The Ramsey Show - App - When Should I Hire an Employee? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

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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. This is an Entree Leadership Theme Hour, as we talk business and small business in particular. If you've got questions about business and small business, my co-host this hour is Daniel Tardy, the Executive Vice President of Entree Leadership and one of our operating board members. Also hosts the Entree Leadership podcast these days. And so we're here to answer your questions about your business.

And 54% of the U.S. economy is created in goods and services, the gross domestic product, by businesses that have 500 or less employees, small businesses by definition. So if you want to talk about business, COVID issues, opportunities, problems, anything about small business, the lines are completely open right now. The phone number is 888-825-5225. It's an Entree Leadership Theme Hour. The good news, Daniel, is we're seeing small businesses in the states that are opening rebound quickly. Well, it's exciting to see really our entire economy is coming back. We were sitting here 60 days ago telling everybody, don't panic. Don't freak out.

Don't pull your money out of the market. This is an artificially suppressed economy right now. It's not like there's a real economic driver that's fallen by the wayside, and we've got this real core issue in our economy. We just push pause on everything. And as soon as we push unpause, you know, everything's starting to come back. And we're seeing that, you know, if you put $100,000 in the market 60 days ago today, it would be worth $150,000. Things are coming back and small

businesses coming back in parallel with that. And it's exciting to see. Well, there are three kinds of small businesses out there right now. They're the ones that have gotten hammered and may disappear forever there's the ones that are kind of in the middle and they're limping a little bit but they're coming out of the cave and they're going to be okay and then there's the third that no one's talking about they're either new businesses uh that are new recently or they you know or they were positioned uniquely in the COVID situation and are having the best year of their lives. And it feels kind of sad to say that because, you know, other people are hurting. But the truth is some of you are having the best year of your life,

and we applaud you. We're glad for you. Well, and you'd be surprised how many of those there are. And you're not going to see them in the headlines because we know with the news cycle, if it bleeds, it leads. If it's negative news, that's what's going to make the headlines. But Dave, we're talking to thousands of business owners across the country every day with our Entree leadership team and our coaches. And there are so many of them that are actually winning and thriving right now.

For the last two categories you talked about, the ones who have had to figure out how to adapt and pivot and do their business a different way, but they're still surviving and hanging on and they're going to be fine. And then as with any disruption in the marketplace, new opportunities are created and entrepreneurs rise to the occasion and go, oh, there's a business model there. I'm going to carve that thing out. And we will look up in five years and go, there are some great new companies that are major players in our economy that did not exist prior to coming into this year. And that happened in 2008 when there was actual economic failure. That's right.

You know, actual economic issues. These aren't actual economic issues. There is economic situations created by a false outside variable that has now been lifted by and large. And so as soon as that restaurant reopens as soon as that barbershop reopens as soon as that uh you know whatever you name the business fill in the blank reopens the customers start to flock and start to come again as soon as we reopened our lobby people came in and started watching the show again the first day uh and it um you know so there's lots of people out there willing to interact with your business,

and we're here to help you. Again, Daniel Tardy, my co-host this hour as we do an Entree Leadership Theme Hour, and we'll be taking calls about business, particularly small business. The phone number is 888-825-5225. And, you know, along those lines, I got an email from the leadership team at Marriott, which manages the Gaylord properties, that we are doing an event July the 13th through the 15th called the Entree Leadership Summit. There will be about 2,000 people there. It's in Orlando, Florida. Florida is open it's uh legal

to come you should come but i got an email from that team saying thank you for bringing your event here continuing to do business with us uh because you're you know you're going to stimulate all of our people get to go back to work because you're doing this and of course we're going to get hate mail because it's probably not going to suit someone's guidelines or fears about covet or whatever but we're doing it and um you don't run this business i run it and if you don't like it you don't have to come it's a voluntary thing as a matter of fact we charge for it so you may not want to come but the uh it's going to be an absolutely world-class. All of our speakers are coming. Mike Rowe, Carly Fiorina, Damon John from Shark Tank, Coach Lou Holtz,

Benjamin Zander, the founder and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic, Ian Crone of the Enneagram, and Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, King Coleman, and me. But we work here, so we've got to come. But, you know, we've not had anybody on the stage freaking out uh we've had a few people didn't want to come that had bought tickets and we're moving them to a different year or a different event in a few cases when they can't come but um or have a health issue or whatever but overall that event still has some tickets available and it's going to be one of the first events apparently opening up in Florida. Well, Dave, we're setting the pace on this. And our call to businesses this entire time has been,

if you can continue to do business, please do so. Because you talk about this hotel saying, thank you. They've had to furlough their team. And now their team is getting to come back to work. I mean, you don't think because we're coming, we're coming, right. And so because we're continuing to do business, we're going to help our clients, but we're also allowing another business to do business. And those are employees and families. And the trickle-down effect across all the vendor relationships that you guys have when you operate your business, the rising tide of all of those activities, really, it blesses the entire community. And it's a joy to participate in that way. So if you'd like to come, it's the Entree Leadership Summit, one of the top leadership events in the world every year.

We do it once a year. It will be July the 13th through the 15th at the Gaylord in Orlando. And the Gaylord is a phenomenal property. It's a resort property. When we do these events, they are an all-encompassing experience. You will leave with your mind blown and filled up and your spirit regenerated you need church after this people i mean after this you need your business people you need someone to tell you you're good again you tell somebody

somebody tell you you can win again and we're going to be doing that for the three or four five days that we're together there in orlando july 13 uh It's actually the 12th is the sign-in through the 15th. The event actually starts, the first teaching starts Monday morning, the 13th. If you'd like more information on the Entree Leadership Summit, you can do that at register right now. Text in register now to 44222 or just check our website, DaveRamsey.com. Click on Entree Leadership. You can buy an in-person ticket, and we've announced a live stream.

Either one. We would love to have you either way. If you're too scared to come and you want to do it on the live stream, we understand. Different people have different views on this stuff. We're not mad at you. We're not shaming you. I will be there giving hugs. Me too.

It's going to be fun. We may be just hugging each other. Not the way it's been lately, I can tell you that. Register now to 44222. Taking your calls for businesses here on the Entree Leadership Theme Hour. Daniel Tardy, my co-host this hour. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. you know what disappoints and angers me to no end at a time when most people are pulling together to help one another identity thieves are using our heightened levels of fear and anxiety to prey

on us in some pretty scary ways. Scammers are setting up fake testing sites just to collect people's credit card and social security numbers. They're also sending out texts and emails posing as IRS agents claiming to need bank info so you can get your stimulus check and the list goes on. Look, identity thieves are smart and they have no shame, which is why you must be prepared. Zander's ID Theft Protection Plan covers all types of identity theft, uses monitoring and alerts to keep you informed, and takes over the work if you become a victim. They have stolen funds protection and your children are included for free on their family plan call 800-356-4282 or visit zander.com and be one step ahead of the bad guys It's an Entrez Leadership Theme Hour here on the Dave Ramsey Show. My co-host, Daniel Tardy, our Executive Vice President of Entrez Leadership, also Operating Board Member.

And we've been working with small businesses and leadership in businesses for well over a decade together, and we're here to answer your questions. Don is with us in California. Hey, Don, how are you? Doing great, sir. Thank you guys very much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? In business and struggling with burnout, how would you recommend or a book to read to start structuring your business and networking to sell it a few years down the road to start planning early for that? Let's not jump to that part yet. I want to learn a little bit about what is your business and why do you feel like you're experiencing burnout?

So, I'm a painting contractor. Been in business for 25 years. Took over a family business. Very blessed. Very busy. Great crew. It just gets bored. Hard work and a lot of it.

Yeah. It is, and it's wonderful. I don't mind the work. No, I didn't mean you were lazy. It's just hard work. Yes, sir. So would it be fair to say you're not having fun anymore? Yes, sir.

Okay. And how old are you? I'm going to be 50 this year. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? I want to teach the young kids in high school that they don't need to go to college to be successful. And I really have started to develop a drive and a passion to relay the message that the trades are one of the biggest misses out there for people to be successful. You and we were just talking about this event coming up. We got Mike Rowe. That's a big passion of his, just talking about the value of the trades. And I think that's fantastic. The first thing I want to offer before you get into how to sell the business and win,

just from your life planning standpoint, that the times that we get bored or that we feel burned out, it almost always correlates with the lack of a vision for our future. You know, so I want you to continue as you're thinking about transitioning away from the business before you just jump out of the business, often to this abyss of this thing you're going to do where you're teaching students and you don't really have a clear vision for what that is, I want you to spend more time getting really clear on that desired future of that new thing before you start to phase out of the old thing and what you might find. The 70-year-old you will tell the 50-year-old you that you need to go to something, run to something, not from something.

And so have something that what Daniel's saying is have a real detailed game plan. And it can be that you change the structure of your business, which allows you to run the business with some leadership aims and allows you some free time while you continue to own the business. Well, that's what I was going to say. I've seen people do this two ways. One, they get excited about this future new thing that they're running towards, and they end up selling and moving away from the thing they were at.

But you might find that you're not burned out anymore, and you've got this new sense of energy. You keep the business. Like Dave's saying, you restructure how that thing's led, and you've got this great asset, and it's got great cash flow. And so the business may not be the problem. The problem may be that you're just not on fire for something. What's the net profit? The net profit is last year 180. Okay.

If I were in your shoes, I would give up some of that and get some of your life back, meaning just start to raise up some leaders and train them. And, you know, carve out just where you say, I'm going to end up working four days a week instead of seven. And that's going to give me the margin to keep the business and still do this ministry, this passion that I've got towards the trades and so forth. And so, you know, you could kind of, in quote, unquote, be semi-retired and continue to own the business and run it from a CEO's perspective

rather than as much hands-on because you're a very hands-on dude right now. Y'all are doing a lot of painting, and that's wonderful. I'm so happy for your success, but you're working your tail off. And so the other thing then is how do you sell the business? You usually sell it to someone either in the space, which would be a competitor, or you sell it to a supplier. Sometimes suppliers want to get into the business because they see, like for instance, someone who's selling you paint, they may see the profit that you're in. They may give you a lead on someone who's wanting to buy the business because they also sell paint

to them, but suppliers. And then lastly, and it usually doesn't have to this way, but sometimes a customer is a potential buyer, depending on the type of business it is. So you can go forward, backward, up or down, horizontally or vertically, and look around the business, and you'll usually find the rows that you're looking for in one of those corners. Well, and Dave, the reason I wanted to pan back with Don before we just talked about selling the business is he's dealing with something that we talk with a lot of entrepreneurs about, and that is their purpose. We in Entree Leadership, we teach that there are six drivers in business. There's personally you as the leader, and then there's your purpose. And the purpose of you as a leader and the purpose of your business there needs to be a lot of match up there and if if you don't have a bigger purpose that's more than just making a profit and grinding out the work you're gonna get burned out and so i

wanted to check in with don and go okay where where are you going with the rest of your life because it may not be that your business is preventing you from getting there but you got to kind of get a higher purpose than well we just have a successful business to get out of bed every the morning you know what i hadn't thought about it in that light but you know what you might do there if you took that take on it and i agree with that take of course um is say wow i'm going to dial back to that three days a week like i'm talking about and we're going to make this painting contractor also a school for the trades yeah that's that totally because i'm going to bring people painting contractor also a school for the trades. Yeah, totally.

I'm going to bring people in and show them and teach them and make them successful. You've got a lab to be able to bring people in and show them that. Yeah, you've got an internship program. I mean, you could do all kinds of things. I mean, I remember the first time that you and I spent time with Mr. Truitt Cathy before he passed away. And people think that the family has become friends, and they're just wonderful people, and they've been at our events, they've spoken at our events, and we've been at their events and so forth. And if you ever got to spend time with Mr. Truitt, he would tell you the story of how he, up until his last few years of life,

taught Sunday school to 13-year-old boys at the local Baptist church, Boys Sunday School. And a lot of the franchisees were guys that had been through his Sunday school class. That's right. We know several of them and know their personal stories. They were impacted by him. And consequently, when you go in Chick-fil-A, you figure out pretty quickly that a whole part of their mission is to minister to teenagers.

Yeah, the passion is not. I mean, chicken is their product, but their passion is impacting teenagers, right? And their scholarship program is incredible. And I think about my dad's business. You know, it's similar in this regard. He has a family business that he bought from his dad. My dad passed away recently, and we're right in the middle of his business and working through this stuff with the team. But he got it to where early on, he was working 50, 60 hours a week in that business. But his passion is he's a portrait artist. Well, that makes some money, but not as much as the core business did. And so the business was able to get to a point where he could hire a management team,

like you're saying, restructure the leadership. And that funded the thing that he was passionate about, which is portraits and doing stuff with ministry. So there's all kinds of ways to look at it, whether your business is that lab and you bring people in to fund the passion that you have or to show people and expose people to the passion you have. There's nothing wrong with selling it. There's nothing wrong with that. Having the rarity moment, but it's not the only way. But the point in all of this is you get clear on your purpose and that informs the the tactics on all these other decisions going forward absolutely open phones here at 888-825-5225 as we talk to small business owners this hour

answering your questions it's an entree leadership theme hour 888-825-5225. Quickly, in 30 seconds, these six drivers. It starts with personal. Your personal growth. Knowing your purpose for your business. Your why. Transferring that why to the team, to the customer, to everyone who will listen. The people in the business. Hiring and firing.

Getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus. Getting a plan in place. The tactics and the strategies that cause the business to work, the product in place. And a lot of people just start with the product and end with the product. And that's a fairly narrow way of doing business, and it generally doesn't bring you what you want, which leads you to the last one, which is profit. And so those are the six things that drive a business, particularly small businesses.

And we've gone through that cycle around here about six or seven times over the years. things that drive a business, particularly small businesses. And we've gone through that cycle around here about six or seven times over the years. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Most people's money problems come from not paying attention. That's why before I spend a dime of my money on something, I do the research and make sure it's going to live up to what it claims. Recently, I got a great pair of sunglasses from a company called Shady Rays. When you're looking for sunglasses, it feels like your options are limited. Name brand sunglasses cost too much and the cheap knockoffs are ugly and really don't protect your eyes. Discovering Shady Rays is a game changer. With Shady Rays, you can count on premium sunglasses that protect your eyes and are

affordable. They give people the best overall value in sunglasses. They also replace your shades with a brand new pair if you lose or break them from day one of your purchase. And they guarantee your sunglasses for life. Plus, they offer an exclusive for Ramsey Show listeners. Go to ShadyRays.com and use the code RAMSEY for 50% off two or more pairs. That's ShadyRays.com, code Ramsey. Thanks for joining us, America. This is an Entree Leadership Theme Hour as we talk small business this hour. And your questions, the phone number is 888-825-5225. My co-host on the air this hour, Daniel Tardy, one of our operating board members and the executive vice president of the Entrez Leadership Movement.

Mike is with us in Montana. Hey, Mike, how are you? I'm doing great. I'm overwhelmed. I understand. Trying to catch a teacup, trying to catch a tidal wave with a teacup. That too, yes. How can we help?

My question for you is, and I don't think I've heard you address it. I've been listening to you for quite a while. How do you know when to hire your first employee? I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm a handyman. I've been doing this for 30 years. I'm a handyman. I've been doing it for 30 years. I've hired a couple of guys over the years and been very disappointed.

Me too. Financially, what do I need to have in reserves to make sure that I, you know, I want to pay somebody a decent wage and that's part of the reason why I applied. Well, that's the right question to ask, because sometimes... Paying the proper wage so I can hire a decent person. Yep, no doubt. I mean, right now, I'm looking into July right now,

and I'm probably losing as much work as I'm doing, or more, because I can't get to it. I've subbed out a few times, and I get some good subs that I can use. So when you pay taxes in a typical year, what is your taxable income on this business? It's about $35,000. Okay. I'm grossing a little over, well, I think between $100,000 and $150,000. Okay.

You don't have much margins, do you? About 15% margin. Yeah, you need to raise your prices. Yeah. If you're turning away work and you're working on margins that thin, I'd raise my prices and up my margin, which would help you be able to afford to bring on a team member then. Yeah, I would do it in that order because it sounds like you have the demand. You know, you remember the whole econ 101 supply and demand. You've got a lot of customers that you've got a good name out there in the community and you got people calling you and you can't keep up.

Well, if you'll start with raising your prices a little bit, you'll probably still have that demand, but you'll be making more per customer. And then your second step is, okay, if I'm going to hire somebody, I need to know that it's going to scale my business. And it's either going to do that by extending me as the doer, the guy turning the wrench. I can hand the wrench to this guy, and now I can run the business and work on sales and ops and things like that. Or they're a salesperson. They're going to help me go and get more business. So that first hire for any business owner listening to this, thinking about hiring, your first one is so much more crucial and risky than your 100 in first hire. It's difficult. It's difficult. It's got to go right or else it can make or break the next year of your business. And so you want somebody that's going to be revenue producing by either extending your ability to do the work and respond to this demand or by increasing more work through the form of sales.

You don't want to hire in your first hire an admin or somebody that's just a fixed salary, and they're not actually going to lift the business significantly, top line and bottom line revenue. Yeah, I would hire a doer in this case, if it were me. I would bring on another handyman and double my volume after I've increased my margins. And you can pay them a percentage of the revenue that they generate. That simple. And then when you're paying a little more, you can attract a little better person, but it's not a guarantee that it's a better person. I've paid people a lot of money that turned out to not be good people, and I've paid people a little bit of money that turned out to be wonderful people. So their character is not necessarily reflected in their paycheck.

And what I learned over the years is that hiring and firing is probably the most time-consuming, gut-wrenching process that you do in business. It just is tough, and you just have to spend a lot of time with the person, several different interviews. We talk to their spouses. Their spouses get to meet our spouses, that kind of stuff, before we bring them on. And we really want to spend time with a person making sure we've got a good fit and they're high-quality people. A couple other things on this. I hire people all the time now to our Entree Leadership Team, and they move across the country with their family. They sell their house in California. They move to Nashville.

I'm very confident that the role I'm hiring them into is going to support their family for a long time. I don't want to do that with my first hire. I want somebody that's across town. And if it doesn't work out, their family's not screwed. So think about if this doesn't go well, then is this person still going to be okay? And can you at least say, we gave it the old college try. And then also you asked about how much to have saved up. I'd like to have 90 days of being able to pay this person before it kind of works out where they're self-funded. I want them to self-fund day one, but I'd also like to have two or three months padding there to get their thing, kind of get the kinks ironed out, get the new business coming in. So about three months of savings of their salary is a good thing to have in place.

George is in North Carolina. Hey, George, your question for Daniel and me. Video College Sh try, man. How are you guys doing? Great. How can we help? My brother and I, it's a good thing. We've got a good relationship.

Very blessed for that. We talk all the time about finances, different situations. We're both kind of young guys figuring it out. But essentially, I'm advising him, but I'm not an advisor, so I figured I'd call my guys here. He got recruited from New England. Nice corporate job. I think it's a real good job.

Of course, I'm not working it. But he got recruited from New England about nine months ago, moved away from family and all, and sold his house, put $90,000 in the bank. So he's in the green, $90,000. And he wants, at this point, he says, you know what? I just have to tell you, I'm kind of tired of this. I'm ready to move back to New England. I want to buy a bicycle shop for about $20,000 on the corner.

Nice little small town. I'm a cyclist myself. I kind of know ins and outs of bike shops and different things. And my advice to him, and he called me, I said, you know, listen, I'd keep this job for a couple years. I'd save $200,000 in the bank, come back to New England with $290,000, buy a mortgage. Of course, he's renting now.

I said, then do the bike shop. You know, give this thing a little bit more time. He says, I don't know. The bike shop's for sale now. It's a great opportunity. And I just wanted to get a different angle, get a different opinion. My first impression, like, okay, so my first impression is he feels a little scattered. Like if you told me he's always wanted to own a bike shop his whole life

and he finally has the opportunity to do it, it would feel different than, well, he was in New England and now he moved to the south and now he wants to move back. I mean, does he have an anchor in life of like, this is what I want to do and this is now a part of my plan or is he just responding to something and this is the flavor of the week? He went to college for automotive and he's, in my opinion, I mean, he's my brother. He's a really talented guy, automotive. Again, he got recruited, you know, called, they called him up,

moving package the whole thing. He's, I call him for automotive, but he just says, you know, they called him up, moving package, the whole thing. I call him for automotive, but he just says, you know, my heart's not in automotive. What's his heart in? I mean, what's he want to be doing when he grows up? Yeah, right, right, that kind of thing. He likes motocross and dirt bikes and bicycles and having fun, kind of hobbyish, hobbyish job, hobbyish career type of thing. Okay. Well, I'm a little bit afraid that a $20,000 bike shop is not going to pay him the kind of money or even a tenth of the kind of money that he's used to surviving on.

Yeah, it's going to feel more like a hobby, at least early on. Yeah. If the bike shop is worth $20,000, there's a reason. It's not making money. That's the reason. That means it made $2,000, $3,000 last year. And so I would really want to understand the business, and I'm not even sure he's buying anything at that level.

He might be better off to start from scratch. He may. I mean, it could be that a local bike shop like that has kind of a name in the community and cyclists are kind of a tribe that they turned it into money well it's not converting to money so that could either be an opportunity to say okay we've got i mean if the bike shop has a list of customers and they're loyal and they just don't have any profit margin but he can actually get that margin up i might look at buying it otherwise i'm with you i would maybe just start from scratch it sounds so small time that compared to what he's been making. I don't know how he's going to make a living.

But if he gets into it and looks at it, number one, your passion needs to be there because running your own business is a pain in the butt, so you've got to love it. There's no way around that. And then number two, can you actually turn this into money or is this just some kind of a scattered pipe dream? That's what Daniel's question was, and it's a good one. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, folks. Father's Day is just around the corner. If you're looking for the perfect, unique gift to give dad, I've got it.

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Well, that's very true. Our Entree Leadership Summit is coming up July the 13th through the 15th, one of the first major events happening in Orlando after the COVID shutdown. We're really excited about it. Damon John will be speaking from Shark Tank. Mike Rowe, TV personality, Dirty Jobs guy, will be there, Deadliest Catch. He'll be with us. Both great guys.

Carly Fiorina, had her here on the show, former CEO of Hewlett Packard. And Coach Lou Holtz was with us a few years ago and stole the show. He is an incredible communicator. Dr. Benjamin Zander, I'm looking forward to spending some time with him, the founder and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. Ian Crone will be speaking, best-selling author and Enneagram teacher. Of course, Chris Hogan, Ramsey Personality. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality.

Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality. And me will be there. There are some tickets available because we had to shift the event from May to July due to the COVID shutdown. That left some tickets available. Usually this event is completely slammed and sold out. And you can still get in if you'd like to come. We'd love to have you. Just click Entree Leadership at DaveRamsey.com.

Or you can text the phrase REGISTER NOW to 44222. And for the first time ever, this world-class leadership event is going to be live-streamed, and you can buy a live-stream ticket as well if you're not able to make it to Orlando. But I highly encourage you to come and enjoy the sunshine in Florida. Enjoy the camaraderie of a bunch of business people in a post-COVID environment saying, hey, we're going to win again. Well, this is going to be a dynamite event. And what we're also going to be talking about is the principles that have gotten us in our business and the businesses that will be there through this disruption in the marketplace. We're going to be talking about market disruption.

You know, Dave Mark Cuban said, everybody looks like a genius at a bull market. Yeah. And it's just up into the right. You're just riding that wave. And so when things turn, you got to pivot. And if you're pivoting from a place of weakness, and I'm talking about having debt, not having cash flow, being overextended. And this is what you're not trying to say. Every problem that you have, your team, your product, every problem you have is magnified in a stress point. That's right. And so we've been teaching for years in Entrez leadership, just like in personal finance, that the borrower's servant is slave to the lender.

And you should pay cash, and you should have retained earnings. And the businesses that are winning right now are the ones who have been following those principles. And we're going to be talking about how to further double down on those principles. We'll talk about what we did. The war room we went into. Well, it's cool. We just closed the books this morning, and we're right on plan from where we started the year. And it's the ingenuity and the leadership, but it's also these principles that we follow. And having the crap scared out of you.

A little bit. Tom is with us in Idaho. Hey, Tom, how can we help you today? Well, I just have a question the question is is that as these businesses really we begin to open as we start having our employees come back and clients coming into the office how do we protect ourselves legally or what are some of the things we could do to protect ourselves legally uh to keep our clients from our client not our, but also our employees to come back and say, well, I got COVID at work, and I'm suing you.

They can say, I got the flu at work, and I'm suing you, too. Unless you caused it by your negligence, our attorney says we don't have an issue. So I'll tell you what we've done. Okay, that's what I'm looking for. Yeah, what we did was, I mean, I've got in-house legal counsel. We've reviewed all of that. What I'm looking for. If you volunteer to come, you know the environment. You are stepping into that. You are, by virtue of your presence in most states, you are waiving your ability to win a lawsuit. Now, any idiot can sue you for anything.

You know that. We've always had that. Well, I wouldn't say we've done nothing. I know what you mean. We're cleaning the building to CDC standards. We're telling people. But we're not doing that because we're afraid we're going to get sued. No, no, no.

Trying to keep people from getting sued. Keeping people safe. And from being afraid. That's right. But, I mean, I don't know how they could prove that they got it there versus got it at the mall or the grocery store or the gas station. So I don't think you're going to have a difference. We're not lawyers. You could check with one if you're worried about it.

But I am not concerned about that any more than anything else. Now, if you have a workplace environment that you have a known toxic thing, you had asbestos, and you knew it, and you didn't tell the people, and they got lung disease from the asbestos, well, that's when you get your butt sued off, and rightly so, okay? Right. Because you were directly damaging employees in your new room. Yeah, but I mean, if – no, I mean, listen, if –

You know, we had more people out last year due to the flu than we did due to COVID. I'm sure, yes. And Anthony O'Neill got so sick with flu b that we had before cove right two weeks before covid broke out we had to cancel and reschedule or not cancel we had to restaff an event that he was scheduled to speak at and he was sick if he had died from that flu or he had uh you know gotten decided he was going to sue us because he got the flu. You know, good luck with that, buddy. Good luck with that.

Well, and I'll say just as a guiding principle, you're kind of asking the wrong question. How do I make sure I don't get sued by my team? Well, if your team's going to sue you, they're going to sue you. The question you should be asking is, if I was in their position, how would I want to be treated? Well, I want to work in an environment that's safe. I want to be in a place that's not being irresponsible. Use wisdom.

Make good decisions to protect your team. And 99% of the lawsuits are going to be eliminated right there. And the 1% is probably because they're crazy and they're going to sue you anyways, whether it's over COVID or something else. We've communicated very directly with our team. We got 1,000 people out of the office for six weeks, and then they came back. And some of them, you know, there was a varying degree of fear around the team. Some people weren't afraid at all. Some people were completely freaked out.

And that's understandable. I completely get that. And so we gave a lot of grace for a few weeks over the ones that were afraid and that had different kinds of health issues and different things. We just said, listen, we're going to work with you. We're going to try to treat you like we won't be treated if we were in your mindset. Eventually, we're all coming back to work, but you've got to figure this out. Now, by the way, we're all back to work.

But we had a few people out of 1,000, I think three or four, that just quit. They just were not going to come back to work in a building full of people. They couldn't wrap their brains around it. They thought it was irresponsible. they thought it was dangerous and to their credit they opted out but we communicated very clearly what we were going to do what we weren't going to do masks were not mandatory they were voluntary no shaming if you wear a mask but we're not going to shame me into wearing one and so no we're not checking everyone's temperature at the door. It's not required by our state.

It's not required by the CDC. It's not required by WHO. It's not required by anybody. And so some places have overreacted and gone further than others because they're very afraid about this stuff. We're not reckless. We're kind. We're gentle.

But we just said this is who we are. If you don't want to be a we anymore, I understand. It's a voluntary act to work here. Well, we said we have customers who need help. And so if you're ready to get on this crusade and help these customers, we need you to come back. And we got to go. Like at some point, we have to get back to helping our customers and making a difference for the mission that we're on. And you do, too.

And there's these inflection points throughout your entire business where your team is going to have the opportunity to opt out when you stick to the standards that you have. And for us, a few of them did. And it's fine. We're not mad at them. Me coming to a restaurant as a customer is a voluntary act. It's a voluntary act. I'm volunteering to walk into that. I don't have to.

I can stay home. And so someone coming to our event that we're doing in Orlando is a voluntary act. You don't have to. And so I understand that folks are, different people are afraid. So I just, Tom, overall, we treat people as best we can, but we're not going to run around and for the one or two percent of our population that are completely freaked out, we're not going to change. We're not going to let the tail wag the dog. It's not the entire place is not going to shift over that.

And that's how we did it. It was very loving and kind and very straightforward. Don't do things to not get sued. Yeah. Because they're the right thing to do. Do the right thing, and then if you get sued, defend yourself. Yeah. Do the right thing.

That's right. Treat people right. That's all you've got to do. And most of the time, that'll do it for you. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and 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.

Hey guys, it's George Campbell, host of the Dave Ramsey Show video channel. You can now listen to the show on your smart speaker. Just tell your Alexa or Google device to play The Dave Ramsey Show or find out all the ways you can benefit at DaveRamsey.com slash smart speaker.