Introduce a bestseller that has many fans all over the world. It has up to 320 pages and was written by Mr. Dave Ramsey. The title is "EntreLeadership" , which shares another piece of information, means "20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches." Mr. Dave Ramsey is a very famous author, and his books have received a lot of support and are bestsellers in the fields of finance and leadership. Examples include the books "Financial Peace," "More Than Enough," and "The Total Money Makeover." Moreover, Mr. Dave Ramsey is also a co-founder and the CEO of a large company, The Lampo Group, Inc., which is also based in the United States. "EntreLeadership" was published and distributed in 2011, and this book was written with the purpose of showcasing the combination of the best qualities of an entrepreneur and a leader.
In this book, author Dave Ramsey also shares his more than 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur to share his personal secrets and effective methods for creating and making his company grow rapidly. He started with only one employee and grew to have 400 employees. Before we get to the summary of today's book, I have a question for all of you. Can you memorize something while you are listening to a song? It's not easy for some people who try to do two different things at the same time. Trying to do two conflicting things at the same time is a challenge not only for our bodies but also for our minds. In today's highly competitive business world, leaders are often expected to handle many tasks at the same time. And sometimes those tasks seem to be contradictory and conflicting, requiring leaders to be resilient and able to see through problems. In short, every business leader must be a person who dares to take risks and has high ambitions for their business. At the same time, they should be excellent leaders with long-term vision, good judgment, and the ability to make correct and timely decisions.
You will also learn about the method of combining the key qualities of a nimble, brave entrepreneur with the excellent qualities of a leader to strengthen and grow your business step by step. What qualities do you think a new business founder should have? You might think that a new business founder must know their business market well, have a business plan, a clear implementation plan, and be willing to accept and face potential risks at all times. They must also have a fighting spirit to achieve their dreams without backing down, right? Besides the points mentioned above, are there any other points? Of course, they must have a broad and long-term vision and mindset, which helps them create new, appealing products that fit the current market. Therefore, it is essential that a new business founder is both an excellent leader and an excellent entrepreneur. In the summary below, when you hear the term "EntreLeaders," please remember that this term refers to institutional leaders who possess both the qualities of leadership and the qualities of entrepreneurship combined. EntreLeaders are individuals who dare to take risks and can find and identify gaps in their business market. They are ambitious individuals who want to succeed. But they are also leaders who not only motivate themselves to push forward relentlessly but can also inspire their entire team to achieve their shared dream, with the ability to make the right decisions when faced with difficult situations. In summary, every company leader must have skills as both an entrepreneur and a leader if they want to succeed in their business. In addition to this, every company leader also defines and influences the work culture within their company.
Currently, many CEOs are facing and have been facing problems in leading their companies to success. They face problems and do not succeed because most of them have overlooked that in this business sector, leadership skills are not as important as entrepreneurial or sales skills. The author of this book himself, Mr. Dave Ramsey, initially had problems with his leadership as well. When he first started his business, he had a total of 14 employees under his leadership. And even though he was the only one with a clear vision for what he was doing, he was often disappointed with his staff, because he felt that they did not share the company's shared dream with him. Not only that, he often reacted and expressed dissatisfaction and anger over small issues, such as his staff coming to work late. His anger towards employees who were late caused him to lose his ability to think rationally. And as a result, he forced those employees to sit outside their office, exposed to the elements while it was getting very cold. He told them that this was the consequence of being late, and it was fitting for the cold weather. Using such harsh methods did not change his employees; it only made him a failed leader.
This unbalanced leadership not only demoralized his staff but also caused his company to regress. At this point, please don't worry. If you are doing the same things to your employees as Dave Ramsey did, the good thing is that every leader can always learn from their mistakes and can change to prevent those mistakes from happening again. When you start to choose and apply the important skills of an EntreLeader, that's when you will bring great success to your company. Create a plan to achieve your dreams clearly. Create specific, achievable goals. Create a plan to achieve your dreams clearly. Create specific, achievable goals and start accomplishing them one by one. It's true that you might dream of starting your own business, and sometimes it may seem impossible. But even so, you should dream big. Don't limit your dreams at all, because just dreaming doesn't cost anything.
You also know that with diligence, creativity, and the right effort, you will surely achieve success. But unfortunately, not everything can be done and succeed as we wish. Sometimes those dreams remain just dreams and can never become reality because our efforts are not right, not on the right track, focusing on the wrong things and not the right goals. So what should we do to achieve our dreams? This book has the answer to this question. The author clearly states that leaders with entrepreneurial qualities know how to break down their dreams into specific, achievable goals in many stages. By doing this, the EntreLeader and their team will know exactly what they are working on, where they are, and where they will go next. To be sure that your team is on the right path to success, you can try implementing a popular management system known as MBO: Management by Objectives.
First, you need to agree to set a common goal with your team members. Then, you must set a deadline for achieving that goal clearly. Accountability is most important in this process because if each team member participates in the process of setting the objective, they will be motivated to solve any unforeseen problems that may arise. This is a special point that keeps all your team members motivated to work hard to achieve the company's objective because they feel it is a shared goal that includes a part of each of their dreams. It is not a goal dictated by one person or by top management for them to achieve. Have you ever avoided a task you had to do because you thought that if you did it, you might fail? This hesitation and lack of motivation can really cause your aspirations to fail. Having a clear goal, along with a specific deadline to achieve it, is something that must be done without fail. Based on the experience of a friend of the author, an architect, who decided to start his own business, initially, he faced many challenges. But then, he started setting a goal for himself to earn $5,000 a month. If not, his business would have to close. Putting this pressure on himself was the driving force for him to take action to achieve his business goals. And as a final result, he earned up to $7,000 a month, more than what he had planned.
Dreams are the starting point of success in business, as well as in your personal life. But you have to make sure that you set a clear and achievable plan to make it easier to turn your dreams into reality. And when you start implementing those plans, it means you have already achieved 50%. Manage your time wisely with a priority list of tasks you need to do. And try to manage your time well like this every day until it becomes a habit. Have you ever spent a whole day working on something and in the end, you feel like you haven't accomplished anything significant for spending a whole day on it? This feeling is not pleasant at all. Of course, you will become a victim of wasting time if you don't have a schedule and a clear action plan for what you want to achieve. A simple tool like a prioritized to-do list can help you more easily track and execute tasks with efficiency. A prioritized to-do list gives you the opportunity to manage your time well when you have a lot of work to do.
Remember, don't just try to do any task when someone tells you or instructs you to do it. Instead, you should do the tasks that you know you must get done. This is better. Remember not to just try to do any task when someone instructs or tells you to do it. Instead, you should do the tasks that you know you must get done. This is better. Let's consider a point together. You probably feel rushed if a friend or colleague asks you to help with something, right? Doing so is a good thing. It shows a spirit of helping each other when your friend needs to rely on you. But if we think about it more deeply, we will understand that this behavior creates even more extra work for you. So you will probably overlook many of your other important and urgent tasks. A prioritized to-do list can help you not get distracted or slip up when you have many urgent tasks. You will be able to focus well to do them one by one according to their priority. Which one is important and urgent must be done first. Important but not urgent tasks, you must decide when you will do them. As for tasks that are urgent but not important, you should delegate them to someone else.
Finally, there are tasks that are not urgent and not important. You can set them aside for now. So it is crucial that you know and can distinguish the priority levels of tasks and start with the ones that are important and urgent first. So you can still help your friend, but you need to do the necessary and urgent tasks first, then help with your friend's task later. You will feel satisfied with yourself when you look back at your prioritized to-do list at the end of each day, because you can see that all goals have been met and all the required tasks have been completed. When you review your prioritized to-do list and see all those tasks completed, that's when you know you've spent your time correctly and wisely. And you can also see that all those tasks are indeed the most important and urgent ones that you had to do. If they weren't important, they surely wouldn't have been on your list in the first place. Similarly, imagine if you spend a holiday, a full day, on a trip with your family according to the planned travel itinerary, you will surely feel happy and satisfied with yourself for achieving something according to plan. This is better than spending a day in one place just to rest, isn't it? Of course, this is because you know how to organize a fun and enjoyable leisure activity plan with your family.
A good marketing strategy doesn't just happen in the blink of an eye. It requires you to study market trends, learn from past failures, and have high creativity. A good marketing strategy doesn't just happen in the blink of an eye. It requires you to study market trends, learn from past failures, and have high creativity. What do you see as the most important thing in your business? You probably think it's your product or service, right? If you think like that, another thought will emerge: you can't make money without it. The product is very important, but it might mean nothing at all if you can't convince others to think like you that it is very important, of high quality, and has good efficiency. This is why the marketing department was created in every company. Behind every successful company, there is always an amazing marketing strategy.
A good and effective marketing strategy must connect all the needs of the customer to the company's product or service seamlessly. I would like to share a case from the author. In 1994, Dave Ramsey started a class focusing on the topic of how to avoid bankruptcy. He titled it "Life After Debt." And the program was advertised and promoted on the radio, offering the first session for free. As a result, only five people signed up for his class. Dave Ramsey began to realize that his class wasn't actually meeting the public's expectations. While most people were only interested in how to make their company's finances stable and grow, rather than just how to protect the company from bankruptcy. Understanding this clear situation, he revised his class and changed its name to "Financial Peace University." He focused on what participants needed to do to achieve their financial goals according to their plans. From then on, his class received great support and success. And to this day, millions of people have signed up for his class. This story shows us that to create a strong marketing strategy, you need to learn from past mistakes. Even if your first attempt is not successful, you can learn from that failure by trying to revise and change to new strategies continuously.
By doing this, your company's marketing strategy will become stronger and stronger. In addition to this, even if you create a great marketing strategy, you still need a good sales team, because those people are the most important resource in convincing your customers to buy your products and services. Selling a product or service should not involve misleading information or distorting the truth just to get them to buy. Instead, you should try to provide customers with various positive experiences and try to show care and attention to their needs by providing important information such as how your product can meet their needs or help solve their problems to what extent. If possible, you should have a famous person or what we call an "influencer" or a real witness who has used your product or service. Another point is that you cannot force anyone to buy any of your products or services, because in this era of technology, customers have many choices. In the old days, people liked to buy things because they needed them. But with the online era like today, people buy because of what they see and to fulfill their wants. Even myself, sometimes it's the same. Even though I have many of those things already. This is the influence of modern marketing.
But if you can make customers trust your product or service more through the influence of your personal branding, they will buy your company's product or service very easily, almost without thinking much. You can also build trust with your customers through what makes you most proud of your product or service. For example, the quality of the product combined with providing heartfelt customer service, just like you would for your own family. If your customers trust you, they will surely become your loyal customers, now and in the future. I'd like to remind everyone of something. Customers don't just buy the product or service; they will also share good information about your product with their networks, like friends and family members. So, you must take the best care of your customers. Now, let's talk about debt and the emergency fund. No matter what business you are in, you must avoid large and excessive debts. In this book, the author also shares ways to protect your company from bankruptcy. Want to know how? Let's listen together. You must create an emergency fund, period, to prepare for when a crisis arrives.
Your company needs a certain amount of capital to expand further. But how do you find that money? A small loan won't pose a huge risk, if you are careful about repaying the debt, right? This way of thinking is not correct. Because debt can make your company unstable, face high risks, face failure, or even lead to bankruptcy. Because when you are in debt, you will have to spend a period of time making repayments to clear that debt, which causes a reduction in the company's cash flow. And you will surely lack money to pay for other expenses, like employee salaries or buying shares. Many small companies are having problems with their cash flow. Reducing a company's cash flow is generally not a good choice. If you can avoid it, you should not create debt by borrowing money to do business; it's better. Below, I will share an example of a company's cash flow problem that will reflect what we just talked about.
There was a small water pipe company owner who always received commission from his important clients who needed to dig water trenches. This company was small, but it was growing step by step. To dig the trenches, the company needed an excavator. But the cost of renting an excavator was $450 per month. The company did not have enough budget to rent the excavator. So the owner decided to borrow money from the bank to rent one excavator to provide the trench digging service. Two or three months later, the owner realized that the cost of renting the excavator was eating into his profits every month. Being in debt to the bank for a long time caused a business that used to make a decent profit to see its profits decline bit by bit, until the business could face a severe financial crisis. You can avoid this problem by creating an emergency fund for your company or business. This emergency fund can really help you, as its name suggests, because it is a place that keeps a certain amount of budget to cover some expenses or can be used to bail out your business when various crises occur. In fact, the author of this book, Dave Ramsey, has benefited greatly from his emergency fund.
I would like to share one of his stories as a lesson. A bankrupt company was trying to sell its luxurious office furniture, which was in the company and had a total value of about $30,000. At that time, Dave Ramsey's company did not need office furniture, but that company wanted to sell it to him urgently because they needed money urgently. So the price of the luxurious office furniture dropped to just over $20,000. Dave Ramsey saw this as a great opportunity for him. He bought the office furniture and stored it safely, using his company's emergency fund. Later, when he had to set up a new company office, he used all that furniture to furnish the new company. This saved him thousands of dollars on furnishing expenses for the luxurious furniture in his new company. And more importantly, he was able to avoid borrowing from the bank to pay for the furnishing expenses of his new company. This fund can really help us when we need it. Financial stability can help you and your company have a long life, and you will gain more experience, be able to identify problems that arise in the market, and be able to manage adverse situations that may arise.
We only talk about money and forget about one important element in a company. Do you know what it is? Of course, it's good human resources. You should reward your employees equally, through bonuses or other benefits, based on their actual performance. By doing this, your employees will maintain loyalty and work hard with all their heart. Every EntreLeader, they always understand the importance of receiving respect and recognition from their own employees. But the question is, what is the most effective way to earn respect and admiration from employees? Below are some methods shared by the author in this book. First, you must ensure that you always provide encouragement and rewards to your employees fairly according to their actual work that they strive to accomplish. A system of encouragement and compensation in a company reflects the values of its leadership. If you provide encouragement to your employees fairly, such as giving extra bonuses or sharing some profits with them, they will not only want to express their gratitude but will also be more motivated to continue working hard to improve, which can help your business grow quickly.
There is a company in the United States with revenues of up to $50 million. It has a total of 120 employees. But even though the company achieved such success, the owner seemed to ignore raising the bonuses for the employees. Even the bonuses for the company's top-level employees did not exceed $10,000 a year. It's no surprise that those employees felt that their work was not valued or praised through any kind of incentive. And some of them started leaving the company one by one to find better job opportunities with better benefits. Unfortunately, many high-level employees of the company also left one by one, almost all of them, and in the end, the company decided to close its doors. If you value your employees with dignity, they will repay you with loyalty and dedication in their work. So, value your employees and take good care of them, and you will also receive many benefits in the end. Most people in the world work hard and diligently when they are cared for, supported, and valued by the leadership of their own institution.
A specific example among the author's employees: one employee succeeded in a sale worth one million dollars. According to the company's policies and structure and the level of incentive, that employee could not receive any incentive. But Dave gave a cash reward to that employee from his own pocket, regardless of the company's policy. The author, Dave Ramsey, knew that his employees would maintain their hard work if he showed that he respected and valued their work through rewards and encouragement. And indeed, his employees seemed to enjoy their work so much that they forgot all their fatigue. If you can select good employees with all the required qualifications that fit the role, you must continue to build a culture of unity and loyalty in their character. Then, success will surely come running to you.
Conclusion: If you want your company to succeed, build yourself to be both a skilled entrepreneur and a smart leader, whom we call an EntreLeader. Managing your people fairly and effectively is as important as managing risks and strategies in sales. You must clearly define the strategic plan of the company, manage time effectively and wisely, and avoid borrowing money, and develop a marketing strategy that is thorough, comprehensive, and responds to the real needs of customers. Running a company to grow is a difficult task, full of competition and complexity, and only those who apply the methods of Entre-Leadership can hope to have a high chance of success.