WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.680 You're about to see a fascinating conversation ahead with Dave Ramsey where we talk about 2 00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:09.120 how he makes money, the advantages of in-person versus remote, a project that he lost millions of 3 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:13.440 dollars on that I think has underlying lessons that any business owner can take from them, 4 00:00:13.440 --> 00:00:17.120 and finally, five stages of scaling all entrepreneurs go through. I think you're going to love it. 5 00:00:17.120 --> 00:00:23.120 Enjoy. Welcome everyone to the game. I'm here with Dave Ramsey, the man in the myth legend. 6 00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:26.480 Honourable back with you, my friend. I'm so excited. Well, everything has happened 7 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:31.840 with you guys. You're blowing up, man. I'm proud to watch it. It's great. Well, thank you. We're 8 00:00:31.840 --> 00:00:36.000 trying to fall in the Ramsey footsteps. There's so much stuff that I had written down 9 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:40.160 and prepared for today, and I doubt we'll get to all of it, but if you could walk me through 10 00:00:40.160 --> 00:00:44.160 just kind of lay the land in terms of Ramsey solutions as the business exists today, 11 00:00:44.160 --> 00:00:47.680 because I think it'll be helpful for the audience to give context. Yeah, what ended up happening 12 00:00:47.680 --> 00:00:56.160 with us was week classic entrepreneurs. We were a wee bit ADD, and so just something 13 00:00:56.800 --> 00:01:00.960 something flashy and shiny went in front of us. We would look at it because 14 00:01:01.760 --> 00:01:07.600 but it all came through the funnel of or the filter of does this serve our mission and our 15 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:12.640 mission is just to help people with common sense education and empowerment in some area in their 16 00:01:12.640 --> 00:01:18.000 life. It started in the money piece. And so when I first started, I was doing a free. I was working 17 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:22.160 for free at a talk radio station, doing a little talk radio show on the local station, 18 00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:25.920 and I printed a little book and started selling it out of the trunk of my car. 19 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:31.760 So publishing was born, right? Then we did an event at the local Ramada Inn, so live events were 20 00:01:31.760 --> 00:01:37.600 born. And so each of these, in those days, everything was analog. Of course, the internet comes 21 00:01:37.600 --> 00:01:42.400 along and one of these kids working for me comes and he goes, hey, we need a website, and I'm like, 22 00:01:42.400 --> 00:01:48.800 what's that? And so we built a website on one of those tiny little antique, y'all to look them 23 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:52.560 up. They're cool. Those little first little Apple computers, the first little, they look like a 24 00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:59.200 little shoe box. And he built it, built a site on there with cold fusion. And it was pitiful. 25 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:04.640 But it was still cutting edge. It was a big time deal in those days because nobody had a website. 26 00:02:04.640 --> 00:02:08.880 We had one of the first people had a web store to sell stuff because it was a platform. Again, 27 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:15.760 platform, platform, platform. So we're platform agnostic. And anytime we see an anew on our emerging 28 00:02:15.760 --> 00:02:21.200 platform, analog or digital, we're going to put our toe in the water and keep doing the ones we're 29 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:26.480 already doing. We're not going to abandon them if they die on their own fine. If something runs 30 00:02:26.480 --> 00:02:32.480 it's course, we're done with it. But, but, and, you know, we just go on and do the next thing. 31 00:02:32.480 --> 00:02:36.800 And God walks in my office in the early 2000s and says, we need a podcast and what's a podcast? 32 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:41.200 I don't even know what this is. And we were one of the first, certainly one of the first in talk 33 00:02:41.200 --> 00:02:45.920 radio to put a podcast out because the talk radio people resisted it. They were afraid it was 34 00:02:45.920 --> 00:02:51.360 competition. So on and on and on and on. It goes. And now we end up today. We've got about 14 35 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:58.400 profit centers here inside the organization today. There's about 1100 of us, 650,000 square foot 36 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:04.160 campus that were, you know, that you've been here and hung out with us at our home. And, 37 00:03:05.120 --> 00:03:08.800 and so we've got the Entry Leadership brand. We're teaching leadership and coaching small 38 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:12.720 businesses. And we've got events around that, books around that. The book we're talking about 39 00:03:12.720 --> 00:03:18.720 today is from that, that idea. And we've got a huge coaching business in that area, coaching 40 00:03:18.720 --> 00:03:25.920 small businesses, 200 and fewer team members. And we're not real good with the large corporate 41 00:03:25.920 --> 00:03:32.240 goobers. We don't help them much. So, and then we've got the, obviously, we've got all the stuff 42 00:03:32.240 --> 00:03:38.640 in the money space, financial piece universities now digital. It's no longer a VHS or a DVD or an 43 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:45.440 even an MP3. It's a digital format. We're rolling that up into slowly. We're embedded a slowly 44 00:03:45.440 --> 00:03:50.160 start to move pieces of that into the every dollar app, which is the largest budgeting, 45 00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:53.840 one of the largest budgeting apps on the planet right now. We've had 50 million downloads with that. 46 00:03:56.000 --> 00:04:01.600 That app is huge. It's exploding and it's a fabulous. It's very robust. Our tech team has done 47 00:04:01.600 --> 00:04:07.200 an incredible job. So that's the digital, very scalable thing, you know, on, you know, one of the 48 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:13.120 barbell. And then we've still got coaches over on the other end. And we still do small high-end 49 00:04:13.680 --> 00:04:20.400 ultra VIP platinum events where 25 people go to my event barn at my farm and hang out with me 50 00:04:20.400 --> 00:04:27.440 for a weekend. So we go all the way, you know, we stretch the spectrum from the high margin, 51 00:04:28.080 --> 00:04:36.240 high touch, expensive thing all the way over to free on the every dollar app or free on the 52 00:04:36.320 --> 00:04:40.880 podcast consumption or the YouTube consumption. Probably more of an answer than you wanted, 53 00:04:40.880 --> 00:04:44.480 but that we're all over the place. And all of these things they'll have to do with just, 54 00:04:44.480 --> 00:04:49.360 is there another way to preach this message? Is there another platform? So we're platform 55 00:04:49.360 --> 00:04:53.680 agnostic. Someone said, you're a, you're a best selling author. No, that author's one of the things 56 00:04:53.680 --> 00:04:57.840 we do. You're a talk radio guy. No, but talking on the microphone, just one of the things we do. 57 00:04:58.640 --> 00:05:02.640 We're not, and we're not married to any of them. I got one wife and that's, that's plenty. 58 00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:09.680 All right, I have, I have a bunch of fobs on that. So with all these different profit centers, 59 00:05:09.680 --> 00:05:16.160 number one is what? You have 14, and it's been, how many, how many years, 35 years, 60 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:23.120 40 years, how, since you started, about 35 years, 35 years. So it's roughly like one profit 61 00:05:23.120 --> 00:05:28.240 center per, per two and change years, right? Two and a half years almost on the nose. 62 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:32.560 That gets started. Big more than that, because we've killed some along the way. 63 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:37.840 Yeah, even better. So what makes something worth pursuing versus what makes something 64 00:05:37.840 --> 00:05:42.640 and no? Is it just it's on mission? Because I would imagine that there's, you have resource 65 00:05:42.640 --> 00:05:46.000 constraints. You can't do everything that you would love to do. So what, what makes something 66 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:51.840 quote worth doing versus not worth doing? Well, these days we, we are, are much better in the old days, 67 00:05:51.840 --> 00:05:57.920 I was just, we just did it. I mean, it was like stupid. I was just stupid. And, but nowadays, 68 00:05:57.920 --> 00:06:03.360 we actually do run a beta on something and we look at the ROIs and we look at the customer acquisition 69 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:10.880 cost, the ROAs and so forth. And we're looking at, you know, is this a good use of our bandwidth, 70 00:06:10.880 --> 00:06:17.600 of our marketing bandwidth, of our, of our leadership time frame, you know, the time invested, 71 00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:25.600 overhead committed to this project. And so, I mean, we can, you know, we, we drop a lot of 72 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:31.600 stuff in the test bucket. And, but if it doesn't, if it's not going to have a great ROAs, if it's 73 00:06:31.600 --> 00:06:35.520 not going to have a great conversion, and if it's not going to have a great margin when we're done, 74 00:06:36.240 --> 00:06:42.720 we can't afford to do it because of opportunity cost. We can afford financially to do it, 75 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:47.840 but the missed opportunity on something that was working 10X of what this little thing that we 76 00:06:47.840 --> 00:06:52.960 fell in love with over here, but sucks. You know, we have to just let the thing that sucks, 77 00:06:52.960 --> 00:06:56.800 die, and it didn't make it out of the test tube. That's all it amounts to. 78 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:03.920 You take more of a test, test quickly lots of ideas kind of strategy. And if something, 79 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:07.440 something hits, then it's, then you double down on those things, that that's kind of how you 80 00:07:07.440 --> 00:07:12.080 think through kind of new product or expansion of kind of like profit, profit centers and things 81 00:07:12.080 --> 00:07:17.840 what you said. Exactly. And or can we, you know, can we iterate it five or 10 degrees and cause 82 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:22.320 it to work? I don't, I don't kill everything instantaneously. But I mean, if we're going to invest 83 00:07:22.320 --> 00:07:25.760 even enough to get it into the test tube, we're going to, we're going to iterate, iterate, iterate 84 00:07:25.760 --> 00:07:33.200 before we kill it. But when we lose hope that the thing is going to have a scale or have a margin 85 00:07:33.280 --> 00:07:38.800 that is commensurate with the, with the resources committed, as you said, that then, you know, 86 00:07:38.800 --> 00:07:43.760 when we lose that hope, we've got to be grownups and go, yeah, I really like this thing, but it just, 87 00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:48.560 it's not, it's not good business. So with these new endeavors, the first thing I wrote down when 88 00:07:48.560 --> 00:07:53.200 you started, when you, when you, when you brought it up was, was who does new? And the reason I bring 89 00:07:53.200 --> 00:07:57.120 this up, because I'd imagine a lot of business owners have many ideas, you know, you said it 90 00:07:57.120 --> 00:08:00.560 the earlier on to like shiny objects like, oh, this looks exciting, this looks exciting, this looks 91 00:08:00.880 --> 00:08:05.120 exciting. But for something to work, you typically have to have talent overseeing it. Now, 92 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:08.320 I would imagine at the point that you're at now, you're probably not overseeing each of these kind 93 00:08:08.320 --> 00:08:11.440 of new profits centers or new ideas. Maybe they're, you know, brought to you and you review the 94 00:08:11.440 --> 00:08:16.160 metrics, but you're not really driving, unless you are, in which case, this is an open question. 95 00:08:17.440 --> 00:08:21.760 Who, who does new? Because are you going to take resources from something that's working? Are you 96 00:08:21.760 --> 00:08:26.000 bringing somebody new in or do you have a specific testing department that's all they do? And then 97 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:30.240 they hand it off to somebody else like, can you walk me through that process? Probably a, 98 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:38.560 a hodgepodge of a little bit of all of that. I don't do it. No. But, but what we have created is this 99 00:08:38.560 --> 00:08:47.440 collaboration freedom for anybody to throw an idea on the table. And then you got to defend it. 100 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.880 You got to make a case for it. And so you can't just throw it out there and go, well, you guys 101 00:08:52.880 --> 00:08:56.400 go do that now because I'm so smart. I came up with it because I deserve dime a dozen people 102 00:08:56.400 --> 00:09:00.000 who can implement them or the problem. Any one of the profits in his, for instance, 103 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:04.160 on trade leadership. Okay. So it's got several components to it. It's got a digital component 104 00:09:04.160 --> 00:09:09.520 on trade leadership elite, which is a digital coaching product for small businesses. Right. So 105 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:14.800 if somebody comes in and says, I got a great idea to add something, a tool to that digital product 106 00:09:14.800 --> 00:09:18.800 or whatever, that's usually going to bubble up somewhere in that on trade leadership team. 107 00:09:19.520 --> 00:09:25.280 From that, the vice president who's running that Jason or, um, you know, John Felkins, 108 00:09:25.280 --> 00:09:29.280 our senior coach over there. So he's got a lot of coach him and his coaches. They're on the 109 00:09:29.280 --> 00:09:32.400 front lines. They're interfacing with the customer all the time. The customer's going to throw 110 00:09:32.400 --> 00:09:36.240 needs at him. They went, okay, we need to serve this need. How can we do that? Is that a digital 111 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:39.760 thing? Is it a coaching need? How are we going to fill it? So fill the need, fill the need, fill the 112 00:09:39.760 --> 00:09:44.560 need from an entrepreneur's perspective. But what we do is we give a lot of power to the 113 00:09:44.560 --> 00:09:51.760 vice president of that particular business unit or sub business unit to bubble things up. 114 00:09:51.760 --> 00:09:56.480 And then on top of that, if somebody's in another whole area, they're more than welcome to, 115 00:09:56.480 --> 00:10:00.000 you know, pull the pen on a grenade and throw it over in another area and go, hey guys, 116 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:05.200 I got a great idea over here. I want to blow some stuff up. And so, but again, you've got to 117 00:10:05.200 --> 00:10:12.480 defend that and then you've got to defend the resource usage to take it forward, to take it 118 00:10:12.480 --> 00:10:16.960 past gleaming idea that I had while I was on the running trail this morning. What you get a new 119 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:22.000 idea every freaking morning if you're doing this, you know, it's just in 90% of them suck when 120 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:25.920 they actually come in. But when they're on the running trail, they're all great, you know, 121 00:10:25.920 --> 00:10:32.400 before they see the light a day in the actual business climate. So anyway, I'm convinced that, 122 00:10:32.400 --> 00:10:37.360 you know, everything Ramsey has done has been on about 10% of our ideas, 90% of them when they 123 00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:43.040 made the light a day sucked. And some of them really suck bad. But, you know, you don't know that 124 00:10:43.040 --> 00:10:48.560 sometimes till you get in there swinging. So all that to say, it's bubbling up. Occasionally, 125 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:54.880 we'll have something that doesn't have a home. And we have a special projects, 126 00:10:54.880 --> 00:11:00.960 wind team that is an incubator. It's a shark tank, if you will, for ideas that don't, they can 127 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:05.520 jump in. And so you've got some senior leaders representing several of the disciplines that sit 128 00:11:05.520 --> 00:11:10.080 in there. And special projects works on two things, broke things, broke, you know, 129 00:11:10.080 --> 00:11:14.880 something, an area has got the flu. And it's, you know, we're not meeting budget, we're not hitting 130 00:11:14.880 --> 00:11:19.680 our revenue goals. And it's a, you know, it's a good size thing and it's problem. I sit in that, 131 00:11:19.680 --> 00:11:23.600 I sit in that work team. That's one of the things I sit on. It's one of the groups that work groups 132 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:27.760 I sit in. Because I'm a entrepreneur and I love working on broken things. And we'll take a baby 133 00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:32.320 thing in there that doesn't have a home in orphan and, you know, put it in NICU in there. And let's 134 00:11:32.320 --> 00:11:38.080 get this thing. Let's get it nourished. Let's see if we can get it moving. And see if, see if 135 00:11:38.080 --> 00:11:45.040 it can survive. If we can get the thing to where it's past beta and it's actually, the business 136 00:11:45.040 --> 00:11:52.960 has actually got some social proof, we'll make it a new profit center. Or we'll drop it into one 137 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:57.920 of the existing ones that even though I didn't, didn't come from them and go, look, this fits over 138 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:02.880 here, the best. So we're going to drop it with you guys. And, you know, we'll send the leader 139 00:12:02.880 --> 00:12:07.680 when we send it over there. We'll put a new leader on it and then start to staff it out. 140 00:12:07.680 --> 00:12:11.200 So when you put a new leader on it, so that was the who does new. That was kind of the heart. 141 00:12:12.160 --> 00:12:17.040 So when you put a new leader on it, is that you typically pull like a junior, like if you VP is 142 00:12:17.040 --> 00:12:20.560 head of a division, you pull somebody who's kind of one of their right hand. They get the 143 00:12:20.560 --> 00:12:24.720 opportunity from a career path and perspective that they can run this new thing. Or like, how do you 144 00:12:24.720 --> 00:12:28.720 think through, through bringing those leaders in or you mostly, yeah, I would just love to know, 145 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:36.320 how do you think through through that part? Probably 80%, maybe even 90% of the time, it's in house. 146 00:12:36.320 --> 00:12:42.000 And we're constantly working on bench depth around here. And so we've got somebody waiting in the 147 00:12:42.000 --> 00:12:48.160 wings. And it might be them that that birthed the new idea and brought it into special projects. 148 00:12:48.160 --> 00:12:52.960 You know, and so they may have been rocking the baby for a little while. And then they just get to, 149 00:12:52.960 --> 00:12:57.280 they get to grow it on up, right? They get to give the orphan a home. And they, they become the new 150 00:12:57.280 --> 00:13:05.760 mama daddy of the of the thing. So, um, uh, yeah, that's how I like to do it. Because if the person, 151 00:13:05.760 --> 00:13:12.400 if it was born in their heart, they will, they will fight all the enemies internally and externally 152 00:13:12.400 --> 00:13:18.960 for the survival of their baby. I mean, and they'll champion the cause, baby. I like, I like 153 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:25.600 champions, uh, you know, they paint their face blue and, uh, you know, and, you know, ride a horse 154 00:13:25.600 --> 00:13:29.920 with a big sword coming through the thing to get everything. And, and sometimes you got to sit 155 00:13:29.920 --> 00:13:35.040 them to, I would a lot rather try to take somebody like that and pull them back and polish them a 156 00:13:35.040 --> 00:13:41.120 little bit than trying to lightwet wood. Lightwet wood. That's a great analogy. Well, when you, 157 00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:46.160 when you start these new divisions, and I think I, I want to, the reason I'm heading on this is 158 00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:51.760 because I think it, if you asked 100 entrepreneurs, what's the number one thing that, uh, you wish 159 00:13:51.760 --> 00:13:57.520 you could do would probably be more new stuff. And so at this feels like a very, a very relevant thing 160 00:13:57.520 --> 00:14:01.760 to talk about. And I think that happens at all levels because, you know, in the beginning, uh, 161 00:14:02.400 --> 00:14:06.160 you're just barely figuring out what's going on. And so you're just trying and seeing what sticks 162 00:14:06.160 --> 00:14:11.280 later, you have more resources. So you think you can do more, um, but oftentimes you also distract 163 00:14:11.280 --> 00:14:15.680 the team. They feel whiplash. And then sometimes the core business starts to falter because 164 00:14:15.680 --> 00:14:21.360 everyone's looking at the new shiny toy rather than the main game. We started it with one area 165 00:14:22.080 --> 00:14:29.040 and it was tech because tech was exploding, uh, 20 years ago. And so, you know, we had the 166 00:14:29.040 --> 00:14:34.480 web department, you know, as well as college, how lame it was, right? And so, but these, so these, 167 00:14:34.480 --> 00:14:41.120 these, you know, these programmers and tech people are all sitting in a room, uh, but they're getting 168 00:14:41.120 --> 00:14:47.360 paid off the P and L of that profit center. So the guy or gal running that profit center wants 169 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:52.000 some freaking accountability. But instead we had them just over here. They were on their own little 170 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:56.240 island. And we had to break that up. And that's when we busted it about, just about 20 years ago, 171 00:14:56.240 --> 00:15:01.680 we went to this matrix approach. Well, this is, it's a great segue. Um, so with each of these VPs, 172 00:15:01.680 --> 00:15:06.000 I would imagine these are, you know, among the most valuable people in the business, right? Because 173 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:10.560 they're, they're fundamentally running a business unit. Yeah, they got literally a P and L. And they 174 00:15:10.560 --> 00:15:15.600 literally get paid off the bottom of what they get billed for portions of the overhead, the rent 175 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:20.880 for the building in their area. As if they were, you know, a standalone business, so to speak. So we're 176 00:15:20.880 --> 00:15:26.800 job costing. If you want to use accounting terms. And, um, and then they get paid off that bottom 177 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:33.280 line. So if they, if their bottom line goes in, them, their personal income goes in, I, I want them 178 00:15:33.280 --> 00:15:40.160 to be very wealthy because that means they made me a lot of money. And so I love it. And, uh, yeah, 179 00:15:40.160 --> 00:15:43.760 that, and we want everybody in the building doing that. Also, though, we have a high respect for 180 00:15:43.760 --> 00:15:49.520 the C suite. We have a high respect for that senior marketer, uh, and the, the value that they bring, 181 00:15:49.520 --> 00:15:55.280 not just the entrepreneur running the, the vice president's role. Or again, a senior VP sitting 182 00:15:55.280 --> 00:16:00.400 some of those and even some, uh, executives, uh, some of our operating board members sitting 183 00:16:00.400 --> 00:16:05.280 in some of those seats. But, um, but that's how, you know, it all rolls up under a business unit. 184 00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:09.520 And then the C suite, I imagine gets kind of competitive from the company overall. Yeah, because 185 00:16:09.520 --> 00:16:15.600 what I've got is our operating board is half C suite and half business units. And so what we've 186 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:21.120 got to have is we've got to have this, um, we have to have an accounting system and a budgeting 187 00:16:21.120 --> 00:16:27.600 system that serves the business units and notifies the rest of us if the business, how the business 188 00:16:27.600 --> 00:16:34.880 units performing. And so, uh, it's not really optional. You've got to do that. And if you're, uh, 189 00:16:35.920 --> 00:16:40.560 a bootstrapped entrepreneur that came out of sales or marketing, you might not know how to do 190 00:16:40.560 --> 00:16:46.800 all that accounting stuff. And so I got to roll some accounting support up under you to make sure 191 00:16:46.800 --> 00:16:50.960 that that you get to keep doing the stuff you're good at. But we also actually want to count the 192 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:57.680 beans and pay pay roll and, you know, pay taxes. Yeah, there's stay open, all the good stuff. 193 00:16:59.680 --> 00:17:05.440 I get, I get this question a lot. So I'm curious to take on it. Um, equity packages, stock shares, 194 00:17:05.440 --> 00:17:08.960 anything like that, or is it all pure based on bottom line profit? Is that the kind of the 195 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:13.600 performance compensation component of the leadership that you bring in for either business units 196 00:17:13.600 --> 00:17:19.520 or C suite? You know, when we first, uh, started sharing off the bottom line with people, 197 00:17:19.520 --> 00:17:26.640 that's when we had to answer the equity question. Was are we going to, um, let someone have stock? 198 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:32.640 Okay. So our end game, we decided a long time ago. End game is not going public. 199 00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:40.880 End game is perpetual operation generationally. And so it's, uh, what Simon said, it calls the 200 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:48.080 infinite game. Okay. We, so we don't have an exit to an IPO planned. Uh, we're not doing that. 201 00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:55.600 We've decided distinctly 25 years ago, not doing that. We don't have a sale of, uh, of any kind 202 00:17:55.600 --> 00:18:02.640 to a VC or anything else. We don't have a liquidity moment anywhere on the horizon. At all. 203 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:07.440 If you do, it would change what you're doing, maybe. Okay. Because if you're going to take the thing 204 00:18:07.440 --> 00:18:13.040 public and you give some people some equity, that's not a big deal. Okay. But if you're running 205 00:18:13.040 --> 00:18:18.480 an infinite like that and, um, about the only thing that we're a hundred, about the only person 206 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:23.760 in the building where a hundred percent sure is still going to be here is me. Everybody else could 207 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:31.760 might someday want to leave or have to leave. And so, uh, and, and I didn't want that. I wanted 208 00:18:31.760 --> 00:18:36.000 everybody to stay forever because I love our people. And I, you know, some of my best friends are 209 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:41.360 my leaders here that I mean, we do stuff socially with our wives and husbands and everything else. 210 00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:46.880 I love them. I've got high respect for them, uh, as human beings, as their spiritual character, 211 00:18:46.880 --> 00:18:52.000 everything. But still I have over over all these years found that sometimes people leave. 212 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:58.240 And I cry a little, but I cry a lot if they took stock with them. And so, uh, we don't have any 213 00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:04.080 equity positions at all. And, uh, you, you make unbelievably good money when you move into 214 00:19:04.080 --> 00:19:09.840 leadership and you're paid off the bottom line here, like lights out, scary good money. Uh, 215 00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:16.480 uh, you know, like nobody, nobody does what we do. We're so freaking generous because these are 216 00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:20.960 the people that are running the thing. They're the people that grew this. They deserve to get paid 217 00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:27.600 like they're a partner. And so I, I have zero greed over that. But you don't own anything. 218 00:19:28.160 --> 00:19:31.840 I own a hundred percent. Well, I don't know I'm the stocking. More of my, it's in my kids' names. 219 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:38.000 Uh, uh, from a state system planning standpoint. But, uh, and they're, you know, my grown kids, 220 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:45.120 my, the, the next gen, uh, of, uh, grown Ramses. So, but, uh, I mean, I got 1% to be clear, 221 00:19:45.120 --> 00:19:50.560 but the only voting stock, but the, uh, but anyway, no, no, there's no equity. There's no equity 222 00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:55.920 anywhere except Ramses. That's it. Oh, I love that. Um, let's say Layla and I have a similar 223 00:19:55.920 --> 00:20:00.320 perspective on acquisition.com and that it's kind of our forever business. You know, we plan on 224 00:20:00.320 --> 00:20:06.160 just continuing to owning, continuing to operate it. You know, we will, we'll enter, we kind of see 225 00:20:06.160 --> 00:20:10.560 it as the goose versus the eggs, uh, at least how, how we think through it, which is probably, 226 00:20:10.560 --> 00:20:14.560 like, we use a different analogy, but similar, you have 14 profit centers. Those are the eggs. 227 00:20:14.560 --> 00:20:18.160 And then the goose is like, why would we get rid of acquisitions? Not comments. It's the, the 228 00:20:18.160 --> 00:20:24.480 mothership to use your language. So it brings, so that brings up, uh, two, two different points 229 00:20:24.480 --> 00:20:29.040 that are probably somewhat related. So one is, is a hundred percent of Ramsey in person? 230 00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:35.520 Or anybody, is anyone remote? No, we all work at work. Yeah. So there's no, like, like, you don't 231 00:20:35.520 --> 00:20:42.000 have like exceptions were like, you know, like editors for, for, for social media or, you know, 232 00:20:42.000 --> 00:20:47.360 maybe some of the coaches or something like that could be remote. Everybody moves to, um, to Tennessee. 233 00:20:48.320 --> 00:20:55.920 Yes. And the, the, with the exception of a, the occasional temporary thing. Yeah. Of course, 234 00:20:55.920 --> 00:21:00.000 yeah, contractors. But in terms of the actual structure and the reasons very simple, 235 00:21:00.400 --> 00:21:09.760 um, our quality of communication in person communication quality goes way up. And so things are 236 00:21:09.760 --> 00:21:14.400 actually communicated. We all know this. Anyone that's got walking around since knows that 85 237 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:22.080 percent of communication is, uh, is body language and tone and fake, not words. And so, um, 238 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:29.680 when you are sitting beside someone, you can feel the spirit of what's going on. 239 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:36.080 And you are getting a whole different quality level of quality of communication. What that does 240 00:21:36.080 --> 00:21:43.280 is it increases two things. It increases trust. And it increases productivity. And, and then those 241 00:21:43.280 --> 00:21:50.720 two things increase speed because organizations move at the speed of trust. And, and so when I, 242 00:21:50.720 --> 00:21:59.520 I'm not sure because I'm using a text, uh, or I'm even a zoom, uh, and I'm not really sure what 243 00:21:59.520 --> 00:22:04.160 she meant or he meant. I can't really tell if they were being passive aggressive. But if you're 244 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:08.800 sitting with him, you know, right, if you're sitting with him, you know, and I can go, just go walk 245 00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:16.240 around the building and I can feel the air. I can feel it in the air. I've been leading a long time. 246 00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:20.960 And I teach my leaders to do this. There's an old book a thousand years ago in search of excellence. 247 00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:25.680 It was the good-to-great book before good-to-great before Jim Collins did it. It was back in 92. 248 00:22:26.400 --> 00:22:31.680 And, um, you know, they studied great companies and one of the things the managers did, 249 00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:36.640 they did management by walking around. Just walk the floor of the plant if you're in manufacturing and 250 00:22:36.640 --> 00:22:43.600 feel the vibe of the workers. Feel the speed, feel the energy in the air. Look for, um, chaos. Look for 251 00:22:44.560 --> 00:22:51.600 dirt and filth versus organization. Um, and I walk through, I smell food inside of our building. No, 252 00:22:51.600 --> 00:22:56.560 that's not cool. We have a cafeteria. You don't eat at your desk. Leave your salmon somewhere else. 253 00:22:56.560 --> 00:23:02.160 Nobody wants to smell that crap, right? And so, you know, they're just little stuff. But you just walk 254 00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:07.440 through and you can kind of tell, uh, you know, I walk past people. They're on a, they're on a, 255 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:12.800 a coaching call on a Zoom call with somebody. I just pop my head in there, you know, smile, wave, 256 00:23:12.800 --> 00:23:17.920 and disrupt the whole call and then leave. Spread hate and dissension, right? So that kind of thing 257 00:23:18.640 --> 00:23:26.960 creates a cultural, uh, uh, level of trust and productivity. Uh, I call them drive-by communications. 258 00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:32.880 I can just drive, I can walk past and I read through the weekly reports and, uh, uh, so-and-so's 259 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:36.240 mother's got cancer and I walk past her, touch them on the shoulder and say, hey, man, I'm praying 260 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:44.080 for your mom. Sorry about that. Start, you know, six, eight second interaction that does not occur 261 00:23:44.080 --> 00:23:49.360 if they're remote. I think you might like this. Um, I think it was either Uber, Airbnb, 262 00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:55.600 someone can correct me in the comments. But, uh, the, they did a research study because I think 263 00:23:55.600 --> 00:23:59.920 they were trying to prove or at least definitively know whether in person versus remote, you know, 264 00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:04.880 which one is better, et cetera. And they, they found an it depends answer, which is, 265 00:24:04.880 --> 00:24:08.480 and I talk about this because obviously we're in person. We have a big, big headquarters here in 266 00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:16.080 Vegas, um, that especially, especially for the first third of someone's career. So basically, 267 00:24:16.080 --> 00:24:23.520 like, called 18 to 35 is where those people get a disproportionate upside for being in person 268 00:24:23.520 --> 00:24:29.600 because of all of the unstructured learning that occurs that's not on your quote career path. 269 00:24:30.080 --> 00:24:34.080 You know, like if you're ever sitting right next to marketing and you're in sales, you know, 270 00:24:34.080 --> 00:24:38.160 you over here, you know, what's going on in terms of the organic stuff. You over here, 271 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:41.760 what's going on in the paid side, you start learning a little bit more about funnel, you know, 272 00:24:41.760 --> 00:24:44.960 about landing page and conversion rates and things like that. And then all of a sudden, 273 00:24:44.960 --> 00:24:49.040 when you are on a sales call, you know, with a business owner or whomever and they bring 274 00:24:49.040 --> 00:24:52.800 something of that up, you're like, oh, I actually know something about that because, 275 00:24:52.800 --> 00:24:57.600 but if you were in an only zoom environment, uh, you lose out on all of that. And so I'm a big 276 00:24:57.600 --> 00:25:02.000 advocate and because I obviously have a big, you know, percentage of the audits that I have 277 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:06.480 that's in their early 20s, um, beginning their career, I would encourage you all to, 278 00:25:07.280 --> 00:25:11.840 to work in person. I really mean that I did read one, I did read one piece of research that you get 279 00:25:11.840 --> 00:25:19.040 more, uh, uh, chances at promotion. Oh, yeah. In person. Then if you're sitting at home and you're 280 00:25:19.040 --> 00:25:24.400 only on the calls, the commencement to the task assigned to you. And so, you know, we can add to 281 00:25:24.400 --> 00:25:30.800 this even further. You've been here. Uh, we've got this massive fabulous cafeteria, uh, 282 00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:37.440 restaurant at Ramsey. So, um, and on top of that, we dropped several million dollars a year 283 00:25:38.080 --> 00:25:44.400 into that to subsidize the food cost so you can eat here for about half of what you can drive down 284 00:25:44.400 --> 00:25:50.400 the road and, you know, get a fast food burger or whatever. Uh, why do we do that? Because when people 285 00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:56.560 eat together, oh, that adds a whole nother level. When you break bread with someone else, 286 00:25:56.560 --> 00:26:01.760 it changes everything. And so what happens is people that don't work together end up eating together 287 00:26:01.760 --> 00:26:06.560 and what you're talking about occurs. They learn from each other. They, uh, you know, they talk about 288 00:26:06.560 --> 00:26:10.080 stuff they're working on. Uh, sometimes they just talk about personal stuff, but then the next 289 00:26:10.080 --> 00:26:14.240 time an issue comes up, they trust that person because they've actually developed a bit of a 290 00:26:14.240 --> 00:26:18.880 relationship with them. I look over in our tech guys and we got a bunch of techies in here, a bunch 291 00:26:19.040 --> 00:26:22.960 of programmers and stuff. And they're all over. They're huddled around some table. We'll play 292 00:26:22.960 --> 00:26:27.760 in some weird board game thing that I don't even know how it works. Um, and, and, you know, 293 00:26:27.760 --> 00:26:33.840 that only programmers would play, right? And, um, or some weird card game, Dungeons and Dragons type 294 00:26:33.840 --> 00:26:39.200 stuff or whatever. I don't know. And they're having a blast and they're playing together and eating 295 00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:46.240 together. And that changes the whole vibe of the deal. I will tell you that if you just are only 296 00:26:46.320 --> 00:26:54.880 concerned about a task and that's it. A simple tactical do this thing. That's fine for remote. 297 00:26:55.840 --> 00:27:02.800 But our stuff is always 100% of the time. We want more out of the interaction than the simple 298 00:27:02.800 --> 00:27:07.760 task being accomplished. And that's why we've stood firm on this. And we've lost some people to 299 00:27:07.760 --> 00:27:13.840 that. They want to go work and have work life balance, which are whatever they call it and say 300 00:27:13.920 --> 00:27:18.480 that they can work from home. Uh, but what that actually means is I'm not playing to work eight 301 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:23.600 hours. Right. Because if you're working eight hours at home, you're not talking and interacting 302 00:27:23.600 --> 00:27:29.520 with your family. So I don't know how you added hours to your family unless you're cheating the 303 00:27:29.520 --> 00:27:36.400 company. And so, uh, I don't, I don't understand it. But I'm not mad about it. It's just why we've decided 304 00:27:36.400 --> 00:27:40.480 to do it. And then, but some people, some people jet that and that we've lost some good people 305 00:27:40.480 --> 00:27:45.040 over that. And we've had a lot of discussions about it here, but we're pretty firm on that. 306 00:27:45.760 --> 00:27:49.200 There's a couple of dovetails that I'll hit on that. So one is you were talking earlier about 307 00:27:49.200 --> 00:27:52.640 bench depth. And I would imagine that one of the best ways to build the bench depth is having more 308 00:27:52.640 --> 00:27:57.600 people cross functionally learning in person from other leaders at cafeteria at the water, 309 00:27:57.600 --> 00:28:02.160 break area, um, and what have you. You also spoke about trust, uh, the speed of the company is 310 00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:09.280 based on the speed of trust. And I would, um, I would, uh, I 100% agree. And I think that translates 311 00:28:09.280 --> 00:28:14.080 into faster decision making. And so I'm, I'm a big, I'm a big believer in the speed of decisions 312 00:28:14.080 --> 00:28:18.160 is the speed of the company, which can only be based on the trust that people have. If you have to 313 00:28:18.160 --> 00:28:21.360 double check every single thing that all of a sudden an approval process that it has to get put in 314 00:28:21.360 --> 00:28:27.040 place and then bureaucracy kills everything. Well, and, and it, it, it interferes with delegation. 315 00:28:28.160 --> 00:28:33.760 The, the essence of delegation is trust. And so when I can let something bubble up from the 316 00:28:33.840 --> 00:28:38.960 bottom, it's because I trust the people that they're, that the idea is going to get filtered and 317 00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:43.920 vetted. It's, we're not going to go drop a million dollars on a bad idea. You know, and so it's 318 00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:48.240 not, I trust the competency of the people. That's a, that's a form of delegation. And I think 319 00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:51.840 you spoke to two things that you spoke to with competence and intention, right? So intention, 320 00:28:51.840 --> 00:28:56.640 you know, like, are they good at their job? And do they, do they mean, mean well, which I think 321 00:28:56.640 --> 00:29:01.840 it kind of ladders up to on brand versus off brand? Is this a Ramsey thing to do? Is this the Ramsey 322 00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:08.800 way? So if, just because I think everybody loves the good story, what's the most, what's the biggest 323 00:29:08.800 --> 00:29:15.600 goof up you've had in 35 years on something that was off brand for Ramsey that you're like, man, 324 00:29:15.600 --> 00:29:21.840 I can't believe we did that. Like, and, and what, what then would you do about it afterwards? 325 00:29:21.840 --> 00:29:25.760 Because I'm sure every business owners had a big goof up and been like, shoot, that was bad. 326 00:29:26.480 --> 00:29:34.960 You know, I, I don't know if it was off brand, but, I think one of the most expensive things we 327 00:29:34.960 --> 00:29:46.880 ever did was that we got about several millions of dollars into the building of a debit card. 328 00:29:47.440 --> 00:29:53.920 Okay. A Ramsey debit card that we, it wasn't off brand. It was right on brand. But, but, but, 329 00:29:54.800 --> 00:29:59.280 well, this is one of those things we didn't know what we didn't know, banking regulations and, 330 00:30:00.000 --> 00:30:04.720 and so forth. So we're looking for a click and mortar bank to park the thing in because it's, 331 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:09.360 we're not in the banking business. We're certainly not going to open a bank. Good Lord, no. 332 00:30:10.560 --> 00:30:17.280 That would be, there's no way, but, but there's, there's tremendous revenue potential in the 333 00:30:17.280 --> 00:30:22.800 transaction fees. And so we're looking at the Ramsey debit card and it's something that we could 334 00:30:22.800 --> 00:30:27.600 promote. We could brand it, had a nice little gazelle on it, had a nice little r on it, that kind of 335 00:30:27.600 --> 00:30:33.920 stuff. And we screwed around that. That thing was born in special projects committee. It was a 336 00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:37.760 baby. It was an orphan and we put it, we brought it. That's an deal. We brought it in an outside 337 00:30:37.760 --> 00:30:42.000 guy that knew the banking world and he's still with us today works in another area. He was brilliant 338 00:30:42.000 --> 00:30:51.200 guy, really smart. And I don't, I never want to lose the guy. But we got down into that thing and it, 339 00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:59.040 you know, of course, it has to survive through the pandemic. And again, that slowed everything 340 00:30:59.040 --> 00:31:03.520 down, shut everything down for a while. I had to back, put it on the shelf, get it off the shelf 341 00:31:03.520 --> 00:31:07.920 and dust it off. Okay, get it going again, get the beta picked back up, get the alpha picked up, 342 00:31:07.920 --> 00:31:13.760 first thing, get the beta picked up. And I think we're at about 10,000 people in beta. Okay. 343 00:31:13.760 --> 00:31:28.000 And the outside fraud bots started hitting the thing. And we thought that the bank had the 344 00:31:29.520 --> 00:31:34.800 software to catch all of that. And then we're looking at, okay, we're responsible for these 345 00:31:34.800 --> 00:31:41.120 overdrafts that are being created. We have to cover them in our contract. And real quickly, 346 00:31:41.120 --> 00:31:47.520 the thing starts going sideways. And I'm like, man, I'm so many millions into this thing. I really 347 00:31:47.520 --> 00:31:52.240 don't want to kill this thing. But we're looking at the risk and the upside. And then we just, 348 00:31:52.240 --> 00:31:57.360 we blew it up and we killed it. And I still got one of those little debit cards in my folder. I 349 00:31:57.360 --> 00:32:03.360 carry it to remind me of how stupid I was. We weren't stupid really. We did everything correctly, 350 00:32:03.360 --> 00:32:08.800 but what we, we were ignorant. We did not know what we didn't know about what our exposures were. 351 00:32:08.800 --> 00:32:18.240 And once those exposures became evident, we just had to go, oh, this is way scary. I can't 352 00:32:18.240 --> 00:32:26.480 breathe. And we're not doing this. Our losses could be infinite, huh? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. 353 00:32:26.480 --> 00:32:31.280 I'm like, yeah, yeah, if I write, you know, if we lose the several million we've got in it, 354 00:32:31.280 --> 00:32:36.240 that's that payles in comparison to how bad this could be if we don't stop. So we're going to stop 355 00:32:36.320 --> 00:32:42.960 now. And I think the bank that we were working with later went sideways and was in the news and 356 00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:49.520 blew up. And so I think I think God protected us by letting us X the thing early, because we 357 00:32:49.520 --> 00:32:53.440 would have gotten the opportunity to exit anyway. Or we would have to move the whole project to 358 00:32:53.440 --> 00:32:58.640 another bank when that bank blew up. But I was a click and mortar bank thing. I feel like a lot of 359 00:32:58.640 --> 00:33:02.720 people have had that same like this is such a good idea on paper. Why is this not working the way 360 00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:08.960 I wanted to exactly. And it was working. The customer loved it. We would have been able to track 361 00:33:08.960 --> 00:33:13.280 and for the customer track their expenses and give them report and feedback. The data we could 362 00:33:13.280 --> 00:33:18.000 have reversed furnished back to the customer was going to be, oh, man, it was going to be beautiful. 363 00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:24.160 Yeah, I mean, I see it. It's a, I mean, it's compelling. And, and the, you know, and we had written 364 00:33:24.160 --> 00:33:29.760 so many of the APIs and so much of the tie-ins, you know, to get all that stuff. We're running it 365 00:33:29.760 --> 00:33:37.200 on every dollar in the beta. But, uh, yeah, I got, I got hairy. Well, let me, let me pivot from 366 00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:43.680 something from, from the super tactical of that to zooming all the way out. So a lot of entrepreneurs 367 00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:48.880 myself included, you know, you start to, you know, build, build a lot of wealth. And then there's 368 00:33:48.880 --> 00:33:54.160 also the biggest percentage of your wealth sits inside of the enterprise that you run, right? And 369 00:33:54.160 --> 00:34:01.920 so how do you think about family office? It's like, you know, you start, you start getting this 370 00:34:01.920 --> 00:34:07.440 money, right? That comes into the business or comes out of the business. Excuse me. Do you have 371 00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:12.720 any kind of mental framework that you work through in terms of percentage reallocation to new, 372 00:34:13.680 --> 00:34:20.160 you know, new investments within, within the overarching structure? And where, where this gets 373 00:34:20.160 --> 00:34:26.080 more tactical for me to use, Laila and I have run almost everything inside of acquisition.com. 374 00:34:26.080 --> 00:34:32.640 And that means like we own buildings, we own apartment complexes, it still sits in acquisition.com. 375 00:34:32.640 --> 00:34:36.800 Obviously, there's entity structures and things like that. But in terms of the team that helps 376 00:34:36.800 --> 00:34:41.120 run it because, you know, acquisition.com primarily is an investment, you know, it started as a family 377 00:34:41.120 --> 00:34:47.600 office. But it's just, it's spun up these other, uh, profit centers to use your language, um, over time. 378 00:34:47.600 --> 00:34:54.160 And so I'm curious, have you, do you completely separate church and state to use that language 379 00:34:54.160 --> 00:34:58.800 in terms of, you know, Ramsey personal versus, yeah, can you just walk me through how you think through 380 00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:08.960 that? No, we, we have, uh, done all other investing outside of Ramsey solutions, uh, and in 381 00:35:08.960 --> 00:35:16.080 separate legal entities as well for, uh, risk management purposes. That's simple. And also for 382 00:35:16.080 --> 00:35:21.920 estate planning purposes. Uh, so for instance, the campus that you were on is, um, it's probably a 383 00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:29.600 $600 million asset roughly, something like that. Um, maybe say you owning cash. Yeah. Yeah. 384 00:35:29.600 --> 00:35:32.640 It's, I just wanted the audience to, I just wanted the audience to know. Sorry. 385 00:35:33.440 --> 00:35:39.440 So when we, when we bought the dirt to start laying the first bricks on the first thing on it, 386 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:43.440 that was a $10 million purchase. And it's the largest purchase I'd ever done in my life. 387 00:35:43.520 --> 00:35:47.760 I want to buy the dirt and I was freaking out. And I'm like, now I got to build something too. 388 00:35:48.720 --> 00:35:52.000 You know, another about the largest thing. Now I got to do something even bigger. And it's like, 389 00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:57.920 we're going to cash, so we cash flow are everything as you said. Um, but we immediately drop that 390 00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:06.160 into the children's trust so that I'm not the owner. And, uh, and so you avoid, um, any, you, 391 00:36:06.160 --> 00:36:12.640 you don't avoid capital gains on the, I'm sorry, estate tax on the basis of what you put in there, 392 00:36:12.640 --> 00:36:17.680 but you do on all the growth. And so while we've owned this property, it's doubled in value. 393 00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:25.120 Um, and so there's hundreds of millions of dollars that have now avoided, uh, estate tax by 394 00:36:25.120 --> 00:36:30.080 that being over there. Plus, if someone wants to sue Ramsey, which apparently is a hobby for some 395 00:36:30.080 --> 00:36:36.000 people and, uh, then they, uh, you know, that's not on the plate because Ramsey does not own the 396 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:42.560 campus. Ramsey is a, uh, Ramsey Solutions is a tenant, uh, of the children's trust. And then, 397 00:36:42.560 --> 00:36:46.320 you know, same thing if we, we own a bunch of other real estate, because I love real estate, 398 00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:53.360 like you do. And, um, I just buy that and then drop it into an LLC. And if it's anything over 10 399 00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:57.840 million, I'd drop it into a single, single standalone LLC so that all risk associated with that 400 00:36:57.840 --> 00:37:04.960 property is contained within that property. And, uh, from a, from a litigation standpoint, uh, 401 00:37:05.040 --> 00:37:11.200 or, or maybe anything else. But, um, and also then that gives us some other estate planning things 402 00:37:11.200 --> 00:37:17.280 we can do, uh, with, uh, because partial interest LLCs can be, with one of the kids can be, uh, 403 00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:27.040 or a kid entity, uh, trust can be greatly, uh, reduced in, uh, appraisal value. Uh, and you can 404 00:37:27.040 --> 00:37:32.320 slip more and more of that into the estate plan and not have taxes on it. So we've been doing a bunch 405 00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:37.440 of that for 20 years and playing with all this stuff. And that, so the reason was estate taxes 406 00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:45.040 and risk management is the only reason it's there. Philosophically, it's all in one lump. 407 00:37:45.040 --> 00:37:48.400 Well, that's the, and that really teased it to the, the heart of it, because for sure, 408 00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:52.720 the entity structure from a risk protection perspective, then, uh, you know, uh, from, from a 409 00:37:52.720 --> 00:37:57.840 succession planning and avoiding estate taxes later, that 100% makes sense. I was curious about 410 00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:04.080 the actual team. So like, would the same legal team that does Ramsey stuff do some of these other 411 00:38:04.080 --> 00:38:10.320 deals? I asked because this is me selfishly asking because my, you know, my, my estate attorneys, 412 00:38:10.320 --> 00:38:14.960 you know, who manage all of that stuff. Um, and I have our M&A attorneys that handle a lot of our, 413 00:38:15.680 --> 00:38:23.200 our, our deal flow. Um, a lot of times we share, I share the same resources, same, same people, um, 414 00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:29.120 for things that are, quote, personal versus acquisition.com. Um, and I was curious if you had any, 415 00:38:29.120 --> 00:38:33.520 like, breath, like, basically, if you had a mistake from that that I don't know about, I would love 416 00:38:33.520 --> 00:38:39.920 to know. No, I, I have used, uh, I've done both. Uh, so all accounting for the whole thing is 417 00:38:39.920 --> 00:38:46.880 in house. Ramsey accounting team doesn't. Okay. Taxes are, have been an outsourced forever. 418 00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:54.560 Anyway, estate planning has been outsourced forever. Uh, nuanced litigation has been outsourced 419 00:38:54.560 --> 00:39:01.200 forever. Uh, but a little thing, if I need, uh, if I need somebody to look over a lease or, uh, 420 00:39:01.200 --> 00:39:06.160 verify that we wrote the L.O.I. up if we're doing a, uh, I bought a piece of property this week. 421 00:39:06.160 --> 00:39:09.760 And, uh, the, you know, with, or I've got it on the L.O.I. I don't have a contract. It's so, uh, 422 00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:14.080 you know, well, well, my real estate team, which does not work for Ramsey, 423 00:39:14.560 --> 00:39:19.200 run, walk down the hall. They do a sit here, but they don't work technically for Ramsey. Okay. 424 00:39:19.200 --> 00:39:22.320 They walk down the hall and run it past the general count. Somebody had the general counsel on 425 00:39:22.320 --> 00:39:28.400 the legal team, probably. Yeah. Uh, but minor stuff, but pretty quickly, if anything gets, like, 426 00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:32.800 if you're, if we're rezoning a piece of property, my legal team here to not do that. I've got, 427 00:39:32.800 --> 00:39:36.080 that's going to be an outsourced guy. I'm going to bring in a zoning attorney that knows what 428 00:39:36.080 --> 00:39:39.920 the flip they're doing and those everybody at the county that can walk it through because my 429 00:39:39.920 --> 00:39:43.520 guys would be stumbling around not knowing what they're doing down there. General counsel would 430 00:39:43.520 --> 00:39:49.520 be, man, this, that was, that's super helpful for those of you who are, you know, further along 431 00:39:49.520 --> 00:39:53.600 the path, like some of this stuff that we're talking about with asset protection and entity structure, 432 00:39:53.600 --> 00:39:57.200 although it's something that you don't, I didn't, I wasn't like, I don't wake up every day, 433 00:39:57.200 --> 00:40:03.120 and be like, man, I can't wait to learn about asset protection. Uh, right. But it's, you know, 434 00:40:03.120 --> 00:40:08.320 yeah. I did not anticipate when I was 64 years old that I would own zero. I don't even own 435 00:40:08.320 --> 00:40:15.680 my cars. I don't own anything. Everything is in an LLC and my wife holds the LLCs. I actually 436 00:40:15.680 --> 00:40:22.320 am a very poor individual. You know, we built this again. We referred to it several times, but 437 00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:26.960 well, we love our campus and I'm proud of this property. We've done a good job with it. But when 438 00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:32.240 we're sitting on the interstate, a six, two six story buildings with big, huge Ramsey solution 439 00:40:32.240 --> 00:40:36.720 signs on them. And I thought, because I'm a real estate guy, I thought, okay, traffic count, 440 00:40:36.720 --> 00:40:41.200 that's branding. You know, people going up the interstate, they see Ramsey and they stop in and 441 00:40:41.200 --> 00:40:46.720 watch the show here because it's on the glass and it's all this customer interaction. And it was 442 00:40:46.720 --> 00:40:52.320 like, we're, you know, the stuff we're teaching is working for us. So it's proof text for the 443 00:40:52.320 --> 00:40:58.480 customer, right? And so it's branding and it's all positive, positive, positive. I had no idea that 444 00:40:58.480 --> 00:41:02.160 when you did something like build this building and put it on the interstate that you basically 445 00:41:02.160 --> 00:41:07.680 should have put right under the sign in the words, sue me or bullseye, right? Bullseye, a little 446 00:41:07.680 --> 00:41:15.200 bullseye. Yeah. Because I think people, some people got from that that this is now a target rich 447 00:41:15.200 --> 00:41:20.240 environment. And then we've had to spend, we've had to spend some money convincing them otherwise 448 00:41:21.520 --> 00:41:27.200 because I don't, I don't do well with this kind of stuff. I really don't negotiate. I'm going to 449 00:41:27.200 --> 00:41:31.920 pound you into dirt. And I've got some of them that are six and seven years now that I've been 450 00:41:31.920 --> 00:41:38.640 sitting in court. And I'm not going to quit. I'm going to destroy them because I cannot stand 451 00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:46.160 the thievery that that represents. It's, I can't stand a thief. I love this so much. I could, 452 00:41:46.160 --> 00:41:50.240 I could talk probably another hour on this, but I would have pivoted for the sake of the audience. 453 00:41:51.600 --> 00:41:55.440 Can you walk me through the six stages of scaling that you talk about in your book? 454 00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:02.080 Well, we came up with, we're looking for because the best selling book we've ever done and the 455 00:42:02.080 --> 00:42:06.800 probably the most known thing in the entire Ramsey brand has been the baby steps. And that was 456 00:42:06.800 --> 00:42:12.080 the total money makeover book, 12 million copies now. And what we discovered from that teaching 457 00:42:12.080 --> 00:42:15.840 people the seven baby steps, this is what you do if you want to go from broke to wealthy, 458 00:42:16.400 --> 00:42:21.760 is when people have a clear path, it gives them hope. And they don't have paralysis of the 459 00:42:21.760 --> 00:42:29.280 analysis and they don't have, if you have a clear map to get to Florida, your anxiety goes down 460 00:42:29.280 --> 00:42:36.080 if you're on the way to Florida. And if you need a clear path. And so I didn't have a clear path 461 00:42:36.080 --> 00:42:39.840 running a business. And so I'm kind of making it up as I go. And I got a lot of bumps and scars 462 00:42:39.840 --> 00:42:45.680 and bruises. And I went slower than I should have because I didn't know what the next step was. 463 00:42:45.760 --> 00:42:52.640 So as we've coached ourselves now through 30 plus years and about 10,000 small businesses, 464 00:42:52.640 --> 00:42:57.760 we're observing that businesses go through five stages. It starts with a treadmill stage. 465 00:42:57.760 --> 00:43:03.280 When you're by yourself, you're a solopreneur. All revenue is based on you. All production is 466 00:43:03.280 --> 00:43:07.680 based on you. You don't even really own a business. You just own your job because if you don't work, 467 00:43:07.680 --> 00:43:12.400 nothing happens. And so you come home from work and you flop down on the couch I would when I was 468 00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:16.960 at that stage and Sharon said, what'd you do today? I don't know, but I did a lot of it and I'm exhausted. 469 00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:22.000 And so you just run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, 470 00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:28.480 run. And if it's to be, it's up to me is not a motto, but it is the motto. And so man, you get 471 00:43:28.480 --> 00:43:35.360 her done. And that is fun. It's invigorating. It's a fun time. You're still, you still believe 472 00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:40.880 this business thing is going to be easy because you're naive at that stage. But it's not sustainable. 473 00:43:41.760 --> 00:43:51.440 You don't meet 10 year treadmill operators because you run out of breath. It's too hard. If you 474 00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:57.040 just own your own job, they end up closing going to work for somebody or they end up growing the 475 00:43:57.040 --> 00:44:00.720 business. So what do you do to grow? Well, each of these stages, we figured out there some things 476 00:44:00.720 --> 00:44:05.680 you do to level up on that one. It's pretty simple time management. You got to do what our friend 477 00:44:05.680 --> 00:44:11.200 Berger at Emeth says. And that is to work on the business, not just in the business. So you've 478 00:44:11.200 --> 00:44:15.680 got to allocate blocks of time. You got to start blocking time and say, I got to work, I got to 479 00:44:15.680 --> 00:44:21.280 have, I got to start thinking about something other than freaking Friday and pay, you know, and 480 00:44:21.280 --> 00:44:25.360 the second thing is I got to learn how to hire people. And I got to bring on my first folks. And, 481 00:44:26.160 --> 00:44:30.800 and I can delegate to them so that someone is creating production and someone is creating 482 00:44:30.800 --> 00:44:38.880 revenue both. That is not just me. So that if I'm hurt or I'm on vacation or one of my kids is sick 483 00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:45.440 and I need a 10 to them, the whole thing doesn't stop. And when you do that, you level up. You know, 484 00:44:45.440 --> 00:44:50.240 get your first hire. You're starting a little bit of baby delegation here. And you get some good time 485 00:44:50.240 --> 00:44:57.040 management and you go to the trailblazer stage. Trailblazer is just chaotic. It's crazy. I mean, 486 00:44:57.040 --> 00:45:01.200 you're trying to herd cats. You got 10, 15 people on their run in 16 directions. Nobody knows 487 00:45:01.200 --> 00:45:08.720 what nobody's doing, but we're doing a whole lot of it. And it's communication is really fun. 488 00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:14.480 And there's a lot of passion and a lot of zeal. It's a good stage. I love the trailblazer stage. 489 00:45:15.200 --> 00:45:22.080 But again, it's eventually so frenetic that eventually you start to go, I really want to get a 490 00:45:22.080 --> 00:45:26.240 little bit more sophisticated than this because this is killing me. And so how do you do that? Well, 491 00:45:26.240 --> 00:45:31.440 you start actually doing some planning, which is a whole new idea for the tactical person like me, 492 00:45:32.160 --> 00:45:36.080 because when in doubt, I bust something in the nose, right? When in doubt, I'm going to run into the 493 00:45:36.080 --> 00:45:40.720 wall. Let's go do something. If I run into it enough times, it'll fall over. And I just start, you 494 00:45:40.720 --> 00:45:44.880 know, I got to stop being so tactical. I got to start thinking about long term. I got to start 495 00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:50.960 really developing my first layer of leadership inside my team. That takes you up to the 496 00:45:51.920 --> 00:45:57.760 pathfinder stage, or that's pathfinder up to trailblazer stage. Trailblazer stage is the middle 497 00:45:57.760 --> 00:46:03.280 stage of the five. I skipped one. And trailblazer stage is the middle stage of the five. This is where 498 00:46:03.280 --> 00:46:10.400 you actually where I first started hearing about strategic thought. I'm so straight commission sales, 499 00:46:10.400 --> 00:46:16.880 guy mentality, tactical guy that when someone said we need strategic thought, that sounded like 500 00:46:16.880 --> 00:46:21.760 corporate America and I went, no, you should just start to go get your work done. But then I 501 00:46:21.760 --> 00:46:27.840 started hiring some guys and gals that had MBAs. And they started, I think 100% of the MBA 502 00:46:27.840 --> 00:46:33.200 programs teach strategic thought as a primary thing. And so they start teaching me the value of 503 00:46:33.200 --> 00:46:36.400 strategic thought. They're like, look, you don't have to run into the wall. If you turn right and then 504 00:46:36.400 --> 00:46:41.360 turn left, you go around the wall. It's a lot less energy. You burn less calories calories. I'm 505 00:46:41.360 --> 00:46:45.840 like, how'd you know that? Well, I got above it. I had a 30,000 foot view. I wasn't just looking at 506 00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:50.400 the day to day, the moment to moment. Thank God it's Friday. Oh, God, it's Monday. And so we blow 507 00:46:50.400 --> 00:46:56.160 past that. And we start actually doing strategic thought. So they, my MBAs that I hired and other 508 00:46:56.160 --> 00:47:00.800 people taught me strategic thought. I didn't know it. And I always laugh and say, I taught them how to 509 00:47:00.800 --> 00:47:06.640 work. So, but you know, so we did that. And then you moved to Pathfinder is the fifth. And that's 510 00:47:06.640 --> 00:47:10.960 where it's really sweet. Man, you're bailing money now. Everything you got your systems in place, 511 00:47:10.960 --> 00:47:16.640 the processes in place, planning is in place, revenue levels. You say this is around. I'm sorry. 512 00:47:16.640 --> 00:47:22.000 Well, revenue levels, which is like treadmill is like zero to a million. You know, we tried to 513 00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:28.560 attribute it to that. And we could do that with our journey. But we really couldn't. It changes 514 00:47:28.560 --> 00:47:34.080 from industry to industry. So if I'm dealing with a guy that's got one heating and air truck 515 00:47:34.160 --> 00:47:39.840 and he's fixing, he's doing HVAC, you know, when he gets the 20 trucks and 70 employees, is he 516 00:47:39.840 --> 00:47:45.520 there? No, he could still be, he wouldn't be treadmill. But that doesn't necessarily mean he's 517 00:47:45.520 --> 00:47:51.040 Pathfinder versus Trailblazer, right? So because he could still be doing some of the dumb stuff, 518 00:47:51.040 --> 00:47:56.480 three layers below what it looks like he should be doing. And that's what that was mean. That's 519 00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:01.600 what I did. The last stage is what we spent a lot of our time on, which is where we are today. And 520 00:48:01.600 --> 00:48:06.400 that's the legacy stage where you talk a lot about succession. What's your end game? How you 521 00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:11.440 going to hand off? And you've got a bench depth. It's the ultimate bench depth is how you're going 522 00:48:11.440 --> 00:48:18.480 to replace yourself and move to the family office mentality, as you said. And those kinds of 523 00:48:18.480 --> 00:48:23.520 things. So we walk you through those five stages, show you a clear path. And then there's six drivers 524 00:48:23.520 --> 00:48:30.400 that drive those. I don't cover them all right now. But you know, it starts with personal growth. 525 00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:34.880 I am the problem and I'm the solution. I'm the thing holding the business back at every 526 00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:42.720 stage. And so I've got to get better at every stage, right? And purpose and people, the quality 527 00:48:42.720 --> 00:48:47.120 of your hires, the quality of your culture, the quality of the connectivity and the culture with 528 00:48:47.120 --> 00:48:53.440 the core values, all those things evolve as you go through the stages and profit planning. 529 00:48:54.640 --> 00:48:57.920 And then you just cycle back through those six drivers. We think we've been through the six 530 00:48:57.920 --> 00:49:03.760 drivers at Ramsey probably somewhere 10 to 15 times while we went through the five stages. 531 00:49:04.640 --> 00:49:10.960 Because they change as you, you know, it's like you read a great book and then four years later, 532 00:49:10.960 --> 00:49:16.080 you read it again and you're a different person. So you see different things. And so you changes 533 00:49:16.080 --> 00:49:21.120 you go through. But that clear path between the six drivers working to get through the five 534 00:49:21.120 --> 00:49:26.320 stages has set a bunch of our folks, our clients, our customers free. So we decided to put it into a 535 00:49:26.320 --> 00:49:32.720 book. And that's what building a business, your love is. Well, Dave, I think we're close to 536 00:49:32.720 --> 00:49:39.120 close to time. But I wanted to personally thank you for the impact that I think you've made on 537 00:49:39.120 --> 00:49:43.920 millions of lives. I'm sure you're here every day. But I just, I want to say thank you because I think 538 00:49:43.920 --> 00:49:50.560 sometimes when you're, when you're at the top, you don't, you don't hear it as much. And so I think it's, 539 00:49:50.560 --> 00:49:52.800 it's, it's real good stuff. 540 00:49:54.800 --> 00:50:01.680 Well, thank you, brother. No, for real. And I think your heart is clear. I think people see 541 00:50:02.400 --> 00:50:07.840 what your intention behind it is. I mean, the man owns a $600 million campus in cash. 542 00:50:08.880 --> 00:50:16.000 He doesn't need your money. It's nice, right? But, but he doesn't need it. And I think, 543 00:50:16.640 --> 00:50:20.240 I think it's really cool what you've done. I would love to talk for another hour on 544 00:50:20.880 --> 00:50:24.960 even like going from personal finance to, you know, the entrepreneurship brand. 545 00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:29.920 But I know I know our time is limited. So anyways, I want to say thank you again for 546 00:50:29.920 --> 00:50:34.800 for coming on the game. And I'm sure audience will definitely definitely have a couple of 547 00:50:34.800 --> 00:50:42.000 moments of PTSD here, some of the stories went over. And maybe hopefully avoid future PTSD by 548 00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:45.760 taking a right and then the left. Very cool. Well, thank you for having me. Let's do it again. 549 00:50:45.760 --> 00:50:48.960 Yeah. No, awesome. Thank you. If you enjoyed this conversation, there's actually a second 550 00:50:49.760 --> 00:50:53.680 long form conversation I've had with Dave. I had one, I think two years ago, it's one of the 551 00:50:53.680 --> 00:50:58.080 top videos on the channel that people seem to love. And so if you like this, you'll love that.