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The Think Media Podcast
406: Do This Before 2026! The Creator Survival Plan for the Changing Economy!
01:21:17
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- [00:00]
Sean Cannell
If you've been trying to grow your YouTube channel on your own, you might be frustrated because it's kind of like trying to get in shape without a coach. Slow, frustrating, and full of trial and error. That's why we created the Think Media one on one coaching program where you will get a dedicated expert to walk you through your next steps, to hold you accountable and to teach you advanced growth strategies. Plus, you get connected with the right expert in specific areas from our Think Media team for whatever challenge you're facing. But here's the deal. The annual fee is going up soon, so if you've been on the fence, now's the time to lock in your spot. Just go to YTCoaching.com to apply before the price increases.
- [00:45]
Dave Ramsey
The days of the influencer who has nothing to say and is nothing, the days of that are gone.
- [00:54]
Sean Cannell
Right now, we're living through one of the greatest windows of opportunity in media history. The creator economy is expected to double to $480 billion by 2027, according to Goldman Sachs. But here's the catch. While the industry is exploding, creators are imploding, ad revenue is down, algorithms are shifting, burnout is peaking, and trust in influencers is at an all time low.
- [01:15]
Dave Ramsey
So you're in the right place at the right time. But in 10 years you won't be because this is 100%. You can count on one thing. It's going to change.
- [01:24]
Sean Cannell
In this never before release keynote and in my exclusive conversation with Dave Ramsey, you're going to hear the blueprint for term success in a creator economy that's changing fast. Dave has navigated every major media shift, from radio to television to social media to YouTube. Today he leads one of the most influential content networks online. Multiple successful YouTube channels impacting millions of people every single month.
- [01:52]
Dave Ramsey
Focused intensity over time multiplied by God equals unstoppable momentum.
- [01:59]
Sean Cannell
And I want to encourage you to stick around until the end. Because this isn't surface level strategy. It's tested, timeless and rooted in real results. If you want to build something that lasts and not just go viral for a week, you need this. Because most creators won't survive what's coming.
- [02:16]
Dave Ramsey
How many of you all have ever done something really stupid? How many of you that didn't raise your hand have a problem with lying? When I got out of college at 22 years old, mom and daddy were in the real estate business and I started buying houses and fixing them up and flipping them. I was doing Flip this house before Chip and Joanna were born. And I got rich starting from Nothing. By the time I was 28 years old, 26 years old, I had a little over a million dollar net worth. And I was making $20,000 a month, and that was $1984. $20,000 a month then is different than $20,000 a month now. I was having fun too, y'all. I got a Jaguar within 90 days, baby, I was a Jaguar. And it was. People say all those rich people are miserable, uh, but I'd borrowed too much money from the banks. And the banks looked down. One of them got sold. And a guy in another city looked down and said, A kid, 26 years old, owes us a million two. This is scary. We're going to call his notes. And we spent the next two and a half years of our life losing everything we own. And we hit bottom. I had met God on the way up. I know my friend John spoke this morning. He's an incredible speaker, isn't he? I met God on the way up. I got to know him on the way down. We lost everything. With a brand new baby and a toddler and a marriage hanging on by a thread, we were bankrupt and got the opportunity to start over. And I started studying because I have all these letters and licenses after my name, how money really works. And I started helping some people at our church just sit down, do a budget. And I found common sense. Turns out that's like having a superpower. And I started helping people with that stuff. And my pastor walked by and he goes, hey, this story of you going up and then down, and now you're using that story to give people hope that are broke and broken, too. You need to write that down. You need to do a book. You need to write a book. And I said, you want me to write? You need to talk to my English professor in college. I turned in my first paper, the woman slit her wrist and bled all over it. It was all red. F, F, F. You don't know the English language. You're just a hillbilly. Which is all true, but shouldn't have said it out loud. It was insulting. And a buddy of mine took me to an event. That was this preacher guy that I didn't agree with on anything, but he sold books at the back of the room, like by the truckload. And have you ever watched somebody do something and you go, if that guy can do it, I know I can do it? Have y'all ever done that? I went home and sat down at my computer and typed out what I thought was the first chapter. It ended up being the forward to a little book. And it was on a brand new software that had just come out. Microsoft decided they were going to catch up with Apple. And they went from the green blinking lights to a brand new software called Windows. And it was the coolest thing because you could select fonts and it had clip art. And I mean, I just made a mess. And it was called Works for Windows. For those of you that don't know, Works was the first word processor. The works came before the word. That's actually theological. And so. But the. So I sat down, I was doing real estate deals again, trying to eat and feed this little family. Ours, trying to just survive because we were so scared we couldn't breathe. Our marriage is hanging on by a thread. Y'all ever get in that situation where you're hanging on, but sometimes it's just to get a better grip. You know what I'm talking about, man? My wife's from the hills of East Tennessee, frying pan throwing, theirs an Olympic event. So we sat down at that little computer at night, and I would start typing and I would look up, and it's like, you look up from your editing now and time has flown and the sun's coming up. And I go. I didn't get any sleep. And I got to work today, but I had to get this. It had to happen. It's a creator's moment. You know what I'm talking about? When something in the flow. And I'm just typing and typing and typing and typing and typing and typing. And I took it to a little print shop that a guy in my church had one of these little print shops, print up business cards and letterheads. And he printed up this stupid little book. And it looked awful. I mean, I'll show it to you, y'all. Look at this. It's just. Look how bad it looked. Where'd it go? Look at that thing. Isn't that a great cover? The thing on the left is a dot matrix printer. Some of you don't even know what that is. That was the manuscript. And then I later typeset it into that Works for Windows. And got a lady. I paid her 200 bucks for this cover. And he called me the day I started on talk radio. We got this little broke radio station in town that was in bankruptcy and they agreed to let us work for free. And we went on the air taking financial questions, and I told him, if we're bad, you can just cut our pay in half. And so we went on the air and it was bad, y'all it was like two hillbillies like Darryl and his other brother Darrell, doing talk radio. I mean, you think I got a Southern accent now? This was like wwtn. Y'all call in. It was Hee Haw on the radio. And every day the phone lines were jammed because they didn't care how I sounded. All they cared was that I cared. And they wanted there was somebody there that knew how they felt and they could help them not be in the problem anymore. And the first day we went on the air, Gary called me, the guy that did the printing, and he said, those books are ready. You want to come get them? And I said, do I want to take the baby home from the hospital? Absolutely. Because no publisher would touch me for really good reason. No publisher. It was awful. And I went and we filled up the car. I had a 1995 Mark 7 the hump thing on the back, you know, and we filled up the car with books and, you know, did like the Home Depot thing on the trunk and put the tie and just crammed them in the trunk. And the trunk's up, and I'm driving down the interstate like a lowrider with these books, taking them home and put them in my garage. And no bookstores would take them. And this was so long ago. And some of you will have to look this up on the Internet, but we used to have these things called VHS tapes. And people would go to stores and rent them. And Jimmy Wright had the local VHS tape place at Smith Springs and Anderson Road there in Antioch, Tennessee, where Sharon and I lived. And we rented tapes from him all the time. And I went and I said, jimmy, I'm a good customer. And you're going to put these books on the counter right here with a little sign that I'm gonna give you. And if you sell some of them, I'll cut you in. The first affiliate marketing program I ever did. And he put the books up on the counter after I had to kind of tell him I wasn't gonna do business with him anymore if he didn't. I had to threaten him. But. And I came back in there and I talked about it on the radio. I said, the only place you can get these books is through the mail. Cause there wasn't any Internet. Remember, it's through the mail, or you can go to Jimmy Wright's over in Antioch. It's like he got a free ad on talk radio. And I went back in there and the books were gone. I'm like, what'd you do with the books? And he goes, I sold them, doofus. He goes, have you got some more? And I went, uh huh. And I went out and I carried. I always carried them in the trunk of the car in case somebody wanted one and in case I got pulled over by the cops too. Cause you could talk them out of a ticket by helping them out of their debt. And I would. Then I finally got a bookstore to take them and then another bookstore to take them. And we sold 35,000 of those. And then we put a new cover on it and added four chapters that were all the frequently asked questions on the radio show. We didn't call them that then, but that's what they were. What were the people wanting to know that the book didn't cover? Because I wanted the book to be the answer to anything you wanted to know about. About money. And then we sold 147,000 of those. And it was the largest self published book in Tennessee that year. And it was crazy, y'all. And then an agent called me and said, these people in New York want to buy your book. And I said, I don't think they have enough money. But she said, well, can they come talk? And I said, yeah, they should bring like several Brinks trucks because I needed them when I didn't have anybody to sell the stupid book. But now I'm making margin. Margin's better than royalty, boys and girls. So, you know, and so they came down and talked. I said, I don't think they got enough money. It turns out they did. And we were able to negotiate a deal. And that book was financial peace. It's now 3.2 million copies have been sold of that one. And we sold them. We've got the rear end of that car in our lobby. If you visit Ramsey Solutions, because they were sold out of the trunk of the car. Because I want our team and I want you to always know this. Don't despise humble beginnings. Now there's a lot of different ways you can create content. And I've been sitting back there watching all these things. It's so amazing what some of you all do. You're so creative. I'm not. I just do one thing over and over and over and nobody can tell me to stop. So I won't. Even if they tell me to stop. I don't. I just get louder and it makes them even more pissed off. And so it's just. I just keep doing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And I'm not taking a poll from the Trolls. So it turns out if you try to lead your whole organization or your content creation based on what the masses say, you'll figure out the M is silent. So if you're going to do something in the vein that we're doing it in, I know there's all kinds. There's entertainment and there's other stuff. But if you're going to be in a space like we're in, have something that you have to say or your soul will explode. You can't not, not say it. No one can tell you not to say it. Because you just look at them like, well, you're crazy. Of course I'm going to say it. And just because you said not to say it means I'm going to say it that louder. And I'm going to. You know. And then I'm going to be so successful that you look stupid. And I'm just going to go whip your butt in the marketplace. And I'm. Because you can't tell me not to say this. Because when it comes to financial stuff and leadership stuff, you know, we found a cure for cancer, baby. And we've got. 10 million people have gone through Financial Peace University. It's crazy, y'all. The number of millionaires in America today because they follow these processes that we have to say out loud and we cannot stop saying it. Have something that just boils up inside of you that'll help you sustain when the haters hate. That'll help you sustain when you trip and break something that'll help you sustain when some platform shifts and pulls a rug out from under you because you just can't quit. It's a big deal. So today, we're a long way from out of the trunk of our car. There's 1,100 of us on the team now. 470 of them are Gen Z and tech people. They're incredible. They're so smart. I don't even know what they say. I mean, I go into meetings and I'm like, y'all gotta tell me what you just. Because they're like a. Y'all are. Some of y'all in that world. You're like the military use all these acronyms. I don't even know what it means. And I'm like, okay, just tell me what I'm doing. Because I'm. Since I'm paying for this, I kind of want to know what it is. And so they teach me. But today we went and got one radio station, of course, and then we talked another one into putting us on and we talked another one into putting us on. We talked another one into putting us on. And we talked another one into putting us on. And, you know, and then we were the third largest talk radio show in America. Rush Limbaugh was number one. Sean Hannity was number two. We were number three. And Rush passed away, of course. And now that's not the way you get to be number two. But I did. And so, so, you know, and so Hannity's. Hannity's actually got fewer stations than I've got, but he's got more listeners because he. He works for iHeart, and that's who owns that program. And so. And we own ours. But so Today we're on 640 radio stations. We're the second largest talk radio show in America. We've done over a billion downloads on the podcast. We were the first one on, or we were the fourth one on Apple to ever do a billion. Joe Rogan and NPR and a couple others. And then we were number four. That hit a billion downloads on Apple and over 2 billion YouTube views. It's just nuts. Eight number one bestsellers that I did. Our personalities have done another 10. I've personally sold that says 20 million. It's probably more like 30 at this point. Headlined over 500 live events. I feel like I've done 5,000. I don't know, but I'm tired. But. But I think it's probably somewhere in there. That sounds pretty good. So, Sean, isn't he incredible, y'all? What a sharp young guy, man. He and I were talking, he said, if you come and tell the story, that ridiculous story that I just told, and let's talk about how we can create a sustainable brand, a brand that lasts. How is it that you keep going through all the changes that. That have happened? Because, I mean, I remember the first time I dialed into the Internet, it was like, anybody remember that? 14, 4. Yeah. Broadband wasn't even a thing when we started that stuff. So the first thing, first component, I'll give you four things to sustain a brand before we leave is clarify your mission and don't let anybody take you off of it. Stay on mission. Decide what you is and be it. Don't quit. Don't take a poll. This is principled. It's a decision. This is who we are, and we're not something else. And if you don't like it, then you're just in the wrong area because we're going to run right over your butt. That's how that works. This is our mission. We Provide biblically based education and empowerment which gives with common sense to every area, every area in your walk of life. That's our mission. And so we've got people in the relationship space, in the career space, we've got people in the money space and they all interact. Of course, your career affects your money, affects your money, career affects your relationships, all this. And so We've got these YouTube shows and podcasts and publishing things that are blowing up in every one of these spaces. And that's our mission and we're going to do it. It's very clear. We're not chasing clicks. Number of subscribers is nice. It's a way to look at whether we've got a product market fit. It's a way to do some marketing analysis. But we're not reading the comments to decide if we're right. We already know we're right. You gotta decide that because otherwise you're gonna spend all your life trying to please the trolls. And trolls are ugly little wart covered things that live under a bridge and they live actually in their mother's basement and they don't have a job. So you really don't want to spend your life trying to move to that. You've got to stand on principle. You got to say, this is who we are, this is who we is and we're not going to change. See, one element of integrity is consistency. You expect when you go into a Subway sub shop that that sandwich that you like from Subway, whether you're in Las Vegas or Abilene or New York City downtown, you expect that stinking sandwich to be exactly the same. The consistency is what the yellow sign tells me. That's a type of integrity. I know what it is. And when you come to Ramsey, you're going to know what the type. You're going to know what you get. You may not like it, but that's okay. I mean, at least we understand each other. And so, but this is the consistency. Now, I've gotten older and louder and Grouchier, but in 1995, I was 35 years old, I was one year into this and being interviewed on a really bad Saturday Night Live skit type Christian program. And our guys dug up the stupid video to see if I'm still saying the same thing today that I was saying then. Y'all watch this.
- [20:12]
Unknown Speaker
This is the most marketed to civilization in the history of the world. People can sell us stuff, I mean, and we can buy some stuff. And we got a whole generation of folks, me included, that have developed this disease. We call stuff itis. And then the proverbs say that in the house of the wise are stores of choice of food and oil. Save money, save money. So save money, live on less than you make. Two concepts Congress can't grasp. And then we talk about getting out of debt, the borrower servant to the lender and having a plan to do that. Don't build a tower without first counting the cost. Jesus said in Luke and so lay down a plan, have a budget. Spend every dollar on paper before the month begins.
- [20:49]
Dave Ramsey
Boy, that guy's a hick. I love the little comb over with the Mr. Magoo glasses, don't y'all? I still say once a week, live on less than you make a concept Congress can't grasp. The joke still works because it's based in what we all know to be true. And that's why the humor works. It's based in the principle and it still runs. So you do have to iterate. You do change, you change how you approach the market, you change what you, how you look, you change. You know, you can change a whole lot of stuff but don't change who you are. Iterate like crazy, but be who you are. See if you're just going for the clicks and the quick hits and the going viral and sometimes some of our stuff goes viral and we're not even sure why it did. We had one that hit, we dropped it on TikTok and on Instagram and between the two it went to 42 million in like 48 hours. It was just, and it was a four year old clip sawdust out of the show. We just put one of our, one of our social media guys clipped it out of the show from four years ago. It's not even in the same set, not even the same building we're broadcasting from now. And I still don't know what was so engaging to the TikTok crowd about that. I'm not sure but our guy, our TikTok guys are trying to figure it out, that's for sure. But it was just the same stuff. I mean helping some woman get out of debt, she had a million dollars in debt. I guess that's what it was because it such a big number, you know. But this, you can't, you just can't be doing self centered. I'm worried about what everybody thinks. It's not going to work. Y'all know the numbers. I'm sure you know because y'all are sophisticated and you're learning from Sean and. But it blows my mind. I have to remember, 6% of the Twitter population X population does 88% of the posts. So, you know, the eyeballs matter, but the posts really don't, is what we're saying. If I can get everyone that never posts something to move, that means I've got 94% of that entire platform to move on something, and I never posted once. So you can't take a poll and change your principles. We can iterate in product design, price points, methodologies, innovate, do all of that, but you got to stay in the center. That's the first one. The second one is make the customer the hero. And I'm probably going to hurt some people's feelings, but I'm not taking a poll. So my friend Donald Miller, if you don't follow Donald, you should wrote a wonderful book called Story Brand where he talks about how you use the art of story in building a brand. And it is a fabulous construct. And if you don't know about story, you should. If you're a creator, you ought to think about this. The standard storyline, the standard story arc that goes in a movie or a book, if it's successful, is we meet the hero at the beginning of the story. He doesn't look like a hero, she doesn't look like a hero. They're underwhelming, and we're not even sure, as the viewer, as the reader, that we like them because they're really not appealing, healing people, necessarily, when we first meet them. And then if you're a good script writer, you do what they call save the cat. So there's a cat stuck in the tree, and the hero goes up the tree and saves the cat or saves the puppy or feeds hungry children or does something that makes us now, like the hero, identify with the hero. They're not quite as lame and nerdy as they were when we first saw them. Now we're starting to join with them in the story, and they're kind of going along and everything's going, and then boom, a problem hits. And now we call them a protagonist in storytelling, right? And the hero has. The dragon is coming. The empire is striking back. Something is coming at our hero now. And the hero is struggling and getting knocked down and getting put in jail or getting done, whatever, and they're just getting their tail whipped. And then somewhere in that process, Luke Skywalker meets Yoda, the guide. Or have you seen the new remake of Roadhouse? Yeah, great remake, by the way. I like the old one with Patrick, but this one's good. I watched it the other night. It fits his storyline perfectly. So you've got the hero. He comes to town, he's gonna clean up the roadhouse, save the poor lady who's getting beat up on by the gangsters in the area and all this stuff. And the guide, in this case, in the new version, is the local sheriff's daughter, who is a doctor, who's sewing up all the people this guy beats up. And so she doesn't like him at first, but then she tries to show him his way around the local politics as he has to finish cleaning up the roadhouse. And so the guide comes along, and Yoda comes along and shows Luke Skywalker how to master the Force. And so then. Then, of course, we see them step out with the sword, with the whatever, and go and win the battle. They take down the dragon, they take down the empire. Something happens. But by the end of the story, we've gone from, you know, we save the cat, we like them. Oh, no, our hero's getting their butt kicked now. Boom, they're down. The guide shows them what to do, dresses them up, hands them a lightsaber, and they go win. This is standard storytelling. Make sure in your customer's personal story, because we're all living a story, that your customer remains the hero, not you. Brands that make themselves the hero in the story, the customer doesn't know what to do with that, because in each of our personal lives, we automatically assume we're the hero in our own story. And if you come along with your brand right beside me and tell me you're a hero, now I'm confused. How does this story work? We got two heroes in the story, and it screws it up and nobody can follow it. Your job is to be the guide. So when someone calls and says, dave, you changed my life. No, I did not. I showed you how, and you went and changed your life. Because I don't want to be the hero in your story. I want my customer to be the hero in their own story. And then they'll tell everyone to watch the movie. They'll tell everyone to plug into the process that Yoda showed them. They'll tell everyone to do the stuff. That's what Sean is for you guys. Sean's standing up here all week as the guide. He's not taking credit for anything except he showed you how and encouraged you, and you went and did something. He made you believe you could, which is what a good guy does, right? And then you stood up and you went and made some stinking money. Whoa. And you did something. You're proud of, and you tried something that was scary and it didn't kill you. And that's what a good guy does. It stands them up, dusts off the hero and sits them out there and makes them go win. Make your customer the hero. Sean is expert at this. I don't even know if he knows he's doing it, but I watched him back here doing it with you guys. He makes you guys the winners because you are. You are the heroes in your story. That's fine. Use humor. Don't hesitate to be a little cheesy and have some hope. Give people hope in a culture where everyone tells them the whole thing's going to hell in a hand basket, it's not. It's a wonderful time to be alive. Put out a guided plan of some kind. If you do these steps, we got the seven baby steps we teach people with money. We've got a framework for entrepreneurs that we teach in entree leadership called the entree leadership System. That's the six drivers that takes you through the five phases of business, and we walk you through these entrepreneurs through this stuff. And I was just with 3,000 of them in Dallas yesterday. I flew from there, here right after. We just finished one of our big conferences with that. So, you know, storytelling and humor and make them the hero and hope and a guided plan. Number three, be platform agnostic. He just said that out loud in a YouTube conference. I'm a content creator. Just show me a platform. We were on talk radio. Talk radio is going, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. It was top of its game. Guy walked in my office, one of the youngsters on our team, many, many years ago, and says, we need a podcast. And I said, what is a podcast? And we were the first major talk radio show in America to go into podcasts because talk radio people didn't want to go into podcasts because they were afraid the radio stations that carried them would be pissed off if you had a competing format, competing platform. And so, for instance, Rush, who was a friend of mine, but he never was on anything, ever. Not subscription, not behind a paywall, not in front of a paywall, nothing. He had a newsletter, but he didn't do any broadcasting because he wanted to be honoring to his affiliates and not mess up his affiliates. My affiliates are the way I get to serve my customer. They're a distribution methodology. If they want to get pissed off, have at it. Because my job is not to keep them happy except just enough so that I can use them to get to my customer. That's not being manipulative, but I'm just not confused about who's wagging the tail on this dog. And so those affiliates, we decided, you know, they put these two satellites up in there. There were two companies. One was called Sirius and one was called xm. We went on both of them. Then they couldn't make any money. And so they went together and they still couldn't make any money. So they took Howard Stern. I'm on, I think we got two channels that we fill up all the content on it right now with those guys. And it's not huge, it's not a big deal, but it's up there and it's fine. And we're on this and we're on that and we're on this. It wasn't 20 minutes ago, y'all, that they were dialing up. There was no broadband and YouTube wasn't a thing. In 10 years, where are we going to be? I mean, 2007, Fox called me, I've been doing stuff with them and Neil Cavuto and a couple of Kevin and a couple of the guys that are executives came down, they said, we're getting ready to launch a new network and it's going to be HD High Def. 2007, the Dave Ramsey show, prime time at a three year contract on Fox Business. When it launched and Fox Business launched hd, it was a year and a half later before Fox converted to HD and a year later than that before NBC did. And so, you know, sure, we'll get on there. And I sucked at tv. My ratings went way up at first. Everybody loved that I was on there, everything. It was all great. And then they went in the toilet and they, and they said, okay, our demographic is, you know, like 55 year old white guys. And I'm like, none of them listen to me. None of them listen to me. I've got a good racial mix. I've got 34 year old moms listening to me in the carpool line. That's who listens to me. And they put, what's the guy's name? He died. Put this guy on in the morning. He was 80 years old. And they changed the demographic of the whole viewership of the thing. And, and you know that you could tell because the ads went to oxygen tank ads. Right? I mean, it's like walk in bathtubs and snuggies are your ads. Okay, so this is not going after the young crowd. I'm just saying. And so my. And so it kept going, what are we going to do? About your ratings. And I told Kevin, I said, look, you guys have me on a three year contract and all the equipment is mine that you put in my studio. All this new HD stuff when you fire me and you need to fire me and you also got to pay out the contract, but you still need to fire me because I'm not going to be able to help you with these 85 year old white guys. They're not my audience and it's not. They already know to be out of debt, okay, I can't help you. And so they fired me and it was awesome. But I got to be at the ground floor. I'm platform agnostic, I'll try anything and most of it doesn't work, but I'm going to be out there trying anyway. We started YouTube and we had all the commercial block in there. And of course nobody on YouTube wants 9 million commercial commercials like you have in radio. I have 38 minutes of content an hour and talk radio, the rest of it's commercials. That sucks in the digital world. Can't exist in the digital world. So we had to build algorithms to strip all that out and repurpose it and put it back together real time to where within 30 minutes of me saying it live on talk radio. Now it's on these other platforms with a proper amount of commercial space where we can monetize it at a digital level. Number four, play long ball. Think long term. Think long term. Where are we going to be? Where are we going to be? The good news is it's hard to cancel me because I'm on everything. So if Spotify wants to get mad, there'll be something else, right? We're launching a third party app, a first party app, our own, so that we quit existing only on third party. I mean we're huge on YouTube. We understand you all know the numbers on YouTube. I mean they 32 billion in revenue this year and NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox combined were 31 million. Okay, YouTube is the 800 pound gorilla right now. So you're in the right place at the right time. But in 10 years you won't be. So you better be looking what's going to change because this is 100%, you can count on 1000 thing, it's going to change. So you got to be thinking long ball, be thinking long. I mean think about it when you started, some of y'all been in this, doing this a while. I mean shorts have just now become something that we can actually track and leads to the long form which drops them in Our product funnel and leads them down, leads us to an actual book purchase or attending event purchase or going to one of our, going into one of our curriculums or something where we're actually monetizing them. But shorts for short purposes, just so I can get clicks. No, no, they have a reason for existing. And so we avoided them for a while but boy, we all over them now because I mean it's like billions of hits on these things but. And we're designing them so that they flow down the product funnel into a long form or directly into a product line, one of the two. And so now we like shorts, but if they quit doing that, we'll not like them anymore. You see, because we're using this, it's not using us. Y'all follow the difference. My job is to help those people be heroes. That's my job. And however, you know, I hate TikTok personally, I'm. I'm a boomer. I'm a 63 year old, overweight, no hair. I hate TikTok, but it's huge. And we're going to fill it up with good stuff to squeeze out some of the sewage where it ain't got room to exist because we're going to fill it up with good stuff. And so we've just started chunking stuff in there like by the truckload and it's working, it's working. And I don't know that that algorithm will exist. There's some interesting things about that. It's very questionable stuff. But right now, thank God I'm not got the whole farm bet on that one horse though, right? Because he come up lame and then we lose the family farm because we bet the whole thing on one hand of cards. And so we're just out there doing everything that's probably blasphemous to say in this room, but we're not a single medium operator, nor have we ever been, because we're really not YouTubers, we're content creators. And YouTube is one of the places we do it. We're really not podcasters, we're content creators. And podcasting is a really cool way we can do it because I can get straight to the consumer. I don't have a 27 year old program manager in Amarillo, Texas making a decision to take me off the air on talk radio. I can go straight to them through Spotify, straight to them through Apple. So I really like the distribution methodology from a business model standpoint, but that's how we think we is who we is. We're principled we're making the customer the hero. We're thinking where we're going to be in 10 years. We're thinking how we're going to do something that matters. We play it again in 10 years is still going to be saying the same thing because we still believe, because we believed the right things. And so if you want to do something that's just splashy and fun, you're going to be okay. But I got to tell you this, there's data coming out right now. If you, if you, if you're consuming podcasts, go back and pull Huberman up the other day and he's doing a great podcast if you can get through the egghead stuff. But it's. God, it's so smart. But he's got, he had Cal Newton on there and then Cal jumped on Rogan the other day and did the same stuff and pick up that book and that piece of data. There's also another book about what's happening with the teenagers with their phones and the screens and the days of the influencer who has nothing to say and is nothing except what you want them to be that day. The birth of the reality show moving over into the space you and I are in. The days of that are gone. Those people just haven't gotten a memo yet because Gen Z has no tolerance for bull crap. They got no. They're very serious, they're very missional, they're very driven. They are not participation trophy living in their mother's basement useless snowflakes. They are not. I got 450 of them on my team. They get it. And they have no tolerance for something that's not authentic. They have no tolerance for something that isn't principled and isn't thinking long term and hasn't got their best interest at heart. And they can smell somebody who's a dancing poodle a mile away. And the dancing poodles hadn't all got the memo yet. Some of them are still moving product. But I gotta tell you guys, it's not gonna be long because I've watched these social sociological arcs happen in a marketing business setting over the overlap of media for 35 years now. And I've watched it, watched it move. And talk radio didn't get the memo that digital was going to take them out if they didn't cut their dadgum commercials back because it's impossible to listen to it because it's all commercials. It just drives your ears crazy. And so consequently, the revenues are off, their stock prices are off. The three big companies are in chapter 11. I mean, it's just. It's a dadgum bloodbath. Thank God we hadn't bet the farm on one format. Even though that's the girl that brought me to the dance and I still love her. I think she's awesome. But we didn't get married. So what we do at Ramsey is we pivot. Y'all probably heard about that thing we had, the fauci pandemic thing. And we. Yeah, I got 1100 people that like to be like, for their paychecks to go through so their kids can eat and stuff. And that's my job as their leader. I'm responsible to them. And so we didn't quit. We just kept. I mean, we put all our guys, our whole. Our leadership team in a boardroom every morning for two hours because we had entire segments of the business just evaporate when all that stuff happened. And some of it's just now coming back. Like, for instance, live events. Okay. Just now really coming back to the level we had it before. Some of the other things came back quicker. Some of the other things may never. We may never see them again. They're probably just gone. And so I got to feed all these people with that evaporation and I got to create new opportunity in the middle of this freaking crisis. So we go into a wardroom and a war room. And here's what it looked like when we were doing it. This is all of us sitting in there. And we sat in there for five hours every morning trying to figure out what revenue disappeared overnight and what we can do to replace it by nightfall the next day. Because we do not want to run out of money because these people are counting on us. Called our team members and they came to work for us. And their little kids are counting on us to feed them. And so we've got to be responsible leaders. And we got in there and we're. We're just scratching and clawing. And what you can't see there is we were arguing too, a lot. Because we do all the time. Arguing is awesome. If you're in a non conflict environment, no one's being creative, so you gotta be busting into it and go, that's the dumbest butt idea. You're smart, but that's a dumb butt idea. You know, that happened in that room a lot, okay? And we fought through it. And you can see me there with my head sideways at the back of that right hand side of that thing, right? I'm like, that looks dumb. Oh, God. Another $10 million just disappeared. And so the way we do stuff, one of our core values is the momentum theorem. And then I'll close up because told me to be done because y'all wanted supper and stuff tonight. So the momentum theorem. One year I was on 60 Minutes, and I couldn't get on Oprah. I had almost been on Oprah more than anybody, and I couldn't get on Oprah because if you could get on Oprah back in the day, it was like a million books instantly. And we finally got 60 minutes, and then Oprah called, we got on Oprah, and this was a long, long time ago. This was back in about 2006. And so my guys were saying, oh, isn't this wonderful? God has blessed us. And I said, yes, God has blessed us, and we're very thankful for that. Like the old story Earl Nightingale tells of the farmer walking down the path, and he comes up over the rise. He sees a beautiful farm. And he walks down to the end of the row, and the farmer's coming out in his overalls, and he's covered in dirt and calluses on his hands. But the farm is perfect. The rows are perfect. It's flourishing. The flower boxes on the front of the little house look like a Norman Rockwell painting. There's not a weed in the place. And the preacher says to the old farmer, he says, farmer, God has blessed you with an incredible farm. And the farmer says, yes, sir, he has. And I get down on my knees every morning and I thank him for the blessings he has brought into my life. But, preacher, you should have seen this farm when God had it all to himself. We got a plant or no corn comes up. And then God will bring the sunshine and the rain, or he won't, his choice, because he's God and all. But if he brings the sunshine and the rain, we didn't plant no corn. So FI is focused intensity over time, which is what we're talking about for the last 35 minutes, multiplied by big G, God equals unstoppable momentum on the other side. Now, if you're not a math nerd, I'll help you, because I'm a math nerd. Anytime you have a part of a math equation, that one side of the equation is multiplied by the infinite. The answer on the other side is infinite. That's how that works. Focused intensity over time multiplied by God equals unstoppable momentum. And that's what you've been hearing about for the last few minutes. That's been my life the last 35 years. I've worked my tail off and about 90% of what I tried didn't work. And you guys all know about the 10% that did because we just kept on stepping and fetching, scratching and clawing, hustling and grinding.
- [45:02]
Sean Cannell
And also, before we get into my conversation with Dave, I want to share a resource with you that's been personally impacting me. You know, Dave's new book, Build a Business yous Love is out now, and I just finished reading it over the weekend. And as you can see, if you're on the YouTube version of the podcast, I flagged and underlined so many different pages of the book and so all about the five stages of business. And every business owner or content creator can benefit from investing in their learning and growth. But this quote stood out to me. On page 12. It says, organizations are never limited by their opportunity, they're limited by their leader. That one hit me so hard. You know, if you're listening to this, I want you to consider that the bottleneck of the growth of your YouTube channel, the bottleneck of the growth of your business, the lid, if you will, of your next level this year and in your future, is you. That's a sobering reality, but it's a true reality. And that's why if you're interested in starting a business or growing a real creator career and not just going viral and then burning out or disappearing, I think you would love this book as well. If you want to look at it or check it out, we'll link to that in the show notes as well as some other resources for you. But now let's dive into my conversation with Dave from our event Grow with Video live in Las Vegas.
- [46:21]
Unknown Speaker
Dave, man, such an inspiring talk. And you just ended with your momentum theorem. Focused intensity over time multiplied by God equals unstoppable momentum. So we've been working the last couple days at this conference and getting clear on, man, what problem do we solve and how do we solve that problem and who's the person we're going to help and leveraging YouTube and these video platforms. I actually am curious if what advice you would give to a couple that is thinking about going into a season of real hustle. Take us back to when you you talk scratching and clawing, chopping wood, hustle and grinding. But if they were thinking like in the next three years, Goldman Sachs says the crater economy is going to double that. Everything that happened in the last 17 years, that created autonomy.
- [47:11]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah. You were sitting on a cusp. Yeah, no question about that. I agree with that.
- [47:15]
Unknown Speaker
And so there's about to actually be a ton of external momentum. So if you were to say, though, because sometimes people got kids, they got different seasons of life now, let's make it practical. Take it to the kitchen. Like, what conversation would you have if we were sitting down? Like, honey, I really want to grind these next couple years. Or, you know, whoever it is could be either spouse. And of course, people could be single. Maybe they got no kids, they got no excuse.
- [47:41]
Dave Ramsey
They.
- [47:41]
Unknown Speaker
They should just be putting in the work.
- [47:42]
Sean Cannell
What should they be doing? Right.
- [47:44]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, yeah. The only other option is happy hour, but they ought to be working.
- [47:47]
Unknown Speaker
Yeah. So. So, yeah, so I'm just talking about if we were going to process and make a plan back when, you know, you were putting in the work. I mean, take us back to when you were starting. And did you. What was your conversation with your wife when it was like, honey, let's make a plan. How would you process through maybe implementing, you know, to say, there's a. There's a lot of momentum out here. I want to create some unstoppable momentum, but I'm going to be able to do that in, you know, one hour a week and just playing video games the rest of the time or what?
- [48:16]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, well, I mean, there's a couple things. Number one is in just the daily rhythm. I'm amazed at how many people are all worried about nurturing and life balance, who, when they get home, have the television on. How's that work? That's inconsistent with what you just said. You were, you know, so just turn the stupid TV off. I mean, anything on Netflix is important as your baby. So take care of your baby, you know, I mean, because Netflix is. I got you. They'll start the next one and you can just binge all night. Right? You know, I mean, they got that figured out. So, yeah, just turn stupid TV off. The second thing we did was I learned I'm a great leadership guy. He said, when you're at work, you've got the. You got the sword on and you're, you know, you're doing battle Braveheart, right? You're chopping your way through the enemy you're fighting, and you're. And when you pull up the driveway, stop a second and do what the men or women, the warriors of old would do when they come into the house, they take the sword off and put it above the mantle till tomorrow. And so don't use the same sword on your family you're using in the marketplace same intensity that you're using in the marketplace. So be there for them. Be nurturing, be loving. Eye contact. You can schedule date night with your spouse once a week. You can do all these kinds of things while you're hustling and grinding. You can work 80 hours a week and still have time for kids if you just don't watch tv, you know, and, you know, it's pretty crazy. And so that's thing one thing too is then you can pick out certain things that are. That are untouchable. So when our kids were growing up, by the time they got to say, high school prom date, the date for the proms, as soon as the school published them, almost a year before they were on my calendar. So my live events team didn't schedule an event over them because I'm not going to be out of town because I got two daughters and I got to be there threatening that guy when he's picking them up, right? I gotta be cleaning my gun when you get home. You know the song, right? So I gotta be explaining to him how this is gonna work. So, you know, there's gotta be a presence there. And so I didn't miss a prom, but I was working hard and I didn't miss a, you know, major sporting event. I missed some of the little games. I mean, because there's 9 million soccer games. I mean, it's like you cannot possibly. Good Lord. And so. And that's the other thing. I mean, if your kid is all distracted into stuff or your spouse is all distracted with screens and everything else instead of engaged in a relationship while you're at home. So take those moments from, say that the time that you set that aside and put your phone in a basket. Everybody put your phone in a basket. We're not touching a stupid thing. We're not answering emails because they know their little bodies are wired. They feel it when your phone buzzes. And even if you just twitch. They felt it. They felt you wonder if there was something more important than them. They can feel it and it runs all through their nervous system. And then they say, oh, that phone's important. So then they get addicted to it too. And there's data all over this stuff right now. So anyway, first thing is during the rhythm of life, rhythm be where you is. Don't be working while you're with family. And don't be screwing around worrying about everything with family while you're supposed to be working. You know, focus is an amazing thing. So that's thing one. Thing two is then there are seasons beyond days where you just turn it on. Like in our case, we would do like a. When we launched Total money makeover in 2003, we sold 400,000 books the first year. But it was because I did a 46 day contiguous book tour. I was in every city in America signing books, doing media, doing events and. But we told the kids, this is what dad's doing. We told them for a year before I did it because it was all planned out. It was a strategic marketing plan. And so here, kids, I'm going to be gone now. When I get home, I'm going to take a week and sleep. And then we're loading up everybody and going to Disney. So there's a payoff at the end of the hustle and grind and the whole family sees the payoff and the whole family does this. And you know, kids are not afraid of their parents working hard. They're really not. And spouses aren't either. It's when they're working hard and absolutely ignoring them forever, when they get that lost hope, that's where it is. So the only time we really did have an extended season other than something like a book tour was when we first launched Financial Peace University. And I was teaching it live with an overhead projector before we put it on video. And I had about, I was teaching every night and I had about two years of that. And Sharon would tell you she's a single mom during that time, but she grew up on the farm. As far as she's concerned, money comes from work. So get your butt to work because, you know, we need to eat. These kids want to eat and we got to get this thing going. And if we don't get it up out of the ditch, it's going to die. Because there is a momentum. There's negative momentum too. If you don't get it moving, it's going to crash on you. So you got to put in the hours, but you just don't use it as a workaholism. And you don't say, well, I have to not work because, you know, 40 hours. No one ever became successful on 40 hour work week. That's hilarious. So, but, you know, but, but, but, you know, I also just, you know, took six weeks and was in Cabo by myself with my wife just the other day and we didn't do squat for six weeks. So. And the ratings on the show went up when I was gone. So the succession plan's working. So that answer your question? I don't know.
- [54:01]
Unknown Speaker
100% so strong. You know, one of the things we've been Talking about is, is figure out who you serve and then figure out what problem do you solve and then figure out how do you solve that problem? Because there's different ways to solve problems. Lot of different people that have different approaches to finances. You know, I love being at entree leadership. Your event, Patrick Leon, he was talking about the advantage. He has a framework. You mentioned Donald Miller story brand. He built a framework. You've got the seven baby steps. You built a framework. And I think it's one of the, it's. It's a proprietary process. When you did originally got started, how did you develop the seven baby steps and how important do you think it is for expert creators and educational creators? A lot of people in the room thinking about that life coaching or business coaching or taxes, they're trying to kind of put their proprietary process together. What do frameworks mean to you and when did you create the first one? And kind of how did that come together?
- [54:55]
Dave Ramsey
Because of Donald's friendship and impact on us and Pat's both. We do it today very intentionally and that's what I would recommend as opposed to the way I did it, which is wandering around like you're lost. And. But today we very intentionally, we do not want a Ken Coleman or Rachel Cruz book to go out or concept to hit the market that doesn't have a clear path for the hero's journey. So we, we sit and we say, okay, because otherwise it's just a dog chasing its tail. And we all got a little smile out of it and we. So you know, but if you want the book to keep going and going and going and going and be there, ready money or you want the content or the video to be watched over and over and over and over again, it's got to take the hero to a place, to the next step in their journey, even if they, even if they see the other steps. But it's going to be a while. And so the baby steps is the first place we just kept. We kept saying, okay, what is going on? And Donald said, well, you're showing you're the guide. And the guide has given the hero the map to win the battle. And so you're serving it up. It's just in hero language is all it is. But it's still a clear path, a guided plan, whatever it is, you know, that you just said. And it's all in that same bucket, the same genre. But when we did the baby steps, it was not all I had there was. I had the financial principles. Stay out of debt, you need life Insurance. If you've got little kids that counting on you, you need to. Because if you don't have any payments, you stay out of debt. Because if you don't have any payments, you can build wealth. You need to save for an emergency fund, but you also need to save for investments. You also need to save for your kids college. So you got all these competing things and everybody's like, okay, do I do the life insurance or do I do the kids college or do I pay off this stupid 18% credit card? Sallie Mae's been in our house so long, she's got her own bedroom. How are we going to fix, you know, and these people are looking, they got all these competing things and the huge hero wasn't getting good guidance. And so I just took basic financial planning principles and said, okay. And then I created a little bit of our own, what Godin calls heresies, blasphemies, if you will. And I said, okay, stop your 401k. You're kidding. I'm going to miss out on the match. Stop your 401k temporarily while you use all your money to get out of debt. And I push the whole retirement thing down the process until you get your mess cleaned up because you can't freaking buy groceries this week. You have a $1200 lease, car payment, Sallie Mae, MasterCard, American Distress, and you've discovered bondage and so you're stuck. So I had to get them out of that. And so I had to put it in order. The principles are there, but I had to put them in an order that was that people could see, okay, if I get out of debt, I don't have all these payments, then I can build that emergency fund real fast. Then when I don't have any, when I got $10,000 in the bank, no payments for the house payment, I got money. Now mathematically a sixth grader grasp that takes half a second to digest that information. And then they can say, oh, now I can do that 401k. Boom baby. And they do. And then they become baby steps millionaires is what we call them. And kids, college is easy after that. And paying off the house in five, usually 7.2 years is what ends up happening. Paying off the house. And so the average in the millionaire study was 11.2 years. But we see a ton of people paying them off in seven. And that's the last step. So they had to be progressive. But I built them. And when I put all that together, I said, first thing I did was I said, everybody just Stop everything and get out of debt. That was. And that's how I became known for that, right. But then that didn't work because as soon as they, the starter on the car went out, it's 400 bucks or they blow a tire is 300 bucks. They go, what am I going to do? I got no money because you made me pay it all on my credit cards this month and I can't fix my car now. I can't even get to work. And they would quit. They bail and I went, okay, I got to give them a little pad on the front end. Not enough to, to slow the process down, but enough to keep grease in the wheel when it starts squeaking. So we started with, we created baby step one and that's really when the baby steps were born. And it's only $1,000 save $1,000 a starter. It's not enough emergency fund. It's just enough to catch the little stuff while you go attack your debt. And when the debt's gone, we'll go back to that, finish it with a fully funded. So anyway, we developed all that by trial and error and by sitting in small groups with the people and having these customer feedback. So we were iterating not the principles back to of the talk, but we iterated the product line and the market fit the product market fit. So we added the thousand dollar baby step. We put them in, put the principles in an order that was digestible.
- [59:40]
Unknown Speaker
Let's talk about leadership pain. I think that when you step into entrepreneurship, there's that quote in boxing, right? Everyone's got a plan until they step in the ring and then they get punched in the face. You've built so much and built just. We got to tour Ramsey Solutions and, and you built this team. But man, with the stuff you've been through, whether that's, you know, stuff with building teams, whether that's finances, all different things that could happen, no doubt about it. Building something, there's going to be pain along the way. What is your advice for entrepreneurs, creatives that maybe just have got, had some recent trauma. Maybe it's been external meaning outside of the business and they're trying to build the business well, they got, you know, some problems at home and they're in counseling, they got marriage going on. Maybe they've just had a hard staff transition or they've been betrayed or something has happened. Like when you're building something hard, pain's going to come with it. What have you learned about how did you process the pain? How have you maybe Kept your head right, your heart right.
- [60:43]
Dave Ramsey
John Johnson, the editor of Ebony magazine, said the entrepreneur is the only person who can go from sheer terror to sheer exhilaration and back again every 24 hours. And. Yeah, and so, like, I was being interviewed by one of these newspaper reporters, and they were asking dumb butt newspaper reporter questions, and she's like, when you started, did you have any idea it would be this big? And I went, yeah, I'm getting people out of debt. It's not exactly a small market. I mean, it's like everybody, you know, it's not, you know, I don't have. It's not like a nuanced market. I knew. What I didn't know is how hard it was going to be. What I didn't know is I'm going to have $150 million payroll with 1100 people. What I didn't know is that people are going to write newspaper articles and just totally make up crap that isn't true about us. You know what I didn't know? Like, during COVID Dave Ramsey's trying to kill his employees. New York Times. And I'm like, well, that's counterproductive. Why would I kill my employees? I would have to go get more. It's just dumb. That's just dumb. So, yeah, and people just make up stuff. You know, it's. And there's some funny ones making fun of me on the Internet. There's some really good stuff. I'm. Some guy sent me one of the guys making fun of me the other day. It's great. It was really funny. Apparently I'm really good for clickbait, right? But. So, yeah, those don't hurt my feelings. But, yeah, you're right. The truth is that I don't know that I've always. I haven't always done it right. I know I haven't done it right. I haven't. Sometimes I just get hurt like everybody else. Sometimes I just get mad like everybody else. But again, the sustainability of a calling versus I'm just trying to do something for money. And it's like this person I love quits and then goes and starts a Facebook group about how horrible it is to work for Dave Ramsey. And. And I'm like, yeah, I gotta go back to work now. Can't really do anything about her. She got. She is who she is now. And that's just it. And, oh, well, because I can't fix. I mean, what am I gonna do with it? I can't. Other than just, I can let her live rent free. In my head, but why would I give her rent free? Rent. I mean, it's not so. But it hurt my feelings. You know, I wouldn't have brought it up just now. I remember it, you know, so. Because I thought we did a lot of nice things and took care of families, and we spend a lot of money and time working to love our people. Well, and. And then still, it's not enough sometimes if. If you accidentally hire a snowflake. And so. But the. Well, I mean, it is. I mean, it's like whole stinking. The axis of the world runs right through the top of the head. It's like the whole thing revolves around you. Who knew? And so. But, yeah, so it's. And sometimes that's happened, but usually I can trace it back to, okay, there's some point further back in the story that I should have acted as a leader, and I didn't. And I let something go. I saw an eye roll and I didn't address it. I saw someone and I thought, I just got to get my work done. I kind of let it go. And so now we're real proactive these days and have been for a decade, about really intersecting problems early. And then they don't get as big and they don't hurt your feelings as bad, and the betrayal isn't as thorough or big or whatever, and all that kind of stuff. And I can't do anything about somebody that never met me just making up a story about me. I mean, what do you do with that? I can't do anything about that. So what am I going to do with it? I don't know. It's. But it's funny. I had a guy from the local news station called me the other day. He's a buddy of mine. He goes, hey, it's going around the newsroom. Your viper got repoed. And I went, cool? He said, what do you mean, cool? I said, I didn't know I had a viper, and I sure as hell wouldn't have payments on it. I mean, y'all are really dumb in the news business, aren't you? I mean, it's just like, y'all really need to go find a news story to work on over there. Oh, good.
- [65:03]
Unknown Speaker
Labor. Some people here just getting started. Some people already have teams. Labor is one of the number one costs in businesses. 70% of spending. You said you have a $150 million payroll.
- [65:15]
Sean Cannell
Wow.
- [65:18]
Dave Ramsey
Thank God it didn't just start there. It was a little bit at a time. Otherwise I wouldn't have been.
- [65:23]
Unknown Speaker
We all Got real discouraged. Like, man, we're not gonna be able to afford this. When should a business owner hire? If they're solo, getting their things started. And imagine you put yourself in the shoes of some of these content businesses. Cause who are living in this solopreneur opportunity where you can be lean, you can use all these tools, and wear a lot of hats. When should a business owner hire?
- [65:48]
Dave Ramsey
You get ROI on payroll two different ways. And you have to get ROI on payroll or you go out of business. If you hire someone, they have to make you more money or save you more money than they cost you. At the end of the day, something they're doing has to lead to that. And so an example in yourall's world, I guess, might be something as primitive as. Okay, if I'm working on thinking through the idea, building out the storyboard of how I'm gonna do this, and I can spend my time on that because I hired an editor, and that's not sucking the marrow out of my bones to get the idea to the screen because I've got four other ideas in my head while I'm trying to edit. Y'all aren't ADD like me, are you? But, yeah, I got 60, you know, 60 things, and I can't. I gotta hand it off to somebody. And so, you know, we've got folks, we've got entire teams on social, we got entire teams on SEO, we've got entire teams on cybersecurity, which is saving us money. So all your people that do business with us, data doesn't get stolen, right? And we've got all the. These team, you know, people writing code, and that person is going to be a revenue producer because they're building, building a landing page where people put money in the jar, baby. And so that coder is valuable if he or she can actually spit that stuff out sometime. This millennial and God, it's slow. But that's the kind of stuff, though. I mean, so we're looking at who's the marketer, who's the salesman, who's the SEO, how are we getting these people into the funnel and how we bringing them through the customer journey, down through the. The product funnel and creating these customer journeys and where are they overlapping and who's picking up on that? And, you know, you know, so the YouTube team, for instance, at Ramsey is very, very good. They're very sophisticated and they do a good job. Some of them are in here learning from you this week and so. But they're learning, like we said earlier. Take those Shorts and use them into long form. In our case, that's how we've decided to do it and it's working really well. But I didn't want our KPIs, our metrics that we're measuring social footprint or platform footprints based on something like shorts. Because I know that shorts aren't transforming someone's life, but if I can get them in a long form, I can transform their life. I can show them how to transform their life. And so shorts are to lead you to the thing in our case that does that. So we very decided, strategic and so the people that do that then after roi, Right. And so if we're, if the shorts, for instance, aren't converting, if we don't have a conversion rate, we don't have a sell through rate of some kind in that customer journey and we can't measure that or we're not measuring it, then all these people are paying to do this stuff over here, aren't roiing and that's really a bad idea. So you know, it's very, very that way. But anything that can save me money because I can work on the business instead of just in the business because it sets me free. In the early days, the first 10 people you hire, that's what you're doing. A lot of you're probably going to hire, you know, 50% revenue producers and 50% people that are setting you free so you can produce revenue.
- [69:01]
Unknown Speaker
Who is the first person you hired or the first couple? What roles?
- [69:05]
Dave Ramsey
I was doing one on one financial coaching and I was full. It was a logistical bottleneck.
- [69:12]
Unknown Speaker
And before that you did everything. You set up the projector.
- [69:15]
Dave Ramsey
I did everything. You did the whole thing by myself.
- [69:18]
Unknown Speaker
You were the content creator.
- [69:19]
Dave Ramsey
Snaps on the stupid screens, the whole bit, the back shoot back, the whole deal.
- [69:22]
Unknown Speaker
You were setting up the room.
- [69:24]
Dave Ramsey
Yeah, I get those snaps, man. I had blood blisters. They're pain in the butt. And so I'm trauma and. But yeah, but the, so the first guy I hired was a guy that knew how to do financial coaching. He had a finance degree and he had studied with the same guy in the, in the Christian world, what the Bible says about money. And he integrated those two things like I had done. And so we're using that as common sense, not some woo hoo mystical thing. We're not smacking you in the forehead or anything, but we're, you know, we're just trying to go, okay, this is what God says. And he's like in charge and stuff and he knows here's how we're going to do it. We're going to get you on a budget, we're going to live on this one, make those kinds of things. And he took. Started taking some of the counseling load so that because I'm doing radio three hours a day, still do it three hours a day and got to run the business and at night I've got the overhead projector out. So he was able to add revenue more than he cost the first day he came on the job. That was the first guy I hired. The second person I hired was a lady to help us answer the phone and make copies for the workbooks we were going to do that night and stuff like that. Because. Because if I'm standing at the copier but you know, doing that, then I'm not doing one on one coaching or I'm not out meeting with an advertiser trying to sell an ad on this radio show to try to actually make the thing quit losing money. It bled red ink for a while and yeah, that's the first two we hired. Trying to remember what the third one was. I think the third one was another.
- [70:54]
Unknown Speaker
Revenue producer, obviously all the way. Since then you've had to level up so many times to handle what does it mean to structure a team org chart, leadership, staff, more staff, different levels, all the different levels. What has been the lifestyle and the habits where you have found the next skill set and what are just some of the things that you would coach entrepreneurs for having that routine of skill development. How have you done that to fill that?
- [71:26]
Dave Ramsey
Been in pain for 30 years with that? Because it's, if you don't quit growing, I mean, if you quit growing, you're done. John Maxwell, my friend that teaches leadership says in his book the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, number three laws, the law, the lid. I'm the lid on my organization. And to the extent I can't grasp what these smart people are doing and I keep them from doing it because of my insecurity or my ignorance or both, then the whole thing is stopped based on the old fart, you know, and so we can't do that. And so I've got people in the organization that I love and that love me and they go, look, we, you know, I know you don't understand this, but we're going, this is what we. And well, teach me, teach me, teach me. And so, I mean, I'm sure at some point I'll be a hologram. So I just got to figure out how to do it. You know, So I don't know how it works, though. I don't know. I don't understand all of it. And so. But I didn't. But I do know how customers think about our stuff because I'm in a unique position. And you guys are always content creators too, where you're having a constant flow of interaction with your customer. Very few owners of business stay on the front line, but I'm taking radio calls three hours a day, five days a week, you know, four days a week. Now I quit working Fridays, but. But I mean, so I've got thousands of hours of user experience with my consumer. So when I get a creative, stick something in front of me and I'm going, do you even know who's on the other end of our phone? There's no felt need here. There's no brand differentiation here. It's pretty, but it sucks. And so then we get to do it over because Dave actually knows how the customer works. So anyway, I have to grow. Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read. I've read everything John Maxwell writes, everything Pat Liancioni writes. They're friends. Everything Henry Cloud writes, their friend, he's a friend. Malcolm Gladwell is an acquaintance. I read everything he writes. Jim Collins is speaking at Entree Leadership next year and spoke for with me before and God, talk about smart. Oh, God, he's so smart. Yeah, everything Jim write. And I have to read it twice to understand it, but yeah, I just have to keep leveling up and learning because obviously the guy that ran the business, that guy on the video there a while ago, he was a boss. He wasn't a leader. Bosses push. Leaders pull. And I had to get around front of the thing and start pulling people and. Or leaving them at the train station and leaving them because they wouldn't keep up. One of the two. But I got tired of driving the cattle from behind. You know, you're moving at the speed of your lowest common denominator. When you're doing that, that's a bad plan. So we get out front and go train leaving y'all went on. Here we go. So setting a vision. This is where we're going. This is who we are. Keep up, by God, keep up. And so and then I had to lead the charge on. I had to be keeping up with myself. So it's a constant thing. Doing stuff like y'all are doing right here is absolutely vital. You don't keep feeding your brain new stuff and thinking new things and having somebody upset you, you know, because you're frustrated because you didn't know that you feel dumb. I don't know how y'all. That's. That's bothers me when I feel dumb, so. Yeah, but I'm constantly being bothered.
- [74:40]
Unknown Speaker
So I'm curious because you. You have 13 core values.
- [74:47]
Dave Ramsey
14. Yeah.
- [74:48]
Unknown Speaker
14 core values. I was walking with one of your team at Ramsey Solutions, and they said, I think when a new team member joins right now, they have to read five books in the first three months.
- [74:58]
Dave Ramsey
The first. Yeah, but they're little books. I mean, they're not okay, but it's like, you know, who moved my cheese, Right? I mean, it's like, you know, it's a Pat Lynchioni. You know, the ideal team player. They're all. They're all. You read them in one night. Yeah, I mean, they're not. They're not 70, 80 page book. It's not a.
- [75:15]
Unknown Speaker
It's one of your core values about just continuous thinking, learning, and to continue its growth. It's kind of a culture. How have you set that culture to just remember?
- [75:22]
Dave Ramsey
I don't. I don't know how that would apply, but those. The reason we put those in there was because each one of those books have something to do with a value. That is how we operate. And so if you understand the premise of who moved my cheese? Or you understand the premise of ideal team player, then you know how we're making decisions, and you're not going to be caught off guard by that. And so there's an old book from 1926. There's one of them called the Go Getter, and it just won't be denied. Just won't be denied. It's a go where the saying. She's a go Getter. That's where the saying came from. Is this book in 1926. And so we found that book is out of print, and the public domain started printing them and selling them, and we all read it.
- [76:04]
Unknown Speaker
Well, Dave, as we land the plane with this final question, I want to thank you so much for just adding so much value. Thank you, man. We appreciate you.
- [76:11]
Dave Ramsey
So honored to get to be with all of you, especially you. Your what you're doing is incredible, man. I'm so proud of you. Keep it up.
- [76:25]
Unknown Speaker
One final question. This incredible conference and this group of people, they're in the trenches. One of the things you said when we were on the podcast that stuck with me is you said, you got to keep chopping wood. Just keep chopping wood. I actually grew up on six acres, and I actually grew up Chopping wood. So kind of, I was like, man, I got the blisters too. You know, that's what my dad. We had a wood fire stove. Obviously, that's why you chop wood. So that makes sense on these six acres on this farm I grew up on. But I'm just, you know, you're a hero to many of us. You have so much wisdom. If you could just share some final parting woods, parting wood, final parting words for the entrepreneurs, the creators, the innovators that are in this room that are just going through it right now. Some of them, they might be at the top of, you know, from terror to euphoria, like you said right now, or they may be actually in a really tough time. What are just some final words that you'd encourage us with as we land the plane?
- [77:30]
Dave Ramsey
I mean, in that vein, it's. I am really sure that 90% of the ideas that I've had, and for that matter our organization has had over the years sucked. And we survived them. And everything you guys know us for was 10% of our ideas. And we didn't know because when you're in the shower in the morning, you have an idea, or when you're running that morning on the bike trail, you have an idea in your mind. It's all, they're all good, you know, they're all awesome. I'm so smart. And then you put it out there and you just lose your butt. And it's just like, God, that was so stupid. How did I not see that? And it just takes your head off. But you know what? Dogs don't bark at parked cars. So you better be moving. And you know, nothing moves unless it's shoved. And every time something shoves, there's friction. So get ready and keep bringing it and keep bringing it and keep bringing it. Nothing happens without out activity. The people that drive me nuts is ones that say they're entrepreneurs and they have paralysis of analysis. You need to be looking at analysis and then when in doubt, bust something. You know, when in doubt, hit it right in the nose. Get it, get it, get it. It's probably wrong, but better than sitting on your butt waiting on somebody else to take your space. Go get it. Go get it, man. I mean, you can't sit around waiting. Nobody's going to bring you the water. So you got, this is a meritocracy that we live in. You get paid on merit, provide service, love your customer well, serve them, help them have a better life. And they will send you certificates of appreciation with presidents faces on them.
- [79:10]
Unknown Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, Dave R.A. ramsey.
- [79:15]
Dave Ramsey
Oh, thank you, my friend.
- [79:18]
Sean Cannell
Well, I hope you've been getting value today from this content with Dave Ramsey, and I have a few resources for you as we land the plane on today's podcast. First, if you actually want to learn more about the event that Dave spoke at where this content was recorded. It's called Grow with Video Live. And if you're interested in jumping on the wait list for the next event, we'll link to that in the show notes below. Secondly, Dave's book build a business you Love is out now 200 pages. I read the entire thing in a weekend, took a ton of notes, underlines, flagged pages with a bunch of action items that I want to apply in my business. And whether you're a seasoned business owner or whether you're just starting and you're like, I just make YouTube videos. I don't even know if I really own a business. I actually really want to highly recommend this book. I think it has it's the five stages of business. You're probably in the first one, which is the treadmill operator, if you're creating content and doing everything by yourself. And I believe that this will be packed full of epiphanies for you about how to move forward so that you can build something that lasts with your YouTube content, your personal brand, and not just chase views in the short term and then burn out. Thirdly, if you're new here, subscribe for more content just like this. This YouTube channel and audio podcast is all about helping you start and grow a successful YouTube channel and monetize that in multiple different ways, as well as understanding the best practices for video marketing, AI and really building an online business. And so subscribe to the Think Media podcast. And lastly, if you got value today, it means the world to us here at Think Media. If you like, rate, share, review wherever you watch or listen. My name is Sean Cannell. Your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel. This is the Think Media Podcast and I can't wait to connect with you in a future episode.