Should Leaders Work a 4-Day Week or Does It Create Resentment?

Summary

The EntreLeadership Podcast – Episode Summary

Episode Title: Should Leaders Work a 4-Day Week or Does It Create Resentment?
Host: Dave Ramsey (Ramsey Network)
Date: January 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode explores whether leaders—particularly business owners and executives—should adopt a 4-day workweek. Listeners call in with real business challenges about work-life balance, career ambitions, team dynamics, profit-sharing, and more. Dave Ramsey leverages decades of hands-on business experience (not just theory) to give direct and practical advice, emphasizing personal responsibility and clarity around life and business goals.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Should Leaders Move to a 4-Day Workweek?

Caller: Brandon, CEO of a small manufacturing company

• Context:

  • Company: 13 employees, $6M+ annual revenue
  • Brandon is 35, recently acquired the business, seeking a 4-day workweek for family/hobbies
  • Concerned about team resentment and stepping back too early in his career
  • Company reportedly runs well without intensive daily involvement from Brandon

• Dave’s Response:

  • Advised caution if leader steps back but team doesn’t: “I don't think you can cut it to a four day work schedule with 13 team members unless you got the whole thing back to four days.” (04:26)
  • Acknowledged Brandon’s business is highly profitable (personal income ~$1M/year) and runs smoothly without him
  • “You can afford it and I don't think you're gonna destroy your business. So if you want to do it, it's fine. But you got a house full of littles and you're gonna be home on Fridays. I don't know how this is changing all this thing.” (06:25)
  • Challenged whether lack of time will truly be solved by one less workday
  • Ultimately says it’s doable, but questions if it solves the ‘real’ problem: “I’m questioning if we’re really solving the problem. If the problem has been clearly defined and you’re really solving the problem, that’s what’s running through my head.” (07:11)
  • Warned about the illusion of early retirement: shared an anecdote about a friend who “retired” young and became depressed and unfulfilled (09:15–13:35)
  • Closing message: Serve others, find purpose; “Serving others is much more prone to bring happiness than consumption.” (13:30)
  • Memorable Quote:
    • “If you want to quit working … that is your goal. You can do that. … I'm just warning you that more times than not … they call it retirement or they call it pulling back in the name of family life balance or … it doesn't give them what they thought it was going to give them.” (09:57)

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2. Structuring Team Profit Sharing for Growing Companies

Caller: Eileen, Chief Growth Officer, new company

• Context:

  • Startup company (from 2 to 4 team members, $1.5M+ gross revenue)
  • Wants to implement monthly/quarterly profit-sharing as team grows, but income is unpredictable

• Dave’s Response:

  • Keep profit-sharing selective in small companies—doesn’t have to include every employee initially
  • Use actual end-of-month profit calculations; if Eileen gets 5%, she gets 5% of monthly profit, paid on the 15th of the following month (17:24)
  • Adjust for large future expenses by setting aside “sinking funds” before profit
  • Always reserve cash for retained earnings and predictable big expenses to avoid cash flow problems
  • Quote:
    • “What we do and what has worked well for us is we simply close the books at the end of the month and we know what the profit was. … By the way, if there's profit, that money should be in the checking account, right?” (17:24)
  • Advised against smoothing or averaging profits; instead, share the direct percentage

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3. Choosing the Right Marketing Channels

Caller: Autumn, small business owner (Richmond, VA)

• Issue: Overwhelmed by options like Facebook, Google, email, direct mail—how to choose?

• Dave’s Advice:

  • Begin with “Where are my customers?” (24:01)
  • Identify customer persona and their preferred channels: “Is a Google keyword going to lead me to that exact person, that demographic, that age group … ?”
  • Test and measure channels, speak directly with customers
  • Example: Gen Z is not on Facebook; direct mail can work for some demographics; understand media trends
  • Format and platform choices must match customer profile
  • Quote:
    • “Get in there and figure out what your target is and where your target lives. … Find out where they live and go run some tests on those locations and that'll get you where you need to go.” (25:18)

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4. Buying Into a Family Business & Protecting Your Marriage

Caller: Rachel, painting company (transitioning from corporate, buying into husband’s business)

• Context:

  • $2.8M revenue, 19 employees, anticipating company buyout
  • Concerned about work overtaking marriage, and wants advice on what to look for before buying the company

• Dave’s Advice:

  • At work: Treat family members according to their role/title, not their relationship; don’t use pet names, keep professional boundaries (32:39)
  • At home: Don’t let work dominate family time—no business email or talk over dinner; ask family’s permission to “time out” for business if necessary
  • On buying the company: Ensure husband knows company weaknesses from being there, and has authority to fix them
  • Recommend seller-financed purchase with aggressive payout, ideally in 3 years—avoid debt and long-term obligations
  • Quote:
    • “While we’re at work, the title of the person is how they are treated. … And then when you get home, you change those hats out. … We don’t talk about work over the dinner table.” (32:39)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “This is again, not a think tank. … I freaking do this and I've done it for almost 40 years.” — Dave Ramsey (01:33)
• “[On pulling back at 35] Congratulations on a wonderful income at 35 years old. Wow. Impressive.” (07:35)
• “Retiring … wasn't all it was cut out to be for him. … He got fat and was miserable and was depressed.” (10:05)
• “Serving others is much more prone to bring happiness than consumption.” (13:30)
• “[On profit sharing] If Eileen gets 5% of the profits, then whatever the profits were … she’s going to get 5%, and we pay that out on the 15th of the month following.” (17:24)
• “Identify clearly the Persona of your customer. … Then you may figure out real quick, okay, our customer is an 18-year-old. Well, they're not on Facebook.” (24:25)
• “[Family business] … At work, the title … is how they are treated. … When you get home, you change those hats.” (32:39)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:25] Should Leaders Move to a 4-Day Workweek? (Brandon's call)
• [09:15] Early Retirement Anecdote & The Purpose of Work
• [16:01] Profit Sharing Structure for Small Teams (Eileen’s call)
• [23:51] Deciding on Marketing Channels (Autumn’s call)
• [31:50] Family Business Buyout & Marriage Boundaries (Rachel’s call)

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Tone & Style

Dave Ramsey’s delivery is practical, direct, and just a bit irreverent (“not a think tank,” “freaking do this”). He draws heavily on personal stories, real-world analogies, and anecdotes from decades in business. The focus is always on actionable insight, clarity about goals, and staying grounded in reality rather than chasing cultural trends or theoretical advice.

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Useful Takeaways for Listeners

• Only consider pulling back your workweek if your team and business can truly thrive without you; but remember, time management and life satisfaction often require deeper adjustments than just fewer hours at the office.
• Implementing profit sharing? Tie it to real profits, manage cash conservatively, and don’t feel pressured to include every team member at the outset.
• On marketing: Focus efforts where your target customers actually live; don’t chase every channel without purpose.
• In family business, strict professionalism at work and strong boundaries at home help preserve both the business and the marriage.

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Transcript

[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 got a question you want to ask on this show, then fill out the [e-mail] ask or call us at 844-944-1070. That's 844-944-10720. Many years ago, we took the class that we had been teaching, the event that we'd been doing called entree leadership and put it into a book that became a best selling book. It is the playbook for how Ramsey runs. And the secret sauce for entre leadership has always been that we show you what we've been doing behind the scenes. Real people really running a business, not theory. This is not a think tank. This is freaking what Ramsey does. And now over the years, 20 years plus, we've been doing this product where we help businesses, particularly small businesses. We now coach 10,000 small businesses. So in the process of doing that, we look behind, behind the scenes at real businesses, including ours, and we show you what's going on at real businesses. An example is I take a call here from a real business and I'm a real business guy and I'm answering a question for a real business person. And we're giving you real insight and so not theory. This is not. This is again, not a think tank. It's not a professor who's never made payroll. I freaking do this and I've done it for almost 40 years. And so it's what we do. And so we're always trying to find ways to show you what is going on under the hood because that's what you want from us and it's what we show. So starting soon, you're gonna notice some new entree leadership episodes on this channel dropping right here on this feed. And we're pulling back the curtain in a different way. And we're gonna show you how we actually run things around here. You're gonna start hearing from some of our team members. Members, they're not professional broadcasters. They are people that are actually running a freaking business. And we're gonna start sharing some of that stuff with you here in different ways, unique ways that we've never done before. But it is all tied back to this basic idea that we give you real world information from real world people instead of theory. We're not bringing on some Author that wrote a book who's never made payroll and he hopes he gets enough royalties to cover the book. You know, I mean, that's not what we're doing. So we're gonna give you more of what you want. It's tactical, it's practical, and it's built to move the needle. Not theory. It's tools and habits and principles. So be on the lookout for some different kinds and new episodes coming out on this feed. You're gonna like it, but I'm just giving you a heads up why we're doing it and what we're doing. And it all ties back to that central theory, that central idea that, that it's not theory, that it's practical information that we're gonna give you. Just like with Brandon in Houston, Texas. Hey Brandon, how are you?

[B]

Hey Dave. Doing well. Thanks for having me on.

[A]

Sure, man. What's up?

[B]

So I'm the owner and CEO of a small manufacturing company. We've got 13 employees and our annual revenues are a bit over $6 million. And I wanna take a step back. I wanna step back to a four day work schedule so I can spend more time on family and friends and hobbies. But I've got two main concerns about making that change. First, I'm worried that my team will somewhat resent me for stepping back while they continue to work a normal five day week. He might even say that I feel some kind of guilt about this. And the second concern is that I'm only 35 years old, so I worry that I'm too young to take my foot off the gas in my career and I might miss out on even greater financial success. So really just want to know what you think if you put your. Their business therapist had on. Are these concerns valid that things that I should listen to or do you think it's acceptable in my situation to cut back to a four day work schedule?

[A]

I don't think you can cut it to a four day work schedule with 13 team members unless you got the whole thing back to four days.

[B]

Yeah, it runs pretty well without me. For additional context, I acquired the business about a year and a half ago and it was. The owner was already fairly absent. He was in his 90s. Believe it or not. I took two weeks off for a paternity leave recently and then kind of worked part time during that time as well. And we had a record quarter. So we do have strong lieutenants here. I mainly focus on, I do close the books. It takes me 48, four to eight hours a month and then I focus on strategic projects for improvement, but day to day stuff I'm not typically too involved in.

[A]

So what is your income? Personal income?

[B]

My personal taxable income is about a million.

[A]

This thing's got serious margin.

[B]

Yeah, it's doing well.

[A]

Okay, that is an additional context. And that does change the answer then. Yeah, I don't see why you can't do this. I don't see a problem with it. The only thing I'm struggling with is just the idea that you're 35 years old and you're going to quit working. That's just.

[B]

We don't want to quit working. I, it's. My work is my favorite hobby. I love working. I love coming to work. But I met, I realized recently that I think through conversations, introspection and conversations with my wife that for the first time in my life, you know, my whole life, it's, it's. You have the time but not the money to do things you want to do. And now it's flipped. I've got money, but I don't have the time. And between my wife and I, when our four children, which range from three months to nine years old, it feels like we spend all our time working, which is me raising the kids and keeping up with household tasks and we don't spend enough quality time with each other, we don't see friends often enough and we barely pursue hobbies anymore.

[A]

Well, other people do that with a 40 hour week.

[B]

It's true. Maybe, maybe it's part of the reasons we have twin three month old twins.

[A]

But yeah, that, that matters. But the, but I mean, people have hobbies and friends and quality family time with a 40 hour week. That's eight hours a day out of 24, only five days. And they have for decades and centuries. So I, I don't know that this one day is going to get you what you've been wanting here because I don't know what's going on exactly under the hood here. You can afford it and I don't think you're gonna destroy your business. So if you want to do it, it's fine. But you got a house full of littles and you're gonna be home on Fridays. I don't know how this is changing all this thing. I've got money in no time thing that much. But if you know, it doesn't sound like it's going to do harm to you. So if you want to do it, I'm fine doing it. Yeah, I'm questioning if we're really solving the problem. If the problem has been clearly defined and you're really solving the problem, that's what's running through my head. And I don't know because I'm not sure I'm grasping the problem or agreeing that there is as big a problem as you all seem to think there is. So. But that's really irrelevant to the question. Your question is, can you pull this off? And yeah, I think you can pull it off. Based on what you've told me, it sounds like it's gonna work. So have at it, brother, and congratulations on a wonderful income at 35 years old. Wow. Impressive.

[C]

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[A]

Listen up folks. Your business won't grow until you do. When you lead better, your people perform better and your business wins. That's why you've got to come to our next Entree Leadership Summit. It's the premier event for leaders who are serious about growth. You're going to spend four days getting insights from world class leadership experts, including Will Guidera, New York Times bestselling author of Unreasonable Hospitality. One of our most favorite speakers that we've ever had on the surveys at Entree is coming back. Same thing with Vanessa Van Edwards, the national bestselling author of Captivate, Brian Buffini. Again. Man, this is like a lineup of all the people you guys have loved in the surveys. Founder of North America's largest real estate coaching company, and our favorite Irishman Yeah. And Duncan Wardle, former head of innovation and creativity at Disney. And Pat Lincione, again, band favorite, big time. Best part is it all happens at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando. To join us May 17th through 20th, 2026, go to entreeleadership.comsummit or check the link in the show notes. You need to define what winning looks like very clearly when you're making decisions about shifting your involvement with a business. I've run into too many people that thought the end game was a liquidity moment or a thing where they could step back. Based on Brandon, our last caller. Right. So a friend of mine started when he was 16 years old and built a series of stores, I'll just leave it at that. And had all the real estate for all the stores and then a big company in that space came in and bought him out when he was 32 years old and he had more money in a pile on his kitchen table that he ever dreamed he would see. So he, quote, unquote, retired at 32 years old, millions and millions and millions of dollars stacked on his kitchen table and he went fishing and went golfing. And using his words, I got fat and I was miserable and I was depressed. So it turns out that retiring, meaning not working anymore at 32 years old wasn't all it was cut out to be for him. And so he ended up going in a different business and then sold it and then went back into the business eventually that he had originally sold and helped run it for years and then went into other businesses. But he's never quit working again. He still vacations fabulously and luxuriously and often, but he never quit completely working again because it just didn't do it for him. Now, if you want to quit working again, you'd never want to work again a day in your life. And that is your goal. You can do that. And I'm not going to be mad at you if that's your definition of success. And you get there, you go do it. I'm just warning you that more times than not that I have, I'm 65 years old, that I have run into people doing that and they call it retirement or they call it pulling back in the name of family life balance or they call it this or that that. It doesn't give them what they thought it was going to give them. They don't come out smiling and happy and Skittles and rainbows, you know, so this idea that I'm 65 years old, I'm in really good health you know, Lord willing, and the creek doesn't rise, I'm going to probably make it to 90 or more, you know, the shape I'm in. Okay, and probably, and my family history says it's probably true too. So. Okay, so for 30 freaking years, I'm going to do nothing for 30 years. Your body and your spirit is not designed that way. And so it's, you know, and that's where you run into people working a regular job who retire and 18 months later they're dead. And we've all seen that one. So again, I'm not suggesting that you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor. I'm not suggesting you shouldn't go on a month long cruise around the world. If you made $25 million, that's fine, go do that. But I am suggesting that living on a cruise ship for the next 14 months, it's probably not going to be fun at some point, at some point it's going to lose its sizzle, you know, and if all you've got to do is look. And so I suggest that you carefully analyze, if you're looking at something like that, either a liquidity moment, selling out completely and you think that's going to bring you happiness, quote unquote, or pulling back, getting family life, balance is going to bring you happiness, quote unquote. I suggest that you really carefully analyze that and spend much more time talking about it because we set that up in America as the goal that says I won, I rung the bell, I don't have to work anymore. And then it doesn't necessarily bring this sense of happiness. Serving others is much more prone to bring happiness than consumption. And so finding something to do. And again, if you want to cut back and you've worked your butt off and you want to cut back your hours like that guy, that's fine. I'm really not mad about this. I'm not laying down a principle that you should never quit work. That's not what I'm saying. But I am saying you need to really consider this. Because I know several, several people that sold their businesses and they got a huge pile of money and then five years later all they're still talking about is selling their business. And they're just not, it didn't do it for them, you know what I'm saying? So that's what I really want you to consider is what's the next thing after you do this and what is it really going to bring you? Because I can promise you going golfing, going fishing, and Getting fat is not gonna do it for you, to quote my friend. Okay. And that's a direct quote, by the way. All right. Eileen is with us in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Eileen. How are you?

[D]

I'm doing great, Dave. How are you?

[A]

Better than I deserve. What's up?

[D]

I've been waiting years to hear that. This is like Christmas speaking to you. I'm so excited.

[A]

Honored to have you. How can we help?

[D]

Well, I'm the chief growth officer for a new company we launched in January. We started as two team members, the owner and myself. We are getting ready to add our fourth team member. Our gross revenue is 1.5 and going. We took. We did very modest salaries, and we've just been sort of hoarding money all year because we were sort of unsure what all of our expenses were. The question is, how do we structure profit sharing from, like, a bonus standpoint as we add team members going into next year? Specifically, I would like to do it on a monthly or quarterly basis, but our income is a little unpredictable. So I'm a little nervous, and I wanted to get your advice.

[A]

Okay. You've not had any. Well, I mean, once you got past the startup phase, are you gonna have any months that have zero profit?

[D]

We should not have any months with zero profit.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

We should not.

[A]

Okay, good. All right. And I don't necess, you know, if you got four people and you all are participating in the profits, I don't know that you have to add every employee to profit sharing. When a company is this small, you can if you want to, but I don't feel obligated to do that at this stage. You could run it a while and get it a little larger before you start worrying about that. But what we do and what has worked well for us is we simply close the books at the end of the month and we know what the profit was for. Pick a month. We'll call it March. Okay. So we close the books at the end of March, so we know what the profit was for March. And by the way, if there's profit, that money should be in the checking account, right? Okay. And so then we have pre decided before that what percentage of each month's profits are going to be distributed to each person. And so If Eileen gets 5% of the profits, then whatever the profits were for March, she's going to get 5%, and we pay that out on the 15th of the month following. So if we close March's books at the end of March, April 15, Eileen would see 5% of March's profit in her check that puts the company in no cash flow bind. And if the profits are slim because it's one of the down months because there's some cyclical things, then your 5% is going to be 5% and not much. Or if it was a great month because of timing and all the checks hit and not many of the expenses hit. So the profits are huge. You're going to get 5% of an artificially high profit number. But it's a real profit number. It's just not going to be that way every month. So you don't have to smooth it out. You can just go, this is what the freaking profits were. And we're gonna share 5% of that now we're doing that with Ramsey with hundreds and hundreds of team members. So we don't go on stage and go this is the amount of profit, dollars wise, we made. We go on stage and say our profits are up 14% over last month. They're up 22% over this month last year. And there's this many people participating in profit sharing which is 5 more than it was last month or 5 less than it was last month. So the team is looking at it going, oh, profits are better than last month. My check last month was X. So it's gonna be a little better than X this month. But they don't know exactly what their percentages are. Cause we don't share their percentages.

[D]

Right. Okay. And we do have some cyclical things like we have year long contracts that are paid to us typically in two payment installments or maybe three payment installments.

[A]

But you actually get the cash.

[D]

We do get the cash, but we also have forward expenses. And so do we just hold some of that back and just.

[A]

Yeah, you should put that, you should put in your P and L before you calculate profit. Any, any investment that you need to do in the future. And so if we've got a piece of equipment that we're buying, let's say it's a million dollar piece of equipment, we're setting aside $100,000 a month for 10 months to do that. That comes out as an expense before we calculate this profit number.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

And then that sets that 100,000 over there each month as a little sinking fund. And after 10 months we've got the money to buy the million dollar piece of equipment or if we've got a contract that we've got some contracted software as a service stuff that we do that we have to pay annually or we pay semiannually and we know that we got this big check we gotta write in August, so. Or in January or whatever the date is. Then we have to back out and go cash flow wise. We're gonna start taking that out because we don't want to have this. We don't want to get hit and not have the cash in the bank because we've been distributing profits.

[D]

Exactly. Yeah, that's been my concern is just making sure that we have everything we need.

[A]

And you also ought to, before you calculate this, you ought to be setting some money aside for retained earnings in general.

[D]

Yes, I do have that.

[A]

Okay. So you got retained earnings and then you've got systematized planning for upcoming expenses. And so, you know, like for instance, we'd go entre leadership summit. We're going to Disney in May. And so that's a huge expense month. We're going to be writing old Disney a bunch of checks. Right. And so we got a big income month leading up to that. But we also got this big expense down there. So we can't just destroy entree leadership's profits in a singular month or have the best year ever in a single month either. You know, all that kind of stuff. So we have to do some smoothing with that. And that's done simply by, you know, we're going to set aside each month towards this upcoming expense that's very predictable because it's freaking contracted. We're going to get it or we're going to have to give it one of the two, whatever it is. Right. So you're setting that money aside. So really good question, Eileen. Very cool. Congratulations on your early and quick success. Hope it continues in doubles and triples and rocks. On, man. Good stuff.

[E]

Hey, by this time of year, you've set goals for your business, communicated them to your team and are making them happen together. But while you're busy getting after it, don't forget the primary goal of every single one of your employees. To get paid on time and in the right amount.

[A]

Payroll.

[E]

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[A]

Our question of the day comes from autumn in Richmond, Virginia. Hey Dave. There are so many marketing channels. Facebook, Google email, local partnerships, direct mail. I feel overwhelmed. How does a small business narrow it down to the one or two channels that actually matter? Well, depending on how small we are. You know, small, I guess is relative in this case. But the first thing I do and have always done back in the day when we were tiny even, is I said, okay, where are my customers? The customer profile, who is it I'm trying to get to and where do they live? And so, you know, is a Google keyword going to lead me to that exact person, that demographic, that age group, that income, that level of education, so on? Is email the best way to contact them? If you're looking for Gen Z, email's not gonna be it. They're going to be on text. All right. If you're looking for direct mail, you know, there's only some, only a handful of products that still do really well on direct mail. But direct mails kind of made a comeback. There was a couple of decades that we all kind of turned our nose up at it and said, jump in the creek, no direct mail. But there's some stuff that's actually moving right now really well with direct mail. But again, who is your contact point and what's the zip code you're dropping that direct mail into? And what's the demographic of that zip code? You can get all that information. So identify clearly the Persona of your customer. Our Customer is a 34 year old college educated female with two children and is married. If that's your, I mean, dial that in. Is that who is your customer? Who are you aiming at? And then you may figure out real quick, okay, our customer is an 18 year old. Well, they're not on Facebook. Don't waste a dime on Facebook. If you want 18 year olds, you might get on Instagram. You certainly are going to be on TikTok if you're looking for 18 year olds, but they're not. YouTube maybe, but they're not consuming. So, you know, Facebook is aging quick. It's gotten down to my wife, the 65 year old grandmother, trading pictures with the other grandmothers of the grandkids. And not quite, but man, I'm telling you, Facebook is not the babies, it's getting a little gray. So you Gotta decide. And you can learn that stuff. It's not hard to figure out. But get in there and figure out what your target is and where your target lives. And so, yeah, I'll give you an example in the old days and you wouldn't do this today and you didn't mention it. But a way of figuring that out is, okay, if we were going to buy radio, all right, are we going to buy urban rap? Is that where your customer is? Are we going to buy country music? Is that where your customer is? Might be surprised. They probably are if you're going to buy 70s light yacht rock. Okay, well that's where you'll find your boomers. And you're probably not going to get any 18 year olds there. Okay. So I mean the formatting on radio tells you where to go buy the ads in radio, if you were going to buy radio ads. And that's a clear example of what I'm talking about. Although what you're asking more about is a digital tool. And digital tools are the same way. They're bifurcated by again, education, age, consumption and those kinds of things. So another example is this. Average time spent listening on talk radio is around what used to be around 10 minutes. We had managed on the Ramsey show to get it up to about 18 minutes. We do a three hour show. So that's kind of insulting. Average time spent listening is 18 minutes. You draw it over onto podcasts. You know what your average time spent listening is? Almost 100%. They consume the whole thing because they turn it on and off. You guys don't listen to this all in one setting. Sometimes, sometimes you turn it on and off. You get it in and out of the car, it's on demand. You get in and off the treadmill, it's on demand. And so the consumption rate was almost pure on podcast and it wasn't on talk radio. So we knew when we were trying to get to our customers through our own broadcasts that were getting there. Oh, and by the way, podcast was a much higher educated, much higher income than talk radio was the consumer of. It was and probably still is. And so. And YouTube, what are you going to get on YouTube? Well, you know, I've learned a lot about YouTube that I didn't know over the years and now that YouTube is one of our big broadcast, you know, processes. So Spotify, what are you going to get there that's different than Apple, you know, and so all of those kinds of things, there is a difference. It's a different consumer, it's a Different person on the other end, different customer. And so who do you want to get and where do they live? Go where they live. Don't go looking for 65 year old white guys on urban rap. They're not there. And don't go looking for the cool kids anywhere except urban rap. That's where they are. And so go get the cool kids where they are. But who is it you're trying to sell to? And if you do that, it answers your question a lot. And then you can narrow it down and rule out some channels and then run some tests on the channels where you think they are live, the processes that they live. But and then run some test markets on it and you'll see pretty quick what your response rate is. And then you've got the solve the attribution problem is can I actually say that's where that came from. But you'll have to talk to your customers a lot to figure out where they really did hear about you. And so again, very clearly lay out your customer Persona and then find out where they live and go run some tests on those locations and that'll get you where you need to go. That's a good question, Autumn. I like that. I hadn't had that one in a long time. Owning a business can be a heavy load. You want to serve your customers well, make a healthy profit and grow. And your team, family and customers are all counting on you. And now everybody's talking about AI like it's magic and you're wondering how to keep up. You're carrying a lot, but you don't have to do it alone. That's where NetSuite comes in. Over 43,000 businesses, including Ramsey Solutions, use NetSuite to lighten the load by bringing all their numbers into one system. Accounting, inventory, CRM, payroll, the works. And now NetSuite's AI takes it further, automating busy work, flagging inventory issues, spotting cash flow problems in real time and catching risks before they hit. So you're not just closing the books faster, you're making decisions confidently. And when your numbers are right, that takes a lot of pressure off your shoulders. And yeah, switching systems is a big move, but NetSuite's suite success process gets you up and running fast. Go to netsuite.com. for a free product tour and to schedule a time with a NetSuite rep. That's NetSuite.com Ramsey thanks for joining us on entree leadership. If you want to help us out, consider hitting the follow button or the subscribe button. Leave a Nice five star review. And of course, share this with a friend. Click the share button or cut the link out and send it to somebody. Go. Hey, this is actually actual real business advice. These guys can help you. They've helped me tell people about us. We really would appreciate it if you did that. Rachel's in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi, Rachel. How are you?

[D]

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for talking to me today.

[A]

Sure. What's up?

[D]

Well, I'm calling. I represent a painting company with an anticipated revenue of $2.8 million this year. And we have 19 employees and about an 18% profit margin, which brings us to around 500k this year.

[A]

Good for you, Mike.

[D]

Thank you. My question is that I'm transitioning from corporate America to join my husband as an operations manager or administrator at the paint company he runs. He's been there for about six years. We're hoping to buy the company in the next year or two. And as we consider buying, aside from profitability, what are some things we need to look out for to ensure that it's what's best for our family? And also, how do I protect my marriage from becoming all about work?

[A]

Oh, there's a lot there. Okay, Well, what we have done. Let's start with the last question. How do I protect my marriage from becoming all about work? What we've done with family businesses that we've coached and what we've done with our family is that while we're at work, the title of the person is how they are treated. I'm the CEO. Rachel Cruz is a Ramsey personality. So is George Camel. And so George Camel is treated by me exactly the same way that I treat Rachel. He is also paid the same way Rachel is paid on the same percentages. Now, he might sell more or less books or whatever else, but he gets paid the same way. No special privileges. That's the way. And so when Rachel and I are having a discussion at work, she even calls me Dave at work, not dad. And so translate that into your world. It's not honey at work, okay? Or sweetie at work, or he can't turn around, look at you and say sweet girl, or whatever it is, right? Okay. Whatever the pet. You know, all that. Don't get into all that. It's like, okay, you're going to be running ops and he's going to be running X and he's the CEO and you're the other person. And so you treat your CEO like you would if it was me, okay? And that's with dignity. And you still have the Right. To argue about something and push a point that you believe in. But at the end of the day, he makes the call. He's running it. That's it. And that's his leadership. Or if you're the president and he's reporting to you and he's running the paint crews, then he's going to report to you and he's the president. You know, you see what I'm saying? So you treat that. And then when you get home, you change those hats out. And now it's sweetie and lovey and whatever else. Right? And so we're just. And we don't talk about work over the dinner table. And Ramsey's don't. When we all get together for a family dinner, we talk about everything else. University of Tennessee football, politics, Rachel's latest conspiracy theory, whatever it is, we talk about something, but it's not gonna be Ramsey Solutions. If we do wanna talk about Ramsey Solutions, we have to ask permission of the rest of the family for a quick timeout and do that. And I'm not sitting there working on my iPhone, answering Ramsey Solutions emails all through dinner with my family about work. So you need to be where you are. And that solves your role issue of how it doesn't take over your marriage. Okay? You treat him like a good husband, he treats you like a good wife at home, you treat him like the CEO, he treats you like the COO at work, and everybody's happy. And by the way, I treat my people here at Ramsey really good. I mean, we're not. We're not mean to people here. We don't yell and scream, cuss at them. You know, we'll do any of that stuff. So. And you're not gonna do that at work. Okay, so you don't have a big marriage. It work for sure. That's a absolute no. No. Absolute no. No, because that's you having a temper fit and that's not going to work. So. Okay, now then, on to the other stuff you said. You said. What was the other question? I got sidetracked with that one.

[D]

Aside from profitability, what are some things we need to be looking out for to ensure that purchasing the company in the future is what's best for our family?

[A]

Yeah, well, I mean, purchasing the company is fine as long as you run the company and it doesn't run you. And so your family's not going to be in jeopardy on that. But the thing I'd look for is anytime I'm buying something, if he's been working there a while how long has he been working there?

[D]

Six years.

[A]

Okay. He already knows where the potholes are. I mean, there's no secrets. He knows over there is a weak spot. It might be an employee that's a weak spot that's going to have to go and the current owner hadn't had the courage to get rid of them. It might be a process that's not been instituted. So you've got a theft problem. It might be a process that's not been instituted. So the customer's not getting good communication, all those kinds of things. So what's broken at this company? Well, if he's been hanging around six years, I hope he knows what's broken.

[D]

Well, especially since the last two years he's been the one running it, so I sure hope so.

[A]

And if he has carte blanche to fix those problems, he should have been patching it up right. Them fixed. So, yeah, that puts him in really, really good shape. And then the trick is just not to get yourself into a debt situation that it steals the joy of running the company. And so we often have recommended here. Is the current owner going to finance it for you all or how are you getting the money?

[D]

It will be a payout. We will not go into debt. It will be a payout over the course of several years from the company's profit.

[A]

Okay. Okay. And what I would do is keep your all salary super low, as low as possible, and that payout as high as possible so that it ends as quickly as possible.

[D]

Mm.

[A]

In other words, I'd like to see you get like, the owner gets all his money in three years or something like that. I wouldn't hang around 10 years with this around your neck. So get, get, get really aggressive with your numbers and knock it out. So if you set a set number, this is the number. I'm gonna put everything towards that number as fast as I can to get that number knocked out. But the most I'm obligated to is a percentage of profits. That way, if there's a downturn, it doesn't bankrupt you, and that's how you've laid it out. So you've already learned our formula and have applied it. So very good. That's a good process. It's a good formula. Very good. Yeah. Rachel, I've got a feeling you guys are going to do really well. You're asking absolutely phenomenal questions. So really good. You've got your head on straight. And it sounds like you got a real good by your husband having been there a long time and now running it. Oh man, that just really puts you in a position to to not stub your toe on this and to really, really get a good purchase as long as you don't overpay for it and you get the old owner out of it as quick as possible. I think you guys are going to really prosper from this because you're sharp. So very, very, very well done. Proud of you. Excellent job. 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. If you're a business owner who's been grinding it out and rarely gets time to step back and think clearly, I want to tell you about something special. The Live like no One Else cruise is a seven day experience in the Western Caribbean with me and the Ramsey team. This isn't just a vacation, it's an intentional time away to reset your perspective and celebrate the progress you've made financially and professionally. And in 2027, we're bringing entree Leadership at Sea back. That includes special Entree Leadership breakout sessions you can sign up for, designed specifically for business owners and leaders. You'll get practical teaching, real Q and A and focused time to think through your business with people who understand what you're carrying. Space is limited. Learn [e-mail] events or click the link in the show notes.