'EntreLeadership' brings message to business world
By AMY STUMPFL
For Brentwood Home Page
As a syndicated radio host, bestselling author, and founder of Financial Peace University, Dave Ramsey has built a solid reputation on personal finance and money management. Now Ramsey is taking his message to the business world with the release of his new book, EntreLeadership: 20 Years of Practical Business Wisdom from the Trenches.

Drawing on Ramsey’s personal experience, EntreLeadership offers a practical guide to success, designed to transform businesses, and teach entrepreneurs how to build a company and lead a dynamic team.

“I started out at a card table in my living room and have grown to be one of Brentwood’s largest employers,” Ramsey says of his company, The Lampo Group. “We’ve been voted ‘Best Place to Work in Nashville’ five times in a row. Of course, I made a million mistakes along the way, but I learned, and I know what it takes to grow a company. With EntreLeadership, I wanted to create a real handbook for running a successful business.”

Like his other books – including Financial Peace, More Than Enough and The Total Money Makeover – EntreLeadership offers a commonsense approach to business, outlining specific principles such as effective time management, how to inspire your team and how to operate your business debt free.

“I guess you could say I’ve made my living on common sense,” Ramsey says. “But it all comes from experience – learning from failure. Successful people have a way of failing their way to the top.

“As you’re climbing the mountain of success, at some point you realize it’s is actually a pile of garbage that you are standing on instead of lying under it.”

Not surprisingly, Ramsey says one of the biggest problems with small business stems from poor money management.

“People don’t do their accounting, and they run into serious trouble,” he says. “You have to know where the money is coming from and where it’s going.”

But EntreLeadership also talks about how to inspire and empower your team, or as Ramsey says: “stop selling, and start serving.”

“Any idiot can be a boss,” he says. “The key is realizing that these are people – not units of production. When you realize you’re there to serve the team, that’s when the boss becomes a leader. And that’s how you build loyalty. We are unbelievably good to our team, and guess what? They’re unbelievably good to us.”

Ramsey kicked off EntreLeadership’s national book tour earlier this week in New York City. He’s back at the Financial Peace Plaza in Brentwood on Sept. 28, signing books from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Radio station WWTN 99.7 will be broadcasting live from the Plaza parking lot that day, and festivities will include a variety of food, games and prizes.

“EntreLeadership is all about celebrating small business, so what better place to do that than at our own Financial Peace Plaza.”