if you're aware of it, but I'm sure you probably are, is that online sales has exploded. So I'm actually in a business
that it has, my business has more than doubled in the past 30 days. Wow. Yeah, I love it.
So some of us, and please, my heart is certainly with all the people that are having, you know, a horrible time.
And thankfully.
You're not required to brood.
Okay, good.
But this is my question for you.
So my business is exploding.
I do have a team.
My husband is part of my team.
My husband is semi-retired.
There's a lot of moving parts to my business. I can go over it briefly if you need that.
Right now, he's helping with receiving product and he helps me with my shipping.
There's also, there's a social media component. I have Facebook groups.
I have YouTube podcasts. I have private clients. I speak and I have a blog.
So my question, Christy, is, and I'm in your business I speak, and I have a blog. So my question, Christy,
is, and I'm in your business boutique, which I love, is, oh, it's the best, you're wonderful,
is what's the best way to approach, and he's very willing to do more, he keeps saying, you know,
what else can I do for you? In looking, I'm just not sure where and how to analyze what tasks to give over to him.
Like, what does that discussion look like? What should I be looking at? Are there any big no-nos
or big roadblocks where it's like, absolutely don't go down this path, Kathy. You'd be wasting
your time. This is something the two of you should be looking at. He's extremely supportive.
You know, he considers my business our business. He's willing to do anything, but what should he do? Yeah, exactly.
Okay, exactly. Okay, cool. What's the best way to approach what to do? Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, well, I'm going to answer both of those with my answer, I think. So I think it's a
conversation where you sit down and say, hey, I am so appreciative of you being so supportive and willing to do whatever.
And I'm going to tell you, I need you.
So could we just map out what that looks like together?
So here would be the goal of this conversation.
You identify what are his strengths that he's just best at, willing to do, you know, in his sweet spot, in his skill set.
And how does that align with your needs?
So you identify your needs because you know the business better than he does he knows his strengths possibly better than you do
and you find the alignment there and that's that would be a great starting point but what's so cool
is you're connecting your needs with his strengths at the same time as having a conversation with him
about it so that instantly is going to make him feel seen heard, and like he has a voice in this decision because he does.
He feels valued.
It's not like you went together and put together a proposal and presented it to him like a business partner saying, hey, babe, this is our business together, and I need your help, and I'm so thankful that you're willing to help.
Could we map out a plan together that's going to be best for you, best for the business, and then you both kind of build it.
Dave, what do you think?
Yeah, let's pretend like you own a small business,
which means you're the CEO, you're the chief everything officer.
And when there's just a handful of folk, everybody does everything.
You do what it takes to get the job done.
And that's what he's willing to do, thank God.
Which is awesome.
Yeah, thank God.
Like that would be a different conversation if he wasn't.
I would say, you know, and your business has grown just beyond the two of you doing everything.
When I started this, I did everything.
There was a day I was one of the six guys working here that unloaded the trucks
when we came back from live events.
I did everything.
You know, today I don't unload trucks.
I'm too ornery.
But the point being that use Christy's idea and say, let's kind of have a gradient here and say, here's the best use of my time as Kathy.
I'm best at these things.
And so the more of that we can do, the more money we're going to make.
Here's the best use of your time.
The more of that you can do, the more money we're going to make.
Because you're more gifted
in that area you've got a passion in that area and then there's all this other crap that we just
have to get done we just got to get her done i mean we got to sweep the floors we got uh you
know we got to get the you got to make the trip to the to the fedex or go down to the ebay store
whatever it is you're doing i mean i don't you know there's some there's some tasks that are
just gopher tasks at your level that somebody in your business,
most everybody's doing some of them.
Everybody's got multiple job descriptions in a business your size,
especially when the volume blew up like this.
It's all hands on deck.
Kathy, did you marry someone that is your complete opposite?
Like, does your husband have an opposite personality style than you, or are you all very similar?
We've been married a while, so we've blended, Kristen.
We're now look-alike.
I hear about that.
When we started, yeah, very, very different.
And he's actually wonderful because I'm the planner and he's the risk taker,
so I'm now more of a risk taker and he's become more of a planner.
That's cool.
That's cool.
Well, I'm just thinking, like, even in my marriage, like, if Matt and I were working on a project,
if I asked him to do the creative stuff he would just be so overwhelmed if he asked me to do the detail stuff i'd be so overwhelmed so just identifying what are
the sweet spots for you guys and then like dave said everything left over everybody just pitches
in and does it yeah you just got to get her done yeah but that that but you don't start with that
you start with what is the highest and best use and one of the things i had to elevate myself
as as this business group as the leader in the business the owner of the business was i had to
quit doing a bunch of the getter done stuff because i just if it needed to be done i just did it
because that's what i had always done it was my default mechanism and you know i had to eventually
go okay god what do you want me to do you own this what do you want me to do? You own this. What do you want me to do?
And years ago, I started working on three things,
and I still work on those three things now that we're a $200-something million company.
I work on new things.
I work on broken things.
And I am one of the products.
And so those are the three things that consume all my time.
I really don't work on things unless they're new, broken, or I'm involved. And so, you know, Christy's got a new book coming out, a devotional
book coming out. I've seen the materials. That's a new thing. But I didn't spend the number of
hours that you all spent on the project, you and your team here. And so as the CEO, I just needed
to be aware. So I had an awareness meeting you know
and i speak into it because i've done a bunch of these things and i can add a little bit of value
to the marketing or to the publishing aspects of it and that kind of thing and uh and then i step
back and you all execute like crazy and so that's what you do yeah you get above it and you go okay
what is it i do and what therefore not what is it i't do, but what is my least best use of my time? And when you step back from that, it puts you in a whole,
whole different place. Way to go. Very good stuff, Amanda. Congratulations on the business doing so
well. Absolutely amazing. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You guys jump in. We'll talk about
your life and your money. I have a home-based small
business, and many of my friends are going to a cashless system. It would be an absolute dream
because I hate dealing with cash, but as a small business, would I be shooting myself in the foot
if I do this, Jane says. You know, here's the interesting thing, and I'm curious on your take
since we teach about the cash system, but so often so often Dave I get questions like this that's like should I do this or this and I just remind the person I
would remind you Jane it's your business you can decide I had a coffee shop owner ask me she said
should I accept tips or not I was like do you want to accept tips and she's like well no I was like
well you don't have to and if you want to you do there's some things that I feel like as a business
owner you get to decide so if you hate dealing with cash i mean does she have to no she doesn't have to yeah that's for sure what i
would do is um do a simple analysis and say if i quit taking cash how much is it how much business
is what am i losing yeah 80 of our business is cash and you're gonna stop taking cash that's a
bit risky hey cash i don't hate it that much you know i suddenly love cash i like cash now but you know
but that's uh uh so you just look at the thing and balance it out that way and a quick analysis
but if you look at it and go not that many people pay cash anyway i might lose five percent of my
business and even that some of that five percent will probably pull out their debit card if i had
a little square plugged in the top of my phone and i'm doing flea market work whatever it is right
i don't know what jane is doing she may be doing a big business but but um ask your customers to
send them a survey people are doing that all the time right now hey i'm thinking about doing this
would you guys participate what do you think do you have an opinion and they've got an opinion i
wouldn't do that unless there's a big percentage if it's three or five percent and you just don't
want to do it just stop doing it yeah just take the just go that i'll take that risk yeah you
know yeah i don't want to hear a bunch of whining in a survey.
I'm just going to do it.
But if it's 25%, you need to learn.
Yeah.
And you really want to do away with it.
If they would do it.
That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books.
Thanks to James Childs and Kelly Daniel.
Christy, thanks for hanging out.
Thanks for having me.
Glad to be here.
We'll be back before you know it.
In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,
and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.
In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope. For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days.
Go to DaveRamsey.com so you can watch from home.