The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Start a Company and Not Just a Job? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

Career, Investing, Business 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 

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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. Daniel Tardy joins me this hour, EVP here at Ramsey Solutions of the Entree Leadership brand. We're going to be talking about business and small business and leadership this hour. If you've got questions about business, starting and operating and running your own business, this is your time. We have a number one bestselling book called Entree Leadership, if you didn't know,

which is our playbook of how we started and how we run this business from a card table on my living room to where we are today. So if you want to talk about business and you've got questions about starting or running or your team you've got issues with or marketing questions you've got issues with or surviving or thriving during this semi-post-COVID situation. Where are you? Where's your business right now? How are you doing?

We're here to help. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Daniel, welcome back to the microphone. Thanks for having me, Dave. You know, we talk about small business, and helping small business owners win is what gets me out of bed every day. My team and I have a passion to help small business, and it really is the backbone of our economy. And you talk about this great success story here at Ramsey Solutions. You started on a card table and now a big national brand and hundreds of millions of dollars.

And people look at that and they go, oh, Dave's magic. He's just everything he touches turns to gold. You're a pretty special guy, but you're not magic. And it's an inspiring thing to think if you've got a card table in this country, you've got a shot. And the ambition and tenacity and hard work over time and a lot of mistakes. And that is our playbook. We talk about all the mistakes we've made. And in the process, we fail for it and we make successes.

And you do that long enough, you become an overnight success after 30 years of doing it. Yeah. After screwing it up for 30 years, you look up and you're an overnight success. So we have a free online workshop coming up. Yeah, we're excited about this. If you're a business owner and you want to grow your business to that next level and help more people, make more money, build a better team, this is something that our team has put together for you guys. Actually, starting tomorrow, I'll be hosting a three-part workshop called The Six Essentials to Scaling Your Business. We're going to teach you about the six core drivers of what makes a peak-performing business run.

Your personal leadership, your purpose, putting together a team of people that are rock stars, that are unified, pulling in the right direction. How to have a strategic plan, ultimately delivering your product or service in a way that makes your customers go, wow, what an incredible company. And all of that done well leads to profit. We'll be breaking that down for you guys. And you can still register.

It's a free workshop. All you got to do is text the phrase free workshop, all one word, to 33444. That's free workshop, all one word. I say that five times fast. One phrase, no spaces, to 33444, and we'll get you locked in and send you an email for the start times and get you guys the content for that. So really what we're talking about with these six drivers is we spent about the last two years unpacking the companies that we've coached that were successful and our cycle of business around here. And we said, okay, what happened here? What happened?

What were the things that drove us to be able to get to where we are? Because in spite of our stupidity, because if you're running a business, if you don't know, you know, Henry Ford said people who never make mistakes always work for people who do. So, you know, we make mistakes. I make mistakes. Daniel leading this entire leadership brand and sitting on our operating board. We make mistakes. But in spite of our mistakes, in spite of the stupid stuff we've done or things that we look back on and go, what were we thinking?

In spite of all of that, these six things do drive, and they're sequential, and they do drive a business. They are the core drivers of business. And we figure that our company's probably gone around these six things, this cycle, about six, maybe eight, maybe even ten times. We know for sure seven times. I can count exact milestones I've gone around it since from a card table to a $250 million business.

And so, you know, these things are not something that we dreamed up in a think tank. They were more things we observed that really happened here and with other businesses that we know and love and have coached. One of the things that drives me crazy in this space of personal development, leadership, consulting, coaching, is it doesn't take a lot for some Yahoo out there to just throw together a framework and go, look, here's the answers. We've discovered the answers. And you go, how do you know those are the answers?

And they go, well, just, you know, look the other direction. And what we figured out is the proof really is in the pudding. And the story of this place, and like you're saying, Dave, the thousands of companies that we've worked with, we can look with data and see these are the behaviors that when you do these things, you go from that treadmill operator, what we call the treadmill operators, the starting out stage where you're not making traction in business to a performing business over time. And, you know, it's encouraging to business owners when we bring this model in to demystify the complexities of business because there's all these things that are overwhelming. It's just this infinity of all this stuff to work on. It's a little bit like the baby steps with money. There's too many things with money coming at you.

Do I do retirement or insurance or kids' college? Or what about this credit card debt? What about Sally Mae's got her own bedroom? You know, you've got all these things coming at you. Where do I start? Where do I start? What's first? What's second?

What's third? And these are sequential. And so we can show you where to start. The difference in this and the baby steps is the baby steps, when you get to baby step seven, you don't start again. You just keep going on past that into wealth building. And with this, you do start again because you start at a different level applying purpose and applying the quality of folks on your team. And your profit is at a different level. Your planning is at a different level.

You get more sophisticated. You get better. We've gotten better. I've gotten better. I'm not the same leader I was at 32 years old or at 28 years old doing this stuff. Well, it's an ongoing journey. And there's kind of this myth. I know early in my leadership journey, I thought the goal was to get rid of all the problems.

And if I had a problem, it meant I wasn't doing a good job as a leader. And I realized if I solve the problem that I have in front of me today, my reward is I get a bigger problem to solve. And so there is this sense of perpetual in business. We're constantly solving problems. But to your point, we're solving a new level of sophistication and a new degree of leadership that we find. Yeah. So the point of that whole discussion, guys, is this. If you're thinking about running a business and you want to look at this Entree Leadership Material or you want to sign up for this free workshop, it's free, by the the way so what can you screw up here but um this is not a uh you know somebody that that was in a think tank and dreamed this crap up this is what

we do it's our actual playbook we hire and fire uh we uh dream up ideas and some of them work we you know we come up with strategic thoughts and some of them work and this is our actual we're actual practitioners we run a freaking business here and and have grown a business successfully so this is not a this is not theoretical data from someone in a classroom that has never made payroll. We make payroll around here every two weeks, and it's part of our deal. So our really first and 15th, I guess I should say. But either way, it works out. So free workshop is the word that you text. Free workshop to 33444. Free workshop. If you want to join in, Daniel and the team are going to be talking about these six core drivers for business. Free workshop to 33444.

This hour is dedicated to business. It's an Entree Leadership Theme Hour. If you've got a question about your business, about your leadership, call in. Daniel and I will talk with you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Do you know who is a prime target for identity theft? Your children.

Kids have no debts or credit history. Their personal information is just as easy to get, but the theft could go completely undetected for years. Every day all over the country, young adults are starting down their own path in life by opening a bank account or renting their first apartment only to find out that they somehow already have credit card debt, a mortgage, or even a criminal record. It's devastating, but it can be fixed when you have an ID theft protection plan from

Zander Insurance. They monitor all personal info for the entire family, and they take over all the work if you become a victim. Best of all, your kids are covered for free on their family plan. Call them at 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com. It's just the smarter, more affordable way to protect your entire family. And it's the only plan I provide to my team. zander.com or 800-356-4282. Executive Vice President of Entree Leadership, Operating Board Member here at Ramsey. Daniel Tardy is my co-host today here on the show.

We're doing an Entree Leadership Theme Hour where we take questions from you about business, about leadership, starting and running a business, or running one that you've already got. Questions about it, we're here to help. 888-825-5225. Joe is in Boston. Hi, Joe. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking my call. Sure, man. What's up? So I am an electrical contractor working in Boston. I started working for myself around five years ago. It's been going well. I'm able to provide for my family. But I'm a one-man operation. It's been going well. I'm able to provide for my family. But I'm a one-man operation.

It's me and a work van. I do all the finances, all the scheduling, all the estimates, all the work. And so I know from listening to your podcast that I basically own my job and not a business or a company. And so I'm hoping you guys can offer some advice or point me towards some resources that might help me establish a vision and take those next steps to grow my business so I can be more successful for my family and for myself. Well, there's two components to this. The first one is you have to have a desire and a plan to actually become the business owner and work on the business and scale this business and not just own your job. And it sounds like you have that, which kudos to you because a lot of people think they own their

own business. They actually own a job and they live on this treadmill state I was talking about earlier for years and years and years. And they go, I'm a business owner, but I don't have my life on my terms. And, oh, I guess I just own a job. So having that plan that you're going to move in that direction is the first step. The second step is having the financial margin that you can start to bring people on, whether part-time or contract basis, eventually full-time basis, that can do things that you don't have to do so that you can work on the business and move it to the next level. So I'm curious, just in terms of your annual revenues right now, where your sales are at the end of the year, you look at total sales for the year. Where are you guys at right now?

So right now I'm on track to do about $100,000 worth of work. That's pre-tax. Okay. And how much of that do you need to live on and operate your household? So we actually have two incomes. My wife works as well. And right now to live on, we have a budget of about $7,500 after taxes that we use for expenses to live on. Okay. How much does your wife make?

She makes about $60,000 a year. Okay. So you guys make $160,000. Now, the $100,000 from the business, is all of that your take-home, or is that just your sales before cost and other expenses? Correct. That's before expenses. So what's your net profit on the business in a year? I'm sorry, say that again?

What's your net profit on the business in a year? About $60,000. Okay. Okay. Good. So together you guys make $120,000. You need about $80,000 to live on or operate the household. So you've got about a $40,000 margin there that you could

start looking at. Maybe you bring on some help part-time and you get somebody to pick up some jobs that you're not running around doing. So that, you know, for a season, you're going to be the kind of chief cook and bottle washer, and then you're going to be chief cook and pay someone to wash the bottles. And then eventually you're just the chief. And there's a time here where you're going to be player coach. You're going to be doing the work and leading and building a team. But I think you've got to kind of think, okay, what are the jobs that we could pick up right now that somebody else can do? And that first employee that you bring on needs to be revenue generating. They either need to be sales bringing in new revenue or actually providing the service that generates revenue that's not a fixed cost that's just sitting there like an administrative expense. And then I would hire two people in the next 12 months. And the first one

would be another electrician that you begin to mentor and apprentice to the point that they can do work in the way that you expect it to be done. High quality, on time, on budget, right? Somebody that actually gives a rip and uh that you're looking for people that um are hungry humble smart as our friend pat lingione says but you're looking for the right guy and it's going to take a little your first hire is your hardest emotionally and financially because you're putting your you're putting your name your good reputation at risk with this person and that scares the crap out of you if you're putting your name your good reputation at risk with this person and that scares the crap out of you if you're smart it did me man when i hired my first person right i hired

a guy to help do financial coaching and if he gives advice it's not the same advice i give on the radio man i'm screwed right so i got or if your guy wires something backwards you're screwed you know so it's um it doesn't ruin your, but it's like we have to start over because I've got to fire this guy. He's a moron. And so that's what I was afraid of. And it turns out the guy worked for me for 20 years, and he was fabulous. And he's still a good friend to this day. He retired working here and is a good friend to this day.

So it worked out, the first hire. But what Daniel said was right. He's a good friend to this day. So it worked out, the first hire. But what Daniel said was right. He's a revenue producer. But you get that guy going for about six months, and you go, okay, this is working. I got the right, I got one that's going to be able to, I can hand work off to them, not be standing looking over their shoulder. They can actually produce more than they cost in revenue because you can make the sales. You have more business than you

can get to don't you yes yeah and then the next person you hire is an administrative person and this is a person that do scheduling answer phones do some bookkeeping uh enter some of the job estimates into the computer so you guys have them if you don't have estimating software you need it in your business and um that person frees you up then to do yet more electrical work and less office work the other guy's duplicating you and then we do it again we add another electrician and then we add another administrative person and uh at the point that those two guys get going you may go to part-time electrician you know but you're going to get to five people before you quit doing wiring okay that's my guess anyway with the numbers you're giving me your margins are narrow enough on this business that um you know unless you can prices, and if you can raise prices a little, you'll get there faster.

So I started out doing one-on-one coaching, financial coaching, right? Got paid for that, and I was doing the radio show for free because it generated leads. And so the first thing I did was hire a coach, and so I had to staff. I mean, I had to sell enough to keep two coaches busy, me and him. And then pretty quickly, I started doing more speaking, and I started selling the book, and I started running Financial Peace University and stuff like that. And so I cut my coaching back to about 50%, and I haven't done a coaching session now in over 20 years, one-on-one.

I haven't done a paid coaching session in 25 years. I don't even do them for friends now. I'm not even good at it, for one thing. But, you know, you're going to reach that point that you look back and go, man, the days I used to do the wiring on those projects, you know. So that's right where you are. But you kind of do a little, each time you hire someone, it either gives you relief or revenue or both. Dave, I want business owners like Joe to always be asking this question, and that is, how can I replace myself? Yeah.

How can I replace myself? Because when you replace yourself with somebody that can do the job, you can delegate to them, what I've found is a lot of times they can do it better than I did. Let's be honest. I freed myself up to work on the next opportunity in our business. And there's a little bit of a funny feeling there of like, what if I replace myself and I don't know what to do, but trust me, healthy things grow and growing organizations always have more opportunity that you as the founder can go out and get. But if you're not replacing yourself, that opportunity is going to come

and you're going to be stuck in the job that you should have given to somebody else over time. Yeah. Joe, hold on. We're going to stick you into Entree Leadership Elite, which is our online process to follow you and coach you. And we'll give you the first couple months free and get you started in it. And it'll really, you'll be in a group of folks there that can really help answer your questions and coach you one-on-one from this point forward but that's the basics of it and guys if you're running a business and you're a solopreneur meaning you're by yourself like I was when I started like Joe is where he is again I want to reiterate that first

hire is the scariest because you've never hired anybody it's hard to trust people with your name and your reputation if you're smart you you worry about whether you can pay the bill or not and make sure that you can pay the payroll for them they've got to produce you've got to bring in enough revenue to produce more for them i remember when russ came on as a coach the guy was referring to a minute ago i told him i said man if we don't get some stuff if we don't get some coaching in here your your kids are going to be skinny. You know, we got to get coaching in here. We got to get some business in here.

They got to be hungry. Yeah. And so they got to be willing to work. And they got to have, you know, buy into the vision of working for a family business, which is a joy if you're working for a good family. It's good to you. And you can be that guy, Joe. So good stuff. Daniel Tardy, Ramsey Executive Vice President and Operating Board member,

is with me this hour as we do an Entree Leadership Theme Hour, talking to small business people and business people about leadership and growing your business. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. It's an Entrez Leadership Theme Hour here on the Dave Ramsey Show. What that means is we're talking to entrepreneurs and talking to people about leadership. We're talking to you about business and small business, which makes the economy of this nation go. It is the free enterprise system. You are free to engage in enterprise.

Daniel Tardy, our Executive Vice President and Operating Board member here at Ramsey is on the air here with me. All things Entree Leadership are under his purview. We have a free online workshop covering the six core drivers of business.

Things that we've discovered that we have done these are all things we actually do and uh this is coming up starting tomorrow we're hosting a three-part workshop the six essentials to scaling your business and you learn about these six core areas it is completely free all you have to do is text the word freeWORKSHOP, one word, no spaces, FREEWORKSHOP to 33444. We'll fire you off an email from that and let you know everything you need to know to get signed up for the free online workshop for Entree Leadership. Daniel is with us. Daniel's in Seattle. Hi, Daniel.

How can we help? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. My question is related to when to pull profits out of the business versus reinvest in growth and expansion. I've got about 40% left to pay off on my house on a 15-year mortgage. What's that number? What's the number? $250,000. Okay. And I've got, by the end of the year, um, I'll have a decent chunk that I could pull out and put down towards the mortgage. And by the end of next year, I, in theory would

be able to pay off the house, but I could also just keep money in the business to expand and grow. And that's above, you know, a three month emergency fund in the business. So just was trying to get a feedback on when you should invest in the business, keep money in for expansion versus pull out right away and pay down the house. I like to do this incrementally. I want you to keep feeding the thing that's feeding you so that it grows. And as you have some profits, you can start to siphon some of that over and knock down the house, maybe more aggressively than the track that you've been on. But I'm assuming you're paying yourself a salary at this point and no additional bonuses or distributions?

Correct. I'm an S-corp, and I pay myself a reasonable salary that we can live on. Yeah. So what I would do is take a percentage of the money that comes out above the salary and say a percentage of it grows the business and a percentage of it goes on the mortgage and i don't care what the percentage is but you predetermine that and then every time you get an extra pile of money in that retained earnings you have a woohoo moment because you get to go woohoo we're going to pay down the house by x and we're going to dump y into the business and so if it were me i would probably would probably sound something like 70 80 percent goes towards the house 20 30 percent goes to reinvest in the

business unless there's a real crazy roi opportunity laying there in the business that would tempt me to maybe scale back on the house a little bit but i'm gonna knock the house out and then by the way what's left nothing left but play money right once you get the house a little bit. But I'm going to knock the house out. And then, by the way, what's left? Nothing left but play money, right? Once you get the house paid off, all you got to do now is just, okay, we're going to invest in the business and we play with the money. And so it's lifestyle and generosity and grow the business are your three percentages that you would take out then.

And you need to have some kind of a formula. That's what I do with mine. When I pull money from here, which I do monthly, out then and you need to have some kind of a formula that's what i do with mine uh when i pull money from here which i do monthly um uh we have a formula that that we use internally that we pay operating board members with we pay me with and so on uh above salary i don't i don't even know if i have a salary anymore but the uh you do i do okay thanks i've seen it and um it's not bad it's not there's not that much to it. But anyway, the point being that anything above what Sharon and I live on,

we allocate to generosity, additional generosity, to additional investing, and to additional lifestyle. And we put percentages on that, which help us stay on track and keeps us doing all things. So I really want you to constantly be investing in the business and paying a big chunk on the house until the house is gone. So you put your percentages, whatever you want, but that'll help you guide it. And it keeps you from saying one or the other. I wouldn't do all one or all the other. Yeah, I agree. And I'm okay with those percentages of being more aggressive on the house because you said you've got three months. Well, you've got three months of retained

earnings in the business. And so if you're listening to this and thinking, okay, when do I start taking this home versus leaving in the business? I want every business to be working towards at least three months up to maybe six of retained earnings, because if you take it all home and you pay off the house and then you have a little dip in cashflow, you're left with, what do I do? I got to go get a line of credit or something to make payroll. We don't want you doing that. So have a little bit of padding that sits in the business as your emergency fund and then get more aggressive on that percentage as you take home after that. So how much is sitting in retained earnings? I've got around 225. Okay. And what's your annual gross on this business? 1.3 last year.

Okay. Probably be 1.5 this year. Yeah, all right. And your net profit on that's what? Around 20%, so between 250 and 3. Way to go, dude. Well done. I'm proud of you.

That's awesome. What a great business. Okay, and so, yeah yeah i'm probably going to say i'll just pick out a number if i were in your shoes everything above 150 i'm going to apply our formula to and i'm going to leave the baseline of 150 lay in there until i get the house paid off and then i'm going to take whatever the 70 the 80 percent of everything above that from now on and whatever's in there above that today, throw it at the house and you'll be done with the house in two to three years, it sounds like to me. Yeah, thanks. You guys have

helped me a ton. I went to Summit in the spring. Awesome. And I found you guys about two or three years ago and it really helped me clean up everything and get everything going smooth. Well, man, you're doing great. In two years, you're going to have a paid for house and then you're going to have all that additional cash flow to either grow the business or do things that you and your family want to do. And this is what I love about small business. You know, you have dreams, you have goals, you build something that it's providing jobs, it's adding value to customers, and you get to win as a result, and you're doing it. You've done the work, and we're excited for you guys. Really, really well done. And guys, if you're thinking

about this out there, let me tell you what happens if you're running a business. When you get 100% debt-free, all business debt and your home debt, it changes something inside of you, the way you operate the business. And it's not that you take more risk that's rash, but you're more able to go, well, I can do that. Okay, let's study that. Let's test it. But once it's tested, can I put that, well, I can do that. Yeah. Okay, let's study that. Let's test it. But once it's tested, can I put that on that? I can do that. Because there's no, you know, there's something solid about having everything at home done. You're not desperate.

You're in a position of options at this point, and you've got the luxury of testing things that maybe you wouldn't do if you still had some debt or, you know, things like that at the house that you've got to get taken care of. So it's a place of freedom that every business needs to be working towards because if every small business was operating from that place of freedom, that mindset you're talking about, Dave, the way that they would scale, the more jobs we'd provide, the more that we'd heal our country, that really is the ultimate destination.

Danny's in Baton Rouge. Hi, Danny. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. How are you doing? Hey, Danny. Sure. How can we help?

So I graduated from college in December of 2018 and I went to work as an engineer making about $100,000 a year. Good for you. Well, unfortunately, I was laid off in July after about a year and a half. Yeah, my wife and I married about three months ago and thankfully she accepted her first job the same week that I

lost mine. Wow. So we're currently paused in baby step two with about $18,000 in student loans and about $35,000 in savings. I've been applying for new jobs since I lost mine, but I'm also exploring the possibility of opening a new business, and I'm hoping to get some advice on whether or not to go through with it. What type of engineering? Mechanical.

So with starting a business, is this something you want to do in that same field, or is it totally a right turn on it? Completely different. Okay. I'm trying to open an indoor dog park and bar in Baton Rouge. Why? Well, the main reason is that I have a dog, and I try to take my dog, and it gets kind of hot down here, and not a place like that exists. And I've seen him work pretty successfully elsewhere. And I think

it'd be a cool addition to Baton Rouge. I think the only thing I'm pausing on here is you went to school for engineering and now we're talking about a dog park indoors and a bar. I can't put those two things together in terms of like the same person doing that. And so I would want you to get really clear on if this is something you're really, really excited about or something you're doing to try to pay the bills until you get back into the space you're supposed to be in. I'm not going into debt to open a dog parking bar, not going into debt to open a bar, not going into debt to open a restaurant, not going into debt to open a dog park, period.

And it doesn't sound like you've got the money to do this right now. That's the other thing. So it could be that this is just coming out of something else. I wouldn't do it right now. our scripture of the day galatians 6 10 so then as we have, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Albert Einstein said, In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. This is an Entree Leadership Theme Hour. We are talking about business this hour.

Daniel Tardy, Ramsey EVP and Operating Board member, all things Entree Leadership under his purview. Also, you hear him on the podcast. The Entree Leadership podcast is with us. We have a free workshop coming up. Starting tomorrow, we're going to host a three-part workshop called The Six Essentials to Scaling Your Business. Text the word free workshop, one word, no spaces, free workshop to 33 444 free workshop to 33 444 frank is with us

in fort lauderdale florida hi frank welcome to the dave ramsey show hey guys thanks for taking my call all right let me give you a little backstory here we opened up a restaurant my business partner and i, in November 2019. Had a couple of good months starting out, then COVID hit. Obviously, we had operating capital, which we went through pretty quickly. We're able to get a PPP loan, and that depleted probably about two months ago. So at this point now, we're kind of in a predicament, and kind of want to know maybe if you guys have any suggestions of what we can do to –

obviously, we don't want to file for bankruptcy, and the business is not really kind of viable because at this point, we're 75% down of what we were doing pre-COVID. Are there restrictions in Fort Lauderdale right now? What are they as far as the municipality? 50% in dining. Obviously, we can still do all the curbside delivery. Have you had the official stamp of forgiveness on the PPP note?

No, but our CPA is pretty confident that we're going to be able to get that because of how we use the money. Obviously, we use the money obviously for payroll and for our... Well, you need to get it. You need to get that short up because it's being administered through the SBA. There's a traffic jam right now of banks getting the applications for forgiveness back into the SBA and getting the forgiveness taken care of. I hope your CPA is right. But Dave and I were on here screaming to everybody a couple months ago to not get this thing. And I've heard some horror stories of people who had a great CPA that said everything's going to be fine. And guess what? They haven't been forgiven. So CPA can't anticipate. But yeah, get that done. So what's's your burn rate what's it take you to stay open in a month gross reps uh about

27 000 is uh to just keep the doors open paying everyone paying the bills paying the light bill so why are you paying everyone when you're at 50 table rate rate. Yeah, I only have, I actually decreased the amount of staff that I had, so we had about 20 people when we started out. Is 27,000 your skeleton crew, or is that fully loaded? Yeah, that's with the skeleton crew at this point now. That's a big operation. Yeah, yeah. How many square feet is this thing?

1875. Oh, that's big. So 27,000 is the nut you've got to cover every month what's your revenue been in this curbside delivery 50 scenario yeah probably around 16 5 yeah so okay so um let me let me not be a smart aleck, but obviously you've already thought about this. One of these two numbers has to change, doesn't it? Of course. Yeah, and so we've got to get revs up.

And so what percentage of your 16-5 is table? And if you had all the 50% tables full, what's it represent? That's a good question. I'm not really sure the exact number i just know that right now we're probably around 90 percent uh to go and and pick up pick up okay so you're not got anybody coming in the restaurant nobody's not not really it's it's basically just everything so is that the is that the uh is that the vibe in fort lauderdale today because i've been all over the country and some places everybody's huddled in the corner sucking their thumb. Some places people are going about their business as normal.

Yeah, no, I think that because of the environment here in Fort Lauderdale with, you know, the people here are just very afraid to come out to restaurants. So other restaurants are getting no business either. Yeah, we're seeing it all over. I was in a restaurant in Nashville last night that was, I mean, I think they're at 75%, and it was jammed to the 75%. And it's funny, too, because the west coast of Florida, I travel over there, you know, maybe once a week, and it's different, totally different. Well, I think it's until the cultural norm in your local area there is that it's acceptable and safe or whatever to go out and eat at restaurants.

I think your biggest opportunity is to figure out how you turn up the volume on the curbside, the delivery. And turn down the volume on the expenses. And cut the expenses on anything that's – you might even go to zero on the regular sit-down table restaurant. So you pull off the expenses there, put all that energy over into getting food out the door on curbside and delivery. Other than the PPP, you got debt? Not really. About $3,000 probably debt to one of our distributors. Are you trying to feed a partner or an investor out of this thing?

No. My partner and I are 50-50, and we're both taking the same loss, so it's not. How about your landlord? Is he willing to cut you at least a delay on rent until this turns? Okay, so what he did for us was we paid half rent in March and April and then, you know, we complained to Ken and basically deferred September's rent. Yeah, what's the biggest piece of the $27,000? That still seems high. Yep, it's the lease.

To him? Yeah, the lease is like $6,000 a month plus $2,000 in CAM fees. Yeah, okay. You know, I'm probably having a conversation. Is he a local? No, national. They're out of Texas. They're big. That's going to be hard. I mean, if he's local, even if he's national, I'm going to put some energy into really trying to negotiate a bridge period. Here's his scenario.

He's not going to have a tenant. I'm going to switch hands for a minute, all right? I'm going to be the landlord, okay? I'm either going to work with you or you're going to be dead. And it doesn't benefit me for you to die if I'm the landlord. You follow me? Yeah, of course. And so this is the way the conversation goes is, guys, I'm not trying to stiff you. I'm more than willing to pay you 100% of the rent I owe you when business re-energizes.

That may very well be next spring and he's not in a position he doesn't have a bunch of other restaurant owners lined up ready to swoop in and take this space yeah he's not leveraged right now if you guys you guys belly up on the thing and and pop it into bankruptcy he gets zero he's got a ghost town for two or three years yeah and really tell you the truth that's not that's not something i want to do bankruptcy no i'm not trying to tell you to do that. I'm trying to say, and I don't threaten people in negotiations. I just try to wear the other side's moccasins a minute.

And so I'm a landlord of commercial spaces right now. I personally own spaces like you're in. And if I had a restaurant, I don't, thank God, right now, that I'm the landlord of, and he came to me and said, okay, here's my books, here's what we're doing, here's what we're trying to do, I'm more than willing to pay you 100% of rent, but it's just going to be delayed, or it's going to be permanently delayed because you're going to put us out of business. So here's the deal, I'm no longer paying rent. How do we want to do this? Do you want me to close down, or do you want me to pay you as soon as the cash flow comes,

and I'm more than willing to share with you my books? And you can even speak into our business if you've got a better idea for growing this thing than we do. And if a guy sat in front of me on the phone and did that, and, you know, I was out of town, and I'm the landlord, I'm going to work with him. As a matter of fact, I had some tenants that I had to work with. I had one that was a gym. Can you imagine? They had zero revs, you know, and zero people coming in there.

It was a workout gym, kind of a CrossFit-type thing. And so we just said, okay, we're not going to do rent forgiveness, but we're going to delay because you can't pay. We had other people that could pay, and we expected them to pay. But, you know, are you going to forgive rent for COVID? No. I'm going to forgive rent if you can't pay it, and then I'm not even going to forgive it. I'm just going to collect it later and let you stay in business.

That's better for me. If that's the chunk that's killing you, you've got to renegotiate that. You guys have a symbiotic relationship. It means you need each other to get through this thing, and go renegotiate that deal Yeah. And you guys have a symbiotic relationship. It means you need each other to get through this thing. And go renegotiate that deal if you can. That's your lifeline. I'm going to go look that word up. Oh, that puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books.

We'll be back with you 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. Dave here. We just launched a brand new survey, and we'd love your feedback. You'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. No purchase necessary. Take the survey at DaveRamsey.com slash survey or text survey to 33789.