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- [00:10]
A
From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is entree leadership where I take calls from leaders like you about what it takes to win at any stage of business and leadership. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host with over 30 years of experience leading in the trenches right alongside you. If you've got a question you want to ask on the show, fill out the form on entreeleadership.com ask and or leave a voicemail at 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-1090. Dustin is in Canada. Hi Dustin, welcome to the show. How can I help?
- [00:49]
B
Yeah, it's a pleasure speaking with you today.
- [00:51]
A
You too.
- [00:53]
B
Yeah. So my name is Dustin Toronto. I'm a CEO of Managed Service Provider. We have nine employees and we do about 3 million in top line sales. And I'd say that we're probably kind of at the end of the treadmill operator stage, crossing over, kind of in the pathfinder stage. And I'm in the process of building my leadership team and as I do I'm kind of wondering do I give them or do I need to give them full access to my books?
- [01:21]
A
Hmm. What is the. What are you managing? Managed care. What, in the medical field?
- [01:27]
B
No, managed service provider. So computer IT security, things of that nature.
- [01:32]
A
Oh, okay. I'm sorry, I didn't catch it. Okay, okay. When people get financial information, it is only good for them to have access to that information if they have the maturity to process it. So an example of that that's not leadership team was 22 years ago. We hired a friend of ours to come on and become our bookkeeper. She graduated and became a controller and is one of our top controllers in the company to this day. And so we had the double edged sword of having a team member seeing all of our numbers because she was running the books. Right. And running the payroll. So she knew what I made and she knew what she made and she knew what someone else made. And she's also a friend in addition to. So it's like this could really go sideways bad, you know. And so we had a lengthy discussion, Sharon, my wife and I with her, because she was a lady that we knew, had known a long time, we said, listen, this could really screw up everything. We could screw up our friendship, we could screw up everything else. If you can't handle seeing what we make, knowing what you make and knowing what others make, if that's going to get sideways in your spirit, if that's going to get sideways in your head, it's going to screw up everything. And so we're better off not to do this, not to hire you, than we are for that. And so she made a thorough commitment and made us believe that. That she could handle that information emotionally, spiritually, without getting weirded out 22 years later. She's been good with her word. She was able to do it. I've had other people who ended up with access to the, you know, because they were in leadership, access to information, and they were, you know, they had a little childish temper tantrum. Yeah, well, I can't believe that. This and that and. Well, you've been here for two years and I've been here for 30 years, so, yes, I make more than you. Oh, by the way, that's my name on the side of the building. Of course I make more than you. And you know, when I have to have discussions with that, like the sound like that, I put the wrong person. I let the wrong person have the information. So it's not a matter of is there a right way or a wrong way. It's a matter of who the humans are. And so if you've got someone that's very judgmental, Pharisee, they're like a pharisee. They're not going to do well with this information.
- [04:16]
B
Yeah.
- [04:16]
A
And if you're in the tech world, you could have that person.
- [04:20]
B
Yeah, no, there are definitely a lot of those types of people in my industry.
- [04:24]
A
Yeah, yeah. And because that comes with being highly detailed, because you become everything's black and white. And if they make a judgment that, you know, Dustin is the evil rich guy, but Dustin, by God, owns the place. But then you're gonna lose them because they got access to the information. You've been better off not to do that. So you've got to use wisdom and discernment and speak out loud. Put all your cards on the table, face up before you share the information.
- [04:58]
B
For sure.
- [04:59]
A
Okay.
- [05:00]
B
Okay.
- [05:00]
A
And I'll go a step further and let's keep talking about it. Cause there's a lot of. This is such a good question. I'd like to continue packet. So the other thing I wouldn't do for a long time is we didn't tell. We're privately held, obviously, I own it. And we wouldn't tell anyone what any of our numbers were. We never said what our gross revenues were. We never said what our profits were. We never said what any income were. We never said what a product made. We would say how many of something we sold, but that's all we would say. We wouldn't tell anyone that for a very long time. Because here's what you'll discover, Dustin, is, and you may discover this with your very question too, that some people do not know. Most people do not know the difference in gross revenues and net profit.
- [05:52]
B
Yes.
- [05:53]
A
So like for instance, this year, Ramsey, now we do disclose information. Ramsey will run about 300 million in gross revenues this year. When people hear that, they say it's a $300 million company. Some people are so dumb, they think I'm taking home $300 million and obviously my payroll is approaching 200 million. So I mean, obviously I'm not. But, but people don't. People can't add and they don't know how this stuff works. And so they get on their religious high horse or they get on their social justice bull crap. And you know, that's like some rich guy over there. And it's like, yeah, you don't have any idea what the heck you're talking about. And so we didn't disclose that for a long time. We still do not disclose any of our net profits because people can't grasp it and they can't get their head around it and they can't process numbers that they have never seen. And you've heard people say stuff like this, Dustin, no one should. Somebody buys a super nice car and some judgmental little jerk says, no one should have a car that nice. No one should spend that on a car. They're starving children in Africa. No one should spend that on a car. And those are envious, jealous people. And if you've got those inside your organization and you start sharing numbers, it gets all twisted. And so we spend a lot of our time teaching inside the company and in our leadership team and through the whole company about the difference in gross and net and about how profits work and about how a product line that fails and we had to sunset it works and where this stuff comes from and all of that. So I think you're going to get into some of those things as you continue this. But the main answer to your question is the only way you can share numbers is with someone who is spiritually and emotionally mature enough to understand that it does not change them just because they have access to this information. All it is is gives them the ability to manage, help you manage the business better because they see the metrics, they see the actual information and so on. So by the way, just for the record, nowadays we have an operating board with 14 or 12 people on it and they all get paid off the very bottom line and they all see every number in the house. They know every number in the house. And there's a lot of numbers in this house. And two or three, four or five of our accounting teams see every number in the house. The person that processes payroll knows what everybody in the house makes. And of course they've all signed documents that, that's all confidential, proprietary information. And if you ever used it in some way inappropriately to embarrass a team member or embarrass the company, we would bankrupt you basically. So, I mean, I'll take you down and so that. But you have to put, you know, in order to get the work done at some scale, you've got to let people know what's going on. And so you can't have some little gossip running the payroll. And they go, well, you know what George makes and you know what Rachel makes and you know, and some little gossiper on the payroll would be like the worst possible crap you could get into. That's a violation of ethics six ways from Sunday. So these are the things you learn as running a small business that you don't think of otherwise. So it's a really good question. Dustin, thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing that up. Thanks for letting me go there. These days, business as usual is anything but. Tariffs make trade policy a moving target. Supply chains are squeezed and your cash flow is tighter than ever. If your business can't adapt in real time, you're in a world hurt. That's why you need NetSuite by Oracle, trusted by more than 42,000 businesses, including Ramsey Solutions. You need to see what's happening, what's stuck and what's costing you and how to fix it. NetSuite is the number one cloud based business management suite because it helps your business make the right decisions fast. It brings accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one place so you're not left shuffling a dozen different spreadsheets. That gives you the visibility you need to make quick decisions based on actionable data. And NetSuite AI automates everyday tasks so your team can focus on strategy. It's one system for full control and no guesswork to tame the chaos. And right now, if your business is doing a million or more in every annual revenue, download NetSuite's free ebook Navigating Global Trade. 3 insights for leaders@netSuite.com Ramsey that's NetSuite.com Ramsey.
- [10:55]
C
From the beginning, hiring was so hard. It really felt like we were just a revolving door. And we got to a point where we Almost left the job post open all the time because I just always wanted to have a pool of people to pull from because I never knew when somebody was gonna leave. And gosh, it was so exhausting and so hard. And then just constantly feeling like you're training and constantly feeling like, okay, like, maybe the next person's gonna be it. Maybe the next person's gonna be it. There was absolutely a point where we would consider if somebody stayed with us for three months, that was kind of the average. And if we could get somebody to, like, the six month, to, like, year range, like, that was the top. That's what we were shooting for at that point in time. And when I came to that realization, man, I knew something needed to change.
- [11:55]
A
That was Michelle Marcum. She's a franchise owner of Cinnabon and Auntie Ann's. Oh, yum. She was drowning in turnover. She's in food service. Hard to keep people. Most of them were there three to six months, and that kind of churn kept her really stuck. She couldn't grow. She could barely even stay afloat. And that's when she found entree leadership. She took the free stages of business assessment. It showed her exactly what stage her business was in and gave her some clear plans to fix her hiring problem. Glad we were able to do that today. She's increased staff retention by more than 600% by building a culture of people who don't want to leave. Team members who used to quit after 90 days are now staying one to two years, some even longer. That's unheard of in the food world, particularly the fast food world. Michelle's story isn't unique. If you're stuck in your business and you can't see a way forward, the stages of business assessment will show you where you are, what's in your way, and give you a clear plan to get unstuck and grow your business to the next stage. You can take it for free@entreeleadership.com unstuck. Yeah, I like that. Unstuck. Or click the link in the show notes. Daniel's in Philadelphia. Hi, Daniel. Welcome to the show.
- [13:17]
B
Hi, Dave. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today.
- [13:20]
A
Sure. What's up?
- [13:22]
B
Hey. I'm the owner of a USDA inspected butcher shop. We do farm processing for local farms, and we also have a small retail storefront. We have about eight employees, and we make just over a million dollars in yearly sales. My question for you is it feels like we're spinning our wheels a little bit in this break even Zone being that we are a small local butcher shop, we already run like, higher prices. And I feel like we have limited room to increase prices without alienating customers. So my question is, how can we build a cushion, improve cash flow to invest in the future of our business when we can't exactly raise prices much more than where they are already at?
- [14:01]
A
Okay, so 100% of your revenue is out of the front of that store.
- [14:06]
B
No. So we have two aspects of our business. So the main bread, the main driver of revenue in my shop is our farm processing. It's a USDA inspected wholesale processing. So.
- [14:17]
A
So what percentage of your million is that?
- [14:20]
B
About 60%.
- [14:21]
A
Okay, so you're doing about 600k there and about 400 out of the storefront.
- [14:25]
B
Correct.
- [14:26]
A
Okay. But the storefront feels like it's not profitable.
- [14:31]
B
Well, they both feel like they're not profitable. So like, you know, the, the retail store front, like, basically, like we're near Philadelphia, but we're in a rural, like, community. So like, our prices, I can't get like city prices for things. Like my sausage is like sitting at like $6.29. Whereas, like, you go into the city and they're selling the sausage for 12, $14 a pound. And so, like, my prices, I, I afraid. I'm afraid if I raise my prices to that, like, city price point, I got you that, like, I'm just going to completely alienate people. So that's the.
- [15:08]
A
I'm not worried about alienating someone as long as I found someone else. So it might be that your brand positioning might be the wrong thing. You're trying to be a. It sounds like you're a very traditional butcher shop that I would think of from the 70s or 80s.
- [15:27]
B
Correct. Like, we have a rail.
- [15:29]
A
And you're not doing much boutique feeling to this, and you're not doing much farm to table feel to this. So how far out of Phil. How far out of Philly are you?
- [15:42]
B
About 45 minutes.
- [15:44]
A
Okay. All right. So I mean, it feels like to me that I'm gonna walk in there the way you're describing this, and I'm gonna get some really excellent beef or sausage or whatever, but I'm gonna see a guy standing behind the counter in a white apron and a hat that looks like it came from McDonald's or something. And he's a strap. He's a straight up butcher.
- [16:07]
B
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what we are.
- [16:10]
A
Yeah.
- [16:10]
B
You see the white coats right behind the, the counter? We, we cut everything fresh. Our beef comes from like, you know, within 30 minutes of our shop. And so, you know, my prices are nowhere near grocery store prices.
- [16:22]
A
I got that.
- [16:22]
B
I'm not really trying to be a grocery store.
- [16:24]
A
Yeah, you should be.
- [16:25]
B
But because.
- [16:26]
A
Because there's not a market for what you're doing is what you're telling me.
- [16:31]
B
So you think I should be a little bit.
- [16:32]
A
Are you guys doing any specialty stuff, like any wagyu?
- [16:36]
B
No, but we do like American Wagyu sausages. No, but we like hand make our own sausages. We have 17 different types of varieties.
- [16:44]
A
Okay, so you've got some specialty stuff. Okay, so for instance, I've got a guy that I went to college with who has made a huge business with a dairy farm, but he got out of traditional dairy and he runs a boutique dairy operation where you can go and get milk from the cow directly. And if you go into their store, you're getting stuff you can't get anywhere else. It's very boutique. It's very farm to table for the. It's yuppie fied, if you want to call it that. And he charges out the yin yang for this stuff. And these millennials trying to get whole milk unpasteurized or pasteurized or whatever are writing him checks. And he's doing some delivery. And the little store is like a little country store charm you to death thing. And you're very. Again, there's no boutique feel to yours. There's no difference to yours. You're trying to compete directly with the grocery store and yet you don't have the traffic count to do that. And so I'm just making this up as I'm going. I love what you're doing. I actually want to order one of your. I want to order a tenderloin right now. So I'm wondering if. Okay, now I got another buddy that has a farm that they're just. He was a. And he has some American Wagyu and he has some grass fed and they only sell direct to homeowners in the area in the high end houses. And they just deliver, right? And so you can get an American Wagyu tenderloin delivered or three beautiful. I got some the other night, some beautiful filets delivered and they just brought them to my front door, knocked on the door and I handed him money and he walked off. And so as his kid brought it over. And so I wonder if you don't start delivering down into Philly and create this mystique around the fact that your beef was. Yesterday it was a cow and now it's on your Table. This is fresh. This stuff's not gone through 62 freezers and five refrigerated trucks and sat around and plastic on it for four days before you're eating it. We're gonna bring it to you now. Like you call and we'll bring it over there this afternoon or you pre order it and we'll deliver it. And it will be fresh and sell the difference in what you have with the store. And I'm guessing you probably got some stuff that's grass fed and low hormone or whatever, right?
- [19:17]
B
Correct. Yeah, like we buy all our stuff from like these small family farms. They raise everything hormone free, steroid free. Like the beef, the beef hangs and it dry ages for, for 14 days before we cut it. So our, our product is like pretty high end and it's then, then act.
- [19:33]
A
Like it and sell it to people who are willing to pay for high end and take it into Philly, into the rich neighborhood, the gated hoa. And, and, and you know, and let's, and you may want to just, you may want to set up a good online store, let them purchase it and you may need to put a delivery option with it. I don't know. Because I'm thinking these people, they're willing to pay more than they would pay at Whole Foods and Whole Foods is freaking expensive. But they're buying local and it's farm to table mentality. So I'm kind of trying. That's the customer I gotta find. Because the only way you're gonna this is gonna work is your prices have to go up and your current marketplace won't absorb the prices. That's why you keep saying I don't want to offend our clients. Well, you're probably going to offend them because you're going to have to go up or you're going to not be doing this. It's not fun anymore.
- [20:26]
B
Right, right. Because we're just breaking even up.
- [20:28]
A
Exactly. So I mean it's a freaking hobby. Who wants to do that? So. And you know, but you know, we've got the best sausage and sausages. You can't get mixes and I don't know, different, whatever varieties that you can't get anywhere else. And you know, you build out in Tennessee. We build out a sausage and biscuit box. Right. And we deliver you a box of 12 of these with a specialty sausage. You pick the sausage and we'll set it all on there and send it out to you. And I don't know, I'm making this up, but somehow make this Boutique to where the health conscious people with city chickens and gluten free are thinking this is a good deal.
- [21:14]
B
Right, Right. And you make that, make a good point. Because like the other part of our business, the farm processing business, like we process for local farms and then they are going to the farmers markets in Philly and selling this stuff that we're making and we make like a dollar a pound on, on our farm processing stuff. It's like that's already.
- [21:30]
A
How much competition have you got on that part of the business?
- [21:33]
B
Not big at all. We started in the pandemic with one customer and we have over 100 farm process farms that we work with nowadays.
- [21:40]
A
Yeah. So you could probably raise those prices.
- [21:44]
B
You. I can, but like you should. Where? Yeah.
- [21:47]
A
You're not on that 600. You're not making enough. You told me.
- [21:50]
B
Right.
- [21:51]
A
If you can get away with raising your prices, I'm going to raise them. I just say, hey man, it's inflation.
- [21:58]
B
Right.
- [21:58]
A
Because you're having to pay more for your help than you were five years ago and you hadn't gone up on your price.
- [22:03]
B
Correct. Like our, we pay for our employees. Like I don't, I don't know.
- [22:08]
A
I know, Me too. So you gotta go up on your price when the cost of the goods go up. Labor is one of your cost of goods. The cost of the dadgum beef goes up. Hello. Cost of the processing goes up, the cost of the service goes up. If the cost of the machinery doing the work goes up, you have to raise the price of the thing. And you know, I would just send out a note to our customers. Listen, we love you, we appreciate your loyalty. We've been able to hold prices down as long as we could, but inflation's finally got us the cost of our labor. The cost of this is we're going to have to see. You're going to see some price increases. We're not doing it to gas or cause we're greedy. We're just trying to stay open, boys and girls and send out a note to your people that says something like that and then raise your prices on that 600k. On the other thing. I think you've got to change your marketing, your brand proposition. What's your value proposition? Your value proposition right now is to people who there's not. You don't have a huge customer base, number one, because you're in a rural area. The storefront I'm talking about.
- [23:05]
B
Yeah.
- [23:05]
A
And you're just trying to sell really good beef very simply for that reason or really good Meat just for that reason, sausage and whatever. But I think you've got to make it unique and frou frou enough that you can raise your prices a lot and include a truck and a delivery and put a 16 year old kid that's got a great smile delivering that stuff and remembers every client's name in the HOA and every time that a client said, hey, tell your neighbors about us and we'll send you a free. Send you 5 pounds of fresh ground beef or 5 pounds of our specialty sausage or something if you send your neighbor to us and that kind of thing. The other thing that people are doing in this space and you know this, they're doing subscription base, right?
- [23:53]
B
Yes, yes, yes.
- [23:58]
A
Boxes online subscription delivery, brand proposition different and raise your prices. I'm not sure. Somewhere in that gobbledygook of verbiage that I've thrown at you in the last few minutes there's probably an idea or sex.
- [24:13]
B
I agree. We've actually been trying to do our marketing by creating a destination out of our location by bringing by advertising in some of these bigger like more affluent areas and try to get them to come out to our area because the drive is beautiful. Like take a Saturday, come out and see us.
- [24:29]
A
Yeah, that might work for wine. I'm not sure that works for a steak.
- [24:31]
B
Yeah, okay, it might.
- [24:33]
A
If it's working. I won't argue with you. I'll try it. I'm thinking I'm your client basically and I ain't coming. You're gonna spring it to my house? Cause I got stuff to do.
- [24:45]
B
Sure.
- [24:47]
A
If I'm going to go. If I'm going to go for a beautiful drive in the country. It's probably involves wine, not beef or sausage. I could be wrong.
- [24:53]
B
Yeah.
- [24:54]
A
Or maybe a cool breakfast. Might be a cool breakfast. I don't know. Yeah, I'm just gabbing with you. I don't know. I would try. Daniel, I think you're onto something. What you have identified very clearly and you've got good business acumen. I'm proud of you. Is that what we're doing isn't working. So we've got to try some different things and I'm just throwing a bunch of ideas against the wall. You're already trying a couple of them. I probably said things you already knew, but I'm just trying to look at it through the lens of a customer and what my. What might move me to do business with you rather than run down and and pick up a filet at Costco, for God's Sakes, you know, and so I'd much rather buy it from Daniel and all of you would too. So good stuff, Daniel. Proud of you, man. Keep fighting it. You're going to get it because you've noticed it. I. It's people that don't notice it and don't address it. They're the ones that go down. You got good business nose man. You got it. Keep at it. Keep at it. Question from Lynn in Iowa. Dave, I know how important it is to hire slowly and fire quickly, but what do you do when you need help? Right now I'm in a season where the work is piling up and I feel the pressure to just get someone in the door. How do you balance the urgency of needing help immediately with the wisdom of hiring the right person for the long haul? Lynn, if you hire bodies, you're gonna bring so much pain into your life that you will never do it again. How do I know this? Because I've done it. When you hire wrong, because you get in a hurry, because business is piling up, work is piling up, and I get panicked and I've gotta have some help. So I'll hire anything that can fog up a mirror. You're going to get hell on earth in your building. Every dysfunctional, toxic, bullcrap, drama thing that could possibly happen is going to happen because you just open the floodgates for crazy to come in and you're going to get your crazy, you're going to get your feel of it. So I know, I've been there. I mean, I've had times around here. We went through a three or a four year stretch where we could simply. We had 40 tech positions for writing code, 40 developer positions on the block, and projects all over this building were standing up, running backwards, not getting done on time, missing budget, couldn't get the product to market because we couldn't get the labor, we couldn't get the help in the building. And we, you know, did not violate it. Because in the past I've been in that same situation and I had the same exact feelings and emotions you've got, Lynn. And the urgency of needing help immediately took precedent. And I put. I let the guard down. And then what have I got? I got, you know, I don't have team members, I end up with activists. And you know what an activist is a firing looking for a place to happen. That's what that is. And so you got confused about who owns the freaking place. You got confused about what you were supposed to be doing when you were here. You got confused about your place on the planet and somehow you thought you were gonna come to work. I was gonna pay you to fight me. That's really confusing for you and me. So, I mean, this crap, this is what I've dealt with. And so. No, no. And I've kept people too long for the same reason how we gotta get the work done. At least they're doing some of it. But meanwhile, everybody else is looking at the doofus who's the half butt doing their job. And they're slowing down because he is. And you're changing the culture. Instead of one of excellence to one of, we ain't gonna get it done ever. And when we do, it be wrong. And so. God almighty. You know, really? No, I'm sorry, Lynn. There is only one formula that works, and it is very, very painful. But it's not as painful as having crazy in your building. And that's go slow and get the right people. Just turn the business away. It's not worth it. You're gonna. You'll end up growing a business, folks. And some of you have done this. You know what I'm talking about. You're growing a business that you own, it has your name on the side of it and you hate your job. I don't wanna go to work. There's crazy people down there. Cause I hired them. That's where you can end up. And I've never been to that in extreme, but I've had enough crazy in the building that it was distracting. And we couldn't get anything done because we were dealing with all the crap and the drama instead of dealing with actually getting our freaking work done because I got in a hurry or allowed some leader who's all enthusiastic, Dave, we just got to get this done. We got to get this done. And they would push us past. And man, every time I would say, there's probably three different seasons that we did that in 30 years. Only about three times we did that in 30 years. The first time was when I was so dumb. When I started, I just hired everybody because I was so dumb. I thought if you hired people, they'd work. I was so dumb. I thought if you hired people, they'd care. I was so dumb. If you hired people and told them we start at 8:30, that they get there at 8:30 instead of 10:30. And, you know, I was so dumb, I thought if you hired people, they would steal from you because you were paying them to feed their kids. Instead, they steal. And so, I mean, that's the first round. And, you know, I had a whole stable of donkeys the first round. Not every single one of them, but way too many. And so, you know, that bunch was gone. And then we started getting, okay, now I'm going to tighten up. And we went for a good long stretch and then we. Things were booming. And sometimes the thing that can cause failure the most is success. When success is kicking in and you're booming and things are happening, you feel like you got the Midas touch. All of a sudden you feel like the rules don't apply anymore and we got to get this project done. This is a killer project. Let's get some guys and gals in here. Let's get this thing done. And, oh, geez, we let our guard down again. And that one wasn't as bad as the first one. None of them are as bad as the first one. But, you know, that's when we discovered that people don't always come to work for the right reasons if you allow yourself to hire them. So I'm sorry, Lynn. Only one way to do it. It is very stressful, but it's not nearly as stressful as dealing with crazy. Go slow, kiddo. Go slow. Thanks for hanging out with us, boys and girls. We're glad you're here. If you want to help us out, you're our best marketing effort and we could help. We could use the help, actually. If you click the follow button, the subscribe button on this show, you leave a nice five star review, you share the show. All of those things move the needle with the algorithms and the Internet and it causes the show to be pushed forward. And people get to see that we are here. All because you were following subscribing, sharing, and five star reviewing. Thank you for all of that. The phone Number here is 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-1090. And you can be part of this program. We'd love to have you. Jason is with us in Salt Lake City. Hey, Jason. What's up?
- [32:06]
B
I'm just enjoying the day. Dave, how are you?
- [32:09]
A
Me too, sir. How can I help?
- [32:13]
B
So I run a company over in Utah. I got about 80 people right now. Our top line revenue is last year was just over $10 million. And I've never actually had a true HR person within the company. I have somebody that does payroll and stuff like that, but with 80 people on my team now, if I hired an HR person, how would they help me grow my company and make this more effective, to be able to operate better than where we are right now.
- [32:49]
A
I think you're asking the perfect question at the level that you're at. That was the level we brought in our first HR person and the level that we brought in our first cfo. And both of those were positions I was not used to leading. I'm an entrepreneur. Leave the cave, kill something, drag it home. So HR wasn't something I really give a crap about, except as long as we got the people and got it hired and got the work done and CFO was okay. Somebody count the money and pay the bills and we're okay, right? But it turns out that people are actually thinking about those two spaces while you're running the business. It does cause the business to run more efficiently because it lowers the number of mistakes you make, number one. But number two, you can maximize some of the investments you're doing. So what you don't want is Corporate America crap. And with HR directors or CFOs, and that's where everyone starts bowing to them. They are there to serve the company, not the company serve them. So if the bean counters and the rule makers in HR interrupt business all the time, then they're not doing their job. Their job is to serve the business and to make the business run better. So when I brought in our first HR person, mainly his job was recruiting and hire, helping us in the hiring process. He didn't do the only hiring. And today our HR team still does not do the only hiring. They'll do the initial interview, they'll do the recruiting, and then they'll maybe even a second interview. And then they'll sit the person down with what we call the hiring leader, meaning the person that's leading the area that's doing the hiring. And they're going to be working for that guy or that gal. And that person's going to spend a lot more time interviewing the candidate because they're making the decision do they want them, do they want to pay them and have them on their team. And so HR does not recruit, hire and deliver someone to a business unit here who the business unit has never met. We hope it works out. No, no, no. That's a bad idea. That's corporate America crap. The other thing HR does not do is run a bunch of rules around the company that shuts down anybody from doing anything because we're trying to accomplish some kind of bull crap HR program. Okay? Now HR is here to make life better for everyone and easier for everyone when it comes to the human resources. Today at Ramsey and at Your stage, you're going to start to add some stuff like this. HR is the one that helps us manage our health program, our health insurance, and they're the ones that communicate. Getting signed up for that and getting signed up for your 401k and whatever other benefits we have, we'll have. You know, different things happen through the year and HR will be the cause of the. You know, you can get your flu shot or you can get whatever and they just call and get somebody to come over and do that and just make it think things that make it easier on the team is their job, but their job is not to be running around flexing. And some companies, the HR does that. You know what I'm talking about?
- [36:11]
B
Yeah. Can I ask one follow up question on that? Sure. So when you hired, did you go after somebody with lots of experience or did you go after somebody that was maybe a little more green behind the years or, you know, new at it, but hungry, going with the ideal team player standpoint where.
- [36:30]
A
No, I went with a.
- [36:31]
B
There's a lot of stuff out there.
- [36:33]
A
You could do either one. And to answer your question though, the one we hired was a guy named Rick Perry. And Rick had been with Procter and Gamble for many, many years. And so he knew all the corporate things, not to do the crap, right. But he also had a heart for us and for small business and for what we were doing. And so he helped a lot with our recruiting processes, with our hiring processes, with things like job descriptions and you know, we were just kind of loosey goosey and he tightened up how, you know, how good we, how our excellence. He helped us with our excellence. But he knew that stuff. He could do that lifting with his little finger. It wasn't hard for him at all because he'd been there, done that, and he stayed with us until we retired. The first guy we hired stayed here until he retired. He retired probably, probably five years ago, I guess now. But he was here forever. And he's a great guy, still a good friend. But yeah, you need to outline what it is you want them to do and what it is you don't want them to do. Like I just gave you all the corporate crap that they're not gonna do, right? You're not taking over our company. You're just gonna be helping us with these things, okay? And everyone here does. Cause in corporate America, everybody is scared of hr. They bow, you know, and management's scared of them in a lot of cases. So you don't want that and you don't want with a cfo. You don't want people scared of the budget committee. The budget committee told me I couldn't do this. What the crap is that? What's a budget committee? I'm the budget committee. No, you're freaking doing it. What are you talking about? And these are the kinds of conversations we've had at Ramsey. So we do have a budget committee, but it understands its job is to serve, not to limit and be the business interruption department. And so that's the kind of stuff you have to fight against in your world and in my world and I have had to do. But all of that said, 80 people, $10 million, you need to start talking about a good your first good HR hire and let them blend into your culture. Not your culture. Blend into their rules. And the same thing with your first line, first hire on your CFO. And you're doing a good job. Jason, congratulations. $10 million, man.
- [38:53]
B
80.
- [38:53]
A
80 people. You're a stud. That's awesome. So proud of you. Wow. Very, very cool. Hey, folks, remember, better a weary warrior than a quivering critic. This world needs more high quality leaders, so take courage and lead. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thanks for joining us on entree leadership.
- [39:17]
B
Sam.