Die 6 Phasen des Wachstums nach Dave Ramsey

0:00Can you walk me through the six stages of scaling that you that you talk about in the in your book? Well, we came up with we're looking for because the best-selling book we've ever done and and the probably the most known thing in the entire Ramsey brand has been the baby steps and that was the Total Money Makeover book, 12 million copies now. And what we discovered from that, teaching people the seven baby steps, this is what you do if you want to go from broke to wealthy, is that when people have a clear path, it gives them hope.

0:28And they don't have paralysis of the analysis and they don't have if you have a clear map to get to Florida, your anxiety goes down if you're on the way to Florida, you know, and if you need a clear path. And so I didn't have a clear path running a business and so I'm kind of making it up as I go and I got a lot of bumps and scars and bruises and and I went slower than I should have cuz I didn't know didn't know what the next step was. So as we've coached ourselves now through 30 plus years and about 10,000 small businesses, we're observing that businesses go through five stages.

1:04It starts with a treadmill stage when you're by yourself, you're a solopreneur, all revenue is based on you, all production is based on you. You don't even really own a business, you just own your job cuz if you don't work, nothing happens. And so you come home from work and you flop down on the couch, I would when I was at that stage and Sharon say, "What did you do today?" I don't know, but I did a lot of it and I'm exhausted. And so you just run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run run and it's if it's to be, it's up to me is not a motto, but it is the motto. And so man, you get her done.

1:38And that is fun, it's invigorating, it's a fun time. You're still you still believe this business thing is going to be easy cuz you're naive at that stage, but it's not sustainable. You don't meet 10-year treadmill operators. Because you run out of breath. It's too hard if you just own your own job. They end up closing, going to work for somebody. Or they end up growing the business. So, what do you do to grow?

2:07Well, each of these stages we figured out there's some things you do to level up. Uh on that one it's pretty simple, time management. You got to do what our friend Berger at E-Myth says, and that is to uh work on the business, not just in the business. So, you've got to allocate blocks of time. You got to start blocking time. And say, all right, I got to work I got to have I got to start thinking about something other than freaking Friday. And pay, you know, and the second thing is I got to learn how to hire people, and I got to bring on my first folks.

2:33And uh and I can delegate to them so that someone is creating production, and someone is creating revenue, both. That is not just me. So, that if I'm hurt, or I'm on vacation, or uh one of my kids is sick, and I need to tend to them, the whole thing doesn't stop. Uh and and when you do that, you level up. Uh you know, get your first hire, you start a little bit of baby delegation here. Uh and you get some good time management, and you go to the trailblazer stage.

3:01The trailblazer is just chaotic. It's crazy. I mean, you're trying to herd cats. You got 10, 15 people, and they're running in 16 directions. Nobody knows what nobody's doing, but we're doing a whole lot of it. And uh it's uh communication is is really fun, and there's a lot of passion, and a lot of zeal. It's a good stage. I love the trailblazer stage. Uh but again, it's it's uh eventually so frenetic that eventually you you start to go, I really want to get a little bit more sophisticated than this, cuz this is killing me. And so, how do you do that?

3:34Well, you start actually doing some planning. Uh which is a whole whole new idea for the tactical person like me. Uh because when in doubt, I bust something in the nose, right? When in doubt, I'm going to run into the wall. Let's go do something. Now, if I run into it enough times, it'll fall over. And I just start how, you know, I got to stop being so tactical. I got to start thinking about long-term. I got to start really developing my first layer of leadership inside my team. That takes you up to the uh pathfinder stage or that's pathfinder up to trailblazer stage. Trailblazer stage is the middle stage of the five. I skipped one. And uh trailblazer stage is the middle stage of the five. This is where you actually where I first started hearing about strategic thought.

4:15Um I'm so straight commission sales guy mentality, tactical guy that when someone said we need strategic thought, that sounded like corporate America and I went, "No, you should just try to go get your work done." And so uh but then I started hiring some guys and gals that had MBAs and they started I think 100% of the MBA programs teach strategic thought as a primary thing. And so they start teaching me the value of strategic thought. They're like, "Look, you don't have to run into the wall. If you turn right and then turn left, you go around the wall. It's a lot less energy. You burn less calories." Calories, I'm like, "How do you know that?" Well, I got above it. I had a 30,000-ft view. I wasn't just looking at the day-to-day, the moment-to-moment, thank God it's Friday, oh God, it's Monday. And so we blow past that and we start actually doing strategic thought. So they my MBAs that I hired and other people taught me strategic thought. I didn't know it.

5:07And I always laugh and say I taught them how to work. So uh but you know, so we did that and then you move to pathfinder is the fifth and that's where it's really sweet. Man, you're baling money now. Everything you got your systems in place, the processes in place, planning is in place. >> What revenue levels would you say this is around? I'm sorry? What revenue levels would you say like treadmill is like zero to a million? You know, we we tried to attribute it to that and we could do that with our journey, but we really couldn't it changes from industry to industry. So if I'm dealing with a guy that's got one heating and air truck and he's fixing he's doing HVAC, you know, when he gets to the 20 trucks and 70 employees, is he there? No, he could still be he wouldn't be treadmill, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's pathfinder versus trailblazer, right?

5:56So, because he could still be doing some of the dumb stuff three layers below what it looks like he should be doing. Um and that's what that was me. That's what I did. The last stage is what we spend a lot of our time on, which is where we are today, and that's the legacy stage, where you talk a lot about succession, what's your end game, how you going to handoff, and you've got a bench depth. It's the ultimate bench depth is how you going to replace yourself.

6:21And and move to the family office mentality as you said and those kinds of things. So, we walk you through those five stages, show you a clear path, and then there's six drivers that drive those. I won't cover them all right now, but you know, it's you know, it starts with personal growth. I am the problem and I'm the solution. I'm the thing holding the business back at every stage. And so, I've got to get better at every stage, right? And purpose and people, the quality of your hires, the quality of your culture, the quality of the connectivity in the culture with the core values, all those things evolve as you go through the stages, and profit planning and then you just cycle back through the six drivers. We think we've been through the six drivers at Ramsey probably somewhere 10 to 15 times while we went through the five stages because they they change as you uh you know, it's like you read a a great book and then four years later you read it again and you're a different person, so you see different things.

7:23And so, you change as you go through, but that clear path between the six drivers working to get through the five stages has set a bunch of our folks, our clients, our customers free, so we decided to put it into a book, and that's what building a business you love is. Well, Dave, I think we're close to close to time, Um, but I wanted to personally say thank you for the impact that I think you've made on millions of lives.

7:48I'm sure you hear it every day, but um I just I want to say thank you cuz I think sometimes uh when you're when you're at the top, you don't you don't hear it as much. And so um I think it's it's it's real good stuff. Uh Well, thank you, brother. No, for real. Um, and uh I think your heart is clear. I think people see what your intention behind it is. I mean, the man owns a $600 million campus in cash.

8:17He doesn't need your money. Um It's nice, right? But uh but but he doesn't need it. And I think um I think it's really cool what you've done. I would I would love to talk for another hour on even like going from personal finance to, you know, the the entrepreneurship brand. Um, but I know I know our our our our time is limited. So, anyways, I want to say thank you again for for for coming on the game. And I'm sure uh my audience will will will definitely definitely have a couple moments of uh PTSD hearing some of the stories we went over.

8:47Um, and maybe hopefully avoid future PTSD by uh by taking a right and then a left. Very cool. Well, thank you for having me. Let's do it again. Yeah. No, awesome. Thank you. Real quick, if you are a business owner and you are not growing as fast as you like, I'd like to give you a free gift. So, my team and I put together the $100 million scaling road map, which is basically 200 hours of us looking over all the portfolio companies we've had and what stages of growth they went through. And more importantly, where they got stuck and how they got past it. And so, we broke it into these 10 stages and we made this little kind of quiz thing where if you put in your business information, it'll tell you where you're at. And the most important part for you, what to do for each of functions of the business across product, marketing, sales, customer success, recruiting, IT, human resources, and finance. And so, no matter what you're struggling with, someone else has already struggled with it and solved it. And so, I'd like to give you this thing absolutely free. You can go to acquisitions.com/roadmap, plug in your business information, and if you want us to actually help you deconstruct the business and you're trying to scale, we'd love to help you out. On the thank you page, you can just book a call with my team, and we will look into the business, see if we can help, and if we can, we'll invite you out to Vegas, and we'll do this in person live.