Dave Ramsey: If You're Planning Your FIRST Business, You Need to Know This!

Those of us that are entrepreneurial, we were like, I want to work for myself. And then you find out your boss is a jerk. 16-hour days and you're exhausted, you don't even know what you're doing, and you're scared and you're lonely.

Oh my gosh, it's hard. It's really hard. Since 1992, Dave has helped people regain control of their money. The Ramsey Show is the second biggest radio talk show in America with over 1 billion downloads. Needless to say, Dave Ramsey is the king of all financial entertainment.

So without further ado, let's get to the man himself. Dave Ramsey. Number one, know that the first thing that you try, you think it is a beautiful baby and it is an ugly gargoyle. That thing's not gonna survive.

What would you say after 35 years in this business is the biggest mistake you've made in the last few years?

I think the thing that aggravates me the most.

You got a new book and I'm excited about this. I was able to dive into this, build a business you love. And I think a lot of people want to build a business they love, but they stress about it. They have a lot of overwhelm, they have a lot of stress, they have a lot of anxiety. They go into it thinking, I have this big dream or I want to serve people in a bigger way. But then they try to do it all themselves and it becomes this daunting thing that they it's a nightmare. And I think small business owners have had a tough time in the last few years, obviously, with COVID inflation, political changes, just uncertainty, egg prices, all these things are kind of all over the place. And it's really hard for some of them to navigate how to manage a team and also manage their mindset while they're trying to build and launch a business. And for those that are struggling or scrambling or just trying to figure this out, what should they be thinking? Should they even be thinking that they can build a business they love in this season of life?

Or what should they be thinking in.

The world right now in small business? You know, it's so funny, those of.

Us that are entrepreneurial, we're like, I want to work for myself. And then you find out your boss is a jerk. You find out he's a slave driver. Yeah, yeah. 16 hour days and cracking the whip and you're exhausted. You don't even know what you're doing and you're scared and you're lonely and you're and you're, you know, you're stepping and fetching and you're leaving the cave trying to find something to kill and drag back. And oh, my gosh, it's hard. It's really hard. And then add a bunch of outside societal variables to it that are all yelling at you that you're going to fail. It gets scary. It gets hard. And I've never met anyone that was the exception of that. The ones that think they're the exception of that scare me because that means they're getting ready to hit the wall because they're pride and they're good. They don't have any idea. If you're not a little scared, you're weird and you should be a little scared. If you're not a little bit lonely and a little bit overworked and a little bit stressed, welcome to self-employment. Welcome to running a small business. That's how it works. The good, that's the bad news. The good news is, is that it can get better. That I distinctly remember those days. They're emotionally scarred into my brain from the old days, so to speak. And been doing this 35 years, you know, this Ramsey thing, 35 years. And so. But I remember those early days when you had to do everything yourself and I would get home and I would lay down across the couch exhausted after 16 hour days and my wife would say, what'd you do today? I have no freaking idea, but I did a lot of it. I remember that and that sense of feeling like you're on a treadmill, which is the first stage of the five stages in business. It's a natural place to be. the good news is you don't have to stay there, that you can move on up and you'll face different problems as you go through the different stages, but you also start to get some relief because I think the hardest year of work is when you first kick it off.

It's so hard. It's so hard. And people, they get excited about it, but then it's, you're not making money, you got all these expenses, you got customers who are upset with you and you're not sleeping, and then your relationships are going to, to crap.

Oh, yeah.

You'Re like, why am I doing this? Your health is going to crap, your relationships are going to crap. If you don't have boundaries for your life, if you don't have any type of stability, it can feel exhausting and overwhelming. But the treadmill phase is the first phase. Is that just kind of like everyone, you're doing everything all at once?

Yeah.

And you don't even really own a business. You just own your job.

Right.

And you're not getting paid well.

Because if you don't come to work, the stuff doesn't get produced and the revenue doesn't get produced. It's all the production of the good or service that you're in and all of the and all the revenue. I mean, so if you get hurt or sick or take a vacation week, you know, you just expect the revenue go whoop in the and there's no widgets being made. And so if you're a veterinarian and you're the only person there, no dogs are getting help. You know, if you're a dentist, you're the only person there, nobody's teeth getting help, you know, and so on. and it's just, it's all dependent on you and you know that and that's what you signed up for. So it's okay, but you don't want to stay there 'cause it feels like you're on a treadmill. And so the way to level up out of that is to start to talk about, okay, how do we get some team on board that can create some revenue and that can make some of the widgets and can provide some of the services? And I've got to learn to manage my freaking time. Because you, you know, when you're in the treadmill stage, when I was in the treadmill stage, you're running from crisis to crisis to crisis. You just wear a fireman's hat all the time and you're not doing any thought past the moment. All you're doing is living in the moment. And that just is chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos. The customers feel it. Your spouse feels it. You feel it and you don't feel like you're getting traction because you're not. You're on the treadmill. And so you've got to start managing your time and going, okay, I'm going to set up blocks of time. to think about something other than the flavor of the moment, the crisis of the moment. And I'm going to start talking about how can I add team members, just a few key ones, just to get this off of my shoulders. They're tired. And that sounds very obvious, very primitive, very simple, but that is exactly how you level up out of that and move on.

35 years in doing this business.

If.

Someone was asking you, you know, Dave, I want to, I want to get, I'm excited to launch my own business. I want to do this thing. I want to try this out. I've got an idea. I want to launch it. And you could give them three keys of really what to look out for before launching it to try to set them up for some type of success and eliminate as much pain as possible, although they're going to have challenge and pain and stress. But if you said, if you could do these three things when you launch your business or right before you're launching to make sure you do every day or you set it up in the beginning, what will support them in getting to the best success possible?

Number one, know that the first thing that you try, you think it is a beautiful baby and it is an ugly gargoyle. It's not that's not that thing's not going to survive. Prototype is not going to make it.

Yeah.

And I know you love it. and I know you think it's your thing, and I know you think it's your first child. It's not. It's just a bad idea that hasn't told you yet.

Oh, man.

And so it's just you.

Every.

That nothing. No one launches a per, gets their first idea. Very few people does that ever even get to Market. It never gets past Test Market or beta or whatever you want to call it. And because your customers look at you and go, You're an idiot. This thing sucks. And you go, okay, I gotta change that, 'cause I still wanna do this idea. I still want this service to be provided, but the way I'm doing it, the model or the shape of the widget is not right. And so just get your little feelings hurt, go ahead and get ready, because your little baby is ugly. And so, you know, you just, it's hard. That's hard. The second thing is, for God's sakes, don't borrow money. Of course you knew Dave Ramsey's gonna say that. But what happens is, you're gonna make mistakes. We just talked about that. There's no one that's the exception of that. And when you borrow money into your mistakes, you magnify the size of them. And so if you buy 42,000 of that widget and go put it on a credit card, and then you figure out they all have to go in the dumpster, now you've got credit card debt. And because, you know, but, you know, the optimist in us, the abundance mentality in us says, oh, it's gonna work. And it's not. It's gonna work eventually. But it's going to be its pretty cousin to the thing you thought was really pretty and it's not really pretty. So don't borrow into it because you're really going to you're going to hasten the end of this endeavor. It's going to come down on you hard. And then the other thing, I guess, is the old three rules of business. You know, it's going to take twice as long as you think. It's going to cost twice as long as you think. And you're not the exception. Those are the three rules of business. And that's true here today inside of Ramsey. We get ready to launch something. We got this little thing and we go out two months. Yeah.

Yeah.

Come on.

No.

And I sit down. I talked to the tech guys and I'm going, okay, we gotta be able to put this out in about what a week and a half. And they're like, no, try six months. Oh my God. And I'm going, no, I don't do, you know, I don't write code, but we're not waiting six months. Let's figure something out. But they're going, no chance, your six day dream that you can just end that right now. So we end up settling reality somewhere in between, but it costs twice as long or takes twice as long, costs twice as much. Therefore, even if you're building a digital product because you got the man hours and the stinking thing, and the team on it. And so, yeah, those are the things that pop into my head first when you ask that. But it's still a great adventure.

It is a great adventure if you can manage it. And speaking of managing it, how did you learn to manage your mind or your emotions during the first kind of three to five years of launching the business? When things changed so much, when you made a lot more mistakes probably back then than you do now, when people came and go, when you had to learn about culture, like how did you manage your emotions and your mindset around all of the crazy adventures of entrepreneurship?

The things I thought were gonna kill me didn't. And so the little drama queen that lives inside my head got smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter and quieter. The first person that left Ramsey that was on our team, I was emotionally devastated. Why would anyone wanna leave? We're perfect. It's me. Why would they want to leave? And now, you know, we've got 1,100 people. People leave every week and I don't even know some of them. It's like, it's not an issue. And I'm not mad. I mean, I'm not being, I don't flip and I don't want them to leave still. But the thing I thought was gonna kill me didn't kill me. And, you know, the death of the prototype and the rebirth of it is a prettier version of it. It didn't kill me. It hurt my feelings though. And now I expect it more. Now I expect, you know, I'm probably about the only one here at Ramsey that's not gonna leave someday, you know? And so I kind of expect it. I hope nobody leaves today. I hope nobody leaves 10 years from now. I hope they stay with me until I'm gone. But the reality is that that's probably not so. And so I've just gotta go, yeah, and we survived that. and we're sad, but we're sad.

Yeah.

Especially when somebody's key and that we love deeply and we've been with for a lot of years. But you're sad.

And so.

But again, that's just drama. It's like. Because you're like, oh, the whole thing's going. No, it's not. Yeah. No, it's not. And so the more I had things I thought were going to kill me, didn't, or that I thought were the end that weren't, then I went, okay, the drama queen, it really has to shut up. this inside my head. You really got to sit down and take a back seat there. So I just practiced it. And, and it's, you know, when I look back on the things, you know, 10 years ago or 20 years ago that we thought were the end, this is it, you know, and this, I don't know if anybody else has these thoughts, but that's the way it rings in my brain, you know? Sure. And, and I look back and it's like, that's almost funny that I thought that because that's so stinking small.

Yeah.

There's no chance that was taking us out. We were so much bigger and stronger than that by then. And it's like, nope. not gonna take us out.

But how do you. I mean, for me, I struggled with this early on in the first, probably five, seven years of. Of the business, because I was like, I'm investing in this person personally, financially, you know, emotionally, spiritually. I'm investing resources, time, energy. And if they did something where they left, I was, like, devastated for a while, you know? And it felt like it would emotionally set me back, you know? And I guess my feelings were hurt or I was sad.

Yeah.

And you're just like, So how have you learned, I guess, to be emotionally invested in people and really lifting them up, but not emotionally devastated when they leave for whatever reason?

Well, you know, there's two things that happen when someone leaves, whether they leave on their own or whether we ask them to leave. Two things that happen. One is they go on and have a much better life.

Mm-.

And Two is some of them don't, you know, but, but, you know, most of them go on and have a better life.

Yes.

And here's the other thing, the slot that they leave open, 98% of the time, God sends us an upgrade. Mm. And so if they're gonna leave, and the stuff I've taught them is gonna help them be a better version of them, and they're gonna go out there and win somewhere else because of that. And that's most of the time the case. And I'm gonna get an upgrade in their slot. There's really nothing to be sad about other than just the personal loss of not being in fellowship with that person on a daily basis. You know, that connection, that relationship. And that's real.

Yeah.

And that's sad. But, you know, if you thought that when you let someone go, that their life was going to be destroyed because you let them go, you would be really sad. But the reality is after doing it for 35 years, most of them get an upgrade and most of the time the slot they left, we get an upgrade because it was done. It was either wasn't a fit to start with or the season was over and God says, okay, next for both of you. Everybody take a step up.

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, something I've heard you talk about and read in your books before about really, Taking a long time to hire someone. Spending a lot, I think it's like 13 or 15 interviews.

Used to be, we got down to seven because it was out of control. Still harder to get on here than the FBI, yeah.

And just like, I don't know how long it usually takes, a months long process for people to come. And I think as an entrepreneur, when you're starting or when you have a smaller business, you feel like you need to fill that position now because you're running on the treadmill. And until you find that person, and so sometimes we as entrepreneurs might cut corners or just say, oh, they seem like a great fit after one interview in 30 minutes and no reference checks. So let's put them into place. And then it's six months, a year of trying to make something work that isn't in alignment.

And you get to do it over because you did it wrong. Yeah. And it's kind of akin to I've got a bunch of rental property and I grew up in the real estate business. And so if you get desperate for a tenant, you'll put a cocaine addict in. I mean, you know, and then you'll go, oh God, they're changing the Harley oil in the living room. I mean, it's, you know, and you just go, 'cause I got desperate, I got stupid. And when I get desperate on hires, I get stupid. Slow your butt down. Slow down. Take your time. Because you are going to expend a lot of energy, a lot of calories, a lot of money to get this person in, and you're going to invest in them, and eventually, someday, they're going to move along probably, but we want to have gotten an ROI on them and they want to get an ROI on the process too. And, you know, really, when you hire somebody, it's about six months before you make money on them, right?

Because you got to onboard them and train them and give them the whole.

You know, they don't even know where the bathroom is, you know, for two weeks. And so it's much less be productive at their job. And so it just takes a little while. Some people are able to get into the seat faster than others. But but this idea that, you know, that by Friday I'm going to be making money on this payroll. No, you're not. takes a minute.

Yeah. What would you say after 35 years in this business is the biggest mistake you've made in the last few years? And maybe it's, I know these principles, I teach these principles, but still, sometimes I'm a knucklehead or I just kind of was rushed this thing and it. What was I thinking? I knew better. Was there anything that, like that in the last few years?

There's always something. I think what I have, the thing that aggravates me the most, and it's more of a we than it is a me around here, because we do so much. with collaboration, the leadership team these days, it's not, Dave is not the lone ranger doing hardly anything, nor are any of our other leaders. They're all, they're not in silos. We're very much in pockets of people. We all sit down and go, what are we doing here? And, but you know, I think we all, I think we have revisited and reset some of the things we say when we're hiring someone. And because we were, We were getting really high quality people in that were excited to be here, but they were not, we had a drop off in Crusader and our people need to be Crusaders for what we do.

What does that look like? What does that mean being a Crusader?

It means around here that you're a hypocrite if you're working in this place and making $150,000 a year and you go rent a car or you go lease a car. or go buy a car on payments. So you really have to live the message. We don't check your wallet.

Right.

But, you know, and we don't come around and say, if you got a credit card, we don't do that. But we're not big brother. But, you know, it's, if you're here trying to get people to get out of debt and to not borrow money on cars and do live debt free the way we teach or be on a budget the way we teach, and you're working on the every dollar team, and you're not doing a budget, hello. I mean, that's just kind of, you know, and it affects your work because now you're doing a job. You're here to click to check and execute a task. That's not that. You don't fit in here.

You're not living the mission.

You know, we're missional, man. We're just. We're charging the gates of hell with a water pistol. You know, you gotta. You gotta load up the water. Here we go. That's what we're doing every day for 35 years, and we let our. foot off the gas and start bringing in some high quality humans that were nice people, they were good people, good values, all those kinds of things, but they weren't crusaders.

Interesting.

And they didn't like if Dave interviewed Trump, or they didn't like if Dave said Jesus, or something like that. And so you probably aren't gonna like it, 'cause I'm gonna do all that stuff, you know? And so, and I'm not mad about it, but what did you think you were signing up for? But yeah, we did a bad job. We let our guard down on that. And so we changed some of our discussion in the hiring process with the person to make sure that they know this is what it's going to be when you get here. And then they can self opt out in the interview process, which is much easier and less painful for them and us.

We're talking about your book today, Build a Business yous Love: Mastering the Five Stages of Business. One of the questions I have for you around this topic is I think it's really interesting because when a lot of people see your content and think of you, I think that they think you don't make any mistakes essentially because of just how whatever Dave does, even if it's a mistake, he just keeps getting bigger and more successful and the business grows and more people come and he can hire anyone. So I appreciate you sharing like, you know, we dropped our guard a little bit. We just hired great people, but not the great fit. And maybe there were some challenges there that you had to face.

Yeah. I mean, you look crazy in the building. You know, that's what happens.

I'm always fascinated by your spiritual practice within yourself before you come into this place every single day. Because I know this is a part of your life in a big way and this is part of your values. Is there something you think about within your spiritual practice of an intention before you come here every day, before you do a show, before you have a meeting, before anything that really grounds you for what you're about to take on for the day?

I don't know that it is a, like a little prayer list or something on my phone. That's not what it is, but it's more when we went broke all those years ago, before we started this, I had met God on the way up. I got to know him on the way down. And not only did I go broke, I was broken. I mean, I lost my confidence and I needed to be knocked down a notch. Believe me, I was an arrogant little twerp. And so, but, but, I mean, I was not just humbled, I was humiliated. And, and so, I'm laying flat on my back looking up and going, okay, I am not, if we're going to open a business, I'm not going to do everything by myself. God, you're going to have to show us what you want done. This is yours, we'll manage it for you. This is yours, we'll manage it for you. But this is yours, we'll manage it for you. But you're going to have to speak. You're going to have to show, you're going to have to give us some answers to some of these equations through circumstance, through just a random scripture popping up and go, oh, that's the answer to that. Or through whatever, through someone teaching us or whatever it is. I don't care where it comes from, but we need to know what you, how you want your business run. And that was at the foundational thing, that idea of stewardship that I'm not the owner, I'm the manager. It was foundational. And so that is the undercurrent that runs through, you know, every morning I walk my little dog this morning, three miles. We go around the golf course and teaching her you know, do the commands, I'm working on all that and the undercurrent while I'm doing that and praying and I'm just going, okay, what you want to do today, God?

Really?

And what is it you got? And if I'm gonna be in there with my friend Louis and what is it that he needs and how can we be helpful to him and how can this book be helpful to people and what do you want to do, God? And then, you know, I just come down here and it ends up working out okay. So, but it's kind of an undercurrent and it's not a special like pump yourself up or something, because some days you come down and the day is a tragedy and it sucks and you're like, okay, God, what are you doing? What's the lesson?

It's fine. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I mean, you get in the middle of some of this jeez stuff we get into when we're running stuff. It's all the stupid but stuff you deal with. But yeah, but that's the under thing and you go, okay. And but that also even in a tragedy day, in a day that makes you angry or your feelings are hurt or whatever and you're frustrated and you come home, and you go, well, if it's God's and we're running it for him, that's probably not the last day we're here. Probably we'll go back tomorrow and rejoice in your tribulations because tribulations produce perseverance and perseverance character and character hope. And so it just, you know, this is called the method of success. People that are successful are perseverers. They don't quit. It just because there's problems. and you got to have a mindset to get above that because it hurts.

Yeah. And you.

You question yourself and you question your own judgment. And I don't do that as dramatically, as we said earlier, as I used to, but it's still. I'm not. I don't have everything figured out. I mean, okay, what are we going to do for the next 10 years around here? I mean, I don't think podcast. I mean, are we all going to be a hologram? I mean, what's coming next? You know what I mean?

Are we going to teach this stuff? Well, I mean, you talk about perseverance. And I think God, for me, I feel like God has, I guess, tested me or put in me in challenging situations where I've had to have courage. I've had to develop the courage to be able to persevere so that I can take on more and steward different challenges. I mean, what is the thing you've had to persevere the most in the last few years, either personally or professionally?

Really, really, really finally coming to grips with the whole idea that I'm not necessary for this place to win. And that's succession handoff. We started that 16 years ago. We started working on succession and handoff and so forth. And so I planned to be less important. And Dad Gump, it didn't work.

It didn't work.

It did work.

It did work.

And that's distressing.

Interesting.

So, I mean, you know, the noble, the intellectual, the wisdom says that's a good thing. But the little boy likes to be important, okay? I'm like anybody else. I want to be, I want to be a big deal, you know? And so everybody does. And I'm kidding a little bit, but not much. Yes. As soon as some of those succession plans started working, I looked up and emotionally the ground started moving around under my feet. And so, you know, I took six weeks off last year in a row for the first time in my life. And we have the Ramsey personalities on the Ramsey Show. And we've had the Ramsey personalities on the Ramsey Show for four years. And so, and everything's fine. We know they can handle it. We know that. We're there, but even if I'm not there, we know they can handle it. And we know the audience likes them. And we've worked through all the little kinks and stuff to get all that ready. And so I'm like, okay, I can take off and they can just do the show. And I did, and the ratings went up.

Come on. No way.

While I was gone.

No way.

Really hurt my feelings.

You're like, we're making all this money, but no one cares about me, right?

Wow. Yeah. You realize you're not the Messiah.

Wow.

So this job's taken six weeks, huh? Yeah, I was gone.

Yeah.

What would it look like to take three months off and have the personality? Do you think it would grow?

Yeah, I think it will. I think it's at that point now, and that's what we've worked really, really hard on for 15 freaking years, you know, and had a lot of false starts and a lot of problems, but we've kind of got that part of it working. We got the leadership team working, and I'm the CEO. My son Daniel is the president. We did that three years ago, and he and I were, carrying about 50-50% of the load of running the place. And then we went to 60-40 and we're at about 80-20 now.

Wow.

And because, you know, I, the last thing you need is the old man showing up and throwing grenades, you know, the, what is it, what do they call it? The seagull management. You fly in and poop over everything, you know.

So, you know, you talk about in the book that there's six drivers of business, you know, the, the personal one, which is kind of the first one, which is you're both the problem and the solution. And I'm hearing you say that, in this part, you know, by limiting your driving this in the business down to 20%, you know, there's, that's a solution for you, but it's also hurting you maybe that you're not as in control as you once were with your baby.

Yeah. And, but the irony is, is that you kill things that you love if you don't turn this loose. I, I, you know, because we've We've coached 10,000 small businesses and we've coached the 85 year old dad with a 65 year old son who still isn't in charge.

Wow.

You know, he's been neutered. Right. I mean, that's just ridiculous. But the old man just won't let go 'cause he's freaking control freak. And the Gen 1 to Gen 2 is a hard head. That's emotionally the hardest of the succession plans because they had, they built this with their hands in the dirt, you know, which is true. But this thing of prying their hands off of it, it's just an emotional experience. And that oddly enough is the last stage of the five stages, is the legacy stage, where you plan an exit of some kind. Succession is one version of that. Obviously you could sell, you could sell to team members, you could let family come in, which is our case. The next generation Ramsays will be running this 100% and will be the owners of it. If I died today, my wife does not get Ramsey.

She doesn't.

No. She doesn't want it and she's not capable of doing it and it would bring her pain and everybody else involved. So no, I mean that and that's been that way for a long time. Believe me, she's okay.

She'll get paid out. Yeah.

Well, no, no, she didn't get paid out of this.

Really?

No, we've got enough wealth. She's Sharon gonna be okay. But the, and she just, that makes her into the cheerleader. for her children who will be, aren't children, but her adult children. That'll be the next generation of that. And so we just had to work on that and you have to do it intentionally because too many people on that last stage of the five stages, you know, they grab their chest and as they're falling back in the grave, they toss the keys out, you know, and the probability of that working is almost zero.

Wow.

Because it's, there's so much that's left unsaid, undone. Nobody knows what's going on. Everybody's surprised. And it's very, very difficult to turn that.

Yeah.

Processes aren't in place or whatever it might be for the transition.

Well, trust is not there in the next, the person that catches the keys. The customers don't know them and trust them. The vendors don't know them and trust them. The team doesn't know them and trust them. they just happened to be standing there because they were family and the keys came out of that grave and they're like, oh, no. And everybody else goes, oh, no, it's a problem. So the more gradual the handoff, the higher the probability of success.

I love that you always talk about your your wife and the kind of the journey and how she's been a cheerleader and supported you throughout this and probably given you some tough love at different times as well. Maybe when you made some mistakes every day, I, you know, I'm wondering if you can share some wisdom for me. I just got married and for those who are also business owners or entrepreneurs who are in a marriage, whether they've been married for a while and they're launching into business or they've had a business and they're launching into marriage, what advice do you have for either me or those in that situation on how to make sure you can have a thriving marriage while handling a business?

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's two possible scenarios. One is the spouse works in the business, and two is they don't. The second one is what we've done. Sharon never one time has worked here. She's never been a part. She never had a responsibility at Ramsey from the time it was a card table in our living room all the way to where it is now. But I did discover, and you and I have talked about this before, I'm looking for principles of success, financial and otherwise in Scripture, because I'm flat on my back and I'm like, okay, God, you're gonna run this. And one of the things I found was Proverbs 31, who can find a virtuous wife? For her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her, which indicates that virtuous part, she's trustworthy.

Yeah.

This is not a flake, this is not a high maintenance princess. This is a person that's solid. He safely trusts her and he will have no lack of gain. And so the way that what we translated tactically out of that was.

That.

We don't make major decisions anywhere in our life anymore and we did before I went broke. I've owned real estate Sharon didn't even know where it is and didn't even know what happened. And not because I was hiding it from her, she just didn't care and I didn't care to tell her. And I was getting it done. That's my job. Her job is to take care of babies and we're just getting it done and dumb, really dumb. So we don't make major decisions for 40 years without both of us being in agreement.

That's for the business as well?

Everything. Wow. But major is defined by ratios, right?

Yeah.

What is a major? In the early days, buying a $12,000 phone system was a major decision. Yeah. There were 10 employees. And so Sharon comes down and doesn't want to. She's out running around buying groceries. I'm like, come by here, you got to meet this phone guy. You got to look at this. You got to see, I don't know nothing about phones. I don't care. I want you to look at this. It's a $12,000 decision. $12,000 is a lot of freaking money. And yeah, it is. Okay. Well, make sure help me just. I want you to just walk in the room. And then I don't, I learned pretty quickly, I mean, she's got a degree in Home Ec and she's a full-time mom. And so she's not a sophisticated business person.

But she has powerful intuition.

And she always says, She's real country for out. She says, I got common sense. And she does have common sense. And so I'll ask her when we're driving away from having a meeting, I don't ask her what she thinks. I scratch her feels.

Oh my gosh.

And again, we always laugh because it's a seven syllable word and she goes, oh, I got a really good feeling about him. Okay, we're hiring that dude.

Wow.

Or, nah, something wrong, it's a bad feeling. And I don't even know what that is, but every time I go against it, it costs me 10 grand, so I quit doing it. I don't know what that means. I don't know how God, the Holy Spirit is using that. Little hillbilly woman, but it worked out good. I'm just saying. So, yeah, we don't do that. If we were given a big gift in the old days, $500 was a big gift of generosity. Now it's got more zeros on it. And so we say, okay, and my daughter runs our family foundation. So often, if there's a large gift involved, Sharon and my daughter will go visit the people and walk around and feel the air in the organization. and then we can come back and Sharon can say, okay, I got a good feeling or I don't have a good feeling. And my daughter's done all the due diligence and looking into the operational part of it to see if it's a good investment for God's money in this ministry, but all that stuff. But same exact thing. So copy your paper, she's no longer involved in purchasing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she has no idea what we spent on coffee here, which would blow her mind. I'm with 1100 people. I mean, can you imagine my coffee bill? So that kind of stuff. So it's like stuff like that. But if we get ready to build.

One of these buildings, she's checking it out.

She's feeling it out. She sits in with the architect and with the builder, and then we pull the trigger and we go execute it. But, yeah, and she's like, I think that architect will be fine. I like her. She's sweet.

And I think she's smart. And we walk away and we're ready to go. So, yeah, that's huge.

That's how it works. So a lot of your business then.

I'm hearing you say is based on a feeling of your wife.

The big single stuff. So no, not a lot of it. That would be 2% of it. Okay. The big single stuff.

If something's big in the early days.

It was a hire. Right, right, right. Hire is a big deal.

Yeah.

You know, when you hire your first 10 people, everyone of them is a big freaking deal. And so we would go to dinner with them and their spouse before we would hire them and just until and ask their spouse to pray about it. And, you know, is this guy, is this woman or this man going to be do you think they work with these people across the table from you and y'all talk about it? Because if y'all don't believe this is going to work and you're just collecting a check, it's not going to work. And we've done that from we still do spousal interviews as the final interview. But it's not me and Sharon, it's the leader and their spouse go with the person we're hiring and their spouse. And we're pretty much already hired at that point unless somebody really gets a red flag and they shoot up a flare and occasionally a spouse, on the hire or a spouse of the leader will save us from making a mistake.

I mean, at the end of the day, what I'm hearing you say, correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like if something feels off in that final interview, it doesn't matter how good they look on paper, where they went to school, where they worked before, they're not coming here.

Nope. So at the end of the day, it's a. Because I've. I've talked her into it a few times. I'm like, you sure? Because this one's really good. Well, I'm not real sure. It's okay. Whatever y'all want to do. And I'm like, she'll back off, you know?

Yeah.

And then I get. Then I got drama for the next six months because I hired somebody I shouldn't have hired, you know? Wow. So I don't. I don't go against it. And sometimes I tell you one that really happened in the early days. We had a young guy. He was like a little model. He looked beautiful. He was as sharp as attack. It's like everything you'd want. We go to dinner with him and his wife. It's like Ken and Barbie, you know, it's ridiculous. And Sharon, the guys like everything you You know, and we come home and she goes, woke up the next morning, she goes, I really feel dumb saying this, but I've got a bad feeling about this. And she almost never plays this card, by the way, which is part of being virtuous. I mean, 5% of the time.

She's not crying wolf every day.

95% of the time. Because if she was playing the card all the time, that would be the...

You want to trust her.

Be the definition of not virtuous. You know, I mean, we've done a lot of good work to get to this point. we've already culled a bunch of bad flavors, you know? So, yeah. Anyway, she woke up and I called the guy and I go, hey.

We.

Don'T know what's happening, but I tell you what we're going to do. We're just going to push pause. We made. We're going to revisit this in a couple of weeks. I didn't just run him off because I couldn't. I was super stupid. Yeah. And he called me back six days later, and he goes, he was like, in tears. He's like, I've never met any people like you people. Y'all are weird. And I went, yeah, that's true. We are. I'm sorry. And he's like, no, I mean, I don't know how this happened, but I got a job offer this morning for twice what you were offering me. And I'm like, see, you weren't supposed to come. Go take that, dude. And he goes, yeah, but how did you... I said, I didn't. I didn't. I called Sharon and she's like, told ya. But it wasn't that he was a bad guy. It was God had something better for him than us. And he told us to, you know, he gave through her sense, her Holy Spirit, common sense or whatever you want to call it, this intuition, you know, and that's that kind of stuff has happened over 35 years enough that you go, yeah, this is a good idea.

Just trust it. Yeah, just trust it.

Yeah, it was good for him.

It's so interesting that, you know, that energy and that spirit is something that continues to guide you today like it did in the early days as well. And it helps build what you have right now.

Yeah, you change processes, but you don't change principles. People that never change principles or that never change processes and change all their principles are called bureaucrats. That's what they do in the government, you know, and but entrepreneurs, we We iterate, we change, we make up a new thing every day. But you don't change the principles that guide you, the values, the system, the, okay, I trust my wife. That's a principle. I don't borrow money, it's a principle. And I don't change that.

But.

When we started, there wasn't even an internet. So you gotta change processes.

You talk about these six drivers in business in the book. Building a business you love. We talked about personal, there's purpose, people, plan, product, and profit, which you say profit is making money with integrity. Has there ever been a time where you were trying to make easy money, that it wasn't integrity, it wasn't making money with the value of the principles that you have, but you're like, oh, that's a quick thing I could do right there. Easy money, as opposed to, you know.

Yeah, I made the mistake in the early days on radio, of taking some ad endorsements that I wasn't proud of.

Interesting.

And every time I did the ad, I felt like a jerk. And obviously they didn't work. Hello. And so they're not there anymore and they didn't last very long. But I was trying to make an ad sale because I'm a salesman. I'm trying to make a sale. And so I made the sale. and I didn't sell myself. I just sold them.

You didn't sell yourself in the product of the company.

Exactly. Exactly. And so we, in those days, we came up with the metaphor, and we still talk to our sales team about it to this day, is if I wouldn't be really, really excited to tell my best friend's mother to do this.

No, I'm not doing it.

I'm not doing it.

Yeah.

Because my best friend's mother knock a knot on your head. You know what I'm saying? You know, I'm talking that kind of, you know what I'm talking, just put it in that rather than, oh, 'cause you can justify your butt away and your integrity too, if you're not careful. And we didn't ever do anything like perpendicular, like we didn't sell credit cards or something like that, you know, but we did, you know, I did bring on products that are like, yeah, it was a little slimy, I'm not sure about that. But the money's good, you know, and so, but now we don't put anything on, even if it's not in our voice, even if it's not a personality's voice. that, and we don't ask any of our personalities to say, you know, if you won't use this product, then don't, you know, don't put your voice on it.

That's great that you guys do that because I think a lot of companies would just say, make as much money as you can, take whatever you can get. And, you know, at School of Greatness, there's a lot of stuff that I won't do. I don't, I've never been, not this is bad or wrong, but it's just against what I do. I've never been drunk or high, so I don't do any type of drugs or pharmaceuticals or things like that for me, just because it's not what I believe in for me. I don't do gambling stuff. I don't do any of those type of ads. We don't either. And it's just a lot of money there, though. A lot of people throw in a lot of money.

I mean, you know, the freaking sports betting, they'll write you big checks for anything that's on the air. They don't even care who you are. They've got an unlimited budget, I think. We don't do, I mean, sports betting.

Is a huge problem with our audience.

That's why they go into debt. it's breaking up people like crazy. It's a huge addictive issue.

Yeah.

And so now we're not gonna have so-and-so sports betting either. It was the same thing. I mean, that's one we would not have had in the old days either. But this is more like, okay, you know, this company, food's not really good at that restaurant. Right. But we're gonna send them over there anyway. You know, it's a restaurant. They got food, you know, but. Yeah, you know, but no, that. We don't do that.

That.

And that. It hasn't happened in 25 years. But in the early days, I was trying to get some cash in the place and pay payroll. Of course, of course. I think that's when you're most likely to cut a corner.

Yeah, when you're trying to survive or just stay afloat. How do you, I don't know, maybe this is a weird question for you, but when you're making money with integrity, which you talk about in the book, and you say no to money, essentially, like someone's trying to give you a sponsorship endorsement deal, whatever it might be an advertisement, and you're like, no, that's just doesn't feel right. How do you think about that spiritually for you, about how either God is going to set you up for something greater or you're not missing out on the opportunity? What is the spiritual mindset you have in that moment?

Yeah, usually those things have real good short-term feeling and a horrible long-term feeling. We had a major retailer that everyone knows. talked to us about 15 years ago. They wanted to take some of our, in those days, CDs and books and stuff and build a Ramsey package custom for them, which was really exciting. And the order was going to be $10 million. And it was really exciting.

It's a lot of money.

There's good mark, not great margin in it, but it was decent margin. And it was the other thing was it was really good branding because we're going to be on major shelf position all over America in this major retailer. and people walk in and go, oh, look at that. So and so says Ramsey. Yeah. Ramsey says so and so. Okay.

Yeah.

And that, so that had a, the shelf positioning had a value, unquantifiable, but had a value, like buying a billboard, you know? And so, we're looking at that, looking at that, and we get really excited about it. We got way down into it, got into the contract negotiations on the final thing, and they said, we were printing packaging and re-recording stuff that was only for them, had their name on it. So you're already doing that work? Yeah.

I was no, I was going to.

Do that on this deal. That was how the deal was set up. And then they come in and go, okay, yeah, and we have full returns. And I'm like, you want me to put your name on $10 million worth of crap and send it over there and you can send it all back if you're $8 an hour stock boy, don't get it on the shelf and it doesn't sell.

Uh-.

Uh-, we're not doing, because what happens is I got $10 million worth of stuff in the dumpster and I'm out of business. And so we walked, you know, we talked about it. They said, well, that's our policy, everybody does that. And I said, well, now you can't say that because you found somebody that doesn't do it. So, you know, if you want to take some of our existing stuff that when we take it back, we can repurpose it, we didn't print your freaking name on it. Yeah, we'll do $10 million with that with full returns all day long. I can figure that part out. I can absorb that blow. But throwing it all in the dumpster because it's useless, because it's got somebody's name on it that didn't want it anymore. We're out of business with $10 million. So we had to walk. And you know, that kind of stuff falls right in that category. That's the bucket for me, is you gotta go, you're like, pull it back.

Yeah.

Dead guy.

Right? One of the drivers of business you talk about in the book is people. And for whatever reason, when I think about you and the Ramsey brand, I think about culture. That's just the thing that I hear a lot. Every time I come here, I feel it. I go. Going back to feelings, walk in, you feel like you're home. You've just got an energy here and a presence of the people. I'm sure every now and then people are off or whatever, but in general, the culture here is a beautiful feeling. Going back to your wife's word and you see it, you know, the. Just the inspiration, the quotes, the scripture, the. the attitude, the energy, the effort that people bring here, you know, people show up, they're on time, they're organized and they're positive, right? And it doesn't seem like people are overworked or exhausted or just like, ah, you hear 12 hours a day, they have structure and they have organization, but.

We go home if we have to, yeah.

But you gotta be in every day and you gotta do your job and you gotta get results and you gotta be a good person. And I feel like that's where a lot of people struggle is building the culture and the team. What would you say is the main things that have allowed you to continue to thrive culturally? If someone is never going to be able to come here, what does this place have that most places don't have that allow you guys to continue to thrive?

It's very weird, but it does come down to we don't tolerate, and I don't want that to sound like a bully, but we don't tolerate it to be otherwise. and so if someone does come in late, we're going to talk about it. What's wrong? If someone's negative and grouchy to each other here or customer, what's wrong? What's going on? Because that's not we don't do that. And if you want to be a we, we got to fix this. Otherwise you don't get to be a we. And so because the people work here, they're on it. They're game on. And they're on time and they're excited. And sometimes they have bad days or sometimes they go through personal stuff. You know, their spouse has cancer. They've got a sick kid. You get a pass. That's great.

Okay.

But.

But we're gonna ask you, what's your problem?

What?

Why? What's going on? And why are you late? And, you know, how well the kids say, okay, I'm sorry. What's wrong with the kid? How can we help? Okay, now we can, you know, but. But that's a temporary and a fixable thing. I chose not to come to work on time. You get about one of those. And we're not mean about it, but it's like, come on, man. I mean, really act like you own the place. The people that work here care, and can't be a JOB. You stand out like a sore thumb in this place. It's like, bing! If something's off, it stands out. And we had a guy a few weeks ago blew up, or a few months ago rather, blew up in a meeting and started cussing it. Really? at two or three people in there and we're like, hey, I don't know where you think you are, but you're not in that place. So, yeah, yeah. You know, we sat out and he's like, well, I've just had it. You people don't know what you're doing and they're leaders. Yeah, I guess you have.

See you later.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And sorry, man. And, you know, he just, he didn't, his spirit had left the building. He forgot to take his body with it. you know, and so. And you made sure his body left as well.

Yeah.

I mean, we help you. Yeah, but, you know, but, yeah, we're not, we're not mean about it. But it's just like, come on, man. I mean, this is the people love working here because we don't do that. Yeah.

Yeah.

And we were not, you know, we don't mind arguing with each other. We argue all the time about which play to call to win the Super Bowl, but not about you're calling me a jerk or you start calling my mother names or something. We're not doing that. That's just nuts. But that's normal in other places.

What about if someone's really talented and they're actually driving the business growth, but they got a nasty attitude because undertone, they kind of they got a they just frustrated. They're kind of disgruntled. They're just we've got if we got.

To fix it or they got can't stay.

Really?

Yeah. So how important is attitude and energy?

It's more important over talent.

Really?

And over results.

Because what you're doing is you're shutting down all the other talent. You're shutting down everybody else. Everybody else is like, I don't want to, I'll do anything to keep from being in a squad with that guy. Wow. I don't wanna be with him. He's really good at what he does, but he's a complete flipping twerp. I just don't wanna deal with him. And that stuff happens, you know, that happens at Ramsey and sometimes it happens 'cause someone has just, again, their spirit left and we joke about that, but they really, their season is over and they didn't activate. They became disillusioned for whatever reason and that can happen. Does happen. And they get tired of my personality or whatever. I mean, that's okay. I understand that.

I.

Mean, don't be here then. Yeah, it's just because that kind of goes with the pack. It's just that, but people, what happens is you get what you tolerate and you get what you allow. and Maxwell says don't sanction incompetence and behavior incompetence is just like being incompetent at the actual task. And so, and that can destroy culture. And let me tell you, culture creates trust and stuff moves at the speed of trust. So this 1100 people in Ramsey, we get the work done of about 4000 people because the speed at which, you don't have to look over your shoulder all the time because there's not a dagger coming at your throat. you know, and we bust it. And it's like, but it's like a team that's in a flow, a team that's in a zone where, you know, the quarterback knows he's okay to throw the ball because he's not going to get his knees taken out on the blind side. You know, that guy, that left guard's got him or that right guard's got him, depending on which way he's throwing, right? And so once he knows that, it makes his efficiency go up and it gives the guard that's making him be protecting him great pride and dignity because we say that guy's more important actually than the quarterback because without him there is no quarterback. And you know, and we just, you know, the guy that ships books here, you know, when you ship a book at Ramsey, you probably could, could have saved somebody's marriage. You could have led somebody to God with that book. You definitely could have gotten them out of debt. They might be millionaires because you put that book in an envelope and shipped it out of here today and you did it on time and the spirit on that envelope was fun and smiling, not I hate my job and I don't want to come to work today. Wow.

The positive energy.

Yeah, it's there. I mean, that's God's spirit.

Final, I have one final question because I'm running out of time here. Before I ask the question, I want people to get the book, RamsaySolutions.com/build. You can go there and check this out, or you can go to RamsaySolutions.com, you can see the book. the book is called Build a Business yous Love: Mastering the Five Stages of Business. And there are really kind of six drivers of business that you talk about on how to master as well.

The six drivers push you through the five stages.

Yes.

And this becomes the baby steps for small business.

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Really inspiring. I love the golf stories and the golf analogies in the beginning as well. But if you guys are looking to launch a business, you're in a business that's not getting to the next level, make sure you pick up a few copies today. and support the man here, Dave Ramsey with this book, because it's really going to help you. This is the final question because I know we're hitting our time here. If you could have, we're talking about the emotional incompetence, I think you said Maxwell was talking about. Would you rather have someone, I mean, this is a, you probably wouldn't want either, but if you would rather have someone who's emotionally competent but lower level talent versus someone who's the highest level talent, and just a little bit emotionally incompetent or a little bit of a bad energy?

Well, like you said, the answer is obviously to get both, of course, and to just solve for that in the interview and the recruiting process. But I'll choose, you know, the emotionally competent C-plus player, because they'll get to A-plus when they're running with a bunch of other thoroughbreds. You put them in the stable with a bunch of thoroughbreds and they all like each other. the other horses will get them up. They'll get them moving.

And.

But if you put a donkey in there, they don't, them thoroughbreds don't like donkeys.

Is there anything else, is there any final words you want to say, Dave, for this conversation?

You know, I think that I am a huge small business guy. 54% of the gross domestic product in America today is created by companies that have 500 or fewer employees. Mm-. small business mathematically with arithmetic is the backbone of the American economy, the free enterprise system, the ability to get up, leave the cave, kill something and drag it home and believe you can do it. The people that fight through the pain and the insecurity and the ADD and the dyslexia and the stuff that we all fight through to get to be who we is, those are the heroes in the American economy. So anything we can do to help those guys. That's what I want to do. Yeah, because I'm one of them.

We appreciate you, Dave. Thanks for always coming on and sharing.

Your wisdom and being so honest and vulnerable.

Appreciate it. Appreciate your friendship. Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope you enjoyed it. And let me know in the comments below your biggest takeaway. If you haven't subscribed to this channel, make sure to click the Subscribe button right now. Like this video. And also, if you're looking to create more Financial Freedom and live an abundant life, then make sure to get the new book, Make Money Easy Right Now. The link is below. Go right to Amazon, get your copy, and I can't wait to see you in the next interview.

I think the number one financial advice that I would say, and I'll talk about this inside of the book that I would ignore, is that everyone has to be an entrepreneur.

Ignore Ignore that. Yeah.

Because that's not the case. I think everyone should have an entrepreneurial mindset.