Dr. Eric Cole | “Elon Musk, He Purchased Twitter a Few Years Ago. He Used All the Data from Twitter to Train Grok. When He Was Doing Government Efficiency for DOGE, He Was Installing Private Servers.” – Dr. Eric Cole

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 1)
Elon Musk with X and Twitter, he now has Grok 3. Notice the timing. He purchased Twitter a few years ago and then Grok 3 came out a few years later. No coincidence there, my friends. He basically used all the data from Twitter to train Grok 3. And then Elon Musk, smart move on his part, got involved with the White House and he basically

(Speaker 1)
got access to all of our data. What people don’t realize is when he was doing government efficiency for Doge, he was installing private servers at those facilities. Now, when Hillary Clinton did her private servers many years ago, everybody freaked out.

(Speaker 1)
Remember, she had her own private servers

(Speaker 4)
at State Department. People were like, okay. Real quick, I wanna, this is, this is, I, I, who, who, what you just said, I want to go back to this for a second. I’m sorry to interrupt you. I just really want to dive into this. Please do. Please do. Doge. Let’s let’s understand how Doge has been spun. Doge has been spun or pitched to the American people that, wow, this is a new level of government accountability. This is going to help reduce the costs of operating

(Speaker 4)
the United States government, et cetera, et cetera. What you just said is that DOGE allowed Elon Musk to install private servers into the United States government. Could you maybe expand upon that? I’m sorry to interrupt you there.

(Speaker 1)
I want to get your wisdom on that. So essentially, in order to go in and in government efficiency to monitor the data, he basically went in and installed his own servers, broke protocols. Like you go in, there’s a reason why it takes six to nine months to get a government clearance. We bypass those measures and the members of Doge, including Elon, get access to data that any other employee of the government

(Speaker 1)
would have taken six or nine months to do. And yes, he did need all that data so he could process it. How do you think Elon and Doge was able to find weaknesses and government spending so quickly? It’s because he processed so much data. But what you don’t realize is he also left with the data

(Speaker 1)
that he can now use to trade GROG3. So essentially all of this information from all these different government entities that were siloed and protected, our government is purposely set up for isolation. So if somebody breaks into one system,

(Speaker 1)
they can’t break into others. But now with Doge, all that data is available together.

(Speaker 4)
I just want to be super clear on this, because many of you who listen to this show are more libertarian or more conservative. I tend to be a kind of libertarian at heart, where I just like limited government, and I’m sort of paranoid about both.

(Speaker 4)
And you in the same way, my friend, in the same way my same way. I’m paranoid by both parties And so when I heard that Elon Musk was putting the the these private servers inside the United States government I thought to myself Whoa, I mean the implications of that so it requires a certain knowledge to even develop the implications of that into worst case scenarios. But can you do that for us?

(Speaker 4)
Because you have the knowledge base to say, what could that mean, worst case scenario? I mean, now that all of the data has been gathered in one place, it’s no longer siloed. Worst case scenario, what could that do?

(Speaker 1)
So there’s really sort of two worst case scenarios. There’s a short term and a long term. The short term one is that if Elon got access to that data without backgrounds or clearances, and he was able to put it all together onto private servers, and he now potentially

(Speaker 1)
has them connected to who knows what network, that means our foreign adversaries have access to it. They now have access to our government data, the Chinese, the Russians, Iranian, North Korea. So essentially we’re creating one of the worst potentiable data breaches in the history of America

(Speaker 1)
because now if they break in, they don’t get access to one government, they get access to everything. Imagine us taking all of our government records from Treasury, to Social Security, to IRS, to the FBI. And now instead of a foreign adversary

(Speaker 1)
having to break into each one individually, they can break into one and get access to all of that data. The long-term worst case scenario is, what if you go in in a month, a year, or two years, and you actually were now able to put in to AI models, and I’m not just picking on Grog 3, I’m picking on all of them, you’re able to put in, and I put in, tell me how much

(Speaker 1)
money Clay Kark has paid in taxes over the last five years, and what if it actually would give you an answer?

(Speaker 7)
But because I live in Israel in the Middle East, there is no way I’m going to forget the enormous power that religion and mythology and human beliefs have on history. In the end, it’s not the engineers that determine what to do with technology. It’s the priests and ideologues and politicians. They determine what to do with the technology that the engineers invent.

(Speaker 6)
Harari’s story is catching. He effortlessly defines the connection between the past and the future and explains what influence the development of technology has had on humanity. He’s now using all of that knowledge to give us his vision for the future.

(Speaker 17)
So actually he’s saying that the ones who are owning the data or have access to the data are the new priests, somehow.

(Speaker 7)
The new priests, the new kings, the new gods, whatever you want to call it, yes. Data is now the key to almost everything. It’s the most important asset.

(Speaker 5)
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

(Speaker 5)
business systems and moves that you can use? 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,

(Speaker 5)
Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses.

(Speaker 8)
We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom,

(Speaker 16)
now we’re here.

(Speaker 4)
We 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. The seeds bring in 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.

(Speaker 4)
It’s the C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here.

(Speaker 8)
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. We started from the bottom, now we’re here.

(Speaker 4)
World Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we’re interviewing somebody that knows something that I think everybody watching today’s show wants to know about it’s how can you secure your computer systems, your data, cyber security. There’s this big threat of a cyber pandemic and cyber hacking and people are always worried about their information being stolen, passwords being stolen and today’s guest claims to know

(Speaker 4)
a lot about this subject and more and his resume is very impressive. So that being said, Dr. Cole, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you sir?

(Speaker 13)
I’m doing great. Thanks for being said, Dr. Cole, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

(Speaker 1)
I’m doing great. Thanks for having me, my friend.

(Speaker 4)
Hey, your resume is very impressive, but for people out there that maybe haven’t heard about you before, could you take just 60 seconds or so and explain to us a little bit about your background

(Speaker 1)
previous to being on today’s show? today show. Sure so I I’m a an inventor a geek or a geek I love creating things but I’m also an entrepreneur some that rare mix of how do you use your business knowledge with technical knowledge to basically make cyber space a safer place. So I started off in the 80’s which I know takes us way back and many people start to think the BG’s bell-bottom pants I

(Speaker 1)
know that all that great stuff. But I got my first job in cybersecurity at the CIA in 1990. Now, the important thing to remember is the World Wide Web didn’t come out until 92. Google wasn’t founded until 97. And I know this is shocking to most people.

(Speaker 1)
Do you believe the iPhone didn’t come out until end of 2007, 2008? I mean, it’s crazy just to think this technology has not been with us for that long. So I actually started off as a programmer, programming systems and programming

(Speaker 1)
in artificial intelligence, which once again shocks people, is AI is not new. We’ve been doing AI in the 90s. The reason why AI is evolving now is because we finally have the data sets of 20 to 30 years to train the models correctly. But I started off doing AI programming to actually track terrorists for the Counterterrorist Center to predict their activity and how they monitor. And then in 91, I was in a meeting at the CIA, all hands meeting at the bubble.

(Speaker 1)
If you ever watched a Tom Clancy movie, that’s the big dome that they show over CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. And they’re talking about this new thing called the internet and how they’re gonna use the internet for covert communications.

(Speaker 1)
And I raised my hand, and it’s funny because my boss is in the front row, and she’s looking back and she’s like, she’s going like, put your hands down, put your hands down. And I’m like, I had no clue you weren’t supposed to ask questions.

(Speaker 1)
I was young and naive. So I asked an important question, which was how do we know it’s secure? And what happens at the government, if you ask a question and nobody knows the answer, you’re volunteering to solve it. They basically said, Dr. Cole, we’re going to give you $50,000 in six months.

(Speaker 1)
Figure it out. I come from a math and science background, so I figured there had to be mathematical formulas to prove a system is secure. The reality is there’s no way to prove a system is secure. You can only is, there’s no way to prove a system is secure. You can only prove it’s not secure by breaking in. So that put me on my mission of being a professional hacker

(Speaker 1)
for five years, and basically hacking systems with one of my specialties is hacking and finding vulnerabilities in nuclear reactors. And then from there, after working at the CIA, I realized two things. One, I don’t like working for other people, and I want to work for myself.

(Speaker 1)
And two, offense is easy, defense is hard. So then it sort of took me on my mission today of really focusing on defense. And that’s why I believe my purpose for being on this planet is to make cyberspace a safe place to live, work, and raise a family.

(Speaker 4)
You are blowing my mind all the time and I get I’m just I’m getting into some my stack of stuff here and so entrepreneurs most of our people listen to the show are entrepreneurs I’m an entrepreneur and we’re going how can I protect my digital assets so I want to get your thoughts on this how can our what are practical steps that our listeners can take if they want to protect their digital assets?

(Speaker 1)
The first thing, and I know it’s going to sound a little crazy, but the first thing is recognize and accept that you are a target. Because what I hear all the time is, oh, Eric, I’m a small business, or I’m a this or I’m a that. I’m not a Google or an Amazon.

(Speaker 1)
Nobody’s going gonna target me and nobody’s gonna break into me. But what we realize in cybersecurity, the way these attackers work is death by a thousand cuts. Why would I try to break in to Amazon? Amazon has hundreds of people

(Speaker 1)
and spends hundreds of millions of dollars on cybersecurity. They’re gonna be very hard to break into. But if you go after a smaller company, let me ask you a listener, how many people do you have dedicated to cyber security and how much money do you spend on cyber security? The answer is probably pretty low and therefore that’s who they’re going after. And this was actually illustrated a week ago.

(Speaker 1)
And unfortunately, the story got buried because of the attack the United States did on Iran. So that took prior news. But 24 hours before the attack on Iran, we had the largest password breach in the history of the internet.

(Speaker 1)
There was billions upon billions, around 40 billion passwords stolen. But what makes it significant is they didn’t actually go in and break into Amazon or Google. They broke into individual devices. So they broke into millions of devices

(Speaker 1)
and actually stole the passwords for all those computers. So here’s the question. What if I told you the probability of your computer, your cell phone or your iPad actually being compromised? Just let that sink in for a second. It’s not going to happen.

(Speaker 1)
What if it already did happen? So the first thing I go in and say is, if you haven’t been addressing cybersecurity and you haven’t been focused on it, you need to start from scratch. Re-image your iPad, re-image your computer,

(Speaker 1)
re-image your cell phone.-image your computer, re-image your cell phone. And the easiest thing here is if you haven’t replaced your tech in three years, the best way to start off to protect yourself or your business is just buy new technology, do a tech refresh. Because the probability of your computer

(Speaker 1)
being compromised is very high. Then let’s cover the basics. Passwords are dead. We don’t use passwords anymore. Everything you do, any account, any system, anything you do with clients,

(Speaker 1)
has to be what we call MFA, or multi-factor authentication. This is essentially where you go in and you enter your password, and then you get text, a one-time code. And then you enter that into the system. Now, I know what everyone says is,

(Speaker 1)
I was on a TV the other day, and the news reporter said, Eric, that’s an inconvenience. That’s an inconvenience. Every time I log in, I have to enter a code. Every time I access a system, I have to enter a code. And my response back is, you know what’s an inconvenience? Having your identity stolen. You know what’s an inconvenience?

(Speaker 1)
Having your bank account wiped out. The question is, choose your inconvenience. Cybersecurity is going to be potentially viewed as an inconvenience until we go and accept it, it’s like seat belts. Nobody wanted to wear seat belts in

(Speaker 1)
the 70s and now everyone accepts it. Multi-factor authentication, then go in and have what we call EDR, Endpoint Detection and Response, on every device. So every single device, you need to have software that’s monitoring and checking security. You have lots of different options out there.

(Speaker 1)
You have solutions like CrowdStrike, Sophos, Symantec. I mean, there’s lots of options. It’s gonna run you about 75 to $80 a year. And here’s the cool part. Most computers that you buy today actually have an option to actually have an upgrade

(Speaker 1)
to have the antivirus software, the EDR software automatically installed. So have endpoint security on every single one of your devices, then go in and start deleting apps. One of my challenges that I tell everyone is an app a day, deleting an app a day,

(Speaker 1)
keeps the attackers away. Most people have way too many apps on their phone and free is not free, my friends. Free basically means that you’re giving your data away in exchange for the application. So my preference is, if possible,

(Speaker 1)
don’t take free apps, purchase them. The apps that you use on a regular basis, if there’s a purchasing option, use it. And in cases where there’s not, like with Facebook and Instagram, recognize that they’re using your data as the message.

(Speaker 1)
So be careful of what you post. I know we’re going into the summertime, everyone loves posting pictures. Why are you posting a picture of your family publicly to the world? That’s insane.

(Speaker 1)
You would not go in and take pictures of your kids and put it on lampposts in your neighborhood. You wouldn’t give that information out because that could be used to harm your children. So why are you doing it on the internet? We have to start playing common sense

(Speaker 1)
to the internet and how we operate. And then the last thing, and this is probably the most important, don’t click on links. If you get a text message, if you get an email that says,

(Speaker 1)
hey, you have an unpaid toll, that’s one of the big attacks out there today. Or you have an Amazon package that hasn’t been shipped. Click on this link. Go to the app instead. Only have apps on your phone that you use. Any app that you haven’t used in 30 days,

(Speaker 1)
you need to delete and remove.

(Speaker 4)
Now, you have this book that you’ve put together where you really deep dive into this. This is Cyber Crisis, protecting your business from real threats in the virtual world. And you have been able to really get the message out about this book over the years by hopping on podcasts like mine. And I want to make sure that I ask you the questions that you maybe hop off a show and

(Speaker 4)
you say, geez, I wish that host would have asked me this, or I never get asked that, but I wish I could have been asked that. What is a couple of the things that you definitely want to communicate to our audience right now that perhaps you don’t get asked on a show,

(Speaker 4)
but you would have liked to have been asked?

(Speaker 1)
Great question. Thanks for giving me the open mic on that one. But it’s really to recognize the fact that we have I haven’t asked. A great question. Thanks for giving me the open mic on that one. But it’s really to recognize the fact that we have not been trained how to live online. We’ve been trained on how to live in the physical world, but we haven’t been trained on how to live in cyberspace.

(Speaker 1)
Just think about this. In school, our kids in kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade, we’re talking about don’t get in a car with strangers. Look both ways before you cross the street, right?

(Speaker 1)
All these common sense principles. Now let me give you a really funny fact that resonates with people. We’ve been trained our whole life. We’ve trained our kids. Don’t get in car with strangers.

(Speaker 1)
And what do we do today? We not only get in car with strangers, but we pay them. What do you think Uber and Lyft is? You’re getting in the car with a complete stranger. Now I have nothing against those apps. I use those apps. But let me tell you this.

(Speaker 1)
If you go back to 20 years ago, when you were 15 or 20 years old, and I told you that when you get older, you’re gonna let your kids get in the car with a total stranger, and you’re gonna pay them to do that,

(Speaker 1)
you would think they lost their mind. They were crazy. Now once again, I’m not saying not to use it, but just use some more common sense. Just go in and check the license plates. Make sure you verify and validate and realize that we’ve never been trained on how to do this.

(Speaker 1)
Another great recommendation. If I went in and we were at dinner, if me and you were having dinner at a restaurant and all of a sudden you’re in the middle of talking and I turned around and started talking to a random stranger, you would be like, dude, what’s wrong?

(Speaker 1)
What’s wrong with you? That’s rude. You would never accept that. You would never ever tolerate that. But if we’re at dinner and I go in and I pull out my cell phone while you’re talking

(Speaker 1)
to send a text message, that becomes a social norm. We’re actually allowed and accepting that. So what if we go in as we enter the summer and we go on vacations and plan time with our family? What if we do a simple rule? No tech during dinner. From five to seven or six to eight,

(Speaker 1)
you pick the time period, nobody’s allowed to have their cell phone. Can you go two hours and actually interact with humans? Can you actually go two hours and use human interaction, not let computers replace us? Because here’s the reality.

(Speaker 1)
Everyone’s talking about AI and how AI, I mean, is going to take over your job. It’s going to take over the world. Well, here’s the simple reality. It will if we let it. AI is great for jobs that communicate with computers.

(Speaker 1)
Computers talking with computers are great. But any job that requires human interaction can’t be replaced with AI. So here’s the reality. Don’t let AI replace human interaction. If you want to talk to a human, AI can’t have emotion.

(Speaker 1)
It can’t have feelings. It can’t have compassion. But if we sit there at the dinner table, and this was happening the other day with my kids, they’re texting each other. They’re actually at the dinner table instead of talking, they’re texting. I’m like, what is wrong with you? There’s no emotion in texting. There’s no feeling. There’s no compassion. So we have to recognize the fact that we’ve

(Speaker 1)
been addicted to tech. We are not trained on it, and we have to basically start training ourselves. And that’s why not self-promotion, but reading my book like Cyber Crisis or Online Danger, get educated on cybersecurity. Do some of these principles that I’m talking about and just recognize that we’ve been addicted to this tech. We are not trained on it.

(Speaker 1)
And unless we start training ourselves and get less addicted to it,

(Speaker 4)
it will potentially take us and replace us. I am a father of five and I see this trend. I see people like at kids birthday parties right now. I see a lot of kids birthday parties where you know there’ll be 25 kids at a birthday party. They’re ages between 14 and 18 and I would say the 25 kids, 24 of them are on their cell

(Speaker 4)
phone the whole time looking down and no one’s talking. You see it on airplanes. It used to be if you fly in an airplane, you talk to the person next to you, how you doing, good to meet you, how you doing. Maybe you have a great conversation, maybe you don’t, but you at least say hello to the person next to you.

(Speaker 4)
Now people just put in the ear pods, the earbuds, I mean, it’s really bizarre because there’s not a word spoken verbally the entire flight by anybody on the plane outside of the staff, the server staff, that’s coming by to take the orders for people that are flying internationally. So again, and then also one thing

(Speaker 4)
you pointed out earlier is that AI has been with us for a long time. BlackRock, in fact, has developed the Aladdin AI. It’s a financial investment tool. The Aladdin BlackRock AI has been around since at least 1999 that I know of.

(Speaker 4)
How far back does artificial intelligence go?

(Speaker 1)
Artificial intelligence goes all the way back to the 70s and 80s. The idea of doing neural networks and doing rule-based systems is a concept that we knew about and had technology. There was software in the late 80s for building neural networks, very common. The problem is AI is only as good as the data set, and you typically need 20 to 25

(Speaker 1)
years of data in order to go in and train the AI system. So the core principles of AI have been around, but we haven’t had enough data. And here’s what people don’t realize. What do you think social media platforms are? Social media platforms are data gathering systems for AI. Why do you think every single one

(Speaker 1)
of the major social media platforms are developing AI? Elon Musk with X and Twitter, he now has Grok3. Notice the timing. He purchased Twitter a few years ago and then Grok3 came out a few years later. No coincidence there, my friends.

(Speaker 1)
He basically used all the data from Twitter to train Grok3. And then Elon Musk, smart move on his part, got involved with the White House and he basically got access to all of our data. What people don’t realize is when he was doing government efficiency for Doge, he was installing private servers at those

(Speaker 1)
facilities. Now, when Hillary Clinton did her private servers many years ago, everybody freaked out. Remember, she had her own private servers many years ago, everybody freaked out. Remember she had her own private

(Speaker 4)
servers. Real quick, I want to, this is, this is, this is what I, I, ooh, ooh, ooh, what you just said. I want to go back to this for a second. I’m sorry to interrupt you. I just really want to dive into this. Please do, please do. Doge, let’s, let’s understand how Doge has been spun. Doge has been spun or pitched to the American people that wow this is a new level of government accountability, this is going to help reduce the costs of operating the United States government etc etc. What you just said is that Doge allowed Elon Musk to install private servers into the United States government. Could you maybe expand upon that that I’m sorry to interrupt you there I want to get your wisdom on that.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah so essentially in order to go in and in government efficiency to monitor the data he basically went in and installed his own servers broke protocols like you go in there’s a reason why it takes six to nine months to get a government clearance. We bypassed those measures and the members of DOGE including Elon got access to data that any other employee of the government would have taken six or nine months to do. And yes, he did need all that

(Speaker 1)
data so he could process it. How do you think Elon and DOGE was able to find weaknesses and vulnerable and you know government spending so quickly. It’s because he processed so much data. But what you don’t realize is he also left with the data that he can now use to trade GROG3. So essentially all of this information

(Speaker 1)
from all these different government entities that were siloed and protected, our government is purposely set up for isolation. So if somebody breaks into one system, they can’t break into others. But now with Doge,

(Speaker 4)
all that data is available together. I just want to be super clear on this because many of you who listen to this show are more libertarian or more conservative. I tend to be a kind of libertarian at heart where I just like limited government and I’m sort of paranoid about both. Me and you are the same way, my friend, we’re the same way. I’m paranoid by both parties. And so when I heard that Elon Musk was putting these private servers inside the United States government, I thought to myself, whoa, I mean, the implications of that. So it requires a certain knowledge to even develop the implications of that into worst-case scenarios.

(Speaker 4)
But can you do that for us because you have the knowledge base to say, what could that mean, worst-case scenario? I mean, now that all of the data has been gathered in one place, it’s no longer siloed. Worst-case scenario, what could that do?

(Speaker 1)
So there’s really sort of two worst case scenarios. There’s a short term and a long term. The short term one is that if Elon got access to that data without backgrounds or clearances, and he was able to put it all together onto private servers, and he now potentially has them connected to who knows what network,

(Speaker 1)
that means our foreign adversaries have access to it. They now have access to our government data, the Chinese, the Russians, Iran and North Korea. So essentially we’re creating one of the worst potentiable data breaches in the history of America because now if they break in, they don’t get access to one government, they get access to everything. Imagine us taking all of our government to the FBI and now instead of a foreign adversary having to break into each one individually.

(Speaker 1)
They can break into one to get access to all of that data. The long-term worst-case scenario is what if you go in in a month a year or two years. You have a lot of data. You have a lot of information. You have a lot of data. You have a lot of data.

(Speaker 1)
You have a lot of data. You have a of that data. The long-term worst case scenario is, what if you go in, in a month, a year, or two years, and you actually were now able to put in to AI models, and I’m not just picking on GROG3, I’m picking on all of them,

(Speaker 1)
you’re able to put in, and I put in, tell me how much money Clay Clark has paid in taxes over the last five years. And what if it actually would give you an answer? What if it could actually give you that information? Think of the invasion of data privacy. If AI now has become the ultimate spying tool,

(Speaker 1)
where we can now go in and ask it questions about people or individuals. Or, scary yet, what if I go in to an AI model in two, three, or four years, because it has all of our data on all of our systems, and I say, I want you to analyze all government systems and I want you to tell me the three biggest vulnerabilities that you can use to

(Speaker 1)
exploit them. Now here’s the crazy part today. Most of these AI models have ethical parameters. So if you actually go in and ask it a question, that it deemed to be unethical, like how could I hack or break into,

(Speaker 1)
it wouldn’t answer it. But what if I’m careful and I ask better questions going, I want to protect the government, I want to secure the government. Can you tell me all the vulnerabilities and weaknesses in our government systems?

(Speaker 1)
What if it started giving those answers? What if it had access to all of that data?

(Speaker 4)
I’m telling you, folks, this is some profound stuff. My final two questions for you with limited time we have the final five minutes here, just kind of pacing ourselves. If you were asked if you were called by the Trump administration and they said, hey, sit down with us and help us fix this whole doge situation help us sort out the problem that you just pointed out. What would you say?

(Speaker 1)
The first thing I would say is we need a unified federal law on cybersecurity and data privacy. Do you realize the United States, one of the world’s superpowers, we have the most powerful military on the planet. Yet we are the only country that does not have a unified law

(Speaker 1)
on cybersecurity. All of Europe, the European Union, has GDPR. That’s a unified data privacy cybersecurity law. Australia, Europe, North Korea, they all have unified laws on cybersecurity and data privacy.

(Speaker 1)
We don’t. So here’s the problem. cybersecurity law. Australia, Europe, North Korea, they all have unified laws on cybersecurity and data privacy. We don’t. So here’s the scary part. I can tell you who is attacking us. I can tell you where they’re coming from. But because there’s no laws and we don’t have extradition treaties, there’s no way we can target or go after them. We right now have a hacking group in the United States that is targeting airlines. They’re targeting databases. It’s in terms of the United States.

(Speaker 1)
Yet trying to go after them and prosecute them is so difficult because we don’t have unified laws. So the first thing I would tell Trump administration is you need to have unified laws and that could be your legacy. If you want to go in and make the government more efficient, if you want to prove to the world that we’re a superpower, that’s great.

(Speaker 1)
But President Trump has a unique opportunity that he can leave a legacy of being the first president to actually pass laws on data privacy, data security at a federal level. And the next is, let’s do what Russia and Iran are doing. They have clean connection points to the Internet.

(Speaker 1)
Do you know Iran, when they started the war against Israel, they disconnected from the Internet because they knew that would be a target and they protected their organization. Once a year, Russia disconnects from the Internet. Right now, because the United States created the Internet, we are the Internet, and we don’t even know the number of connections we have to the Internet. So I would urge the Trump administration. We need to instead of investing a trillion dollars in physical infrastructure,

(Speaker 1)
we need to invest trillions of dollars in the Internet infrastructure and redesign the Internet. So just like Russia, China and North Korea, we have clean connection points that we can control and monitor what’s coming in and what’s leaving our country.

(Speaker 4)
Final question I have here for you. You know, if somebody out there, they’re going on Amazon right now, they’re looking to buy your book. There we go to Amazon. We find the book Cyber Crisis, Protecting Your Business from Real Threats in the Virtual World.

(Speaker 4)
Somebody is considering buying a copy of your book or going out to a convenience store and getting a regrettable burrito that’s made of God knows what from a local convenience store. Somebody’s thinking about buying your book or buying another Netflix video they’re going to watch half of. Somebody is thinking about buying your book or buying another album off iTunes they won’t listen to. Somebody is thinking about buying your book or making another regrettable impulse emotional purchase at McDonald’s when they say, would you like fries with that? So somebody is thinking about throwing their money

(Speaker 4)
into the gutter or buying your high valued book.

(Speaker 1)
Why should everybody check out your new book? It’s real simple. You’re a target, cybersecurity is your responsibility, and it’s not a matter of if, but when a breach is going to occur. So here’s the real question.

(Speaker 1)
In three years, how much did that burrito change your life? How much did that burrito have an impact? How much of that Netflix video that you spent watching three hours a day, did that really positively or negatively impact your life? We would probably either say it didn’t

(Speaker 1)
or negatively impacted your life. But you go in and buy that book, and one evening, you can read it in three hours. So one evening, give up a Netflix series, give up bin watching and read the book for three hours. That can change your life. That could protect your family, protect your security. Imagine waking up in three years and your identity has been stolen. Your bank account

(Speaker 1)
has been wiped out or God forbid your child has been cyber, your bank account has been wiped out, or God forbid, your child has been cyber bullied or abducted online. What if you could prevent that with three hours reading a book and putting these things into practice? So the question is, how much do you care about your life and your family? Are you willing to recognize that we’re living in a digital world and cybersecurity is your responsibility? Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate you Dr. Eric Cole on the mic there. I really do

(Speaker 4)
appreciate you and we look to have you on the show again. Take care. Have a great day.

(Speaker 1)
Thanks my friend.

(Speaker 4)
Bye-bye.

(Speaker 9)
Without a vision, discipline feels like punishment. But with a vision, discipline feels like alignment. The hard things start to feel like the right things

(Speaker 4)
because they are building something. I know many of you have had a challenging year. Many of you watching this have a successful company. Many of you have a business that has struggled. Maybe you’ve had a business that you’ve just for whatever reason have never been able to get

(Speaker 4)
over the hump. Maybe you’ve always been just kind of stuck in a rut and that’s become your normal. Maybe you went from the goal, you used to have a goal to thrive and now your goal is just to survive.

(Speaker 4)
Well, to build your faith and to build your encouragement that you have the mental capacity and the tenacity needed to succeed, I thought I would get one of our younger success stories on the Thrive Time show. So you could talk to an entrepreneur who I don’t believe

(Speaker 4)
is yet 30 years old, but yet is still achieving massive success. Stephanie, welcome on to the Thrive Time show. How are you?

(Speaker 11)
Good, Clay.

(Speaker 2)
Thank you.

(Speaker 1)
So Stephanie, where’s home for you?

(Speaker 2)
I live in rural Western Wisconsin, so Sparta, Wisconsin.

(Speaker 4)
And how did you originally hear about the Thrive Time Show business consulting program?

(Speaker 2)
I heard about you guys actually through Entrepreneurs on Fire. You did an interview with JD over there.

(Speaker 4)
And do you remember where you were

(Speaker 1)
when you first heard that show?

(Speaker 2)
I was cleaning a house, actually.

(Speaker 4)
Well, you’re cleaning a house in Wisconsin. And from the time

(Speaker 2)
that I remember the exact house. Yep.

(Speaker 4)
From the time that you decided to get up the courage needed to schedule a call. Until now, how much have you grown?

(Speaker 2)
Since then, let’s see, 1,462%.

(Speaker 15)
1,462%.

(Speaker 14)
And what kind of a timeframe has that been in the time that you, you know, reached out to now?

(Speaker 13)
Yep.

(Speaker 2)
I reached out, we started working together in March of 2020. It is October, end of October, 2021. So, you know, year and a half.

(Speaker 4)
Wow. Okay. of October 2021, so a year and a half. Wow. OK. So we’ve done a lot together, and many things you’ve done very, very well. And so what I thought I’d do on today’s show is I’m going to bring up the things that you’ve

(Speaker 4)
been able to implement that we’ve taught you. And I’d love to get your take on how you’ve been able to implement these. So I’m going to go through 10 core systems that I believe you’ve been able to implement well, and I’d like to get your take on it. First off, you were not resistant

(Speaker 4)
to the idea of upgrading your branding. You were not resistant to the idea of upgrading your website print pieces. You actually leaned in and you wanted to get it done and get it done quickly. Talk to the listeners out there

(Speaker 2)
about how having an upgraded website has helped you? Yeah, the just overwhelming professionalism that people get from visiting our website just really blows them away to make them like realize that we are professional and that we stand apart from everybody else in the area. So the website was key.

(Speaker 2)
I also think one thing that a lot of clients probably get stuck on is being like too nitpicky about things and just like wanting it perfect as opposed to wanting it done. So I think the biggest thing is get it done. We can always change things later. But it’s better to have an awesome website than a perfect website like right now, you know,

(Speaker 4)
head now step two, we optimize your website, you know, a lot of people have great websites that look wonderful, but they’re not canonically compliant. They’re not indexable. They’re not searchable. So therefore humans on the planet earth who are using search engines can’t find them.

(Speaker 4)
You, again, you didn’t push back. You leaned into it. Talk to the listeners out there about how optimizing your website has helped increase your leads.

(Speaker 2)
Oh, definitely. So Google leads are like huge for us and people finding our website are huge. So writing the content articles, making sure those keywords are showing up. There’s we’re showing up when people search, you know, house cleaning, or whatever they’re searching, whatever search terms we’re trying to show up for.

(Speaker 2)
So that’s huge. And of course the review side of things is huge too for pointing people towards our website.

(Speaker 4)
Okay, you jumped ahead on my little cheat sheet here, but step three, gathering objective reviews. You guys have done a great job of gathering objective reviews from your happy clients. Talk to the listeners out there about the importance of gathering objective Google reviews

(Speaker 4)
from your happy clients.

(Speaker 2)
Oh, it’s so important. Like when I started working with Thrive, I definitely didn’t think like I needed to focus on that. I think I had 12 Google reviews when we started working together. And now between the two locations,

(Speaker 2)
we have, I think like 210 or something like that, like five-star reviews, all real. And when people find us, I mean, it’s not even a how much do you cost, it’s when can you come? I don’t care how much you cost. So people are ready to close like that.

(Speaker 4)
Now, step four is building a transparent and easy to understand sales system. A pricing structure where somebody who maybe is not the most complicated individual, somebody who’s very simple like me could understand your pricing real quickly. Again, you’ve leaned in on that.

(Speaker 4)
You’ve been great to work with. Talk to the listeners about the importance of having a simple to understand pricing structure that your ideal and likely buyer can understand immediately.

(Speaker 2)
You just want them to not be confused or like, why, why is this like this or whatever. And also from the like, inside perspective of the managers or whoever is answering your phones, they need to be able to quickly, you know, answer questions and stuff without having a lot of training. So it needs to be able to be, you and stuff without having a lot of training. So it needs to be able to be in the sales script

(Speaker 2)
when they’re doing a call that they can just very quickly know what the numbers are and not have to be complex about it.

(Speaker 4)
Now, step five is implementing sales scripting. You have done a great job of implementing sales scripting. And so many entrepreneurs, I’m telling you, oh, they say, I don’t want to do a script because I don’t want to sound like I’m reading a script. I don’t want my staff to be sounding like they’re reading. I want my team to have their own personality.

(Speaker 4)
I want them to embrace their true selves. And therefore, when their phone rings at their local business, every time their phone rings, it’s just like a minefield. You never know if the phone’s going to be answered professionally, if it’ll be answered at all. You never know what people are going to say. Nothing’s written down.

(Speaker 4)
It becomes a verbal tribal tradition. It becomes a celebration of jackassery. Tell the listeners out there, why have you embraced sales scripting, and how has it helped your company?

(Speaker 2)
Sales scripts are amazing, as well as, of course, the call recording so that we can hold people accountable to the sales script, but it just takes all the guesswork and then all of the variables of what people say are removed so that if something’s not working, we’re able to pinpoint what that is and tweak one thing as opposed to like whatever the people are deciding to say.

(Speaker 2)
So, and it also like, it flows really nicely and it doesn’t sound robotic at all once you get used to it. It’s like, I could say it off the top of my head, the exact scripts we use and we know they close and that way we know it works instead of just people doing whatever they feel like. Now, you also

(Speaker 4)
implemented a quality control checklist system where basically, it’s not in people’s minds. They don’t have to remember your technicians don’t have to remember what they’re there’s a checklist for everything. I mean, everything. When you go into clean a home or a commercial business, there’s a checklist for everything. Talk to the listeners out there about the mind freedom that you’ve experienced since, you know, taking it out of your head and putting it on a checklist.

(Speaker 2)
Yeah, it just makes it so simple because it’s like, here’s the standard the cleaning tech is responsible for and is going to be held accountable to. And if that’s not hit, then we know that there’s a problem. They don’t get to say like, well, I didn’t know. They don’t get to say, I didn’t know.

(Speaker 2)
And then on the client side, they have expectations set instead of them setting the expectation, we are setting the expectation as opposed to them being like,

(Speaker 4)
well, I thought you guys going to clean your gutters, you know? Now, knowing and optimizing your numbers in terms of the financial aspects of the company, again, you’ve leaned into that. A lot of people who are into fitness, I find lean into lean into that. They want to know, you know, how much they weigh, what their body fat percentage is, how many calories they’re eating. People that don’t want to lean into fitness, don’t want to know how many calories are eating, don’t want to know their body fat percentage. People that are into artwork and doing well at art musicians, I’ve worked with

(Speaker 4)
a lot of musicians, musicians that are good want to know how they sound. They want to hear themselves. People that are not good don’t want to hear themselves of great ballet dancers and performers want to see themselves in a mirror. They want to analyze great builders want to see checklists and processes and blueprints. People that accountants who are good at their job, they want to know the numbers. Entrepreneurs who are

(Speaker 4)
not good at entrepreneurship never want to know their numbers. Talk to the listeners out there about the listeners out there about the importance of knowing and optimizing your numbers actually knowing how much profit you’re going to make per job.

(Speaker 2)
Yeah, I would say number one most important thing in my opinion is the tracking sheet that we implement together and that, you know, every single day I’m in the tracking sheet and knowing like exactly where my business is, especially now I am very removed from the day to day kind of operation to a point I’m not answering the phones, I’m not doing this, I’m not seeing the complaints or any quality issues or whatever, but I have my finger on the pulse of my business

(Speaker 2)
and every single aspect of the revenue, expenses, leads, closing rates, number of appointments, number of reviews, number of photos that are getting uploaded like just everything you could possibly know about the business, I know. So I’m never questioning like, or going off of emotion

(Speaker 2)
because that’s not what we want to do. We want to go off of facts and numbers. And so I know that, you know, we’re growing or whatever, we’re closing, etc, etc, because the numbers don’t lie. So I love the tracking sheet. And I think it’s the number one thing that people should implement. If they don’t

(Speaker 4)
do nothing else, they need to know their numbers. Now, you’ve attended a multiple in-person, two-day interactive business workshops. And the reason why we include that is a quasi-free service. What do I mean by that? I mean, it’s not a revenue generator for me. If you’re a client of mine, I say, hey, you can come to these events.

(Speaker 4)
We make it very, very affordable. If you’re not a client spot, we have scholarship tickets available. But the point is everybody can afford to attend. Can you explain how the interactive business workshops have actually helped you to maybe further understand the path or to get a whole picture view

(Speaker 1)
of the actual business plan?

(Speaker 2)
Yeah, I love the conferences because I always walk away with action items, even though like I go over these things with my coach every week, it just, I always walk away with something like, wow, I get like a fresh perspective on things because you’re interacting with a lot of other business

(Speaker 2)
owners and like bouncing ideas off of each other and hearing what worked for them or what people are struggling with. And of course then like having you like explain it in the way that you do. It just makes very like actionable. Like I always go away with like, I this is what I need to do on Monday to

(Speaker 2)
make these things happen. It’s not just like this motivational thing. Do you laugh a little bit?

(Speaker 4)
Do you have a little bit of fun? I do. I have a lot of fun at the conferences. Okay. And what kind of people attend the conferences?

(Speaker 2)
Not liberals.

(Speaker 4)
It seems like all, we start at 7am and it seems like, you know, the entrepreneurs are like, this is awesome. We start at 7. I can be done by 3. I can still make some calls. Again, you’re sitting next to people that have had massive success, people that have been in the program for years. We start at seven, I can be done by three. I can still make some calls. Again, you’re sitting next to people that have had massive success,

(Speaker 4)
people that have been in the program for years. Is that helpful to sit next to other people

(Speaker 12)
that have actually-

(Speaker 2)
I can’t even, like the people I’ve met there have been life, they’ve changed my life. Like obviously you guys have all changed my life. Literally, I’m not just blowing smoke here, but meeting the people, the Josh Wilsons of the world who I literally texted him today.

(Speaker 2)
Like, we’re on a friend basis. We have calls all the time. Like just the people that I’ve met is just, it’s life-changing.

(Speaker 4)
Now, what is your website if people right now wanna go online and they wanna look up your website and kind of see who you are and what you’re all about? Yeah, it is www.serene-clean.com. And okay, so you came to the workshop, you’ve implemented the tracking sheet, the group interview, people say, I had so hard to find people.

(Speaker 4)
I’ve never had a hard time finding people. Even right now, I don’t have a hard time finding people. But I can tell you, it’s a system that I’ve applied. It’s a proven system, a proven process that I’ve done. I’ve been doing this process of hiring people. This marks, I know it’s crazy, 22 years of doing the same system every week,

(Speaker 4)
interviewing people, 22 years I’ve been doing this. I’m a 40 year old person. I’ve been doing the group interview for 22 years. Can you talk about the importance of doing the group interview and how it’s changed your business?

(Speaker 2)
Oh, it’s so important. Like that has been, I would say that’s a big game changer, too, because I always have candidates like ready to go when something happens. And, you know, in the past two months, we’ve taken on a huge contract, and I have hired probably 40 people. And somebody quit today, somebody quit yesterday. I fired somebody three days ago,

(Speaker 4)
doesn’t matter. Next, next, next, you know, so it’s amazing. Just a little context. If you just so you know, things that will get you fired if you’re out there, you don’t know about serene dash clean calm. If you’re not on time. If you don’t honor your commitments to the client, you’re going to get fired. And there are certain people on the planet Earth that don’t want to honor their commitments to their client, and

(Speaker 4)
they don’t want to show up on time. And therefore you’re not a for Serene Clean. So she’s not running around just randomly firing people. She’s just saying, if you have a certain standard and expectation, and on behalf of the customer, because you’re a customer advocate, you’re saying this is the standard we have to deliver at. Now, next thing, step number 11 here, you pay yourself well and you don’t apologize for it.

(Speaker 4)
Now, it is gonna be said that you actually make more money now per month than many people now make per year. And you’ve learned to pay yourself well, and not apologize for it. But I knew you, you know, going back to when you first called us to where, you know, you were really grinding to make it work. And now you’re doing really well. Now that you’re paying yourself well, and not apologizing for it, are you able to enjoy

(Speaker 4)
more time freedom to work out to read to spend time with family, friends to enjoy more time freedom to work out, to read, to spend time with family, friends, to think more meta on your business? Or how has that impacted you?

(Speaker 2)
Oh, yeah, definitely not having to worry about income is really empowering. And also, of course, that just allows you to do a lot of good in the world. Because number one, we’re here to make money, but money is just a tool.

(Speaker 2)
And so that allows us to help the community, help our families, buy cool stuff, of course. But the time freedom is really, that’s the whole point of this for me, is like I don’t want to have to be anywhere I don’t want to be at any given time. So now I can do that.

(Speaker 4)
Now, final thing is you’ve been able to sustain diligence and accountability. What does that mean? Diligence is where it’s the steady application of effort over time. It’s like long after the motivation,

(Speaker 4)
the big idea wears off. You know, there’s always the excitement of a new idea. Woo, new idea. Yes, new idea. Love the new idea. I just had a new idea.

(Speaker 4)
I should buy a boat. I should buy, I should start a company. It should be called Serene Clean. Well, long after that idea has worn off, then diligence kicks in. And diligence is a steady application of effort. If you’re out there and you’ve ever played sports at a high level, you’ve ever been a top-notch speaker,

(Speaker 4)
you’ve ever been a top musician, anybody out there who’s done anything at a high level, you know the level of preparation is what prepares you for the ovations. Again, the preparation is what prepares you for the ovations. And then, but everybody out there, if you have a sound mind and you’re being honest, you need a little bit of accountability. We all need accountability.

(Speaker 4)
Somebody that can hold us accountable to push through goals, push through obstacles that made that time seem insurmountable. You know, sometimes it’s like it seems overwhelming. How has the weekly meeting and the accountability helped you to stay diligent and consistent over time?

(Speaker 2)
Yeah, I love that. My coach definitely like holds me because everybody needs to be held accountable no matter how high achieving you think you are. And obviously like, you know, the pig-headed discipline is awesome to have that,

(Speaker 2)
but you still need somebody to hold you accountable. And like, for me, you know, there’s certain things like there’s always some place that you can do better and improve on. And so what my coach Bloomer, he always, uh, you know, it’s like, okay, it’s been two weeks now you haven’t gotten a video review, what’s going on. And it’s like, I don’t like getting video reviews.

(Speaker 2)
Like he’s calling me out on it. I love that because like, I hate it, but I love it. And because that’s we need to be told where we’re failing. I mean, they’re telling us where we’re good, but we need to be told where we’re failing.

(Speaker 4)
Oh, that’s amazing. Now, again, you are a diligent woman who’s reached out, we only take on 160 clients, I think you certainly occupy one of those spaces as well. And what’s interesting is, you know, last year our average client grew by 104% and we didn’t have any client that grew by over 500%. So 1,462% is certainly gonna impact that average. What advice would you have for anybody out there listening who’s contemplating going to thrivetimeshow.com

(Speaker 4)
forward slash EO fire to schedule a consultation? Because again, if people wanna schedule a free consultation with me, I don’t charge for that. We do have call screeners. They’re going to make sure I’m not wasting your time and you’re not wasting my time to see if you’re a good fit. But there’s people out there contemplating

(Speaker 4)
going to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOfire.com. That’s thrivetimeshow.com forward slash EOfire.com. What advice would you have or feedback would you have

(Speaker 1)
for somebody thinking about attending one of our in-person workshops or scheduling a one-on-one consultation?

(Speaker 2)
I think that most people should definitely go to the conference, but when it comes to the one-on-one coaching, I think you really need to look at yourself and like say, am I ready to maybe be told to do things that I’m not comfortable with and I’m, am I ready to do it? Because you can always heim and hau and go back and forth. But if you’re not ready to implement anything, it’s probably not a good fit because your coaches are going to push you. And that’s the whole point. You’re paying them to push you.

(Speaker 2)
So if you’re not ready and willing to make changes, then don’t bother.

(Speaker 4)
I tell you what, I really do appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. I’m so excited about your growth there and hopefully we’ll see see in December. Are you coming in December to the conference? Not with this big job. I’m on a military base.

(Speaker 2)
I’m on a military base right now.

(Speaker 4)
Oh, shit, I’m rejected. Okay, that’s fine. But maybe we’ll see you at the next one, okay? Thank you for being here.

(Speaker 1)
I appreciate you.

(Speaker 11)
Thank you, Clay.

(Speaker 4)
Take care, bye-bye.

(Speaker 2)
Okay, hey guys, my name is Stephanie Pipkin. Serene Clean and this is my grandma Sue and we are gonna briefly just go over the Dream 100 drop-offs that she does for Serene Clean and how it has really helped grow our business and spread the word of our business in our area. So just a little background on Serene Clean and working with Thrive Coaching. So I’ve used Thrive out of Oklahoma for two years this month and when we started working with Thrive we were at about $200,000 in revenue a year

(Speaker 2)
and this year we’re projected to do $1.4 million in revenue a year. So it’s grown very, very drastically since we’ve implemented all the systems and that’s what we’re going to talk about today is some of the, one of the systems that they have encouraged and harassed us to use and it works really good and that’s Dream 100 Drop-Offs and that’s something that my grandma Sue does for me and she is absolutely killing it. So, grandma, basically if you can just describe what it is that you do

(Speaker 2)
at these drop-offs, what do you do? When I get there, of course, I introduce myself and the business and I just tell them that I am a business-to-business call. I’m not there to sell them anything. I’m just there to introduce them to a new business in our area. And what do you bring and leave with them? I actually have a little gift for them and then a sweet treat and I have the paperwork that explains all about Serene Clean and as I’m talking to them I try to like give a little bit of thing talk about things that would

(Speaker 2)
encourage them makes it a little more relaxed and casual and then I I do sign my name on all the things so I tell them that they can’t forget me and put a little smiley face with it and leave them as I go then I say and here’s a sweet treat to get you through the day. So basically she just goes gets a box of donuts hits all our stops for the day and what she’s leaving behind is basically a sales sheet that explains like what makes

(Speaker 2)
Serene Clean different. And on the back of it is commercial references of companies that we already cleaned for. So the whole purpose of this is to get us more janitorial accounts because those are excellent accounts for us. And what the thing she’s also asking is, you know, who do they, how do they clean now? And, you know, are they using a service now?

(Speaker 2)
How happy are they with it? Like, is there any issues? And who are you usually talking to? Are you talking to the receptionist? Who are you talking to? It’s kind of split.

(Speaker 2)
A lot of the businesses I’ve been to recently, I’ve actually talked to the owners. If it’s a large, large business. I’ll be talking to the lady or person, it’s usually a girl, at the front desk and I ask her. Sometimes they don’t know or they don’t tell me and sometimes they do know so it just works out really well to find out from them, do they have a cleaner and like a lot of them that I talk to the owners, they actually are doing a lot of the cleaning themselves.

(Speaker 2)
So it just gives me a little heads up too of what they’re doing and then I pass it on to Steph. Yeah, so then at the end of her stop she types up a little synopsis of who she talked to, what was the reaction, things like that, you know is there room because really the goal of her doing this is to get the foot in the door for me to do a walkthrough and bid an account. That is the whole purpose of this and overall how would you say the reaction is? It’s been really well. I you don’t know but um I always I get excited

(Speaker 2)
when it’s a great day and the sun is shining and sometimes it’s snowing, but whenever, when I have a great day and everybody’s just happy to see me, it just makes it a fun thing to know them. I’ve been from the area for a long time, so a lot of times I see old friends also while

(Speaker 10)
I’m out.

(Speaker 2)
Yeah, this has worked really well for Grandma in particular because it’s just coming from a very not salesy place at all It’s not you know, they’re not trying to sell She’s just trying to introduce them and it’s very you know A lot of people are just so like turned off by you know, like very hard selling and so it’s just like one getting them with the doughnuts like nobody will turn that down and then

(Speaker 2)
Really? It’s just yeah a very friendly. And this is like a long game thing. Almost never is it the first stop that they’re gonna have us do a walkthrough. A lot of times that sheet will sit on a desk for a long time and then when they’re ready to go and they’re either pissed off about their current service

(Speaker 2)
or they’re just overwhelmed doing it themselves, who is that lady who dropped off the donuts? Where is that she? Ah, Serene Clean, and then it’s Top of Mind, and it’s just really impressive. And so, kinda like the highlight of her doing this,

(Speaker 2)
she’s done this, how long have you been doing this?

(Speaker 10)
Eight months.

(Speaker 2)
Eight months? She got me a walkthrough at a very large manufacturing facility who is like a dream client. It’s daytime commercial, Monday through Friday, like an amazing account, like who I would wildly want. And she got me a walkthrough and we ended up winning the bid

(Speaker 2)
and have been cleaning for them for two weeks now. And that’s like a $5,000 a month account. So it’s significantly impactful. And again, this is long game thinking of, she’s making these introductions and we’ve gotten plenty of smaller accounts as well from her doing these things and, you know, just

(Speaker 2)
being consistent, you know, that’s the biggest thing is, you know, you do this every week, right? Right. Every single week, unless we have a significant snowstorm. Every week, and it’s fairly, you know, inexpensive from, like, for us, we always did the donuts. I’ve tried other things, but the donuts just seem to be a hit. And yeah, I just know a lot of people are hesitant to do this, but if we can do this in a small town

(Speaker 2)
and to have that kind of success rate, and it really, we just wanna be top of mind, and it’s working, and it’s growing the business really, really well, and it’s just fun to work with grandma. So yeah, so that is how we do great dream 100 and it’s working great and we just say go do it. Don’t be scared. Just make yourself do it basically. And for me,

(Speaker 2)
I don’t like to do it, but I knew grandma would be great at it. And so this is one of those things of delegating and outsourcing if you don’t want to do it, but if you don’t have somebody to do it, you need to do it. Because if you don’t, your business will just not grow the way you want. So yeah, that is how we handle this. Thanks, Grandma!

(Speaker 3)
My name is Elizabeth Walker. I own a business, Nook & Cranny Homekeeping LLC. I was looking to learn pretty much anything there is to learn about business. I’m a new business owner, less than a year, so I really needed to know everything about everything. I have learned how to implement systems from hiring to the actual day-to-day systems

(Speaker 3)
in the company. I like that the workshop gave tangible systems, but it was very entertaining and interactive. Clay’s presentation style was energetic. It was exciting. And it gave me hope that there’s actually a lot of success

(Speaker 3)
still to be done in my business. The atmosphere was energizing and invigorating. Nothing boring about it. It was absolutely exciting. Maybe that’s the biggest thing I’ve learned is that this can be simple and I think that’s what they’re missing out on. My name is Elizabeth Walker. I’m the owner of Nook

(Speaker 3)
and Cranny Homekeeping. I first heard about Clay on the radio on 1170 KFAQ. I was just switching through the radio stations and I heard them talking and they were kind of funny so I hung around a little bit. Clay’s team has impacted my amount of internet leads through Google and we just have people calling us almost every single day saying they found us on Google. So it’s definitely broadened our horizons and our clientele.

(Speaker 3)
But we also have people that find us in other avenues and I always direct them to our Google reviews. The typical interaction during our weekly meetings is fun, it is accountability, it’s an hour of hard discussions and a lot of learning. We try to laugh. I always share concerns I had during the week. The team always asks me what I need help with and then they help me, they help put me back on track where I need to be.

(Speaker 3)
Every business owner needs Clay Clark and his team because they put a path out in front of you, a proven system of success. And then they coach you along the way. They don’t do it for you. They don’t hold your hand. They just stand right beside you.

(Speaker 3)
They cheer you on. They share with you what you need to hear, whether it’s good or it’s bad or it’s what you want to hear or it’s what you don’t want to hear. Every business owner needs that accountability next to them, that proven person next to them that can keep them going. Most people think that they don’t need a business

(Speaker 3)
or marketing consultant because human nature tends to say we can do it all and sometimes we believe that or maybe people are prideful and they don’t want to ask for help or I’m not really sure. I believe that one of the smartest things I’ve ever done in my whole life, definitely in my business, is hiring Clay Clark and his team. Somebody is missing out on years and years and years of experience if they don’t hire

(Speaker 3)
them. You can either make mistakes in your business because you don’t have the experience, so you just go out there and you make mistakes. Or you can have somebody next to you that has been there, they’ve done that, and they can give you a heads up. You’re going in the wrong direction.

(Speaker 3)
Or they can give you just that wise advice that says maybe you should go in this direction. That’s what they’re missing out on. They’re missing out on years of experience that they have not gleaned themselves.

(Speaker 2)
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, um, the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the proven path, uh, with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, um, from Thrive Time. Uh, it has been insane to say the least.

(Speaker 2)
I started working with them in mid-February of this year. So we’re about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So 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. 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 a day as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day.

(Speaker 2)
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 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 higher interviewing

(Speaker 2)
every single week. It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time on low quality candidates anymore. I have successfully gained our second largest commercial client and this was during COVID. So again I started working with Luke and Clay in February and then COVID hit in mid-March or so. So for the entire month of April, we were shut down residential,

(Speaker 2)
April and May, I believe. And so despite that, and again, being a new business and all this stuff, I mean, we came out of COVID like stronger than ever and now hitting our highest numbers in the history of the company. It just leads just piling in. And the beauty is when people call us, they’re already sold because of our Google reviews, our online presence, the no-brainer offer that we now give to our clients. Which is, you know, if they book their second

(Speaker 2)
appointment within a month of the first, they get 50% off. And again, they’re just ready to book. I hardly have to do any work. It feels like sometimes to actually book people so that’s amazing. So every week I meet with Luke and it’s awesome. Obviously, I’m in Wisconsin. He’s in Oklahoma, but we have a great time. I know I can text him at any time call him at any time with any issues. I’m having especially

(Speaker 2)
when COVID did hit. They were so helpful in helping me get the PPP grants and everything settled away there and really pushed me to make sure I was on the ball and getting all of the grants that I was possibly able to, which was amazing. Um, so they’ve just been such a wealth of information. And when I’m freaking out because, you know, a burning fire is happening Luke’s there to calm me down and you know back me off the cliff edge and it’s just awesome to have him you know as a resource there. So every week

(Speaker 2)
we meet and we have a big tracking sheet so we track all my leads, we track my numbers, where the leads are coming from, any complaints. I love my tracking sheet. I know it’s probably a little extra but I love it because I can see everything that’s actually happening in my business and this is so important because it’s not like I’m just saying, well I feel like it’s busier. I know if it’s busier and I know are we making a profit every week. Why or why

(Speaker 2)
not? It’s just amazing and then I’m tracking my Google reviews, tracking my competitors Google reviews, and Luke is always pushing me to get more reviews even though, you know, I was not very comfortable with that at first. It felt just pushy, but now I’m seeing the effects of having a lot of Google reviews. You know, a lot to me at least. Not very high compared to others, but

(Speaker 2)
people are finding us on Google and they’re already ready to book because of our reviews. So, you know, going for those reviews has been so integral in having basically easy sell leads. So tracking has been just so vital and I really enjoy it actually. So anybody who is skeptical about working with Clay or Luke, you know, the whole team at Thrive Time, I was definitely skeptical and to me, again, new business, it seemed like a lot of money but in comparison to other business

(Speaker 2)
coaches, especially like specific to the cleaning industry like I’m in, I mean you’re talking like $10,000 a month and honestly I feel like I get like that much value out of Luke just my meeting with him once a week it’s amazing and it has just transformed my business and in every single aspect I mean I as I always you know aspired to be a successful business owner. And now, I mean, it’s not even a question

(Speaker 2)
that this business is going to be successful, even if a pandemic happens and you have to shut down. I mean, if I can make it through that and directly because of them, it is absolutely because of them. Obviously, I’m a hard worker, blah, blah, blah, all that.

(Speaker 2)
And I was made to be an entrepreneur. However, having them as like the guiding light of this is what you need to do, and it’s very straightforward. Doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it is very straightforward of what needs to be done, and I like that. I like having that step-by-step process, and I love having the accountability, because there’s a lot of stuff that they have me do that I don’t want to do. It’s not fun but it works and that you know having that discipline to just do the things week after week regardless if

(Speaker 2)
it’s dull or boring or you don’t want to do it. Luke really pushes me to do those things which I love. I mean I hate it at the time but I love it because I can see how it’s affecting my business in a positive way. Um, and you know, I, I don’t want to be just good. I want to be the best and I see them as an integral part of that and I will not be the best if I, if I don’t have them with me. Um, so I just, I love having them on my team and it just feels like the best decision I ever

(Speaker 2)
made in my business. And I know I’m still really small and things like that, but there’s a reason I reached out to them when I was small, because I want to be big and I want to not grow and then collapse because I grew too quickly without the correct systems in place. So it’s just, it’s been amazing.

(Speaker 2)
And I would suggest anybody who’s willing to put in the work and do things that make you uncomfortable, reach out to them. But if you are not willing to change the way you are doing things, if you’re not willing to implement a no-brainer, if you’re not willing to ask for Google reviews, if you’re not willing to write content, really, really boring content for your website so the Google bots find you, then don’t reach out.

(Speaker 2)
You need to be willing to put in the work as well and your coach will hold you accountable. I mean, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. You know, 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 and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t 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

(Speaker 2)
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, 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

(Speaker 2)
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. They’re so excited for me.

(Speaker 2)
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 about how amazing they are. But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there everything you guys have done for me and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come.

Transcribed with Cockatoo