Business Coach | “In a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same as being invisible.” – Seth Godin + 2 Success Stories + Join Tim Tebow At June 5-6 Business Conference

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 11)
Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay?

(Speaker 14)
Clay’s the greatest. I met his goats today, I met his dogs, I met his chickens, I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy.

(Speaker 37)
I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs.

(Speaker 14)
So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing.

(Speaker 1)
What do you see here? A train. entire life. Clay Clark trying. I’m trying.

(Speaker 19)
I’m trying.

(Speaker 18)
I’m trying.

(Speaker 36)
I’m trying.

(Speaker 16)
I’m trying. but you chose to be here. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use?

(Speaker 23)
Because they believe in you. the best practice business systems and moves that you can use.

(Speaker 7)
Because they believe in you, and they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zillner.

(Speaker 15)
Two men, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here Started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, now we’re here

(Speaker 18)
Please reply

(Speaker 2)
Started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hooks, I break down the books Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As the father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s the C and Z up on your radio.

(Speaker 2)
And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go!

(Speaker 18)
We started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, now we here.

(Speaker 1)
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. James on today’s show, I’m super excited to be here with you and Levi. We’re going to talk about two things on today’s show until my head explodes. Two things that will definitely cause somebody’s business to grow if they do these two things. Two things that will be demonstrated during today’s show. Two things that my clients really have no problem doing, but two things that most people

(Speaker 1)
do not do by default. Thing number one, you’ve got, marketing is getting in front of your ideal and likely buyers in a memorable way. What is marketing? Marketing is getting in front of your ideal

(Speaker 1)
and likely buyers in a memorable way. What?

(Speaker 2)
James, real quick, what is marketing? It is getting in front of your ideal and likely buyers in a memorable way. Okay, so there’s a dental place called Dental Depot. Have you ever seen it before James? I have not. You haven’t seen it? No Dental Depot. Are you able to look on your computer right now for Dental Depot? Can you type it in? Dental Depot? Levi, have you ever seen Dental Depot? No, I have not. Come on! You guys, listen. I started off today’s show with a video that you guys haven’t seen yet,

(Speaker 2)
and so therefore I cannot hold it against you. But kids are crazy about Dental Depot. Have you seen Dental Depot? Do you guys ever seen Dental Depot?

(Speaker 15)
No, sir.

(Speaker 1)
What about the Rainforest Cafe?

(Speaker 15)
Oh yeah.

(Speaker 1)
What about Legoland?

(Speaker 2)
Yes. Okay, are you aware vaguely of the restaurant that allows you to throw rolls inside the restaurant?

(Speaker 29)
No.

(Speaker 2)
Called Lambers? No, but there is a bar that lets you throw the beer bottles at the wall.

(Speaker 1)
Okay, so you’re kind of getting the idea now.

(Speaker 15)
Yes.

(Speaker 1)
Okay, so what you want to do is you want to have a memorable kind of marketing that allows you to get the attention of your ideal and likely buyers. So although you two whippersnappers cannot relate to this analogy, go with it. Why did my young kids always want me to pull over and take them to the dental depot where there’s like a train, big train, you know, it’s like a replica train.

(Speaker 1)
Why would my young kids say, dad, take us to the train? Why is that, Levi?

(Speaker 34)
I’m not quite sure.

(Speaker 2)
What do you think, James? Why are my kids saying to me,

(Speaker 1)
pull over, Dad, take me to this train?

(Speaker 15)
Well, they want to play on the train.

(Speaker 2)
Levi, make sure you eat that mic, by the way. You just want to eat that mic. Just pop it on. Yeah. So, again, you can adjust it if you need to. So, again, they want to play on the train. Because they’re kids that want to play and the train is a fun place to play when you’re a kid. Okay Levi what do you think? Why are my kids at the time they’re like five kids under the age of ten why are they

(Speaker 2)
going train take us to the train. Well they might think the trains interesting. There it is. Now why don’t they ask me dad please pull over at Smith’s dental place so we could look at the very normal dental signage. No! My kids aren’t saying, dad pull over at Smithers and Sons Dentistry so we can go look at the very normal lobby. Dad can we pull over and look at Carl’s, I’m just making up the names of fake dentists, but Dad, pull over and let’s go look at the dentist over there at Carl’s XYZ Dental.

(Speaker 2)
Why aren’t my kids, James, banging on the windows, putting their fingers on the windows of the suburban, making the windows, where are they, my kids, putting their fingerprints on the inside of the suburban begging me to take him to at a random? Dentists office as we drive by because there’s nothing there that’s getting their attention Okay, let’s do another example. Have you guys ever driven your car down the road?

(Speaker 2)
You’re driving down the road all of a sudden you look and there’s the cars aren’t moving There’s the cars in front of you aren’t moving and you think to yourself, self, oh geez, I wonder if there is an emergency, self. And you think, and then you, oh geez, wow, oh no, I wonder if there’s an emergency. 30 minutes later you’re like, I don’t know what it is

(Speaker 2)
but this thing has to speed up. 42 minutes later you look and there’s nothing. It’s just somebody who’s pulled over on the side of the road, looking at somebody who’s pulled over on the side of the road, looking at somebody who’s pulled over on the side of the road because somebody decided to pull over on the side of the road. Have you ever seen this kind of jackassery before? Have you ever seen it where traffic grinds to a halt because somebody has just decided to pull over?

(Speaker 2)
Have you ever seen this, James? Have you ever seen this situation? across the whole entire country. Okay, so let’s do a fun thought experiment. Let’s say that you were to take your truck outside today, drive it down to Highway 75, and set that thing on fire. Just set, just cover it in gas, light it, leave.

(Speaker 1)
What’s gonna happen to traffic on Highway 75?

(Speaker 15)
Oh, they’re gonna stop and they’re gonna watch, and there’s gonna be cars that are gonna drive past it slowly, knowing that it could explode any second, but some people are still going to want to get to where they want to go to, and they’ll drive past it, but slowly.

(Speaker 1)
So what if, James, you were able to simultaneously have a big banner that said, Get Your Mortgage With James. Let’s pretend this was your domain. GetYourMortgageWithJames.com. Getyourmortgagewithjames.com. Getyourmortgagewithjames.com.

(Speaker 1)
So pretend you are a mortgage banker and you strategically had a sign that said getyourmortgagewithjames.com. And it was right next to where the fire was. Do you think you might have a captive audience? I’m getting leaps from that fire. Now you think you might have a captive audience? I’m getting leads from that fire.

(Speaker 1)
Now you might go to jail from this, but what if you had a sign that said, Jamesonfiremortgage.com. And I’m not saying you should do this, I’m just saying you kind of get the idea. You got to find a parade and get in front of it.

(Speaker 1)
Are we on the same page? And marketing is a desire to get the attention of your ideal and likely buyer. So why is it by default, if you know as a consumer, if you, you might have been born yesterday, but you know that the only way to get the kids to pull over and stop at your dental practice,

(Speaker 1)
by the way, which is a great idea for a pediatric dentist, if people know that, why are most dentists resistant

(Speaker 2)
to putting a train in front of their dentistry? Even if they know it works, James. They might, their friends and family might say things that are, you know, they don’t want to hear from them

(Speaker 15)
and they might not have the confidence to do it.

(Speaker 1)
So people, as a general rule, are very concerned about what other people think.

(Speaker 15)
Right.

(Speaker 1)
So a friend of mine, good guy, we were talking today, and he says, hey, what’s a good mural idea for a wall? He’s got a wall, big, he has an office building, beautiful location, he has a wall, and the wall is in Piedmont, Oklahoma. And so my suggestion was, why don’t you paint the wall,

(Speaker 1)
have it auto-wrapped where it looks like a bunch of dudes are urinating on the wall simultaneously, and say, welcome to Piedmont, in quotations, and then attribute the quote to IP Freely.

(Speaker 2)
Welcome to Piedmont.

(Speaker 34)
That’s great.

(Speaker 2)
And it would work. It would work. It would. But why won’t most people do that? Levi, why won’t most people do that?

(Speaker 34)
They’re just gonna be worried about what others have to say.

(Speaker 1)
Okay, so let me give you another example. Dennis Rodman, there’s a book called Bad As I Wanna Be. Dennis Rodman, for anybody who likes sports, it’s a great book about how to live your life, but a great book about marketing so Dennis Rodman at the time was a rebounding very Successful NBA player who was specializing in rebounding and playing defense and he didn’t make a lot of money

(Speaker 1)
So he starts dating Madonna. We all know who Madonna was the pop star Madonna. So he’s dating Madonna and Madonna says cover your body in tattoos change your hair color every game, and randomly get technical fouls, and I bet you you can make five or ten times more money per year. Why, James? Because now the audience know who he is and now they’re buying his merchandise. Repeat it again. Why would Dennis Rodman be able to make more money

(Speaker 1)
as a result of covering his body in tattoos and getting into arguments with referees?

(Speaker 15)
Well, because now the crowd know who Dennis Rodman is and not only they want to come see him, but they want to buy his gear and his merchandise as well.

(Speaker 1)
So I’m not saying you should do that, but why does that work? Why could Dennis Rodman now command a massive salary, same amount of rebounds, same amount of wins, but now because his body is covered in tattoos and his hair is green all the time, why is he able to charge more and go to his agent and say, I want to get paid more, and the agent was able to bring him in a big deal.

(Speaker 2)
Why, why? Well, the whole point of sports ball is to get people

(Speaker 15)
to watch it, so now he’s getting more people watching him.

(Speaker 1)
It’s very interesting.

(Speaker 34)
He also might stand out.

(Speaker 35)
Okay.

(Speaker 34)
Stand out from the others.

(Speaker 2)
So there’s a quote by Seth Godin, and we’ll get into part two of today’s show, Seth Godin, okay, he wrote the book called The Purple Cow, okay? But he’s saying that marketing, by default, you are going to be invisible. Seth Godin, this is a marketing guru, very successful entrepreneur, best-selling author,

(Speaker 2)
and he says that by default, your business is going to be invisible. Let me read this to you. He says, in a crowded marketplace, fitting in is failing. In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same thing as being invisible.

(Speaker 1)
Why am I hammering this, James?

(Speaker 10)
Because it’s so important that you could get your business to stand out amongst the competition, and you could get eyes on and get inbound leads

(Speaker 2)
so that you could sell the deal.

(Speaker 1)
Were you in the store, Elephant in the Room store, since we’ve done the renovations in the lobby? Have you been in the lobby since the renovations or were you there while they were doing the

(Speaker 10)
renovations?

(Speaker 15)
I was there while they were doing the renovations.

(Speaker 1)
Why do you think I put Tim Tebow, a Tim Tebow signed helmet and jersey on the wall in my haircut chain at the same time or approximate time that we’re bringing in Tim Tebow consistently to speak at our conferences.

(Speaker 2)
Why would I do that, James?

(Speaker 15)
To get people that are coming to get the haircut interested in what you have going on outside of the haircut business and then they’re going to come to the conference.

(Speaker 1)
Why does that work in the lobby if you put Tim Tebow’s helmet out there and you put a Tim Tebow jersey, why does that work?

(Speaker 2)
Because it’s just straight up cool. Keep going.

(Speaker 15)
And you like to see it, so you go in there, you see a signed Tebow helmet, you see a signed Tebow jersey, you see pictures on the wall of you and Tebow with other celebrities,

(Speaker 7)
you’re like, man, This sounds pretty cool. Maybe I could get my picture with Tebow. You’re almost there

(Speaker 28)
Maybe I could meet him. Maybe I could talk to him. No, what else? Uh

(Speaker 23)
Maybe it’ll help my business out. No, it’s cuz it’s not normal. Oh got it. It’s not

(Speaker 26)
I’ve thought about putting a urinal on the wall in the lobby of each of the three stores

(Speaker 1)
Boom, we need one of those. I’ve thought it. And I’m like this close to doing it. Now if you did it, drawback is maybe one guy gets excited, but if you did that, what would happen if you put a urinal on the wall?

(Speaker 2)
We have a urinal here in my office right here on the wall.

(Speaker 15)
We do, and the urinal in the office has been a big hit, not for people to take leaks in it, but as a big, you know, everyone jokes about it.

(Speaker 1)
Levi, if you put a urinal in the lobby of a men’s grooming lounge,

(Speaker 2)
what kind of conversations would happen?

(Speaker 34)
Some very interesting ones, that’s for sure.

(Speaker 2)
Because people are going to say, what is this, right?

(Speaker 35)
Yes.

(Speaker 1)
So step number one is you’ve got to get in front of your ideal and likely buyers in a memorable way. That’s step one. I think we all on this are we on the same page here? Got it. But most people won’t do it. I could I could do this podcast. I could I mean, we have 160 great clients and I can get my clients to do it because they’re paying me to grow their company. But the average person won’t do it. There was a water there was a downtown Tulsa there are downtown Broken Arrow. There was a very tall grain elevator back in the day that was going into some sort of receivership auction, like an auction kind of thing.

(Speaker 1)
It was the tallest building in downtown Broken Arrow. And at the time it was going into auction for $250,000. I almost bought it just to put my name on it, clayclark.com. Why would I have done that, James? Why would I have bought the tallest building

(Speaker 1)
in Broken Arrow and just put my name on it?

(Speaker 15)
Because people would have seen it and like, wait a minute, this is the tallest building? This is pretty cool. I haven’t seen anything like this before.

(Speaker 2)
What is clayclark.com?

(Speaker 1)
And even if they didn’t buy something, the first thing is you would get their attention. Levi, does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, you’re promoting yourself. So you have to, though, just to be clear, if you’re a business owner out there today and you want to get more sales, more marketing,

(Speaker 1)
more leads, more success, you’ve got to be prepared to stand out in a cluttered marketplace. Again, Seth Godin, I’m going to read this to you again, marketing expert, he says, marketplace, fitting in is failing, and a busy marketplace, not standing out, is the same as being invisible. Step two, we’re talking about on today’s show. Step two, step two, this is the final step.

(Speaker 1)
And we’re gonna play a video after this so people can see it and visualize it. I’ll play a video right now as I’m talking about it so people can see it. You have got to have your revenue producing activities written out, and you have to hold yourself accountable to it. So if you’re going to the gym, for anybody watching

(Speaker 1)
today’s show, if you’re big into fitness, you’re gonna make, basically, if you’re big into fitness, if that’s what you do, a lot of our clients are fitness trainers, and I have many clients that are in the fitness space, you’re gonna carry like a journal of the things you’re going to commit to eating a set diet, a said diet. Why Levi, if you’re super committed to getting in great physical shape, why would you have

(Speaker 1)
a set diet pre-written out of what you’re going to eat every day?

(Speaker 34)
Well, because you have goals and you want to accomplish those goals and without a set diet, depending on what you’re trying to do in the gym, those goals will never be accomplished.

(Speaker 2)
James, why would you have, as a business owner, a set agenda for the activities you’re going to do every single day if you’re trying to, in this particular case, I’ve got a client and he runs a call center. And so every single representative is required to make 200 outbound calls a day. Every representative, 200 outbound calls a day, 200 outbound calls a day. Every representative, 200 outbound calls a day. 200 outbound calls a day. Every representative in his call center is required to make 200 outbound calls a day.

(Speaker 2)
200. Why is there a script in place and why is there a metric, James, of how many outbound calls per day are expected by every one of his insurance agent teammates?

(Speaker 15)
Because if you don’t follow the script, if you don’t follow the key performance indicators, then you’re not gonna hit the goals of your sales. It’s like, if you didn’t have that, it would be like going to war without a plan.

(Speaker 10)
You will just get dominated.

(Speaker 1)
This is so important, I wanna make sure we’re getting, there’s just two principles I wanna teach on today’s show, and then I’m gonna share with you some case studies. And these case studies on part two of today’s show are from real clients that are really doing really well. Okay? So one, you have to stand out in the crowded marketplace. Fitting in is failing.

(Speaker 1)
In a busy marketplace, not standing out is the same thing as being invisible. You’ve got to stand out in front of your ideal and likely buyers. That’s step one. Step number two, you simply have to nail down your revenue producing activities. You have to nail them down. You have to commit to doing your revenue producing activities every day. Because if you don’t commit to doing your

(Speaker 1)
revenue producing activities every day, what’s going to happen is you’re going to drift into a dystopian situation called failure.

(Speaker 2)
And that- Because you’ll never get paid. You’ll never get paid! So if you’re out there today and you say, hey, I need a checkup from the neck up. I want my business to grow. I want my business to become super successful. I would encourage you to go to Thrivetimeshow.com,

(Speaker 2)
Thrivetimeshow.com, and once you go there, you’re gonna see success stories and case studies of clients that we’ve helped over these past 20 years. I mean, you’re gonna see thousands of actual client success stories right there at Thrivetimeshow.com. Also, if you want to attend one of our in-person, two-day interactive business workshops, alphabetically speaking, this is all the stuff

(Speaker 2)
you’re gonna learn at our workshops.

(Speaker 1)
A, accounting, B, branding, C, how to run a call center.

(Speaker 19)
What?

(Speaker 2)
D, you’re gonna learn a lot about dog training. We are involved in that business too, but no, you’re gonna learn a lot about graphic design and marketing. You’re gonna learn a lot about social media marketing, search engine optimization, workflow design, customer service, how to build a linear workflow, how to build a culture, how to build a team,

(Speaker 2)
how to inspire, how to train, how to retain great people. All of that and more, you can learn that at thrivetimeshow.com, again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. James, two things I want to make sure we’re teaching that with great enthusiasm to everybody out there

(Speaker 1)
that’s been paying attention. But, marketing, marketing you have to do what? What do you have to do to get to market successfully? You’ve gotta get in front of your ideal

(Speaker 15)
and likely buyer in a memorable way.

(Speaker 2)
Amen.

(Speaker 1)
Second, you have to know your revenue.

(Speaker 2)
Producing. Activities.

(Speaker 1)
Yes. And again, you have to measure what you treasure. You measure what you treasure, and you always slack where you don’t track. You gotta measure what you treasure and you will always slack where you don’t act. That’s how, you’re always going to, anywhere you don’t track, you’re going to slack. Again, let me repeat it again.

(Speaker 1)
You measure what you treasure and you’re always going to slack where you don’t track. It’s so important to everybody out there. You measure what you treasure and you’re going to slack where you, what? You’re going to slack and you want to take your business to the next level, we can typically double a company. We can double the size. There’s so many success stories where we’ve doubled the size of a company within just a year or two. It’s incredible stuff. Learn more about it right now, thrivetimeshow.com. Without any

(Speaker 1)
further ado, we’re going to end this portion of the show with a boom. Here we go. Three, no venue 2014. I don’t think we can quite clap on this.

(Speaker 13)
No date, no venue 2014.

(Speaker 19)
Okay, cool.

(Speaker 33)
All of our partners have been doing this.

(Speaker 32)
What’s your call of duty?

(Speaker 20)
I would definitely recommend that second or that third package. Those packages are regularly $800 and $900. However, with the price threshold this week, the price would actually be $600

(Speaker 17)
or $700. Nice little buzz in the room. Nice little buzz in the room. It’s getting pretty crazy now. I black out from like 3 to 9 and then at 9 o’clock I wake up and there’s a bunch of money on my desk and I don’t know where it came from. I got to remind myself that we’re working. It’s a lot of fun.

(Speaker 4)
One of our accountants had said, you’ve got to meet this guy, Clay. So we ended up meeting with Clay. And he’s helped us go from right before we opened the third location now to six locations. And so we’ve more than doubled our revenue. And these are ground up build gyms. And so it’s not the barrier for entry is pretty high. It’s 20 plus staff at each location. So yeah, it’s been a lot as far as running systems,

(Speaker 4)
checklists, workflows, who does what, when, and how. Training us on that. Clay’s helped a ton. We would not be where we’re at without him. So huge win.

(Speaker 2)
Charles, from an ROI perspective, if someone’s going to look at it and go return on investment, I pay you $1,700 a month. Will I make more money than I’m paying you? How would you maybe tackle or how would you respond to, what kind of return on investment

(Speaker 1)
have you seen for the $1,700 a month you’re paying?

(Speaker 4)
Well, for example, Clay has got, there’s no better business coach in the world that has the way he works, the way his mind works. But he’s also got a team of other business coaches that have worked in lots of different industries. So he’s worked in every industry. His staff has worked in every industry.

(Speaker 4)
He’s got videographers, web designers. I mean, just for the fact of like, just the website alone is worth the 1,700. Just the ability to take any of their proven systems, whether that’s a marketing thing,, whether that’s a marketing thing or whether that’s a staffing thing.

(Speaker 4)
Like one thing done in the month, it pays for itself. And then to understand this, there’s a part of where, you know, some maybe some week you may be like,

(Speaker 22)
well, you know what?

(Speaker 4)
I’m not getting a whole lot out of this call. But the bottom line is, it’s like when you read the Bible, there’s times you’re just reading it and then you’re like you know what I real and then you read it that one time and it’s like God really speaks to your heart and the whole truth is it’s like there’s no way that you can get that kind of value for $1,700 to have a whole team of coaches, graphic designers, web developers, anybody that has

(Speaker 4)
that type of knowledge you know in your back pocket. And then in the whole thing is run your business with being somewhat conservative, make sure you don’t run it to the edge all the time. But by doing that, you have that skill set. You have those tools on your tool belt. And I just think it’s just like the cost of doing business.

(Speaker 4)
Like just understand that’s what you wanna do.

(Speaker 5)
I think there’s a sometimes the payment we make, I feel like is peace of mind, even, because there have been multiple times throughout the years that we will either be butting heads on something, we’re super confused about something, we’re fearful about something,

(Speaker 5)
something in the market’s changed, and it’s a quick call to clay.

(Speaker 2)
Well, Thrive Nation, it’s a very special occasion because a lot of times on the Thrive Time Show, I get to interview people that I am friendly with or have an acquaintance with, that kind of thing, and I enjoy that. But it’s really an honor whenever I get to interview someone who I consider to be a friend

(Speaker 2)
or people that I consider to be friends of our family. And it’s awesome when we can celebrate a success story because it’s a life-giving thing and for somebody watching today’s show, if you feel you need like a checkup from the neck up, if you feel stuck, if you feel like you don’t have the resources to get started but you have the resourcefulness, maybe today’s show is the show you need to hear because this is a couple, they started this business together out of their house and they’ve now grown it into a multi-illion dollar super successful company.

(Speaker 2)
And I’ve had the opportunity to work with them in a consulting or coaching capacity over these past five or six years. And I am so excited to have them on today’s show. That being said, Amber and Charles Cola, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show.

(Speaker 2)
Amber, how are you?

(Speaker 5)
Great. Thanks, Clay.

(Speaker 1)
It’s awesome to be on here with you. Yes, we’re excited. Okay. I got to ask this real quick because people think you’re a hologram. How long have we had the opportunity to work with you, or how long have we worked with you guys together

(Speaker 2)
from a coaching relationship?

(Speaker 4)
We probably started back in 2017.

(Speaker 5)
Yeah. We’re looking at seven, eight years.

(Speaker 31)
Yeah. It’s coming up.

(Speaker 4)
Coming up on eight probably, a little over seven.

(Speaker 1)
And from that time, I mean, you guys have experienced tremendous personal growth and business growth. I mean, could you, Charles, maybe talk about, I’m not looking for your specific financials, but could you maybe talk about maybe the size

(Speaker 1)
you guys have grown over these past seven or eight years

(Speaker 4)
at colawfitness.com? Absolutely. We started off, we’re getting ready to open our third location. One of our accountants had said, you’ve got to meet this guy, Clay. So we ended up meeting with Clay. He’s helped us go from right before we

(Speaker 4)
opened the third location now to six locations. We’ve more than doubled our revenue. These are ground up build gyms. And so it’s not the barrier for entry is pretty high. It’s 20 plus staff at each location. So yeah, it’s been a lot for us.

(Speaker 4)
Running systems, checklists, workflows, who does what, when, and how. Training us on that. Clay’s helped a ton. We would not be where we’re at without him.

(Speaker 2)
So huge win. Now, I’m going to ask you guys this story because I want you to be able to encourage somebody. I’m not sure who’s going to watch this show, but I view every show as kind of a message in a bottle. So somebody’s watching this show, and they’re going to relate to this story. I’m going to let Amber go first because I think she’ll maybe have a less rosy view of how it was.

(Speaker 2)
But you guys started ColawFitness.com doing personal training to individual clients in your actual home. So like your living room was where the squat rack was or the bench press was in the kitchen. Or Amber, what was that like when you started Colawfitness.com?

(Speaker 5)
Well, I think when you’re starting something like that you don’t see bigger picture. You’re not thinking that far ahead. You’re just kind of thinking you have to work. You have to survive. You’ve got to make money and you’re not thinking that far ahead. You’re just kind of thinking you have to work, you have to survive, you’ve got to make money, and you’re doing what you love. And so with that, it was just it was kind of more of a survival. And also, we couldn’t afford furniture

(Speaker 5)
to go in our formal living room and formal dining room. And so we were kind of stuck in a situation where Charles needed a place to train and he had a full clientele. And so we just were, why don’t we find a big universal piece, stick it in the living room, because it’s just an empty room.

(Speaker 5)
And the dining room became more of the office. And so we bought a big universal piece and threw down some rubber flooring, ripped up the carpet, and put some big mirrors on the office. And so we bought a big universal piece and threw down some rubber flooring, ripped up the carpet, and put some big mirrors on the wall. And we just started doing what we needed to do at the time with no, I mean, I definitely did not think it was going to be in my house for a couple of years for

(Speaker 5)
sure.

(Speaker 4)
But yeah, a lot of it was fear of failure. I was like, I want to make sure that you know, I can provide for my family. And we were trying to just, I was every lead I had and follow up with every client I trained, want to make sure that it gave me good results. And yeah, next thing you know, we have about 160 clients coming in and out of the door a week. And it’s me and about four or five of the trainers training out of there,

(Speaker 4)
out of our living room. And so it became a revolving door of fitness. And then Amber also did some hair. So she had a hair salon in the back of the house. So it’s like a training studio in the front of the house and then a hair salon in the back of the house.

(Speaker 23)
So yeah, the win.

(Speaker 2)
Now I wanna share this story because I don’t know if I’ve ever shared this story with you but I think our show this to the listeners real quick here. If we go to 111th and Memorial in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my wife and I, we were 20 years old-ish, and I remember I was so excited to be able to build our house. I remember telling my wife, honey, we can afford to build a house. We are going to build a house, a brand new house. She was so excited. I remember we were driving down Riverside. She was like, we’re gonna buy a house? I go, yeah.

(Speaker 2)
She’s like, we’re gonna build a house? I’m going, yeah, because we’re a young couple. We’d just been married a couple years. Right here at 111th and Memorial, I found a builder named Rob Brewer who did a phenomenal job.

(Speaker 2)
I would hire him again. this house from scratch. And so my neighbor comes by, Wendy, God bless her. I’m not going to mention her last name. Wendy comes by and she’s like, hey, what are you doing? I go, what do you mean? Because I’m having like 40 couples a week that are walking up to my front door,

(Speaker 2)
hanging a right at my office. And there’s, not kidding, there’s probably eight DJ vans in my backyard. And she’s like, what are you doing? And I’m going, well, what do you mean what I do? This is a residential neighborhood. What are you doing? I said, well, I’m running a business.

(Speaker 2)
She said, you can’t run a business here. So I had back here in the backyard. No kidding. I had eight different vans back there. And then neighbors kept asking me if I was running drugs. I mean, people were concerned and our last guy would come home at three in the morning.

(Speaker 1)
And it was just a wild thing. I got to ask you with the gym, Amber, how early were people coming to work out, to do squats and bench press and cardio? What time were they showing up? How many

(Speaker 5)
people were showing up? Oh yeah. So Charles is, he’s relentless and he’ll fill any hour he can. And so he would start as early as 5 a.m. with his first client. And, you know, sometimes it would last until about 10 o’clock at night. And so it was, it was, it was just a revolving door. And we always blocked out the middle of the afternoon at 2 o’clock every afternoon. And him and I, and as we added added staff we would all work out together. So became this big, you know workout

(Speaker 5)
session together is awesome.

(Speaker 1)
And this is a real thing now how it will never I’m not looking for anything super salacious but I mean did you have awkward situations, I mean because you’re trying to you’re sleeping there you’re living. You guys ever have just like yeah, I remember with the DJ business my wife about once a week there for a while, she would come downstairs and one of my DJs would get,

(Speaker 1)
Clay, where’s the bathroom? I’d say right there. And they would walk into our master bedroom and I’m like, get out of there, that’s my bedroom you sicko. I mean, did you ever have just weird client interactions?

(Speaker 5)
Oh yeah, totally. Totally. From, you know, our kitchen became like the staff break room. And so all of a sudden I’ve got everybody’s lunches in my fridge. And I remember one day a guy had went to get the barbecue sauce out of the fridge and just drops it. And it just shatters all over the kitchen floor. But his client was here.

(Speaker 5)
So he looks at me kind of like, uh, and I was like, just go. I got like some cleaning up barbecue sauce out of the kitchen. One morning I had gotten out of the shower and I come out of the bathroom, which is at the top of the stairs. And I’m just making that short little jagged over to my bedroom door. And so I had my hair in a towel and a robe on and I opened the door and right there at the bottom of the stairs,

(Speaker 5)
Charles has one of the clients doing calf raises and they just, good morning. And I thought, get this out of my house. So yeah, yeah, the trainers napping on the couch between clients. And our middle son was in pre-K at the time. And so he’d come home half the day, and he’d sit on the couch, he was just so little,

(Speaker 5)
his feet would just stick straight off the couch, and he’d try and watch cartoons, and there would be someone on like a ab mat on the floor, right in front of the TV doing crunches. And so he’s just watching his little cartoons, and someone’s doing crunches in front of him. And so, oh yeah, the whole family was in on it.

(Speaker 2)
I just remember when I was building DJConnection.com, I would train my DJs out of my house. So we would practice announcements like, ladies and gentlemen, coming up in just a moment, we’re gonna introduce the bride and the groom. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the intro.

(Speaker 2)
And we would practice, ladies and gentlemen, cutting the cake. Once again, we got the bride, we got the groom, we got an actor, it should be exciting. And I’m practicing and they have a script and I’m practicing. So adult males are in my house and we’re practicing introducing, because you know, we grew DJ Connection to do 4,000 weddings a year. So I’m training 30 disc jockey every week. So Havana, my oldest who’s now 20, she starts running around in the office going, ladies and gentlemen, coming up next, the cutting of the cake. Because she heard it so much. She’s like, ladies and gentlemen, coming up next, the Soul Train line.

(Speaker 23)
She knew.

(Speaker 2)
Because it was like, I don’t think if you’re watching today’s show and these stories, you can’t relate to it. That’s OK. But I’m just trying to make sure we’re getting this idea. This is a real couple that I would now classify as a super success story, but they had to start somewhere. And it’s not about resourcefulness. It’s about, it’s not, it’s not about resources. It’s about

(Speaker 2)
resourcefulness. Again, it’s not about resources. It’s about resourcefulness. Look at the backyard. I turned half my backyard into a concrete slab so that we could park all the vans back here. I mean, look at all the trees I planted to block the view. So now you look at Kaw Fitness and you go, wow, this is a super successful company. Wow, I want to be the next Colaw Fitness. Wow, these guys are really doing it. I want to be a ColawFitness.com.

(Speaker 2)
I’ll get the website to pull up in just a second. And people always come to me and they say, Clay, what do I need to do? What’s the most important thing? I just had a guy today, huge ministry, huge ministry, multi-million dollar massive ministry called me and said, what’s the one thing I can do to grow my ministry? And I said, buddy, I’m going to send you today’s show. There are 14 things that we need to do and a lot of details on those 14.

(Speaker 2)
So we’re going to go step by step on today’s show. I’ll go back and forth between Charles and Amber and for sake of time, we’ll just go back and forth rapid fire. So here we go. And Charles, by the way, you get 60 seconds on the clock for each answer. So here we go. Box number one, you have to figure out your revenue goals. You just have to know your revenue goals. You have to know your revenue goals. What are your gross revenue goals? What are your weekly revenue goals? What are your annual revenue goals? You

(Speaker 4)
have to know your revenue goals. Charles, why do you have to know your revenue goals? Yes, you have to know your revenue goals. So you know, you know, we know if you’re going to be making money or not. And for us, we want to make sure that we’re staying bankable that we can open more locations. Our gyms have our ministry for us, we want to make sure that we continue to expand and making sure we got at least a 20% profit margin off of all of our to income over expenses. And we know how many memberships we have to sell. We know how many clients that we have to service

(Speaker 4)
to hit those goals for our set overhead costs. And yeah, you got to know how many units of items you have to sell every week, every day. And so we track that stuff. And for us, we have a lot of it’s recurring revenue. But the whole point is that we want to make sure

(Speaker 4)
that we have enough of the payable, viable buyers in the system to continue to grow.

(Speaker 1)
And you track this stuff. And so we’ve got wonderful members of our team. We’ve got a young member of our team named Natalie, who’s learning all of this because she’s developing into a coach. And when you work with a new client, a lot of times

(Speaker 1)
the client’s going to have a bias to focus on just marketing, just branding. But you have to know these numbers. Amber, anything else you want to talk about as far as the numbers? Because I know your husband is passionate about fitness, and you are as well. But why do you have to focus on the numbers and not just

(Speaker 1)
marketing, or not just branding, or not just social media?

(Speaker 2)
Why do you have to focus on those numbers?

(Speaker 5)
Well, I think the numbers, it’s like the steering wheel that steers the ship. I mean, if you don’t understand the numbers, you don’t, you have no idea where you’re going. Um, and, uh, so I think that’s probably the biggest thing, like they just, it, it leads the whole way. And I think a lot of people tend to do, I’m going to do the marketing or I

(Speaker 5)
just want to, uh to perform the service. I think a lot of it because people are scared of numbers. I think they feel like numbers are overwhelming, and they try to make numbers way too difficult. So I think that’s the big reason.

(Speaker 1)
This is such wisdom, folks. I’m telling you, if you’re not familiar with colawfitness.com, go to their website. These guys give away a Bible. Every time they sell a new membership, they set aside a portion of the funds to give away a Bible to first-time members at their gym.

(Speaker 1)
It’s an incredible, it’s a ministry, it’s a business, it checks all those boxes. Let’s move on to box number three. Define the number of hours you’re willing to work. Now Amber, you happen to be married to a man who’s willing to work every hour of the day if need be. Most of my clients, if I had to think about my 160 clients I work with, and I had to think about the average client, 90% of them are not willing to work as hard as you guys.

(Speaker 1)
Most of my clients are willing to work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week. Some will work 60 hours a week, but nobody is willing to go sprint from 4 a.m. to 8 p.m., 10 p.m. every day if need be, your husband is willing to do that.

(Speaker 1)
Why is it important for you guys, Charles, to define the hours that you’re gonna work, the hours that you’re not gonna work, block out time for the family cruise, for the family trip? Why is that an important box there, Charles?

(Speaker 4)
That way my wife will stay married to me. Well, I’m like you, I like to just go, go, go. And then we do definitely we take off and we go to church on Sunday, it’s important for us, for us to hold the Sunday as a Sabbath as a day off. Other than that, we I like to work like, like you talked about vacation to vacate or to leave something. I love to work I love to build the systems and build the documents and Train staff build the systems and so on But but we do have to make sure that once a while we try to look at taking time off

(Speaker 5)
Right. Well, I would say the biggest thing the way we talk about in marriage family and work Expectations and boundaries those two things have to be very clear all the time. So as long as he understands what my expectations are and I need him to fulfill a husband role in addition to working,

(Speaker 5)
as long as he understands that these are my expectations and then these are my boundaries, and as long as we communicate that, then we’re good.

(Speaker 4)
I’ll say one more thing is that for us, we’ve kind of at the spot to where, you know, we just work on the business, not in the business. So we don’t actually do the day to day stuff, but we work on the bills, business systems, checklists, workflows, training, coaching people remotely, because we do live in Florida, our clubs are in the Midwest, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Kansas. And so running remotely and running all that stuff, we’ve got to kind of say, how do we want to live our lives?

(Speaker 4)
Like you’d say, Charles, how do you really want to live it? You got to kind of map out and clearly define that. For us, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, those days are just all in on Zoom calls, training, coaching, working with staff. And so those days are really, really full days and then the rest of the time,

(Speaker 4)
like on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, those are all lighter days that we don’t block in a lot of meetings. It’s like no meetings that we plan, but I’m still working on things that I want to work on, but I’m not leveraged to having to. I’ve created my three-day work week that’s super. And then the rest of the time, I don’t have meetings, I don’t get held hostage on a lot

(Speaker 4)
of stuff. And people have to kind of have a gatekeeper to get to me. But other than that, that’s how I’ve tried to map that out so that I can continue to mastermind and kind of grow the brand and have some meta perspective on how I want to

(Speaker 2)
continue to grow. So there’s just so, again, for folks, if you want to learn entrepreneurship, this is real people. If you’re in the Florida area and you’re looking for a job, if you’re in the Joplin, Missouri area and you’re looking for a career, not just a job, Colaw Fitness is a company that’s going places. I’m not prophetic.

(Speaker 2)
I’m not claiming to have some view of the future. I just see patterns. And I work with clients, and I help them implement patterns that work. And I also know of the clients that’ll work. Nothing works unless you work, right? So nothing will work unless you work. And I look at the Kola family and I look at the fuel

(Speaker 2)
that you put into the business and the diligence that you bring and I’m telling you folks, this is a brand that’s going somewhere. If you’re looking for a career, check it out, K kind of fit in together. Box number four is you have to determine your unique value proposition. That’s a unique thing.

(Speaker 2)
What is it that makes you unique? What is it that separates you from the competition? If you’re watching today’s show, let’s think about your website, your print piece, your auto wraps, your business cards. Let’s think about everything about your business.

(Speaker 2)
Let’s think about the sights, the sounds, the smell, the ambiance, the employees you have. What is it that makes you different from the competition? What is it that makes Chick-fil-A successful when there are many other fast food chicken restaurants? What is it that makes Quick Trip super successful when there are so many gross, nasty, dirty convenience stores? What is it that makes Chick-fil-A successful?

(Speaker 2)
What is it that makes Chick-fil-A successful? What is it that makes Quick Trip successful? What is the secret sauce that allows Brad Stevens, the coach of the Boston Celtics, to bring out a winning lineup year after year? Brad Stevens took a dysfunctional Butler College basketball team and turned them into a top-four basketball team. Think about this.

(Speaker 2)
He took a college called Butler, the size of Oral Roberts University, and took them to the Final Four multiple times. And then he takes that same recipe and goes to the NBA, and they win a championship, and he’s putting out a winner year after year. What is the secret sauce that allowed Phil Jackson to win year after year? Michael Jordan couldn’t win a championship without Phil Jackson.

(Speaker 2)
He played a lot of seasons without Phil Jackson. He only won his championships with Phil. Kobe Bryant never won a championship without Phil Jackson. He only won his championships with Phil. Kobe Bryant never won a championship without Phil Jackson. By the way, Kobe Bryant played a lot of seasons without Phil Jackson. What is that magic formula?

(Speaker 2)
But a big part of it is you have to understand your unique value proposition. So Amber, what is it that makes Kola Fitness unique versus other fitness companies?

(Speaker 5)
Oh, for us, it’s culture, hands down. It’s culture all day long. And we worked really hard at our first location to set the culture and make it what we wanted it to be. We wanted a fitness center that everybody could be a part of. And I mean, not everybody, not everybody likes it.

(Speaker 5)
But it’s definitely our culture. And that was something we knew we had to be able to duplicate when opening other locations. And so that is probably the number one piece that we train, develop, encourage, that we’re the biggest part of the company

(Speaker 5)
that we are still a part of is the culture part.

(Speaker 4)
Yep, and that’s the big problem. Just kind of jump on a little bit more. We’re unapologetic in our Christian component to that. Think of if Planet Fitness is the McDonald’s of gyms, Cola Fitness is the Chick-fil-A. And what I mean by that is

(Speaker 4)
we are a strong Christian culture. We hire and we look for people that match that they don’t have to be a Christian, but they do have to align with those values all of Christianity summed up in one word is the word agape that’s an unconditional love. We want to make sure that we actually hire people that are into customer service that likes people who onboarding with our, you know, like our Christian culture, we play a video, we talk about who we are, we talk about the Christian values, devotion to God, discipline in living, denial of self, dream great dreams, true God’s glory, determination to stay the course. So the Christian side of it is kind of strong. So either people

(Speaker 4)
lean in or lean and lean back. And so when we do group interviews, this is where you’ve taught us a lot of great systems, you see people lean in and see people lean back. So when everybody’s on the boat rowing in the same direction and they really match that value set, the culture is just better. And when you hire people that actually like people, like hire people that like people, they want to acknowledge your presence, close the gap, give them a fist bump, a high high five make somebody feel like the highest like the highlight of the day when they walk through that door so we train people on those systems so we we took the the culture that we did when we first opened the club and we defined it into actual ways that we can role play and script it with our staff so that you have not a purple hair mcdonald’s

(Speaker 4)
perpetually distracted cranmark tattoo person you have a person opposed to like a McDonald’s, somebody that runs up to your car like a Chick-fil-A. That’s you got their polo on and says my pleasure. So that’s where we have to be very, very, very specific on how we do culture differently than the competition who’s just scaling out like crazy.

(Speaker 4)
But people like the greatest currency in life is how you make somebody else feel and want to make other people feel like the highlight of the day and hire people that are sincere, they’re just genuine, that truly like people. If you do that well,

(Speaker 4)
you have to lock the doors to keep people out.

(Speaker 2)
I’m telling you folks, this is so important. I talked to a guy the other day who applied to work for your business, true story. He’s a gremlin. I know him because he didn’t get hired by a friend of mine. And so a friend of mine’s like, hey, I didn’t hire this guy, he’s kind of a gremlin.

(Speaker 2)
I said, what do you mean gremlin? He’s like, yeah, he’s just kind of a curmudgeon, kind of a negative guy, Debbie Downer. And he’s got a yeah, I guess he applied for the Colaw guys a couple years ago, didn’t get the job. And I’m going, interesting. And I knew that you, and I met the guy, I’m like, this guy.

(Speaker 2)
I understand why you didn’t hire him, and I didn’t hire him either. And I’m just telling you but you have a certain standard there. Now, box number six, the three-legged marketing stool. Colaw Fitness, with every business we work with, every business that I work with, what we do is we develop a three-legged marketing stool.

(Speaker 2)
Now, I’ll give you a moment, Charles and Amber, to reflect on this, and maybe this is true for you, maybe not, but a lot of my clients that come into my life, I think about Stacy Purcell, long-time client, great lady. I think about Shaw Homes, shawhomes.com. We helped Shaw Homes grow from $14 million a year to $150 million a year. I think about satellite phones, Tina, her company, Sat123. We’ve helped them grow to $100 million a year of sales.

(Speaker 2)
I think about Oxifresh, oxifresh.com. We’ve helped them grow now to 500 plus locations. And every single time I sit down with a business owner, they have not a three-legged marketing stool. No, no, no. They have a variety of things that might work. And through tracking, we start to figure out what doesn’t work.

(Speaker 2)
And so with Stacey Purcell with her wonderful business, we found out that LinkedIn didn’t work 100% of the time, thus saving her $8,000 a month by turning it off. I just had a client this week, true story, we found he was spending $4,000 a week on YouTube ads, Instagram ads, and TikTok ads. Got a lot of clicks, got a lot of views, no leads. Another client, I’m using a stream of consciousness,

(Speaker 2)
another client of mine, they were doing mailers, getting zero response. Another client of mine was doing billboards to the tune of $6,000 a month between all their locations. And as you look at the different businesses and you track, you can really, really become much more profitable

(Speaker 2)
by nailing down a three-legged marketing stool. Could you talk about that, Amber, maybe the impact it’s had or hasn’t had, tracking the results, getting rid of what doesn’t work and focusing on what does work?

(Speaker 5)
Yeah, well, I would say none of that is my part of the business and I’m so thankful. I hate marketing, but what I would say to that is that has everything to do with like, we were talking about your numbers and the tracking. So you’re talking about tracking these things. That’s my side, the financial side. And I want to know that when the

(Speaker 5)
money’s going out, that that return is coming back, right? And so I do that side of it with, we talk about a marketing budget and watching that and holding true to that and watching those numbers and watching, you know, the revenue that comes back from that marketing. So you may be able to talk more on the marketing. That’s your.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, we’ve tracked where they come from. Sometimes you do get clicks or you have like sometimes Facebook shows you make it, but it’s really not getting people to walk through the door and convert people into members and convert people into higher ticket items. And so you really want to make sure that what you’re spending money on is actually quantifying out into

(Speaker 4)
dollars. And so Clay’s really been good with us to track that we’ve done that for years. And so we can really kind of see in our industry, we market, you know, in a five mile radius really heavy. That’s kind of our ideal and likely buyers within that five mile radius or a 12 minute drive time. We target those, we see what marketing works best. And a lot of times it’s the same proven stuff that Clay teaches with a lot of his clients is really seeing to making sure that you’re dominating on certain platforms. And I can go into that. But the whole point is, is Clay

(Speaker 4)
has done it in every industry. And when we follow the system, track it correctly, we can monetize our marketing dollars a whole lot better. And so there’s ways you want to get in front of your ideal likely buyer. We make sure we got the right product offering in front of the right ideal likely buyer. And the things that Clay has been doing

(Speaker 4)
with his clients over the last seven years with us, it doesn’t change much. There’s a few little things that adjust, but it’s a proven system. And that’s what works. And we’ve just, we’ve done that. We’ve gone from three locations to six and we’ve more than doubled our revenue.

(Speaker 30)
Right.

(Speaker 4)
So it’s been a huge win.

(Speaker 5)
Well, I think sometimes people want to market in a certain way because that’s the cool thing to do. Like I want to be on TikTok. Right. If TikTok is not, if it’s not paying my bills, I could care less. I mean, I can watch TikTok on my off time, but I’m not gonna put my marketing dollars into it just because that’s what everybody else is doing.

(Speaker 5)
And I think another part of that is everybody has marketing advice for you. Everybody, everybody thinks that it’s a marketing guru, you know, because they see ads. And I don’t think that’s true either.

(Speaker 2)
I’m going to ask you this, Charles. And I’m not ready for your answer yet. I got to mentally prepare myself for this. But you do not have the ability to not be honest here. So a guy called me here today. And I thought, man, I’m going to send this to him right away.

(Speaker 2)
Guy reaches out to me. He’s in the construction space, okay? And he goes, what would it, this happens every day, by the way, but he says, what would a relationship look like if I hired you guys as my coach? If I hired you, Clay, and your team, what does that look like?

(Speaker 2)
And I said, well, we charge you $1,700 a month, so it’s less money than hiring a minimum wage employee, that’s what it is. We have a weekly meeting and we follow a proven system. And anyway, and I said, there’s accountability. There’s kind of three parts to it. One is we have a team that helps you get your photography, your video, your web, your search engine done for you, all those things. The second is we provide coaching down a proven path. And then

(Speaker 2)
the third is we have workshops every couple of months so you can kind of get a tune up. And I said, you know, I said, Mr. Klein, Mr. Potential Klein, who I’ve known forever, I said, Clay Stairs describes me as the ass man. And he’s like, the ass man? And I said, yeah, Clay Stairs, longtime client of mine. He’s been a client of mine for like 15 years.

(Speaker 2)
He literally tells people that I’m his ass man. What? He goes, Clay has helped me grow my company, claystairs.com. He’s helped me get into political office. But he kind of is like an irritant who follows up on the same things every week until they get done. So I wanted to ask you, Charles, how would you

(Speaker 2)
describe what the coaching relationship looks like for somebody out there that’s saying, what is it like to work with specifically me and my team?

(Speaker 4)
Well, to shoot you straight, I mean, Claire’s, Clay’s highest desire isn’t always your comfort in that coaching, his highest desire is your continued development, that you do hit your goals for financial, and a good coach, think of a good coach, a good coach tells you what you need to hear, because he doesn’t just care about the comfort in the room or the

(Speaker 4)
comfort of the conversation, He cares about your character development, your personal development to becoming the better leader. And if you want to run a great company, you have to be a great leader. You have to be the avatar. You have to be the great person. And Clay has really pushed that in me.

(Speaker 4)
And for me, I thought I’ve always needed that. And I was just like, okay, Charles, stay humble,, coachable heart and be willing to grow. When you work with somebody that has a proven system, they’ve worked in every industry, they’ve got a team of videographers, graphic designers, web developers, people that will help you build the back end of your business correctly, the proven systems of

(Speaker 4)
continuous hiring of staff team, like like group hiring that you always have staff ready to go. Somebody in the bullpen, so I’ll take it. You always have continuous training staff. You’ve never held hostage because there’s something that doesn’t know a skill set. You can always replace somebody. Because if you don’t create a system,

(Speaker 4)
you’re going to be a limited resource. Clay creates the systems, helps you with document creation, file organization, and make sure you’ve got that stuff. You have a proven template. sizeable prototype that you can handle the lowest skill set. So great people are great, but Clay’s been really good at shooting me straight. If you have a humble coachable heart

(Speaker 4)
and you’re willing to grow and you take two or three action items every week, next thing you know, 50 weeks, 52 weeks in a year, you’ve got a bunch of systems, you got a way better website, you got checklist workflows,

(Speaker 4)
you got staff following systems, you got backup right systems checklist and personnel ready to go. And to run six different businesses in four different states, from Florida in the Midwest, we live there, we have to have good systems, checklists, workflows, and so on and making sure people are holding to that. Clay’s been really great for helping set up

(Speaker 4)
the system. So yeah, but it’s it’s to be honest, it’s not always, the conversations are definitely sometimes challenging, but understanding that both parties, me as the client, him as the coach, is really help trying to have the highest desire to make you grow into a better person and to help your company grow and be better.

(Speaker 4)
And to me, that’s a good coach. And that’s why I like working with Thrive and Clay.

(Speaker 2)
Amber, I wanted to tap into your wisdom on this. There was a statement that was made years ago by Robert Kiyosaki. It really resonated with me. I heard this about 20 years ago. But he said, amateurs don’t have a coach. Professionals do have a coach.

(Speaker 2)
And at the time, I thought, you know what? From a legal perspective, I probably need a coach or mentor to help me. So I hired wintersking.com and I’ve used that company for what 10 plus years it’s and it’s really helped me. I thought to myself from an accounting perspective I need probably to have her a coach so I hired CCK and so in the areas where I want to improve I really do firmly believe in having a coach. When I wanted to become a better speaker I hired

(Speaker 2)
Carlton Pearson and I and I worked with Carlton for as long as he would work with me, because at the time he was the top televangelist in America, and he was a phenomenal verbal communicator. And so, but it wouldn’t have worked if I wasn’t coachable, and if he wasn’t willing to coach. And you guys have done such a great job over these years implementing,

(Speaker 2)
and I just see the future is so bright here. So when we look at your website now, could you talk about just that weekly meeting and making those little iterations and every week making it a little better? Because I think some people want to get rich quick.

(Speaker 2)
They want to become successful in 10 minutes. They want to ready, set, let’s go. But you guys, every week we go to coloffitness.com. Every week we enhance the website. Every week we enhance the website. Every week we enhance the scripts. Every week we enhance the value proposition. Every week we’re doing little tweaks that are improving the brand.

(Speaker 2)
Could you talk about that mindset of that weekly improvement?

(Speaker 19)
Yeah, absolutely.

(Speaker 4)
Well, your numbers, you have to have good feedback tools, some key performance KPIs or key performance things you look at for sales over cancellations and how much dollars you’re spending on marketing. When we track that on a regular basis, we can see that we’re doing well or not doing well. We make pivots. We get coaching feedback from you on best practices. And one thing is, is that you’ve not just worked in our industry, but lots of industries and having a team of people, a team of coaches that say, hey, this is what’s working. This isn’t what’s working. It’s super valuable. And so, um, like I, I, I, I, I, I, I mean, I’ve got an MBA in school, but I’m telling you, like, it’s real life is so much more important and having good people that have good feelers.

(Speaker 4)
It’s like, it’s, you’re, you’re only as good as your team. And Clay brings the whole team to your team. Um, and anyways, are, we have a weekly meeting, our weekly meeting. Our weekly meeting we look at like what are the key things that impact us. It’s going to be signups, signups over cancels, what are those signups, which one’s upgraded to higher tier options, whether that’s membership, higher tier membership options, or whether that’s tearing up into higher services like fitness coaching, like one-on-one coaching, or fitness training, or nutrition coaching, or group training, but getting people into those things and understanding the scripts,

(Speaker 4)
how to role-play that over and over again, making sure your staff understands how to communicate effectively with the customer, role-play, role-play, until that socially awkward young person can totally get it. They understand how to do it until the cognitive, the critical thinking phase has gone away.

(Speaker 4)
They know how to do it. Now, you’ve got staff that knows how to do it until the cognitive, the critical thinking face has gone away. They know how to do it. Now you got staff that knows how to communicate well, how to show the product offering benefits over cost, and then show them that if you don’t do it, this is what won’t happen. And you want to show them that you’re going to really change their lives and save their life, add years to life quality to your years by changing new habits. And when people see that value, you’ve got the right staff articulating that you close a lot of deals, you upgrade things and you change a lot of lives.

(Speaker 5)
Well, one thing, Clay, I think with the coaching is, it’s been beneficial. It’s kind of like you’re our blind side or a blind spot coach. This is what we’ve created. There’s a lot of emotions attached to it.

(Speaker 5)
It’s what we love. It’s what feeds our family. And so we can become very emotionally charged. And I think you’re super helpful to kind of bring us back in and go, hey, like, so you kind of keep us focused separating the emotions from it.

(Speaker 5)
And I’ve heard a lot of people say to you, or, you know, in conversations we’ll have, and they’ll say, yeah, but you don’t understand landscaping. It’s not about understanding landscaping. We don’t talk fitness every week when we meet. But it’s about it’s it’s the it’s about

(Speaker 5)
business. And it’s about where we’re going. And you really help keep us on track. There’s that accountability like you

(Speaker 4)
talked about, you guys are super valuable. Your set of eyes is super valuable. Yeah, yeah. I’ll are set up. Super value. Your set of eyes is super valuable. Yeah.

(Speaker 2)
I’ll just say this. I mean, Colawfitness.com, if you’re looking for a career, folks, I’m telling you, check out Colawfitness.com. Now, point number seven, sales conversion. We have to have scripts, recorded calls,

(Speaker 2)
one sheets, lead trackers. What? All the visuals in the store, we call that internal marketing. There’s external marketing, marketing to your ideal and likely buyers, but internal marketing, letting your current gym members know that you offer personal training or group fitness. Box number eight, you have to have a sustainable customer acquisition cost. You have to know what does it cost you to land a new customer. Box number nine, you’ve got to create repeatable systems.

(Speaker 2)
When you clean the bathrooms, every day. When you clean the bathrooms every day, when you clean the showers every day, when you clean the locker rooms every day, when you clean the equipment every day, when you clean all these things multiple times a day, when you change the light bulbs every day, when you have to maintain the fitness equipment every day, when you have to hire people every day, you have to build repeatable systems or your head will explode. You got to have checklists and processes.

(Speaker 2)
Box number 11, you have to manage people. Manage people. What? This just in, we have to manage people. We’ve got to hire people, manage people. How do you hire, inspire, train, retain? We have to do it. Box number 11, you have to build a sustainable schedule. What is the schedule that your company will keep? What hours will you be open?

(Speaker 2)
How would you, what kind of shifts do you have? What kind of org chart? Who’s in charge? Who isn’t? of the systems because this just in, a customer will fire you if you won’t fire your bad employees. And box number 12, you got to have a high standard with the A players, the B players. You got to coach up the B players to become A players.

(Speaker 2)
You got to coach those A players to become future leaders. You got to coach the C players out into another job or to the local bus station. You got to get them out of your life or they will ruin your business. And then box number 13, you gotta make sure you’re making money. It’s not about how much money you make, it’s about how much money you keep. Box number 14, you have to sit down every day and say, what does God want me to do if every day is a gift?

(Speaker 2)
What does God want me to do if every day is a gift from God? What does God want me to do with my faith, my fun, my focused time. What does God want me to do with this day? That’s all these things we have to think about there. And I’m telling you folks, everything we’re talking about on today’s show, it wouldn’t matter if Kola Fitness was not obsessed with wowing the customers.

(Speaker 2)
Charles Kola and Amber Kola are obsessed with helping you take your fitness to the next level. If you’re out there today and you are in Joplin, Missouri, you’re in Texas, you are in all the different markets they’re in. Go to colawfitness.com. You can see the markets they’re in. I’m telling you, these guys are obsessed with wowing customers.

(Speaker 2)
So I’ll go to you, Amber, then I’ll go to you, Charles. Everything we talked about doesn’t work if you scam your customers. Everything we talked about doesn’t matter if you don’t wow your customers. Can you talk about why at the core, even though we’re going all over all this business stuff, all these details, at the end of the day, you guys at Kola Fitness have to wow the customers. Why is that so important,

(Speaker 2)
Amber?

(Speaker 5)
Well, I think for us, it’s important because we love people. And everybody needs a belonging and worth. And they need to feel important and they need to feel cared for. And like, that’s our passion. We just love loving on people. That’s what made Charles such a phenomenal trainer when that was the initial start of the whole company.

(Speaker 5)
It was just his desire to help people and his love for them. And that was the same reason, you know, a million years ago that I did hair. So I think for us, that’s just what we’re passionate about. We’re passionate about people feeling like they are loved and they have value. And if we can pass that on through all of our front desk staff,

(Speaker 5)
if we can open more locations and bring in that many more people in these communities to feel loved, excuse me, and also spread the gospel at the same time. Let them know God loves you. And so that’s really what drives our passion in the coaching and development, even of our staff.

(Speaker 2)
And Charles Cole, I got two final questions for you and your wife can one up you.

(Speaker 1)
So here we go, two final questions.

(Speaker 29)
Yes sir, yes sir.

(Speaker 1)
There’s somebody out there right now, they’re thinking about coming to one of our in-person workshops. They know Tim Tebow is going to be there. They know Eric Trump will be there. They know that you might be there.

(Speaker 1)
But maybe if they haven’t been to a workshop in the past,

(Speaker 4)
how would you describe them Sir. It’s just it’s wrong real. I mean if you really want to try to get if you really really really want to build a company not just get like a like you go to school you get a business degree. You know they would say place that the program is you know this business without the B s there’s no bullcrap he tells you the proven system for real proven systems that have grown

(Speaker 4)
and scale hundreds, if not thousands of companies, add millions. Like we are millions of dollars more in revenue because of these systems that we’ve implemented. And we’ve been able to scale and not have to actually work in the business. We work on the business, just the business system. So we can live in Florida. We’re definitely engaged with our staff that runs these locations and they’re great lieutenants, but we have the systems, we have the checklists, we’ve live in Florida. We’re definitely engaged with our staff that runs these locations and they’re great lieutenants,

(Speaker 4)
but we have the systems, we have the checklists, we’ve got the workflows, and we have the systems that we can hold people to. We’ve retained the right talent. We’ve got really people in the bullpen for every position. So they weren’t held hostage to happen to do that.

(Speaker 4)
But all that to say, it’s funny. He’s very, very, I mean, Clay’s pretty much like a comedian. It’s hilarious to listen to. If you’re willing to be coachable, if you’re willing to have a humble and coachable heart, that’s willing to grow, he’ll show you proven processes. There’s going to be a pathway that you can be successful. And if you’re a diligent doer and you just do one or two action items every week with your coach. The whole thing is this, it’s just being a more of a marathoner than a sprinter. When you’re working with a coach,

(Speaker 4)
just do your two or three action items. And that two or three, if you times that by 52 weeks, that’s 150. Next thing you got a way better website. You got a way better lead funnel. You’ve got way better staff hired.

(Speaker 4)
You’ve got systems, checklists, workflows, all document created into mind-free templates, sales flows, training and development of staff, all that. So you got people in the bullpen for each position, and you’re no longer being held hostage as an owner, and you’ve got a proven system. So that’s Clay and his team.

(Speaker 5)
I’ll one-up you. I will one-up him this one time. Like, there’s truly nothing more exciting than to come to the conference. And we’ve been to almost every conference you’ve had for the last seven to eight years.

(Speaker 5)
And it is completely refreshing. I always get something new out of it. It’s very practical. You’re not sitting in this huge like ballroom with want, want, want speakers that you feel like are trying to sell you

(Speaker 5)
something and you’re trying to stay awake. And that’s not the case at all. It’s kind of a circus with a whole lot of, there’s a whole lot to take home. Even if you go to the conference and you decide, hey, this is not for me right now, or coaching is not for me, hands down, you will leave with practical business application items.

(Speaker 1)
Now final question I have for you guys, just like Colaw Fitness, I mean, you put your name right there on the brand, Colaw Fitness. You can’t really go to thrivetimeshow.com without seeing my cranium. And so I take a lot of pride in what I do

(Speaker 1)
and wowing our customers. But for somebody out there, in particular this guy today who’s in the construction space, who’s like, hey, what would coaching look like for me? Or is coaching for me? He’s reaching out.

(Speaker 1)
Charles, what do you say? What kind of impact has the coaching that we’ve had with you guys over these past seven or eight the impact or the success or what kind of impact has the coaching made on kolawfitness.com?

(Speaker 4)
Well, I would say first off, personally, I’ve developed a great friendship with some really great people. And I thought that’s been huge for me. That’s personally, and to know people that are in the same type of pressure that you have is running a company running a business to have people that have that are intelligent, and they care as a friend that is

(Speaker 4)
huge that’s the number one personally and then professionally to have a whole bullpen of a whole a whole data set of lots of different industries best practices whether that’s you know generally it’s either a sales issue like you don’t have enough sales or then it’s a staffing issue you don’t have the right staff whether it’s a scaling it it, how do I build this into a franchisable prototype? It’s all stuff that they’ve done over and over and over again. And to where you have like a cognitive dissonance, like a mental disease with understanding it, they don’t. And when you have somebody that gives you peace because it is something they’ve done

(Speaker 5)
before, it’s priceless. So yeah. Yeah. Oh, I would say that you were talking about it hasn’t just affected us in our business, but it has affected us in our personal life too, because all of these things that you learn can be rolled over into your personal life. So that’s been huge. And like Charles was talking about the connections that we’ve made with other business owners. You know, Clay, you said at the very first conference we went to, your net worth is your net worth.

(Speaker 28)
Amen!

(Speaker 5)
I mean, that is hands down. If you’re hanging out with the old friends that have unsuccessful businesses, and you’re hanging out with the old people who are complaining about having to work an eight-hour day, if you’re spending your time with them

(Speaker 5)
and it’s just gonna break the bank to go to Chili’s for dinner, that you’re gonna stay there. You’re gonna stay in that influence of people. And every conference we meet new people and we’ve got some of the most awesome friends

(Speaker 5)
that own businesses across the country from the cheesecake store to a pizza shop, right? To dog training to, I mean, we’ve got some of our friends that live in cities that we have gyms and they’re members at our clubs. And it’s just, it’s so powerful.

(Speaker 5)
It gives us a whole community to bounce ideas off of and get encouragement from.

(Speaker 2)
Charles, from an ROI perspective, if someone’s gonna look at it and go return on investment, I pay you 1,700 a month, will I make more money than I’m paying you? How would you maybe tackle or how would you respond to, what kind of return on investment have you seen

(Speaker 1)
for the $1,700 a month you’re paying?

(Speaker 4)
Well, for example, Clay has got, there’s no better business coach in the world I mean, just for the fact of like, just, just the website alone is worth the 1700, just the Just the ability to take any of their proven systems, whether that’s a marketing thing or whether that’s a staffing thing. Like one thing done in the month, it pays for itself. And then to understand this,

(Speaker 4)
there’s a part of where, you know, some maybe some week you may be like,

(Speaker 27)
well, you know what?

(Speaker 4)
I’m not getting a whole lot out of this call. But the bottom line is, it’s like when you read the Bible, there’s times you’re just reading it and then you’re like, you know what? I really and then you read it that one time and it’s like God really speaks to your heart. And the whole truth is, it’s like there’s no way that you can get that kind of value for seventeen hundred dollars to have a whole team of coaches,

(Speaker 4)
graphic designers, web developers, anybody that has that type of knowledge in your back pocket. And then the whole thing is run your business with being somewhat conservative. Make sure you don’t run it to the edge all the time. But by doing that, you have that skill set.

(Speaker 4)
You have those tools on your tool belt. And I just think it’s just like the cost of doing business. Like just understand that’s just like the cost of doing business. Like just understand it. That’s what you want to do.

(Speaker 5)
I think there’s a… Sometimes the payment we make, I feel like is peace of mind even. Because there have been multiple times throughout the years that we will either be butting heads on something. We’re super confused about something.

(Speaker 5)
We’re fearful about something. Something in the market’s changed and it’s a quick call to Clay. And so that quick call to Clay, and he’s outside the situation and he has other data points.

(Speaker 5)
I mean, we’ve had times that Clay, you got a quick response and you can tell us and direct us real quickly. And we’re right off the phone. And there’s other times you’ll go, I’ll call you right back.

(Speaker 5)
And Clay will jump in, and he’ll call his other contacts and get back with us. Sometimes it takes longer. But there are times when you feel that way, when you’re like, is this worth it? I don’t feel like we’re doing much right now,

(Speaker 5)
or we’re not growing. Inevitably, something like that will come up and like that’s our peace of mind. Like he’s, you’re like a crucial team player, you know.

(Speaker 2)
Well, you know, I, it’s an honor to serve you guys and for those watching right now, I encourage you if you’re looking for a career. Now if you’re looking for a job, don’t fill out the formcom because if you live in what, Joplin, Missouri, Charles, Dallas, Texas, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Amber, we live in Topeka, Kansas. If you’re out there, Arlington, if you’re out there, go to Colawfitness.com if you’re looking for a career

(Speaker 2)
and not just a job. Thank you two for carving out time with your busy schedule. And I’m so glad to have you here today. Thanks Clay. Awesome. Take care guys.

(Speaker 5)
Bye bye.

(Speaker 2)
Bye.

(Speaker 11)
Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do.

(Speaker 2)
I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

(Speaker 22)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 11)
People rave about what they learned from you.

(Speaker 2)
So congratulations. Sean, guess what’s happening on June 5th and 6th right here in Tulsa, Russia. We are probably going to have an amazing business conference here at Tulsa, Russia. Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters June 5th and 6th.

(Speaker 2)
He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman Award winner, but he’s also a very successful entrepreneur. Now, when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies, do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done?

(Speaker 2)
Every day. How often is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s almost, it’s like maybe 90% of the issues as people are trying to grow their company. Well, Tim Tebow’s gonna come join us here

(Speaker 2)
at the in-person Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop. And he’s gonna teach us time management and his approach to personal self-discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website

(Speaker 2)
so people can see it here. Also at the two-day interactive workshop, Sean. We are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? Is it generating leads? Is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have

(Speaker 2)
by default before they come to one of our workshops?

(Speaker 10)
Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners and being able to manage their time is the first thing once they get that under control, then generally, the numbers, you know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area.

(Speaker 10)
We teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay. You love to hammer on time management.

(Speaker 2)
It’s my favorite part of the conference. Now, I’m going to pull this up real quick here because we’re going to go through it. If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here. OK. All right. The two-day interactive workshop. This is my 20th year hosting workshops. So I’m telling you folks, we’re in rare form here.

(Speaker 2)
So one is the idea of establishing your revenue goals. I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals.

(Speaker 1)
Would you agree, or am I off my rocker?

(Speaker 2)
No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board is we have to establish the revenue goals. And generally speaking, we have a vague idea, but not an exact idea that can be engineered down into like the daily goals for sales.

(Speaker 10)
And so that’s a really big one.

(Speaker 2)
Now next is the break even numbers. What kind of sales do you have to do to even break even? Yeah. Third is how many hours per week do you want to work? What is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur? Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce?

(Speaker 2)
What makes your company unique from all the different businesses? In a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows, how can you be the purple cow that stands out? How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil? Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand?

(Speaker 2)
Box number six, marketing, your three-legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed? Because if you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed. If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads.

(Speaker 2)
Sean, how often do business owners by default tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. Many times they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth. So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems, and then they need to create more leads, but they’ve never had to do it.

(Speaker 2)
So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Box number seven. Box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system.

(Speaker 2)
Sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre-written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business. Whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you got to have sales systems in place. We help you with that. Box number eight, what does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized.

(Speaker 2)
We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization. Box number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people on the planet Earth. This just in, we’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training and retaining great people. Box number 13, accounting. This just in, we have to cover accounting.

(Speaker 2)
It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know. And step 14, finally, what is the point of even achieving success? We’re gonna go over the, what is the point of even achieving success? How to design a life that you’re excited about. How to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun,

(Speaker 2)
and where you’re gonna spend your focused time. We’re gonna go through that, all this and more. Now the workshop, Sean, it’s June 5-day interactive workshop. And tickets, we always do it. It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford. Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket?

(Speaker 10)
Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You could be at a startup phase, or you could be way along in your business. But we want to make it accessible for everybody. I think it actually goes back to, to a story of your dad and like, it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that, you know, you’re just, your average people out there have access to

(Speaker 10)
the things that work.

(Speaker 2)
Now, 7am a day, Sean, of back-to-back workshops? We do a 30-minute teaching session, we do a 15-minute question and answer session, and then we take a break. 30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question and answer,

(Speaker 2)
then we take a break. Why do we do that format, Sean?

(Speaker 10)
That format is so that we can keep people engaged in not just sitting there listening, but also getting involved. We really encourage people to ask questions, and that’s really where the juiciness of the conference comes out, is you can put your personal situation

(Speaker 10)
and your questions on the board, and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program, you can get direct coaching from Clay. It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoyed a lot.

(Speaker 2)
Sean, final 60 seconds pop quiz here. What date is the conference? June 5th and 6th, 2025. This year. Question number two, who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in-person two-day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford.

(Speaker 2)
Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards? P-M-U-R-T-C-I-R-E.

(Speaker 10)
Ooh, that took a long time.

(Speaker 2)
I’ll have to listen to this. All right, again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, and inviting you to come join us at the in-person Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive workshop, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Russia, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sean, I really am excited to have this event.

(Speaker 1)
I’m excited to see you at the event, June 5th and 6th, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tim Tebow, baby. It’s Tebow time. Oh yeah. Tulsa, Russia. You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things,

(Speaker 26)
but you chose to be here.

(Speaker 14)
Clay Clark is here somewhere.

(Speaker 25)
Where’s my buddy Clay?

(Speaker 19)
Clay.

(Speaker 14)
Clay’s the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy I ran from his goats his chickens his dogs so this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen right his entire life

(Speaker 4)
Clay Clark his entire life is marketing

(Speaker 12)
hey guys Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather, and man, people are so excited as they come in.

(Speaker 18)
The conference has kicked off, this house is packed.

(Speaker 20)
We’ve got Aaron Antos with Shotguns up there.

(Speaker 12)
We’ve got Steve Burrington with Total Winding Concepts up there. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when

(Speaker 24)
you do the improvements. It’s so exciting.

(Speaker 13)
People are going crazy. Guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Guys show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. going crazy. Guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready.

(Speaker 13)
Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two.

(Speaker 19)
Follow me. Come on. Come on. Come on.

(Speaker 1)
I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible.

(Speaker 12)
Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, you go, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, myself included, if you hear that term, what is that? What does that mean?

(Speaker 12)
That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable, it’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break,

(Speaker 12)
and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them. Bathroom break.

(Speaker 12)
And also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving

(Speaker 13)
the whole time. Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his grill gun melting an ice sculpture. It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have.

(Speaker 13)
I heard about it on the podcast. Started listening to the podcast, became a fan, and then figured out about the workshop.

(Speaker 7)
I own an insurance and financial services agency. on the podcast, started listening to the podcast, became a fan, and then figured out about the workshop. I own an insurance and financial services agency, and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big on systems and processes, and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere’s second to none. It’s a high energy, really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious, I would say.

(Speaker 7)
Just something every entrepreneur, I think, would appreciate and love. I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance, which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars maybe are high on motivation and making you feel good,

(Speaker 7)
but don’t have a lot of substance that you can take back and implement the following Monday, where his does. Man, there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say, I came to this, this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that saving my time on that part is valuable.

(Speaker 7)
It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far. Man, I think they’re missing out on, you know, expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons. You know, that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that I can learn from that’s ahead of where I am. Um, and I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business.

(Speaker 1)
Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen.

(Speaker 1)
In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes, and then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes.

(Speaker 1)
And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay I really thought man there’s not much more I need to know but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from

(Speaker 1)
somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to a hundred and eighty internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us, and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay.

(Speaker 1)
So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars,

(Speaker 1)
international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing.

(Speaker 1)
And Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental.

(Speaker 1)
It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant

(Speaker 1)
because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they

(Speaker 1)
let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month.

(Speaker 1)
Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with

(Speaker 1)
Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to a hundred and eighty a month that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team.

(Speaker 1)
I guarantee you’re not going to regret it, because we sure haven’t.

(Speaker 23)
My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t.

(Speaker 8)
My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with

(Speaker 8)
people. I love the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time. And he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent everything that we do is a direct line from clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage our real estate brokerage eight months ago. And in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to

(Speaker 8)
just this week. We signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today building a business having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen.

(Speaker 6)
I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic

(Speaker 6)
was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school, I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 investment. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was

(Speaker 6)
instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization.

(Speaker 6)
We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards

(Speaker 6)
and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

(Speaker 11)
Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do.

(Speaker 2)
I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

(Speaker 22)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 11)
People rave about what they learn from you.

(Speaker 9)
So congratulations. And we went from expecting maybe $250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. Hi, I’m Kelsey with K&D’s Wooder Finishing. I’m a business owner at 23. So I’ve been working this K&D’s company for about five years now and we started working with Thrive not too long ago. And we went from expecting maybe $250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that.

(Speaker 9)
It’s been pretty much just listening to what they have to say. Their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly and such good insight, the resources that they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience.

(Speaker 9)
So I would recommend it to anybody.

(Speaker 21)
What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system and it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones

(Speaker 3)
that people can work with on a day-to-day basis. Hi there my name is Stephanie Pipkin. I am 24 years old and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid-June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach Luke from Thrive Time. It has been insane to say the least. I started working with them in mid-February of this year so we’re about four months in of working

(Speaker 3)
together and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So I’m gonna check my notes here. So in four months my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week now I’m going to check my notes here. So in four months, my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week. Now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees.

(Speaker 3)
I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. And hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month if that and

(Speaker 3)
everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews and interviewing every single week. It’s just been great.

(Speaker 3)
And I don’t waste as much time on low-quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Luke’s like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be, when I’m being lazy

(Speaker 3)
and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them. So that’s just great. Worth every penny. I mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know,

(Speaker 3)
perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner you understand that. But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening and I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited every single week when I’m having all these wins and things like that.

(Speaker 3)
They’re so excited for me. So it’s the best thing ever and I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long-winded reply but I just had so much to say and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me.

(Speaker 3)
And I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching.

(Speaker 11)
My saying is, if it’s important to you, hire a coach. And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach. And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained.

(Speaker 11)
And as my rich dad always said, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches. So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. And my rich dad was one of those persons. You’re on it, man.

(Speaker 11)
You’re on it. You’re on it. Everybody, listen to this guy. He knows what he’s talking about. You have the macro picture. Very few people have that point of view.

(Speaker 11)
Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur. And as they say in stoic, the obstacle is the way.

 

Transcribed with Cockatoo