0:10

From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,

0:12

this is the Entree Leadership

0:14

Podcast, where I take calls

0:16

from leaders like you

0:18

about what it takes to win in business

0:21

and in leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, with

0:24

over 30 years of experience in the trenches,

0:27

sometimes digging my own grave, sometimes

0:29

digging a path, and sometimes

0:32

we're not sure which. So we're here to help you

0:34

either way. This is a show about

0:36

actual experience. And as my old

0:38

pastor used to say, a man with an experience

0:40

is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion.

0:43

So we're not really competing with

0:45

your finance professor who's never made

0:47

payroll. We actually do this crap. So

0:50

we're here to help you. If you want to call in, this is

0:52

your show, business people. Phone

0:54

numbers 844-944-1070, or go to entreeleadership.com

0:56

slash ask. Leave

1:01

a little message and the team will get right back to you

1:03

and make you a part of this program. Scott

1:06

is in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi Scott,

1:08

welcome to Entree Leadership.

1:10

Hi Dave, thanks for having me. Sure man, what's

1:12

up? So I own

1:14

a Skylight contracting business. We're

1:17

on pace to do about 2.6, 2.7 million this year. Wow.

1:22

With 11 employees. My question is,

1:24

am I biting off more

1:26

than I can chew by opening an

1:29

additional location in

1:31

Florida when my current locations

1:33

are all in New England?

1:36

Okay, why Florida?

1:38

So the market

1:41

that we're looking to open up, there's nobody

1:43

else that does what we do specifically.

1:47

Now, I suspect that might be true of other

1:49

places other than just Florida. Correct.

1:52

Are you dealing with a certain

1:55

brand and the

1:57

manufacturers trying to get you to open a market or

1:59

what?

2:00

We partner with VLUX,

2:03

which is a major manufacturer of satellites.

2:06

And they're saying, we don't have a dealer in this market, would

2:08

you go be our dealer? Yes,

2:11

and they're doing some things in

2:13

the future, within the next year or so, to

2:17

advance into Florida themselves.

2:19

Gotcha. Okay. Are

2:22

these mainly residential or commercial? I'm just curious.

2:24

There's nothing with the answer, but I'm just curious. Primarily,

2:27

probably 90% residential. Okay.

2:30

All right. Cool. All right.

2:35

Well, number one, full disclosure,

2:37

I've never opened an office in another state. So

2:41

I can only imagine what would happen

2:43

if I did. But I don't have an experience

2:46

to reference in this answer. In

2:50

general, about expansion,

2:52

I try to remember the military rule.

2:55

Okay. The military has a rule

2:57

in the middle of a battle that they

2:59

don't advance the battle

3:02

lines faster

3:04

than they can send gasoline,

3:07

food, and bullets. Because

3:10

if the soldiers on the front lines

3:13

advance the point of combat

3:15

past the supply of gasoline, run

3:18

out of gas to get killed, run out of bullets

3:20

to get killed, they run out of food to get killed. Right?

3:23

Right. In

3:25

business, what I've determined that

3:27

same thing to be, I'm not a military person, that makes

3:29

sense to me. I don't want to advance

3:32

to Florida. I don't want to

3:34

grow Ramsey solutions beyond

3:38

three things. The three things,

3:40

instead of gasoline, bullets, and

3:42

food around here, it's money,

3:44

cash. I don't want to

3:46

get outside my cash. I don't want to

3:49

strain our cash. If

3:53

we strain our technology, if we're pushing

3:55

the edge of what we can pull off, then we're going to start crashing

3:57

stuff. And the other technology things we can

3:59

do is... accept

4:38

or reject or manufacturer or

4:40

guy and then i don't know technologies your

4:42

third one it could be tools

4:44

is your third one if

6:00

they go away too quick, right? Right. And so

6:02

he's got to, that's a human

6:05

resource issue that you've got

6:07

to solve or you don't buy that location.

6:10

In your case, you don't open the location because,

6:12

dude, you

6:15

cannot tell what's going on when you're in Manchester.

6:17

You're going to spend a lot of time in Florida. And

6:20

the only way you get to see your family back in Manchester

6:22

is if you get the right people on the dead

6:24

gum ground in Florida. So that's

6:26

the difficult one. I think of the three,

6:29

if equipment is

6:31

the third one, and if you've got

6:33

the money, the most difficult one is going

6:35

to be staffing this and getting it to a

6:37

delegatable staff. So they

6:39

don't screw up your reputation.

6:41

Sure, yeah. No, absolutely.

6:43

Absolutely. So what

6:46

you're trying to do is a strenuous

6:48

thing.

6:50

Yes, yeah, I'm fully aware

6:53

of that. It's not a no-brainer.

6:56

Right, right. And that's, I guess,

6:58

if it was a no-brainer, I don't think I'd be on the

7:00

call. OK,

7:03

you would have just done it. You didn't need Dave. OK. Exactly.

7:07

Well, all I'm doing is helping you walk through what I

7:09

perceive from the outside. I've never been

7:11

in the skylight business. And as I told you, I've never opened

7:13

up a side, a location in

7:16

another state. But what I perceive to be the issues,

7:18

and every time around here that

7:21

we get all excited about a

7:24

thing we want to do, a product or whatever

7:26

it is, and we go out past

7:29

the

7:30

staffing of quality people, and

7:32

we go ahead and launch it even though we haven't got it staffed. Or

7:35

we get up to where the thing's

7:37

not, it's starting to be painful on the financial

7:40

side. Or the

7:42

technology just is all screwed

7:44

up and sideways. Anytime we

7:46

get past those three things, it

7:49

brings pain into the business, and I wish I didn't do

7:51

it. So make sure you got your ducks

7:53

in a row. That's all my warning is to you. And

7:55

if you do all of that, hey, have at it, stud.

7:58

You make a $2 million. You're doing skylights

8:01

in New Hampshire. I hope you go make five and

8:03

five million dollars a year in Florida You're my kind

8:05

of people man get her done But

8:08

that this is gonna be harder than

8:10

it sounds It's not

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If you want to be part of the program, we'd love

9:31

to have you the phone numbers 8 4 4 9 4 4 10 70 I'm

9:36

Dave Ramsey. This is the entre

9:38

leadership podcast If

9:40

you don't know the story the whole entre

9:42

leadership brand started

9:45

When I started teaching our

9:47

team how we run our business If

9:51

you were smart you would call that leadership development.

9:54

I wasn't smart. I was just teaching them

9:56

how we run our business We weren't

9:58

that sophisticated, but If you want

10:00

to be in a leadership role at

10:02

Ramsey, you need to come to this little class

10:05

I teach on Tuesday afternoons. And

10:07

I'm going to talk to you about marketing. I'm going to talk

10:09

to you about accounting. I'm going to talk to you about hiring and

10:11

firing. I'm going to talk to you about

10:14

how we've gone through the stages of business. Although

10:16

in those days, I didn't call it that. And

10:19

I'm going to walk you through our playbook

10:22

of how we've grown the business from a card table

10:24

in my living room to where we are now. And

10:26

I was doing it with an overhead projector every

10:29

Tuesday afternoon. Lots

10:31

of other people in the community wanted to attend to learn

10:33

how we were running our business and

10:35

it turned into a thing where we started teaching small

10:37

business people, and then it was

10:39

a number one best-selling book. So,

10:42

and it's still a great selling book on trade leadership.

10:44

So that's where all this came from. This is our playbook.

10:47

And we just talk about what we've done or

10:49

what we know about and how we can

10:52

help you any way we can, we'd love to have you. So

10:54

we want you to be a great leader.

10:56

We want you to have business ownership that

10:58

is, that is fun. Uh,

11:01

it's always stressful. I mean, there's no running

11:04

a business that doesn't have a level of stress. Uh,

11:07

John Johnson, the editor of Ebony magazine,

11:09

always said that the entrepreneur is the only person who can

11:11

go from sheer terror to sheer exhilaration

11:14

and back every 24 hours. And

11:16

so that that's just, that's part of the, it's

11:18

a, it's a roller coaster ride. And if you hate roller coasters,

11:21

don't open a business, you know what I mean? Cause you're

11:23

going to, it's not boring, never

11:25

boring. It's boring. You're doing it wrong. So

11:28

that's it. 8 4 4 9 4 4 10 70.

11:31

Paul is in Grand Junction,

11:34

Colorado. Hey Paul, how are you?

11:37

I'm doing good, Dave. Thank you for having me on

11:39

your call. Sure, man. Tell me about it. What's

11:41

going on?

11:44

Hey, I've been a Honeywell building automation temperature

11:46

control contractor in the Western

11:48

slope of Colorado for seven years.

11:51

I work in the veil Aspen Beaver Creek tell

11:53

you ride all the towns in my

11:55

AO. And I'm just

11:58

going to brag here a little bit. In 22,

12:01

my sales numbers were like 1.5 with a net of 380 K.

12:04

With 16

12:08

members. Way to go, man. Way

12:10

to go. And then this year we're looking like 1.6 million

12:13

and then 480 in sales with the same

12:15

team. I love it. Good for you,

12:18

man. Proud of you. Yeah, and I started

12:20

it like,

12:21

I'm 65 and I started this in 1997, so 26

12:23

years ago.

12:26

And I've been in this

12:29

area for 32, but

12:32

I just want to say that after the

12:34

GFC or the great financial crash, I

12:38

was a millionaire before it, Net Worth.

12:40

And then after it, I had like 300,000 in Net Worth, most

12:43

of it was

12:44

whatever. And I spent five

12:47

years or 60 months paying up 250 K and

12:49

that was at nine years ago. And ever

12:52

since then, it's just,

12:54

you know, game on, like you say.

12:57

So it's hockey sticking after that.

12:59

Once you got the debt off your back. Yes,

13:02

yes. Way to go, man. I'm proud of

13:04

you. Good work. Good work. You

13:06

did it. Thank you. You did it. You're

13:09

a successful business owner in America. Way to go. Amen.

13:13

Yeah, I'd like to say something about that.

13:17

You know, I was the youngest of five and

13:19

I came along and I didn't

13:21

learn to read till I was like 20 and

13:24

I still can't spell. And I was classified

13:26

as educationally handicap

13:28

due to dyslexia. And my

13:30

father, what my father taught me to do is

13:32

work really hard.

13:34

And I've worked really hard in this technical

13:37

field and use the

13:40

principles of, you know, you know your business, you

13:45

take care of your customers, you do what's

13:48

right and you'll be successful.

13:50

You know, I mean, it's just, it's quite

13:53

amazing. You know, my

13:55

dad was an intellectual individual

13:58

from right after World War II. He graduated. did

14:00

from Manhattan College in New York City

14:02

and I came along and it was, you

14:05

know, it's pretty interesting. But, you know, if

14:07

you work hard, treat your customers properly, know

14:10

your business,

14:11

you can be a success, especially now in 2023.

14:13

It's just amazing. Amen.

14:17

Amen. Boy, the thermostats have changed

14:19

since you started too, hadn't they? Oh,

14:21

bro. Yeah. Yeah. Unbelievable.

14:24

Unbelievable. Yeah. So I didn't say, you know, last

14:26

time I was speaking at Entre leadership summit, the team

14:28

pulled some research out and I'm going to do

14:31

this off the top of my head so I might get it wrong, but

14:33

not far wrong. The incidence,

14:36

the likelihood of

14:39

a small business owner being dyslexic

14:43

is four times as many

14:46

small business owners are dyslexic as

14:48

the general public. Yes.

14:50

In other words, dyslexic have a tendency to open

14:53

and operate small businesses because

14:55

the folks that struggle with dyslexia have an ability,

14:58

their brains reset and they have an ability

15:00

to work around problems. You spend your life doing work

15:02

arounds and which is how you run a business.

15:06

Exactly. Work arounds and,

15:09

you know, my grade point average is 1.9. So I failed everything

15:12

I ever did in school. Everything. So

15:14

failure to me is like, Oh, well, you know, it's

15:16

no big deal. And then,

15:19

you know, I read Tom

15:21

Stanley's millionaire next door, you know,

15:23

whatever, 20 years ago and,

15:26

and, and

15:27

I broke down and cried when I read in there

15:29

that most

15:31

people will start a lot of people start businesses

15:33

because they think no one else will hire them. And

15:35

that was my mindset. Yep. They do. You

15:37

know, I thought who's going to hire me? You know,

15:39

now I'm sitting here. Dude, it's,

15:42

yeah. Yeah. It's hard to believe

15:44

that was actually nine. I'm a wealthy spiritually.

15:47

30 years ago. Yeah. 30 years

15:49

ago that he wrote. I

15:51

mean, my gosh. Yeah, but that's exactly right. And

15:54

the other reason people, some

15:56

people start businesses and this is the wrong reason.

15:58

That's a good reason. But some people

16:00

start businesses because they're too ornery

16:03

to work for anybody. You

16:08

don't need to be that. That doesn't work. But there's

16:10

a little bit of that in me. That's part of the reason I started

16:12

is I just couldn't put up with anybody and they couldn't put up with me.

16:14

So, uh, but that's, you know,

16:16

that, that's not a good, that's not a good foundation

16:19

to do this from, but way to go. Way to go.

16:21

Very proud of you, Paul. So how are you going to transition

16:23

your 65? What are you going to do with the retirement on this?

16:26

So what we're doing through reading

16:28

your book, uh, you know, legacy, the

16:31

legacy journey. Uh, my

16:33

son-in-law works for me. I, uh,

16:35

what happened when, when the great, uh,

16:38

financial reset or whatever happened 15 years

16:41

ago, my son and my

16:43

son-in-law worked for me and we had a team, but

16:45

then sales went down. And

16:48

so I went into the field, my son-in-law

16:50

and son ran the office. And

16:53

then my son through just

16:55

not, it wasn't in his heart

16:57

to do this work. You know, he went away and

17:00

my son-in-law and I became close and

17:03

he's just very good businessman.

17:05

We think alike. We've taught seven

17:08

financial piece university classes together.

17:10

And

17:12

we started this transition about three years ago.

17:15

It's halfway. Oh, wow. First quarter

17:17

of a 25 I'll be on payroll. Wow.

17:20

I mean, I'll have a time card. So you'll, uh,

17:22

you'll, you got the full, um, legacy

17:25

stage of business going. Way to go, man. Yeah.

17:28

Yeah. And, and I, I, in

17:30

my notes, I just want to say that you cannot

17:32

start that too early.

17:34

Even with the, the relationship

17:36

I have with my son-in-law and our thinking

17:38

processes are just aligned, it's

17:41

still, it's an emotional

17:43

thing. You know, I mean, you put so much

17:46

into a business over 20, 20, 30 years. And

17:49

then, you know, you're just going to give

17:52

it to somebody else. You just can't do that in

17:55

six months. It takes three,

17:57

four or five years, seven years,

17:59

you know, it takes a.

17:59

long time.

18:01

The alignment has to

18:03

be deeper than just general. Yeah, very,

18:06

very good. Yeah. Well

18:08

done, Paul. I'm proud of you, man. Very

18:10

cool. You're a successful

18:13

father, successful father-in-law. You've

18:15

handed the thing off. Man, very

18:18

well done. And grown it and overcome. What

18:20

a great story. What a great story. I'm

18:22

glad we were a tiny part of the story,

18:25

but you're the hero. Very proud of you. Well

18:27

done. Very good stuff. This

18:29

is Entrez Leadership.

18:33

This is the time of year when things can get crazy

18:36

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18:39

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18:41

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Hey, listen up, small business owner.

19:40

I don't care which stage of business you're in. If you're

19:42

doing it alone, you're doing it wrong. You

19:45

need people in your corner because owning and running

19:47

a business just might be the hardest thing you'll ever

19:49

do. Ideally, I'd like to see you in

19:51

an advisory group or even executive coaching

19:54

so my team can really wrap their arms

19:56

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19:59

season. in every stage.

20:02

If you're not ready for that at the very least I want you to sign

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20:09

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20:11

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20:16

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20:33

today. Matt is with us in Richmond,

20:36

Virginia. Hey Matt, welcome

20:38

to the show. How can I help?

20:39

Hi Dave. Absolute honor and privilege

20:42

to be on here with you. Thank you very

20:44

much. Thank you. I am a part

20:48

owner of a real estate development group so

20:50

I've got two other partners. We

20:52

primarily develop multi-family

20:55

communities from the ground up and we've grown

20:58

and scaled a good bit over the past

21:00

five years or so. We've

21:04

got about 15 employees and our

21:06

top line is about four million dollars

21:09

give or take. My big question

21:11

for you is you've

21:13

had a huge impact on my life on the

21:15

personal side as far as how to treat finances

21:18

and debt. My question is how do I implement

21:21

that conviction or how would you advise

21:23

implementing that conviction with debt

21:26

to a growing business when the

21:29

business I'm in by nature real

21:31

estate development, the

21:33

industry is largely dependent on debt. When

21:36

we do projects we're usually raising

21:39

money for equity as

21:41

well as getting a construction loan. What

21:44

size is your average project? I

21:48

mean that's 20 to 40

21:50

million dollars. It really kind of depends

21:53

but they're sizable ground

21:55

up construction. So

21:58

you're raising equity of that 25 million?

21:59

million how much?

22:01

Typically 30 to 40

22:04

percent. You know that number's gone up

22:07

as the cost of construction debt you

22:09

know has gone up as well. Now are these non-recourse,

22:11

are these construction loans non-recourse? I know the permanence

22:14

can be non-recourse,

22:15

but are the construction loans non-recourse? Some

22:17

are, some are, some

22:20

personal recourse, which I think that's a big thing

22:22

we're moving away from just as we've

22:25

kind of grown. But just curious,

22:27

you know, I know you're very experienced in the real

22:29

estate world as well, but as we're kind

22:31

of in that industry that's what we do and as

22:33

we're growing it just seems like it's it's

22:36

just something something I wrestle

22:38

with. You know what is that? Would you advise you

22:41

know? To me there's two layers to it. Okay

22:43

there's the personal

22:46

liability and then the second

22:48

is just general risk. Okay

22:51

and from a general risk perspective more

22:54

debt equals more risk period.

22:57

No debt equals almost no

23:00

risk. Okay there's other risks

23:02

but but not any debt risk and

23:05

so on so there's

23:07

the risk perspective that

23:10

obviously if you raised more

23:12

equity and had a smaller loan

23:15

to value ratio then

23:18

you know you had a 30% loan to value ratio

23:20

instead of a 70 as an example.

23:22

Your risk goes down because your cash flow goes

23:25

up and until you

23:27

get it finished out because you're doing new projects ground

23:29

up and actually create cash flow it takes

23:32

sometimes two years. Yep.

23:34

And so you know you

23:37

somebody's eating that cash flow and

23:39

the more of that that's the equity base there's no

23:41

cash flow problem. So

23:43

your pro forma eats itself out from the inside

23:46

the more highly leveraged you are agreed? Yeah

23:49

yeah depending on you know

23:52

the structure but yeah but I mean something's got

23:54

a service to freakin debt

23:55

and the more debt there is the more it and the

23:57

more of an alligator you've got until you actually

24:00

actually put renters in the thing. So

24:04

that's one issue is I'm going to move in

24:06

general terms more towards equity

24:09

than you all have if I'm you because

24:11

I think you're right on the bubble. You're pretty

24:13

highly leveraged for a developer.

24:17

And how old are you guys? About 34, 35.

24:22

The average group, the

24:24

leaders. Okay. All right.

24:28

So here's my perspective at 63 from having

24:31

done real estate since I was since 1978. Yeah,

24:34

I want to hear this. My perspective

24:37

is that the

24:43

highest risk real estate

24:45

that you can do is resort

24:47

real estate because

24:49

it comes and goes based on the economy. It's

24:52

the first to come and the last. I mean

24:54

it's the first to go and the last to come back. So

24:57

if you're building beachfront condos, you're

24:59

asking to die. Okay.

25:02

It's the worst. Okay.

25:05

Long term play real estate,

25:07

something that's that is a basic cash

25:10

cow, warehouses, apartments,

25:13

office buildings, strip centers,

25:15

that kind of stuff. Long term real estate

25:17

is of the real estate investment side. Probably

25:20

the least risk, but

25:23

developers developing residential

25:27

lots,

25:29

they are the highest risk except

25:31

resort. If

25:33

you're a developer right now sitting

25:35

on, you know, 500 lots and you don't

25:39

have that equity position set and you don't have

25:41

the cash flow structure, this current

25:43

slowdown is going to take you down. If

25:46

you're a residential developer in this current environment

25:49

that we're in right this second, you're going to see develop.

25:51

I've watched developers in my world die

25:53

and go out and go out of business metaphorically

25:56

die faster than anybody else.

25:58

Okay. You're the next. level

26:00

of developer because you're a more sophisticated

26:02

developer and you're heading towards cashflow

26:05

and you've got an equity structure in the thing. It's not

26:07

just simply borrowed money at the bank to cut

26:10

some streets and sewer lines. Yeah,

26:12

the cuts and streets and sewer lines. Those

26:14

are the guys who go out of business first right

26:16

after the people on the beach too. Okay.

26:19

In a downturn. You guys are right

26:21

there though. You're right after them. So you're in a high

26:23

risk part of the spectrum

26:26

of real estate investing. Um,

26:28

and the more you do it successfully,

26:30

the less your brain

26:33

will remind you that you're in a high risk environment.

26:37

You get satiated. You get, it's like hitting,

26:39

uh, it's like hitting in

26:41

Vegas. You, you know, you, you hit a couple of hands

26:44

or you hit a couple, the little ball

26:46

lands on the right square a couple of times. You suddenly think

26:48

you're dead gum genius. And I know,

26:50

cause I've done this, you get satiated by it and you

26:52

go, you start believing your own press. So

26:55

be careful of that. And so if

26:57

I were in your shoes, that would be the thing that

26:59

would cause me to move

27:01

to a higher equity position, take a little

27:03

less profit per deal, but not

27:06

be as leveraged. Now, that's a general

27:08

risk discussion. That's a

27:10

suggestion. The second

27:12

part is the personal liability versus non-recourse

27:16

paper. I would not touch this

27:18

with a 10 foot pole of personal liability.

27:21

Mm-hmm.

27:22

You're dealing with a number that one flip of the switch

27:24

will bankrupt your butt personally in a

27:26

heartbeat. Yeah. One bad

27:28

deal. And you're gone, Matt. Everything

27:31

you've built, everything your house,

27:33

your wife, kids and dog live in, everything's

27:35

gone with one flip of the switch. I would not put my

27:38

personal signature on this. No way,

27:40

no how.

27:42

That's gotta stop.

27:43

That's silly. And by the way, it's

27:45

not required, especially

27:48

the more equity you do. And the other discussion,

27:51

the smaller the loan to value ratio is the less

27:53

they're going to require a signature because they're,

27:55

cause they're looking at the ass. It's an asset based loan

27:58

rather than a couple of 34. year olds

28:00

are going to make good on this freaking $18 million

28:02

loan. Come on.

28:05

Right. Right. And

28:07

what would you kind of follow up to that? I think one

28:09

of the, one of the struggles is like,

28:12

all right, we're in the industry and we're raising that equity.

28:14

Yeah. That's not all coming from us.

28:16

That's coming from people who are placing their equity

28:18

and wanting to get the highest return on their money.

28:21

Yeah. We're typically the higher, theoretically,

28:23

the higher leverage you go, which again, we're

28:25

not going, if it works, the

28:28

higher leverage it goes, you get better money. If

28:30

it works when it doesn't work, it's the faster

28:32

the acts comes down between your E eyes.

28:35

Right. And would you, I mean, would you would generally say

28:37

it's like, all right, you've got to look for equity

28:40

that has a lower risk,

28:42

lower risk tolerance. And therefore,

28:45

and therefore it's not like, they're not, you may

28:47

want to deal with different equity partners that aren't as much of

28:49

a player. Your

28:51

guys are more willing to roll the dice, but

28:54

their neck's not on the line. If you're signing personally,

28:57

right. Right. No, I know. Yeah.

28:59

So yeah, God, you're scaring me to death. Um,

29:02

yeah, I, I, I like what

29:04

you're doing. I love the business. I've been around that my whole

29:07

life. I've, you know, I own a bunch of real estate,

29:09

as you know, and all of mine's paid for, I don't,

29:11

I don't borrow money for any reason ever. That's

29:13

a, that's a different discussion. I want to have a discussion

29:15

with where you are. I hope to get there. You

29:18

will, you can't, you can get there, but, but

29:20

your equity players, they want, they first

29:22

want their money back, whether they believe it or not. They

29:25

secondly want their return return

29:29

of principle, even for somebody that thinks

29:31

they're a gambler is, is, is

29:33

really

29:34

at the heart of every equity player.

29:37

And so they want the deal to work and the deal, the,

29:40

the, you increase the probability

29:43

of a successful deal, the higher the equity

29:45

to the higher equity ratio is

29:48

agreed

29:50

because you don't have the interest eating,

29:52

eating your butt out from the inside out.

29:54

You don't have bacteria in the, in the organ,

29:56

in the organism, you know, it's just awful.

29:59

And so that, that's. That's what you're facing

30:01

cool. Call man. You guys are studs.

30:03

I love talking to you. Hey, I hope it all goes

30:05

really great I would just limit my general

30:08

risk the way we talked about and then

30:10

I 100% would get out of the personal

30:12

risk business You've got enough of a track

30:14

record if you're doing four million dollar top-line profit

30:17

to justify you have enough deal Portfolios

30:21

to justify a non-recourse deal

30:23

and I wouldn't put my name on anything else period

30:26

that'd be the last one right now Over and out.

30:28

That's what we would do. Hey, man, you're

30:30

stud. Thanks for doing it. Thanks for calling We appreciate

30:32

you being part of the entree

30:35

leadership

30:39

Are you a small business owner? Do you feel stuck

30:42

in the daily grind of running your business

30:44

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30:46

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31:00

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31:00

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31:03

The good news is I figured out how to grow past

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31:10

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31:44

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31:47

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31:49

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31:51

people You got a business with five

31:53

to two hundred and fifty people. Hey, you're

31:55

our people man You got five thousand

31:58

bless your heart. I'm happy for you I've never

32:00

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32:02

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32:04

luck with that. I'll try to help you if you want some help

32:06

with it, but I've never done it. If you're in that other

32:09

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32:12

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32:14

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32:16

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32:18

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32:21

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32:23

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YouTube land where people will find it. Thank

33:20

you. Thank you very much. Alan is with

33:22

us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Alan. What's

33:25

up? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

33:27

How can I help? So I

33:30

am 26 years old and last

33:32

November I started a remodeling and construction

33:34

business. The first eight months I was the only

33:36

employee and now I've got three employees

33:39

plus myself. We're

33:41

on track to do about 120,000 in revenue this

33:43

year and we're probably going to triple or do

33:46

four times that next year just with the growth that we've

33:48

had. Way to go, man. Thank

33:51

you. My question is, as I grow into a leader

33:53

for my guys, I feel really guilty

33:56

about not being able to be on the job

33:58

site within every day.

33:59

And most of my time now is spent quoting

34:02

or doing payroll or anything like that. So

34:04

I just, you know, they're completely competent. I just

34:06

feel guilty for not doing the physical labor with

34:09

them.

34:12

Okay. Hmm.

34:18

Well, I think one thing you want to,

34:20

that you're worried about that's built into

34:22

that feeling, because

34:25

I've experienced a similar thing, is

34:28

that they're going to think you you're

34:31

afraid you might come off as you

34:34

think you're better than them.

34:36

Exactly.

34:37

That's one part of that. It's

34:40

not the whole thing, but that's part of it. And

34:42

I think a lot of that is solved by

34:46

not thinking that and

34:50

not acting that way. Okay. For

34:52

instance, you

34:54

know, I sat,

34:57

I eat lunch in our lunchroom every day. Okay.

35:02

And I just plop down somewhere and

35:05

just start talking. And you

35:07

know, I get to hear last

35:10

night we were doing, we had a catered

35:12

thing in because we had a live

35:16

stream here. So we're doing a production at night. So a bunch of

35:18

us working late. So the crew that's

35:20

doing all that, the guys running all the, I mean,

35:23

we had a crew of probably 30 people that are running

35:25

all the technical stuff. And then we got Rachel

35:27

and Jade and me and we're the talent. Right.

35:31

And so we were not eating the

35:33

three of us in the aristocratic green

35:35

room alone. We all sat down

35:37

there together talking. And

35:40

I got to hear some real nerdy stories like Star

35:42

Wars stories and stuff and things I had nothing,

35:45

no interest in whatsoever, but I got to hear them. And

35:47

so, uh, but I was just hanging out with the guys, you know,

35:50

and I was laughing with them and we're cutting up.

35:52

We're talking about nothing about work. We're talking about nothing that matters

35:55

because we're talking about Star Wars for God's sakes, nothing

35:57

that matters. So, you know, I mean, it's just, we're hanging

35:59

out. And so i sit in the lunch room everyday

36:02

with the guys in the gals and a

36:04

lot of them are doing things that i

36:07

don't know how to do. But they're

36:09

working hard a lot of them are

36:11

doing things i do know how to do and i don't

36:13

do those things anymore cuz it's not my job anymore

36:15

like this is not your job anymore so if you just

36:18

hanging out with them make

36:20

sure you're still.

36:23

Showing up on friday

36:25

afternoon at noon and bring in pizza

36:28

or something or send the taco

36:30

truck over there prepaid for the everybody working

36:32

including the subs. Over

36:34

the job site and swing by and see

36:36

him and just hang out thank you thank you i've

36:40

got a building project right now going in

36:43

the guys working on the project

36:46

the subcontractors are not gonna work for me

36:48

to work for the gc. Are hispanic

36:51

speak english and i'll speak spanish

36:53

much but i'll just go

36:55

in and just just tell him thank you you

36:57

know. Just

37:00

you know we went out it's really nice thank you gracias

37:03

and i try to be as appreciative

37:05

as i can understand they get

37:08

that and then i send the taco truck over there too

37:10

and you know all i can do is that. And

37:12

then i am not i don't think i'm better now

37:15

and you know really that changes it because your

37:17

spirit the way you carry yourself

37:19

where you sit when you sit down in the lunch room the

37:22

way you walk on to the job site. The

37:25

way you address someone on the job site.

37:29

You know it doesn't come from a stuck up

37:31

point of view then they're not going

37:33

to get that off of you cuz it's not there and

37:36

if they do it on them. Right

37:38

you know so like i got people

37:40

that have worked here at times that is

37:43

like why couldn't talk to you

37:45

you were too intimidating and i'm like. I

37:48

didn't do anything to be intimidated i guess you just grew

37:50

up intimidated i don't know i mean it's just hanging out just

37:52

me i didn't do it me. Nobody

37:55

else was intimidated me people

37:57

argue with me all the time around here so

37:59

i don't know why you. While you're, but I mean that's so

38:01

a certain point of it is it's not going to be anything

38:04

you can control, but part of it is if

38:06

you'll just be a regular guy and, uh,

38:09

and, and you don't, and you won't sacrifice your

38:11

right to lead by doing that, uh,

38:14

because I had dinner last night with the guys

38:16

at the crew at the table and

38:19

listened to Star Wars stuff does not

38:21

mean I lost my ability to be the CEO the next

38:23

morning. Okay. That nobody

38:25

was, nobody at the table was confused about that,

38:28

including me. So, um, but

38:30

I was just hanging out. We were just laughing and having

38:32

fun. And then we came upstairs and did our work, you

38:34

know? And so, you know, did an

38:36

hour's worth of production. That was pretty dead, blaming

38:38

tents where everybody had to have

38:40

their crap together on everything they were doing there for

38:43

that moment. And then we all clapped and hugged

38:45

and went home, you know? So yeah,

38:47

that it's just, that helps a lot.

38:50

But, um, the

38:52

second thing I had to learn was

38:55

I reached a point in this business about 20 years

38:57

ago that I felt like in my

39:00

prayer time, and the,

39:02

you know, the still small voice, I felt like God

39:04

was saying, not audibly, but, um,

39:07

but, but just saying, okay, you need to work on

39:09

big things, broken things, and new things.

39:12

Things that are running properly. You need

39:14

to leave them alone and let them do their job and

39:17

delegate. And, uh, I

39:20

really wasn't micromanaging, but

39:22

that clarity helped me. So what do

39:24

I do all day long? I'm either the talent,

39:26

like I am right this second on the microphone, or

39:28

I'm working on new things, big things and broken things,

39:31

all of my meetings all day long are new still

39:33

to this day, 20 years later, new thing, because very

39:36

entrepreneurial. I love it and I'm good at

39:38

it. And so new things, big things and broken

39:40

things. So something screwed up and sideways

39:42

gets in my office. It lands on me. Buck

39:44

stops here. Uh, something's brand new. I

39:47

like birthing this baby, getting it out of the incubator,

39:49

getting it up, watching the baby deer walk the first

39:51

time. I love seeing that stuff, a brand new thing going

39:53

out. Even if it falls over and crashes, you

39:55

know, I still want to be there when it happens, I want to do, I want

39:57

to see the first thing, see the first steps of. the

40:00

new idea, right? And

40:02

you know, the big broken things, all that stuff.

40:04

So yeah, I stuff

40:07

like that, you're going to have your fingers down

40:09

in it. And it's just when I'm at a table

40:12

in one of those things in one of those meetings, it's

40:14

me and five people and we're all on an even

40:16

playing field and we're arguing which played

40:19

a call to win the Super Bowl. We're not

40:21

in there posturing as to how we

40:23

impressed the CEO. That lasts

40:25

about 13 seconds around here and then you

40:28

get dissed because we're all just

40:30

trying to go what in the crap, you

40:32

know, we're just trying to get this thing done. Who and

40:34

if you got a better idea than me, fight for it. And

40:37

you know something I don't know, prove it, do

40:40

it, let's go, game on. But

40:43

you better be ready to defend it because we're gonna

40:45

push, let's go. And you can do all

40:47

those things and still be one of the guys, so to

40:49

speak, but be the owner simultaneously.

40:52

You still love people, you still care

40:55

about people, you could still be their

40:57

friend and you can still farm. I've

41:01

been all of those things in the last two

41:03

weeks and I'll be them in the

41:05

next two weeks. So this idea

41:07

you can't work with friends. Now I want to work with, I don't

41:09

want to work with people I'm not friends with. I want to be

41:11

friends with you. If I'm working with you every

41:13

day, I want to have a relationship.

41:15

I mean I don't want to just be transactional.

41:18

That's corporate America crap. This is a small

41:20

business, a family business. We don't want to be that

41:23

way. And so and nobody

41:25

does. So if you'll just do all

41:27

of those, I think you're gonna be fine. And

41:32

then also as a part of that, be

41:35

prepared for the person that occasionally doesn't

41:37

understand anyway. But

41:39

that's on them. If you're doing

41:41

all this other stuff right and then somebody goes,

41:44

well you know you're too good, that's

41:46

bull. But I'll give

41:48

you an example of that. Okay I'm

41:50

real proud of this example. So Rachel Cruz,

41:53

my daughter, Ramsey personality, absolutely

41:58

does not have an animal. of think

42:00

she's better than anybody. She's everybody's friend,

42:03

easy to get along with. The live

42:05

events crew that travels with us that does production

42:08

loves Rachel because she'll do anything.

42:10

She'll go pick up the donuts, she'll help you set up the chairs,

42:13

she laughs, she tells weird stories backstage,

42:16

you know we're all just hanging out. She's just

42:18

that girl, okay? And it's my daughter

42:20

I'm proud of her but she really has not

42:22

got this thing of I'm special, you

42:24

have to treat me different because I'm a Ramsey or you

42:26

have to treat me different because I'm a personality on the stage.

42:29

And so and this has gone on for a decade

42:32

and a half now. So a while

42:34

back after 10 years of her

42:36

earning respect

42:38

of her peers that she works with, the live events

42:40

crew, running the sound, running the lights,

42:43

running the stuff, we had a

42:46

contractor running the board on

42:49

the lighting backstage and Rachel was

42:51

on stage doing a thing and one of

42:53

our guys is you know running the board beside him and he's

42:55

on the board and the contractor

42:58

goes right rich girl you don't know

43:00

nothing you've never had a hard day in your life and

43:04

my guy taps him on the shoulder and goes you're

43:06

out. He goes what do you mean? He goes

43:08

you don't talk about her that way she's my friend you're fired

43:11

you're done and he

43:13

fired him on the spot. Why? Because

43:16

that's not who she is the guy was just you

43:18

know he's just being a butt and he didn't

43:20

need to be there working working for us and

43:22

so they fired him he goes you're gonna fire me in the middle show

43:24

he goes no I'm firing you right this second

43:27

you need to get up and leave our building right

43:30

this second you don't talk about her that way she's

43:32

my sister and that's the way the live events

43:34

crew feels about her so I mean that that's

43:37

what you want right there Alan you want to be in that position

43:39

where when you turn your back one of your got one

43:42

some subcontractor goes well Alan thinks she's better

43:44

your guy goes no he doesn't get off our

43:46

job site you don't talk about that

43:49

guy right there like that he's

43:51

my guy and if you did that then

43:53

you have nothing to feel guilty about because

43:56

you've established the relationship of that depth that's

43:59

where that's what you're aiming before. And

44:01

I'm proud of that story because I'm proud of my team and I'm

44:03

proud of my daughter for establishing that level

44:05

of rapport of my team that they felt that way. And

44:08

I'm also proud that they felt empowered enough to

44:10

fire the guy they didn't have to ask anybody. Instantaneously

44:13

tapped him on the shoulder and said hit the door dude. Now

44:16

you're gone. You'll fire me in the middle

44:18

of the show? No I'm firing you this second.

44:20

You're gone. Get off my stage. You

44:23

know and that's that that's exactly

44:25

that's the kind of rapport you want to build. That's where you want to stand.

44:28

That's how you want to get there. But this whole business

44:30

running a business thing man it's not for the faint of heart. And

44:33

Alan you're stud man you're getting it done. I'm proud of you. Very

44:35

well done. Very well done. Good stuff

44:37

guys. Alright remember

44:40

better a weary warrior than a quivering

44:42

critic. Leaders serve. Leaders are

44:44

active not passive. Leaders act on

44:46

principle not appearances. This world

44:48

needs more high quality leaders. So

44:50

choose to lead. I'm Dave

44:53

Ramsey your host. Thanks for listening to the

44:55

Entrez leadership podcast.