CONCLUSION
It was truly a historic moment and an amazing accomplishment. On November 15, 1805, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stood at the mouth of the Columbia River and looked out at the vastness of the Pacific Ocean in front of them. Exactly one year, six months, and one day earlier, they’d set out from St. Louis, Missouri, in search of the legendary Northwest Passage to the sea. They were the first ever to map this journey, and eventually, nearly half a million settlers would make that same trip. But instead of eighteen months, it would take them less than five months—over 300 percent faster! How could they do it so quickly? Because someone had gone before them and marked the way.
As a business owner, you no doubt feel like you’re exploring uncharted territory—and you often are. But it doesn’t have to feel that way, and you don’t have to feel as though you’re completely alone in a business wilderness. Learn from those who have gone before you and mapped the way. My hope is that this book will do for you what Lewis and Clark did for all the settlers who came after them—provide direction and hope.
What you’ve read in this book won’t give you a magic wand you can wave to make running your business easy. It will still take your blood, sweat, and tears to win at business. But I hope that this book will guide you to save time, money, and wasted effort. By sharing Ramsey Solutions’ ups and downs—our mistakes, wrong turns, and eventual solutions—I believe we can help you build a business you love and leave a legacy you’re proud of.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve learned about our system and how to win at business. You’ve learned principles that will grow your business and your team. You now have important knowledge to guide your choices. But you could use one more thing—consider it pure jet fuel for your journey through the Five Stages of Business.
We’ve developed a digital platform where you’ll find a set of tools that automate many of the processes we talked about as we unpacked the stages. This digital platform is called EntreLeadership Elite. The tools in Elite are designed to align your team and simplify the process of accountability for leaders and team members. You’ll be able to gauge team unity while driving and tracking progress toward your goals. Trying to do that manually would be practically impossible when your business grows at the speed the EntreLeadership System will cause. We know these tools work because we created them for ourselves first—they’ve all been tested, tweaked, improved, and used every week with our team. And EntreLeadership Elite makes it possible for you to share these tools with your team, taking out the guess work and grunt work of working the EntreLeadership System. You can get started using Elite here:
Drivers and Stages Recap
Let me remind you of the Six Drivers of Business. They drive your business forward and are essential for its success.
Personal: You’re both the problem and the solution.
Purpose: Business is about more than just the bottom line.
People: A unified team is key to winning.
Plan: Success is intentional; it doesn’t happen by accident.
Product: Serve enough people and the revenue will follow.
Profit: Profits fuel your purpose.
Remember, as you master these six drivers, they will propel you through the Five Stages of Business:
Treadmill Operator: You’re making too much of the money yourself.
Pathfinder: You struggle to get your team pointed in the right direction.
Trailblazer: You need a leadership team and strategic plan.
Peak Performer: You must defend the culture you created.
Legacy Builder: Your business thrives after you’re gone.
This is the EntreLeadership System, and it’s the method we’ve used to go from my starting this business on a card table in my living room to having a $250-million-a-year business. We still have a lot of work to do. But we’re winning at it. And I want you to win at business too. You’ll create wealth for yourself and your family. But even more than that, you’ll shape culture and influence the world. Bob Briner talks about this in his book Roaring Lambs. He explains that you’re not called to sit on the sidelines or retreat from the mainstream. You are to boldly live out your values and your faith, right where God has placed you—in the middle of your business.
See, there are primarily two kinds of people running businesses today. First, you’ll find those who are self-centered. These are the typical greedy jerks who are all about money, shortcuts, and taking advantage of others. Their primary goal is to serve themselves.
The second kind of people running businesses are those who are others-centered—selfless. I believe that’s where you are if you’re reading this book. Your primary goal is to serve others through your work. You want to help your clients, your team, and the economy. Your team members have jobs because of you. You’re a contributor to your community because your goods and services make people’s lives better. That’s being others-centered, and it makes a positive impact in the world. You’re not being selfish; you’re being a servant.
The marketplace needs more of those kinds of business owners because the more of us there are, the less room there is for the selfish ones. Here’s what I mean: I know a musician who is crazy about Jesus and loves making music. Even though he’s a strong Christian, most of his songs are what most people would call “secular” hits, meaning they don’t talk explicitly about his faith. However, this is a man of God serving with integrity in a business that’s often filled with self-serving people who don’t care what kind of filth they produce as long as it creates profit for them. When he has a hit song on the radio, even if he doesn’t mention the name of Jesus, he is displacing other trashy songs that could have been taking up that airtime. At the same time, he is serving as an example, showing others in the industry that you can be successful in the music business without giving in to toxic cultural norms.
The same thing happens when a Christian teacher steps into a classroom or when a Christian politician runs for office or when a Christian businessman opens a business. All they need to do is serve with excellence, keep their integrity, and maintain their commitment to God to make a huge impact for the Kingdom. Just by being there, they are displacing the forces of the enemy.
I look around this country and see honest, brave, and noble leaders. They’re true servant leaders. Leaders like you. Your business isn’t just a way to make money—it’s a platform to make an impact. The way you treat your team, clients, and vendors can create positive change that goes well beyond profits and will leave a legacy you may not see this side of heaven.
Business is hard, but your business is also important to the world we live in. Don’t play it safe. Use your business as a force for good. Just like Briner’s roaring lambs, let your business be a powerful voice that shows the world that success and faith can go hand in hand. When you do that, you’re not only taking your business to the next level—you’re playing a part in transforming the world for the better.
final thoughtS
Winston Churchill was a little guy—about five foot six. A bulldog of a man and quite a character to say the least. And if it weren’t for him, we’d likely all be speaking German right now. He came to power as British prime minister during World War II in a weird way. In September of 1938, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. By 1940, Hitler was going through Europe like a hot knife through butter. Neville Chamberlain, then prime minister, however, was one of those fools who thought you could negotiate with evil—the kind of evil represented by Hitler. His strategy was not to show strength but to appease. But there’s no appeasing a madman. Obviously, his strategy didn’t work.
Wisely, the English people rose up. In May of 1940, Parliament unseated Chamberlain and made Churchill the Prime Minister. Churchill took the opportunity to lambaste Chamberlain, saying, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and now you will have war.” His message to Hitler was equally clear: “We will never negotiate.” And it became a rallying cry for the entire United Kingdom as Hitler relentlessly bombed London night after night for eighteen long months.
During the bombing raids, Churchill, widely considered one of the greatest orators in history, would give fabulous speeches to encourage the British people. Churchill even gave speeches before the United States Congress in an attempt to find another ally in their war effort. He would have to wait until the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941 to get the help he needed. Until then, this little guy with a huge voice held the entire United Kingdom together.
Early in 1941, before America changed everything by entering the war, Harrow School, the school Churchill attended as a boy, asked him to speak at a graduation ceremony later in the year. There are two versions of what happened at this commencement. But the hard-core Churchill supporters mostly agree on this one.
On October 29, 1941, with the war still raging, Churchill walked to the podium, put down his cane, and took off his top hat. He launched into his prepared commencement address, and in the middle of his speech, Churchill said this:
“This is the lesson: Never give in, never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy . . . These are not dark days; these are great days—the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our station, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.”
Then he picked up his hat and cane and walked off the stage. The point of his speech, in the midst of the worst war the world had seen to date, was to never, ever quit. Never quit.
That’s so encouraging and inspiring to me. I know you might be running a business that you started simply to make money. Maybe you’ve had the worst year of your life and you’re trying to decide whether you’re going to stay open or not. Or maybe you’ve just been doing your business for fun, but now it’s not fun and you want to move on. That’s okay. Find something else to do. But even if you’ve had the worst year of your life, your business is part of who you are. Not in an unhealthy way, but it’s knitted on your soul. That’s who I am.
If you have the desire to run your business well but feel like quitting, I understand. I’ve been there more times than I care to remember. I declared bankruptcy on September 23, 1988, and had to start completely over. I’ve been building and leading Ramsey Solutions for over three decades now. There have been plenty of times when I’ve thought, I’ve had it. I’m tired of all this crap. I’m done.
But there’s something inside me that won’t let me just roll over. And there’s something inside of you too. So my final words to you are very simple. They’re the same thing Churchill told his people: