Does Clay Clark’s System Work? | Discover How Clay’s System Has Produced Thousands of Success Stories Over the Past 20 Years In Countless Industries: Construction, Dental, Finance, Medical, Online Sales, Restaurants, Retail, Etc.

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

But Clay Clark, man, he is one character.

It’s a good word for character.

Yeah, that is it.

Good, driven, smart. And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother and she just says she just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, so he’s endorsed by his mother. And he’s doing magnificent work.

So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. His client Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning.

Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah.

He’s, he’s like, he’s, he’s a machine. He’s a machine, but his, you know, I could, I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes. Hundreds of people showing up at 5 .00 AM in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s fantastic.

Yeah, man.

Oh, he is.

He is.

And it’s, so it’s, it’s, um, you know, for, for the folks that aren’t familiar with you and by a few and far between, I first came across you.

Gosh, probably 15 years ago or maybe even 20 late. Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy play plays 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, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. My honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects, you know what I mean?

People rave about what they learn from you, so congratulations.

Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the grill gun.

I would have greened that anyway.

I need that. One of the gentlemen, his name is Bob Healy, came to us. with a quasi -functional prototype. He had terminal cancer.

And Bob came to me and said, help me. Entrepreneur Clay Clark has built several multi -million dollar businesses.

Now, he helps budding entrepreneurs like Bob turbocharge their ideas with a 14 -step plan. and grillblazer .

com is now a massively successful company that’s becoming a household name in many American homes. In this episode, we dive into how to rebuild American small businesses and industrial capacity. This is American Thought Leaders, and I’m Jan Jekielek.

Clay Clark, such a pleasure to have you on American Thought Leaders.

Hey, thank you for being here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This current administration is looking to revitalize the economy, to push it to the next level. For me, always small business has been a centerpiece of this. Some people describe it as the engine of American innovation and growth and so forth. But during the COVID years, we’re emerging out of them as we speak, a lot of small business was frankly wiped out.

You’re the guy who’s actually helping people build those small businesses. So tell me about what you do. Well, in America today, we have about approximately 330 million Americans that live here, and we have 9 .2 million Americans that identify as being self -employed. And so what happens is somebody out there, a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, a plumber, somebody says, I want to start my own business. And when they do, they don’t really know the proven processes to start and grow a company. And that’s what I do.

So I basically take somebody with a dream, and I align them with my team, and we help them scale some things. something to humans on the planet Earth in exchange for a profit.

That’s what we helped people to scale. You’ve structured your business in such a way. that it’s actually, unless your client does well, it’s impossible for you to do well.

And I thought to myself, what a brilliant way, what an ethical way to set up a business, because you kind of have no choice. Well, the word shalom, which Pastor Jackson, I go to Sheridan Church and Pastor Jackson talks about that word from time to time, shalom. But the shalom is like a win -win. It’s a win -win relationship, a mutually beneficial relationship. Napoleon Hill, the best selling author, Think and Grow Rich, calls it the mutually beneficial relationship. And so what I do is I coach a client or work with a client.

I tell the client, hey, look, I’m going to help you grow your business for the smallest monthly fee possible. And I just want to get a small percentage of the growth, because if I’m getting one percentage point of the growth, Theoretically, you’re making 100 times more than I am. But if I can scale multiple companies, it turns out to be a great thing for me. So I’ve been doing the same thing for 20 years. And so what I’ll do is I’ll sit down with an electrician, and the electrician will have a business that’s stuck. It’s not thriving.

It’s barely surviving, and they go, I don’t know how to grow. I don’t know if it’s marketing. I don’t know if it’s human resources. I don’t know if it’s accounting. I don’t know if it’s pricing. I don’t know if it’s me. I don’t know if it’s the economy.

How do I grow my company? And I sit down with them, and I say, look, we’re going to go through a 14 -step plan to rejuvenate, to revive, to bring life into your business. And I’m going to get a small percentage of the growth.

And you’re going to be rich, and I’m going to be doing very well if this works. Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do.

I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

You know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you.

So congratulations. I’m Brian Wiggs, president of Brian D. Wiggs Homes. For me, it’s a game changer. It’s a life changer. Running your own business is really being a problem solver. So any problems that come up, you’re the guy that has to solve them.

And what Clay does is help me organize what I do.

to solve those problems helps me stay organized helps get help to get my team organized so we can go out and solve the problems we do business every day.

Well, Brian, I’m going to hit you up with five quick questions, and I’m going to go to Clay Stairs to interrogate you here.

Here we go. You guys meet every week. Every week, you meet and you leave the meeting with homework. And just like with all of our clients, you leave with homework and we leave with homework.

What kind of improvements have you seen Clay Stairs and the team make to your business over these last couple of years? I think the main thing that has changed in me, and it’s what Clay told me one of the very first times we met, He said the biggest hurdle was gonna be me, that I was gonna have to do some mindset changes. And that seemed okay, I thought I could be ready for that. But when you really get into it, you realize I have a lot of mindset changes to make.

And you have to make them one at a time, you have to dig them out.

And so Clay has helped me with that week by week, reminding me of the things I need to be doing and helping me understand better how to grow my business. Now, question number three of five here. I’m going to pull up your website. And a lot of people tell me that they have someone who helps them with their mindset, and they have someone else who helps them with their website, and someone else that helps them with their online reputation, and someone else who helps them with their online ads.

How has working with Claystairs and the team helped you, having one person or one team that does all of that? Well, it’s great to have it, because we don’t have to mess with the technical piece of it as much. We’re really good at building houses. We’re not great at building websites or trying to do all the other things that are backroom pieces that you need to have.

And they’re just great to be able to hand this to them and go, this is the way I want my story to be told.

And they tell it.

The weekly meetings, what I find is that consistent people who grow businesses, they embrace this idea, some call it Kaizen, I’m not gonna argue about the philosophy you have to endorse here, but the idea of continual improvement, the idea of every week, you’re whittling away a different iteration, you’re making it a little bit better, 1 % better a week for 50 weeks, 2 % better a week for 50 weeks, as opposed to an event How has that methodology of having a weekly meeting where our team leaves with homework and you leave with homework, how has that methodology impacted your business? Well, of course it helps us as we’re trying to grow, but it also has helped us design meetings that we have with our clients and our trade partners. We start handling them the same way when we come in with a regular agenda. We talk about the same things. We know what we’re going to do in advance. We know how to measure it.

And so it helps us on a daily basis in our work.

And then it helps us grow when we come meet with Clay because we’re at we know we have to do our homework and show up and be able to answer the questions and study and analyze the answers. Now, Stairs, I’m going to turn it over to you, because you guys work together weekly.

I just wanted to kind of hit those questions that I get asked a lot from potential clients.

Sure.

Yeah.

Well, Brian, hey, I first of all want to congratulate you guys on your big win just this last week, winning the Tulsa Parade of Homes. Congratulations. Oh, thank you.

We were very proud of that.

It’s always fun to win.

Yeah, you guys actually won another award there, too, right?

Wasn’t it the? We also won the Best Interior Design. So when the judges come through, Judging the overall house and that impact but they also look at the interior design and we won on that award as well Fantastic judging you it doesn’t sound like a safe environment when those judges come in. So It’s not a safe environment, but you have to put yourself out there sometimes so you can win Yeah, yeah, that’s not I mean correct me if i’m wrong here, but that’s not the only place

of Homes award you’ve received over the years. How many are you up to now from the parade? Oh, gosh. I’m not sure. We’ve been in the Parade of Homes for over 30 years, and we’ve been able to do that consistently.

So several years and multiple years, we’ve won in different categories and in different places.

But we’ve done, in the last 10 years, we’ve probably won eight or 10 times.

Fantastic. Yeah. And Brian, I’d like for you to talk a little bit as well. You’re a family business, literally family business.

You have your son and your son -in -law and your daughter -in -law working with you as well. How have we been able to help you navigate that minefield with working with your family? I think it’s the Having systems, you know, when you’re working with family and you have close relationships, trying to call out people to accountability is a little kind of a sticky wicket. But if you have a system, you can just ask a question. Do we have a system for that? Did you follow the system for that?

And then that can lead you into the right conversations and you don’t have to be challenging each other personally. You’re challenging the system. Are we working the system? Is it working for us? And that makes it a lot easier on a daily basis. And we have that conversation all the time about, do we have a system for that?

Let’s write a system for that. Let’s follow the system for that. Yep, that’s fantastic. It’s been this one of the things that at the leadership initiative, Clay, I know you begin to see this as well. When when our clients begin to talk through the lens of systems, yeah, and begin to ask that question, do we have a system for that? That’s when you know that you’re actually beginning to think like a manager, your language.

Yeah, you’re getting away from just the emotional ownership what are we going to do, and beginning to think systematically. So that has been one thing that I’ve really enjoyed about working with you and your team, and how you guys are consistently, each week, putting more and more systems together. Now, Brian, I want to interject this, and then we’ll go to Sean here. What I find is that successful business owners, they like to bore down on the details. And people that are not successful tend to struggle with boredom and they want to move on to a new thing.

And so the natural current, again, according to Inc Magazine, 96 % of businesses fail. So as a coach, our job is to coach you down a proven path. And so there’s a lot of repetitive things we have to go over every week. We need to gather Google reviews from your happy customers. We need to gather video reviews from your happy customers. And those Google reviews and video reviews are what we would call online reputation.

And so when a potential buyer then thinks about working with you, they can find your reputation easily. And so, as whereas before, you may have had to tell the customer, hey, I’ve built this many houses and here are some phone numbers. But now those testimonials are unearthed and the real people are here on display, on camera, on video.

And you’re building multi -million dollar homes. Can you talk about how the video reviews and the Google reviews that we go over every week have impacted your sales process? Oh, tremendously. When we have people come in, we used to have people come into our office to hear about our process and how we build homes. They didn’t know us. They didn’t know what we were going to do.

They didn’t know what to expect.

Now when they come in, they’ve already seen it. They’ve already heard a video from me. They’ve already seen our videos. clients telling them about us. So it’s a lot easier to be able to then get back down to

the really the brass tacks of what it’s going to be like to build their house. They’re already believing in us and that value of them believing us in us in advance is just immeasurable. So you and again this is just something I want to get your thoughts because I work with so many home builders all over the country. And Aaron Antis once said this. He runs a company called Shaw Homes which by the way we don’t work with two people to do the same thing in each city. And I reached out to Aaron when we first were you guys were talking about working with each other.

And I asked Aaron is it OK if we work with another home builder. And Aaron goes, Oh, absolutely. Brian has a stellar reputation and he doesn’t do what we do. He builds custom houses. And that’s who you, you got, we do. Shaw is more of a, you buy in a neighborhood where you guys customize.

Well, anyway, Aaron told me, he said, Clay, when we used to have people that reach out to us, they used to have a lot of questions and we’re very unsure of working with us. And he said, now that we have all these video reviews and Google reviews, you’ve helped us gather over the past six or seven years, people were pretty much going in from like, Oh, I’m going to do this. I don’t know if we’re comparing you to five or six other builders to, we’ve pretty much already made the decision before we’ve even reached out.

Are you hearing that at all? Or is that just unique to maybe Shaw? We broke ground this morning on a new project, about a $4 million house. And when the people walked in, They said, we saw you online and we knew you were the guy. We just felt that that was what we needed to do. So when we came here, we wanted to work with you.

And they found us by reaching out and seeing us online. We had never met them before.

And when they walked in the door, they said, let’s go. And that’s amazing to me. I didn’t believe you guys when you told me that what happened.

Now, final question, I don’t go to Sean here. I have a lot of builders.

And I’m going to send this to them today. Yes. I’ve got builders and just other clients that are

they bought Clay on this one area of getting Google reviews and getting a video testimonials.

Oh, I just don’t have time. Clay, I don’t know. That’s weird.

And every one of my clients that gets Google reviews, I mean, they win the pizza business I work with in Florida, Papa Gallo.

So many people are driving 30 miles to get pizza because it’s the highest rated pizza place in Florida? It works. So what would you say to somebody out there who’s a little bit resistant?

Maybe they’re kind of reminding you, maybe your first meeting with Clay Stares and there’s a little, you’re trying to figure it out. What would you say to anybody that’s a little resistant to getting objective video reviews and Google reviews from actual clients? I think it’s invaluable. We’re spending quite a bit of time doing that. And it’s amazing to me that when you ask people, they will actually do it. I was very resistant to that.

But when you start asking them and you start asking them, what do you think about our product? How do you like our home? What do you like about Brian Ewig’s homes? They will tell you. And it’s like, that’s amazing that they’ll tell other people. You’re just standing there and listening to it.

Sometimes it’s embarrassing that they say such good things. But it’s like, wow, let’s get that out there. Now, Sean, you work with a lot of wonderful clients. You also assist working with Brian Wiggs.

What question would you have for Brian?

Well, Brian, do you recall the first group interview at Brian D. Wiggs Homes that we did?

I do. It was some amazing and crazy interviews. So the group interview is something that, um, I’m always astounded that people haven’t heard of it. I’ve got the curse of knowledge now. It’s just such a useful tool, but I think there were about 30 people there. We couldn’t even fit them inside your little office.

We had to do it on the front porch on your main street office in jinx. Um, out of that effort of like having to grow, grow your team, maybe a little bit beyond your family there and having to start look outside of that.

How has that process worked out and how did the group interview. of come into play for that? The group interview was great. It was, it was awkward. I had to change my mindset. Like I mentioned earlier, cause you’re, you’re working through a great number of people.

I didn’t think as many people would show up as they did, but we did it. And so then we really did have 30 people, we couldn’t get them in our building. And we went outside and I stood out basically in the street on Main Street, 30 people and ask them questions. But ultimately, we hired a new woman that has just been fantastic. She fits us perfectly. She’s almost like family.

So how’d that happen? I don’t know.

But the group interviews certainly led us to it.

That’s where she came from. I love it. Now you, um, one thing that you and Clay Stairs have, and I’m not just saying this because you’re both here. This is a real thing. Um, you say that to all the people.

No, there are times you, you, you, you see me sometimes get into altercations with people.

You’ve seen it.

play. I have seen it. I don’t avoid combat. Okay.

Or conflict.

So, um, no, seriously, not combat.

Well, I did sometimes both.

It’s kind of, but you speak highly of, of Brian Wiggs when he’s not here.

Yeah.

And you always praise the quality of his work and without reservation, you praise him, but if people can’t find him, what we feel about him doesn’t matter. Exactly. That’s really good, Clay. So I’m having a lot of people that I’m running into now that are reaching out to me and they go, hey, I saw your wife as a testimonial. And this has happened multiple times. Hey, I’ve seen your wife’s testimonial on Brian D. Wiggs’ website.

Do you really like him?

I go, oh, yeah. He’s like, well, OK. And I’m getting a lot of that.

How rewarding is that for you, Brian, now that you’re finally, after years of building homes, You’re finally starting to have new people that you did not know previously finding you online. What’s that been like for you, sir? Well, it’s been really good. because we’ve been we’ve taken a lot of pride in the product that we produce. We think we built the great houses. I’ve been doing this for 35 years.

I’m very proud of it. But when people can’t find me that they don’t even know me, then they go build with somebody else. And I see the house going up and thinking, why, why, why didn’t you come to me? I’m the one that builds the great houses.

So that being able to get online and find me is just been amazing for us.

It’s like they can finally get out and we can put our product out to a lot more people. Yeah. Yeah. Brian you and I going back to the mindset you and I have spent quite a bit of time even outside of our weekly meeting talking about this journey that you’ve been on in just changing your mindset.

Huge visionary. big visionary, loving the big vision and struggling with a lot of times struggling with the minutiae and the details and everything. But if somebody else were in this same spot, if we had other clients that were really getting stuck in that emotional phase and getting stuck with that mindset, what would be some of the things that you did to help press through and change the way you think to allow you to be able to take these steps that you’ve taken at Brian D. Wiggs at Holmes. Well, we do deal with the emotional dragon a lot here. And we’ve each of us have had to deal with that. And we’ve been sort of sharing that with our clients go, okay, emotional dragon is going to pop up here, be ready for it, it’s going to hit you, it’s going to hit us.

And so we know how to work through it. But the way we work through it, is when we create these processes. Yeah, we write them down. Okay, what is it that I do on a daily basis? We’re going to run into that emotional dragon.

And And then I work out ways that I can be prepared and go, okay, what’s my system?

And we’ll work through that.

So it’s back to the process, back to the process. system is what helps us overcome that emotional drag. Yeah. I’ve been very proud of you and your sons as you guys have been able to work more and more and follow, not just put them together, but follow your systems in your company. Now, I want to go to Sean next year. I’ve got one more question for you.

Being present is a present. And a lot of people are not present, but they are physically present. Let me try again. So there’s a lot of people who and thankfully, I’ve got a wonderful roster of clients that mentally participate in what we’re doing. So I don’t have these problems. But there are people that you know, they want to do their their weekly coaching call while eating a salad while on the road.

And what I do is that’s why I only take on 160 clients. That’s why we have a limited number of clients that Clay Stairs takes on. Because if someone’s coachable, it’s very easy to work with them. But when you have somebody who’s clearly eating a salad, clearly at lunch, clearly mentally at lunch, and physically at lunch while trying to do your weekly call, because most of our clients are not in Tulsa, it makes it almost impossible. And I love the idea that you mentally participate.

Can you maybe talk, as a coaching client, how, what kind of, is on the receiving end of the coaching. How much time do you have to block out for that weekly meeting? And what does that look like? Well, we meet with clay for an hour once a week. Sometimes we’ll meet with him in his office. Sometimes we’ll catch each other on the road.

But when we do, we stop in there. We were 100 % present for that period of time. And just being I don’t know I could do it unless I was 100 % present.

Many times Clay’s sharing ideas with me, and I’m like, okay, wait a second.

So what you’re saying is, and I can repeat it back, and then finally work through it. But it takes that, I gotta be paying attention to it. I’m a slow learner, so I gotta work through it piece at a time.

More than a question, I just wanted to bring up at the beginning how you and Claystairs met.

You guys met at the chamber, but actually you hold a special place in my heart, Brian, because you were the first person that I cold called off of the Tulsa Home Builders Association list to start getting clients for Claystairs as I came into the business over six years ago.

And you said, yes, you were the first guy that was like, yeah, I’ll meet with Clay.

And I was like, it works.

I remember where I was sitting in front of one of my projects, phone call came in.

I started talking about it and it seemed like it was the right time for us to start growing.

That’s great. And I remember our first meeting down at Utica square sitting together. I remember that forever ago. We live in the house that Brian built in the way I did that.

And Brian can attest to this.

I’m sure I told my wife, you design it how you want so that you’re happy with the house that you built. I get the pool though.

There you go.

And can we talk about the pool? The pool is an incredible thing. We got to go to the pool. And my wife, though, she really, really loves it. And there’s not a day that goes by that she doesn’t compliment it or give someone a tour. She’s always proud.

And we’ve built multiple houses, but this is the favorite home that we’ve lived in.

So thank you on behalf of my wife and our family.

I appreciate you very much, Brian. And again, folks, if you’re looking to build a home and you happen to be in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area, that’s briandwigs . com.

Thank you, Brian, for joining us.

We really do appreciate you.

Thanks a lot, Brian.

Thanks, guys. Enjoy. Take care, brother. See you. All right, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, what we’re going to focus on is how to grow a successful company. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to pull up a graphic that is the theory of how to grow a successful company.

But vision without execution is hallucination. And so if you go to ThriveTime . .com com forward slash millionaire, you can download a book that I have written called a millionaire’s guide, how to become sustainably rich. You can download it for free at Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash millionaire, but you have to actually implement that which is in the book.

And so on today’s show, we’re joined by a very successful person in the home building business. A great friend of mine, a man by the name of Aaron Antus. Aaron Antus, welcome on to the Thrivetimeshow. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, Clay. Thanks for having me on.

Hey, so I got to ask you this for people out there that want to prove you’re not a hologram. First off, what’s the website for your company so people can verify that you are, in fact, a real business?

You bet.

It’s shaholmes .

com.

S -H -A -W -H -O -M -E -S . com. shaholmes . com. I’m pulling it up. shaholmes .

com. Pulling it up. That’s the website, shaholmes . com. And when you and I met, before we met, you had been already very successful as a home builder. You turned your dream of being a home builder guy into reality.

Yeah. And so how many homes had you sold, or what kind of sales had you done? and your career as a home builder guy before you and I even met? Before we met, probably about 750 million in sales prior to meeting you. And then you did the year we first started working together, what were the sales totals that year? We were at like $19 million.

$19 million. And then when you ended 2022, obviously we’re in 2023, and so we’ll see how this year ends. But as far as ending 2022, how much sales did you do last year at the end of 2022?

2022, we were at like $84 million.

OK, so from $19 million to? $84 million. $84 million. So you’re doing some things right here. And what we’re going to try to do is kind of demystify the plan here. OK, so here we go.

you were establishing revenue goals. Yep. When you and I first started working together, we started off with a 13 point assessment, we went over your goals. I’m not going to ask you to share your goals on the air. is it important that you have goals? Well, I mean, goals are sort of your guideposts that, you know, you set something out there in front of you and you start chasing after it.

And without that, you’re just kind of floundering in mediocrity. You don’t have any reason to get up in the morning and really get after it. And so, you know, I think goals are, you know, it’s, you know, you can have lots of different types of goals. And we’ve talked about a lot of this. We’ve talked about, you know, having financial goals and having, you know, fitness goals and having friendship goals and just all these different areas. I know you’ve got the F6, you know.

So that’s kind of something that, you know, we touched on very early on. You asked me, like, is the goal, is one of your goals more income or is it more And so I said, well, really, at this point, it’s more income.

And then later, it became more time.

So it’s changed over the time I’ve known you since 2016. We’re going on seven years. And the income went up considerably. So now it’s turned in the last couple of years towards more time. Now, the break -even numbers, again, I’m not asking you for the numbers on the show, but you guys have a lot of fixed costs. I mean, if you go to shawholmes .

com, you’ve got framers, you have plumbers, you have tile people, you have so many skilled people. You have a full -time job. You have a full -time sales team. You have an admin staff. And if you don’t sell a house, you still have the service of the land. You still have all the overhead.

Why is it important for every listener out there to know their break -even point? How many deals they need per month just to break even? Well, yeah, because you’re going backwards real quick. And it doesn’t take very long if you’re at the beginning of your business. It doesn’t take very long for you to be in a place where you know, the creditors are knocking at your door and you can’t pay your bills and all of a sudden you’re going to lose all your, for us, all of our trades, all of our suppliers are going to start backing out. So, you know, you’ve got to know what that number is that lets you trade.

water so that, you know, okay, this is the worst case scenario, everything above that, at least I’m into the profit zone. So, you know, you go out of business pretty quick. Most businesses don’t last more than just a few months if they get below that break -even number. Now, folks, again, these might seem like simple steps, but they’re all the linear steps you have to take to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And if you want to grow your company, this is how you do it. Box number three, though, is you have to know the hours you’re willing to work.

Now, your incredible wife is here off camera for accountability. So at any point, she could yell like, amen or boo. But you guys are on the same page with the hours you’re willing to work. And you guys, as a couple, I want to brag on both of you. You guys both committed to sacrificing time and energy and a lot of things to get to where you’re at in life. And then as you had your children, you raised them, you decided to devote time to raising said kids.

And now that your kids are older, you’re devoting time to raising these kids.

So it’s not like you abdicated being a parent while also growing a company. You did both well.

I’d love to get your thoughts on sitting down with your spouse, if you’re watching this today, or your significant other, and making sure you’re on the same page about how many hours per week you’re willing to work. Well, yeah, I mean, you don’t want to grow a business to make a whole bunch of money just so you can split it in half later. Oh. Because that’s kind of what happens when you don’t work out those details ahead of time. And so my wife and I have been married 25 years. We’ve been together for four before that.

And so yeah, sorry, 26.

Did I just say 25?

26. I hate to do this to you. I just got in trouble. Your wife just turned 27 on Thursday. And what you said is 100 % false. OK, so the unique value proposition Now, let’s talk about this.

Whether it’s growing a home building company or a dog training business or a haircut chain or a carpet cleaning franchise or whatever business we’re involved in helping to grow, you have to sit down as a listener out there, as a business owner, and you’ve got to figure out

what makes your company unique.

Absolutely. So I want to ask you, what makes Shaw Homes unique in the marketplace with other home builders? Yeah, we have more furnished and decorated model homes than any other builder in the market. So a lot of times, people, when they walk into a home and they’re trying to decide if they like the floor plan, the layout, whatever, They usually, most builders in our market have an empty house that they walk into. It just kind of echoes when you walk through it.

There’s no furniture or anything.

And we completely, as you can see in this little video here, we completely furnish and decorate it, make it beautiful. We are the most award -winning builder in the state of Oklahoma. That’s true. We’ve won like five times as many awards as any other builder in the market. Definitely, that is one of our big takeaways. And I’m going to throw you under the bus real quick, and I don’t mean to do this super passively aggressively.

It’ll just be more of a subtle passive aggressive. When I met you, you guys had all these awards, but no one knew. That’s true. It was like this weird, bizarre thing where you had all these awards. I remember talking to you, and I’m like, what makes you guys different? And you’re like, we do a good job, and you’re going to be nice about it.

You’re a good salesperson. But I said, well, I mean, tell me about the awards. And you’re like, well, we got this award. That award this is true this award like 45 minutes later. It’s like that award this award, I need to shave now, this award, that award, I need to go brush my teeth, this award, that award, I want to go mow the lawn now, this award, that award, I think I’m retiring, this award, my kids are turning 18, I can see it, this award, you’re just going, and this award, and that award. And so we put those on the website and that helped.

And the other thing you guys were, we needed to change was all these people were saying great things, but we didn’t have video reviews of them saying it on camera.

So it was like your online reputation Didn’t match your real world reputation.

It’s so much good momentum there. And so many people love you guys. And now you guys have, would you say a hundred video reviews? Oh, gosh, I would say more than that. We’ve got, yeah, we have a lot. You can just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

And this is actually all that’s on this page. If you go to our YouTube channel, we have way more than this. So, yeah. So again, and this is all the stuff you’re going to grow a successful company, folks. Step one, you got to figure out your revenue goals. Step two, you got to figure out your breakeven goals.

Step three, sit down for an hour of power. Sit down with your spouse. Make sure that you guys are on the same page of your hours you’re willing to work. Step four, unique value proposition. Figure out what it is that makes you unique. in -depth guide that you can download for free at thrivetimeshow .

com forward slash millionaire if you get stuck.

Next box, you gotta improve your branding, your website, your one sheet, in your case, model home presentations, business cards, social media branding, everything that a customer sees needs to be first class. And I was talking to a guy named Ronnie Morales today and it’s Morales Brothers. I think you met him at a conference. He told me this and I’m not slamming Ronnie. Ronnie, if you’re listening, I’m not slamming you. This is the real thing.

Ronnie said he listened to our show for seven consecutive years before ever reaching out. And now he’s reached out and he’s up 57 % in about eight months. That’s awesome. And we’re going to put his story on part two of today’s show because he’s in Texas and he’s seven years behind you. But he’s doing a great job. What do you think that thing is where people have bad branding and we’re not aware of it?

Someone hasn’t brought it to our attention? What causes bad branding? You know, the number one thing I hear business owners say is, well, you know, I don’t really need good branding because I sell everything by word of mouth. I’ve got such an incredible reputation that everybody just comes to me by word of mouth. And then it’s like, okay, yeah, but how much business did you do last year? Well, not very much.

And I’m really unprofitable, but I’ve got great reputation out there and I get a lot of word of mouth. So when people switch over to starting to improve branding, I know you helped us a lot with that in just creating a lot better looking website, creating a, you know, we’ve got an office environment now that is when people walk into our model home, they are blown away. We truly wow our customers when they come to our model homes. It’s a one of a kind experience in the state of Oklahoma. And the process of that, you know, just going through branding it so that it looks really top notch. And, you know, that includes everything from, you know, marketing to all of your senses and everything else.

So it just really brought us to another level. And when the customer comes in and experiences us after having walked through other builders homes, they usually come in and go, you guys are just on a whole nother level. It’s sights, sounds, smells, experiences, everything that your customer sees, they’re grading you on. And you might not know that they are even judging you because they’re not filling out the form. And I have a funny story to share with you that’s kind of sad. I was working with a fitness guy years ago, and I’m not going to tell you what study he’s in or what study, folks.

I know you want to know, but I’m not going to tell you. And he filled out the form because his wife wanted him to schedule a 13 -point assessment. He did not want to. And he tells me, Clay, honestly, I’m just doing the call because my wife wants me on the phone. I don’t really get leads from social media. I don’t get leads from marketing.

I get all my leads word of mouth, like you were saying.

And I said, well, let me just do this. Let’s just, this first month working together, let me get all the passwords for your Facebook, your Google, your YouTube, but I’m just, it’s the first month, we do this with every single client. We optimize your YouTube, your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, all that. We log on, this is a fitness guy. He was spending like 400 bucks a week, every week on ads. And he hadn’t known, he wasn’t aware that every time a lead came in, it got stuck in Facebook and went to an email address that he wasn’t checking.

So think about this.

And it’s like 15 to 20 leads a week for years this guy had.

That’s not good.

So I’m going, you’re spending, you know, 20 grand a year on ads that you’re not getting anything from.

And are you aware that the phone number on your site rings to a phone that’s no longer a real phone? And I’m serious, this was real. And then he had before and after photos where somebody had had the idea of let’s get before and after photos. You know where you interview someone before they start working out? Yeah. But then they never completed the thought.

You know what I’m saying? I do. Where it’s like they interview them about getting in shape, but then they never actually like aired the part where they’re in shape. Oh, no. So it’s just sort of like an interview with people that are not in shape. And I’m like, and again, he’s a busy guy, busy entrepreneur, that kind of stuff is very common.

It’s kind of laughable if it’s not your company. But OK, next box, you’ve got to determine your customer acquisition costs. How much does it cost you to get a customer? So Aaron, you guys run ads on Google, on Facebook, on retargeting ads. You have massive signage. There’s a lot of stuff you do.

Why is it important to know how much it costs you, at the end of the day, to get an actual new buyer of a shawl home? Well, because if you want more of those, you know what it costs to go generate more of those. you know, it’s a cost where it’s like, okay, well, you know, I’m down in sales this month or this quarter or whatever, and I need four more sales to make it a good quarter here before the end of the quarter. And it’s like, I know I can go put money into that and it’s going to cost me X number of dollars per customer to get there. And so then it’s just a matter of, do I want to spend that money to get to that point? So, you know, for us, it’s, you know, a pretty high number because it’s a lot, it’s a big ticket item, but for some people, it might be, you know, very small to get that with each customer.

But for us, it’s you know what the number is, because ultimately, that goes into the price of your product and whatever you sell. We’re doing homes. That is one of our line item costs in our homes. That’s a cost. Yeah.

Now, if you go to any of the businesses that I’m involved in, you go to eitrlounge . com forward slash staff. I put in the password here. Once I put in the password, I have all of the documents needed to run the company.

And they’re all saved.

So the checklist for the manager, the opening checklist for the assistant manager, the bathroom cleaning checklist, everything needed to grow the companies all in one place. And therefore, the business, everybody who works there knows where to go to find those documents. This is the kind of stuff that fires me up, and it makes other people crazy. Oh, yeah. So with the conferences we do, if we ever do a conference that’s out of town, I have a checklist of stuff I print out. I know it seems kind of crazy for people, but this is real.

I put it out, and it’s like, OK, socks. I’m gone for four days. I want to have 12 pairs of socks. Why? Because it could be hot. I don’t know.

could get wet. I don’t know. I have a list of, you know, deodorant and socks and shaving and I have a laptop and a backup laptop and I have patch cables and XLR cables and we bring three, you’ve seen all this stuff, but it’s multiple monitors, backup monitors, it’s Backups for everything. When you guys build a Shaw home, you’re not moving off of guesswork. There’s blueprints, there’s plans, there’s systems, so houses don’t fall down. There’s somebody out here listening right now that doesn’t have systems in place.

They don’t have checklists. They don’t have it. And so they have to think about everything all the time, because if not, they forget a step. What would you say is the importance of having taken the time to have built these systems now? It is the night and day difference between running around like your hair is on fire every day, constantly playing firefighter, or you hear people say, I’m up to my armpits in alligators. It’s because you don’t have systems and processes.

And every time at Shaw Homes, every time that we have a problem come up, we automatically okay, what step in our system did this fall apart in? And what’s broken in that step? And how can we fix it? So it never happens again. So we go fix the process.

You know, we address the problem for the customer, but then we go back after that and we go, how do we fix the process so we don’t repeat this problem? And the business owners that are running around with their hair on fire all the time, it’s because there’s no systems, no processes. Everything is urgent. Everything is hair on fire. Correct.

chaos world that you live in.

And if you’re going to build homes for a living and build a lot of them, you cannot live in that chaos world.

Now, this next box, I get excited about all these boxes.

This is what I get excited about. This right here is what I care about. OK, the next box is management and execution. You have people on your team, and I’m just going to give some examples.

And I hope this benefits somebody out there listening.

You have people on your team. It’s their responsibility. Every time that you do a new house, they go out there and they design or they get the blueprint on the website. They get the new design of the home, because people want to see floor plans. So somebody’s job is to get those up there. Yes.

Somebody gets photos of every house that you guys are building. Yeah. Somebody gets videos of every house. Somebody puts them all up for sale. Somebody answers the phone every day. Somebody calls the leads every day.

Every day. Somebody cleans the bathroom every day. Somebody builds the houses every day. Now, this is what I find, and I’m sure none of our listeners can relate to this. Some of our listeners, they don’t fire people, and then nothing happens. So work with me on this.

There’s listeners out there that I talk to every day because we do free 13 -point assessments. So I talk to two or three people a day who go to thrivetimeshow . com. They want to schedule a consultation. And the other day, you heard me talking to Jordan. I said, Jordan, go ahead and keep setting those.

He set an appointment with someone who’s definitely not a good fit. And you could tell he had a little question if that was OK. And I said, I would rather you set an appointment with somebody than not. because I don’t know if who’s a good fit or not, you know? But the idea though, is I sit down, I was talking to a guy the other day and he was like, you know, the reason why my team did not get Google reviews or videos reviews this week is because we fired a guy. And I go, cause I’m just asking him, you know, where are we stuck?

What’s your biggest limiting factor?

I have a big process I go through in my evaluation. I said, who calls the leads? He’s like, well, normally I have a person that calls the leads, but we just fired her. And I mean this, I’m going, how long have you been in business? This guy’s been in business for over 10 years and he’s reaching out for help. Good person.

We’re trying to help him. I think it’s going to be a good fit. But, so I said, so basically, everybody follows the systems until they don’t work there anymore, and then no one does the systems. And you go back and forth vacillating from things being done to not being done. And one of my favorite things about working with you guys is that you’re honest people. What does that mean?

You do your best to do what you say you’re going to do, and you hold yourself and the employees accountable. Absolutely. But what would happen if every week you If somebody wasn’t performing, you remove them from the position, and then the houses weren’t built for the week because something wasn’t going well, or because maybe a salesperson wasn’t performing at the peak, you let them go, and the next thing you know… What would happen if you managed your company that way? It would be a disaster. I mean, I can’t just fire my superintendent without having somebody already ready to take over all of those responsibilities, because I’ve got materials showing up at the job site today, tomorrow, and the next day.

trades showing up who need some supervision, need to know what they’re supposed to be doing. If I fire that guy with no warning, somebody else has to come fill in that position. So, you know, for us, we try to never have that gap happen. And, you know, sometimes it’s like, you know that you’re going to need to fire somebody and you can see the writing on the wall, but you want to get the next person up and working. to go before that happens. And you guys have a weekly meeting.

So we talk a lot on this show from an employer perspective.

But how frustrating would it be to be an A -player employee, and you’re working for a C -player boss?

You know, a boss that doesn’t have a staff meeting, that’s not organized, that doesn’t pay people on time, that’s constantly emotional. I see that a lot. And so management is a learned skill. And thankfully, you know, when I first met with you, you’d already really mastered, in my opinion, managing people. But this next box is where I thought we needed some help, was to build a system for constantly recruiting new people, because certain people work for Shaw Homes for three years or four years, and then they want to go move, they want to have a baby, they want to stay home, they want to get a new job. And even though you have low turnover at Shaw, certain people get to their expiration date, and it’s time for them to move on to something else.

And because we didn’t have a process in place at Shaw at that time to consistently bring in a pipeline of new people, it made it difficult to do the management that was needed. Can you talk about the importance of implementing a human resources program for hiring, inspiring, training, and retaining good people? It’s huge. I mean, that was definitely an Achilles heel for us. And you helped us a lot with that. You know, putting in a, you know, where every single week, I’m seeing, you know, potential candidates that could come work for us.

And they’re job shadowing and seeing what it’s like to work in our company every single week. Yep. It does multiple things. It helps the people who work there to know, hey, there’s other people who desire to come work here. And if I’m not doing my job, I might get replaced. So there’s a little bit of that.

And then it’s also a thing of the people who are shadowing get to see the job being done by people who are happy doing their job. And it helps them to want to come be a part of Shaw Homes. I’ve got a very long list of people right now in every single position that would be extremely to come work for us if I did all of a sudden find myself with an opening, you know, because occasionally people leave with no notice or whatever, you know, something happens, family emergency, whatever. Right. And you have that, oh, I need to replace somebody immediately.

And the great thing about it is I have a whole bunch of people that I could plug into that position very quickly because every single week I am interviewing. Now, the next box here is you got to do your accounting. And in order to earn millions, you have to automate your accounting. What does that mean? You have to have a system in place for making sure you price your products and services correctly, and that you pay yourself first, that you set aside a set amount of money to pay yourself and your staff. And all these things work together.

And what I find is people ask me, often just not knowing. They come from a place of a good heart. They don’t know. They say to me, Clayton. What is the most important step in growing Shaw Holmes? I’ve heard Aaron on the show.

He’s a great guy. Clay, I’ve heard PMH OKC on the show. Clay, I’ve seen Oxyfresh on the show. What was the most important thing they did?

And to me, that’s like asking a hiker, what was the most important step you took to get to the top of that mountain?

Well, it was the one we took there an hour ago. I took a left step. So it’s like asking a baker, what’s the most important ingredient? Is it milk? Is it sugar? Is it eggs?

It’s like asking a farmer, what’s the most important thing, feeding the animals or watering them? What’s the key to your success? There’s just certain questions that I understand people wanna know, but all of this has to work together and nothing works unless you do. So I have three final questions for you. For anybody out there that’s thinking about scheduling a consultation, a free consultation with thrivetimeshow . com and myself, obviously they’re stuck with me if they fill out the form, I’m the only person that does 13 point assessments.

I believe we, I’ve seen it since 2005, we help people decrease their costs, increase their time, freedom and profits. What would you say is the benefit of scheduling that 13 point assessment? Well, actually, the 13 -point assessment was very eye -opening for me. You asked me a lot of tough questions that I probably should have been asking myself and wasn’t. And so as we went through the questions, I was like, I think at every question you asked me, I was like, oh, that’s a good question.

And I was like, hang on. Let me think about that for a minute. So I find that it kind of helps open your eyes to, you know, Hmm, these are some things that I know I have some areas of weakness. And then there were, I think, a couple of the questions where I was like, Oh, I know the answer to this one. I got this one, no problem. But it helps you sort of identify, I walked away having identified areas of strength and areas of weakness, even though that really wasn’t the purpose of the phone call, necessarily.

It helped me to see that. And then I was like, Hmm. I think I have a need in a couple of these areas, and I didn’t really know what to do for myself. I didn’t have the answers. You know, in part three of today’s show, part two, we’re going to show the Ronnie Morales story. On part three, we’re going to do a testimony with Myron.

And Myron just bought his first Lamborghini today, and he’s super fired up. And so Myron’s about six years down the path. We’ve been working with you for about eight years, whereas Ronnie’s been with us for less than a year. And it’s at a certain point that we have to take action. Knowledge without application is meaningless. What would you say to somebody who’s like, you know, it’s $1 ,700 a month.

And, you know, I’m spending that much right now on random ads and that much money on, uh, random regrettable purchases at the gas station. And, you know, a lot of iTunes I’m downloading, I’m spending $1 ,700 a month on various things. And I don’t know if I can afford it because I’ve just bought another vehicle that I can’t afford, but I’m leasing it. You know, what would you say to anybody who’s kind of on that fence? I mean, I would say you need to do it. I mean, it has made a, it has been a game changer for us.

I don’t know why you would sit there and think $1 ,700 a month is too much money to spend. Go find the money somewhere, go empty out your sofa cushions, go spend the stuff that you have in your house that you’re not using. I mean, go get, you know, whatever you need to do to get to that place, you need to find that $1 ,700. And I will say this, that cost was very quickly replaced with the extra money we were making.

And I’ve seen, I’ve actually seen, because I’ve been around you for a long time, I’ve seen a lot of your clients come in and right off the bat, they’re real nervous about, am I going to be able to, you know, because maybe they’re a smaller company or whatever.

And they’re like, I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to handle this 1700 a month.

And then I see them six months later and I’m like, how’s it going now?

And they’re like, Man, we’re just hitting record after record. I have referred several business owners to you. And they’re doing great. That are killing it. And I’ll give one example. I won’t name the person, but I did send one of my very good friends to you who was on the verge of losing his business because he just wasn’t able.

He had bought another one of the shops of what he does. He opened it, and it was not profitable. And it was going to take under both of his shops. And I sent him over to you. And I remember about three months later, I asked him, how’s it going? And he goes, man, we just had a record -breaking month.

This was amazing. And by the way, he said, first, he just hit another record -breaking month, just so you know. Yeah. And I know right now, not only does he have way more income, but he has a lot more time freedom because he’s been working with you for many years now.

And so it changed his life, just like it changed my life.

I would say, if you’re thinking about doing a 13 -point assessment, stop thinking. Dial the phones. Pause this video. Make the phone call. Reach out to Clay. Get it started right now.

Now, final question I have is, I think people look at oxyfresh . com, and they go in. 500 locations now. Yeah. And they look at elephant in the room and they go, there’s five brick and mortar locations. Now they look at Shaw homes and they go, you know, this, these are big success stories.

I don’t know that I can do it. What would you say to somebody out there that just feel like they might not have. the, like all this stuff they’re going to learn is going to be over their head, too complicated. What would you say? I would say the information, the ideas are easy. It’s the application that is difficult for people.

The ideas that you share, there’s nothing that’s like, oh my God, I don’t have a PhD, therefore I can’t do it. I feel like it’s all very, very simple stuff. But it is a lot of action to get traction. And you’ve got to get the action going. And I think if somebody has diligence and discipline or can learn diligence or discipline, they’re going to do extremely well. And it’s not about education.

It’s about action. Now, Aaron, I got one thing I want to say. And then we’re going to wrap up today’s show with a boom. Because boom stands for big, overwhelming, optimistic momentum. And that’s what’s required to have success. Um, you know, people watching this, they’re going, Aaron, you know, he looks like a normal guy.

Well, that’s true. Oh, they say, well, he sounds like a normal guy. Sounds like an all right guy. You know, that’s true. But the one thing you can’t quite picture on the show, and I want to just give that gift to you folks who are watching is Aaron smells tremendous. It’s like a, it’s a, it’s like a, if you had smell a vision, if you could just get up there and just.

smell that it’s incredible and it’s really it’s it’s his aroma that allows him to achieve massive success so unless so if you’re out there and you’re going what’s the secret sauce it’s not a sauce it’s more just a smell so uh i don’t know if you qualify to have the kind of success he has unless you smell like he smells it’s a really tremendous smell okay let’s do this thing with the boom here we go three two one boom Well, Thrive Nation, we have an opportunity all the time. We have so many wonderful people that go to thrivetimeshow . com, and they reach out to us to schedule a 13 -point assessment. We also have a lot of people that go to thrivetimeshow . com, and they schedule a free 13 -point assessment. And they’re not a good fit, because I only work with diligent doers.

I only work with people that are willing to actually implement the proven systems that Dr. Zellner and I both teach and implement in our own companies. So people say, I do want to grow my business seven times faster. I do want to reduce my working hours. I do want to increase my time, freedom, and my profits. I think we’re all in agreement that that’s a good thing. However, we can only help people that are willing to put the work in.

And on today’s show, we’re joined by a man by the name of Ronnie Morales.

His company is moralesbrothers .

net.

I hold him in high regard because he and his family -owned business, they actually are growing. I would call it dramatically.

If you look at this, Inc. Magazine right now shows that 96 % of businesses fail. Inc.

Magazine says 96 % of businesses fail That’s not good.

Whereas this guy’s business isn’t growing by 10%.

It isn’t growing by 20%.

It is growing dramatically.

But again, if Ronnie Morales had filled out the form and had scheduled a consultation and wasn’t willing to actually implement what we were teaching, it would all be for naught.

So I’m excited for you to meet somebody who I would consider to be a diligent doer. He’s based in Richmond, Texas. And without any further ado, Ronnie Morales, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show.

How are you, sir? Hey, I’m doing great. Thanks, Clay.

Hey, so how did you first hear about us? How did you hear about the Thrive Time Show? I listened to your Thrive Time Show podcast for those seven years. And I was learning so much. I was like, man, I got to give this guy a try. So you listened to our podcast seven years ago?

Yeah. Really? Four or seven years.

Do you remember the first podcast you listened to seven years ago? I don’t.

I don’t remember. I listened to so many of them. OK. I probably listened to more than once. Now, when you’re listening to the podcast, I try to feature clients on the show so that you know there’s real people really doing it, really implementing the systems.

When did it occur to you that you might want to go ahead and fill out the form at thrivetimeshow . com and schedule a consultation? It got to the point where I just needed to take the next step. And I’ve been in coaching before, like group coaching and different things like that. But I just felt like everybody on your show was making tremendous changes in our business. And coming from you and Dr. Z, I felt like y ‘all had the experience.

And it didn’t matter if it was because I’ve been used to doing construction, like peer groups and construction coaching, whereas contractors only. Well, I felt like, you know what, I need business, somebody business minded. to help me grow this. I don’t necessarily need a group of just contractors.

I need somebody that knows the business part of it. And what kind of growth have you had since you began working with us as far as a percentage? Do you know a percentage or what kind of growth? Yeah, so we had about a 57 % increase from last year’s first quarter to this year’s first quarter. So that was that was huge for us. And I’m personally grow through I honestly just as a business leader and team member here in my company, I’ve grown a lot to be a better leader, learn how to delegate better, learn how to get these 15 minute huddle started every morning.

And it’s been great and just continue to learn and I can’t wait to keep moving forward. Well, you know, people always ask me, they say, what’s the most important part of business consulting? And that would be to me like asking a baker, what’s the most important ingredient in a cookie? I mean, is it the flour?

Is it the sugar? Is it the eggs? I would say if you take out any one of those core ingredients, you’re going to have a weird taste in cookie. So in our business consulting, we focus on marketing, branding, sales, hiring, leadership. management, accounting, all of those things. So let’s kind of go through the process from just a branding perspective and a marketing perspective.

How has the business consulting impacted your company? No, it’s been great. The branding, the marketing. I mean, people around town are telling us, hey, I’ve seen your trucks here and there.

I see all over the place. When people are searching Google or whatever it is, you know, they’re finding our videos and they’re reaching out to us. I think one of the biggest parts with business coaching for me has been the accountability. Like just having somebody to tell me like, hey, get this, this, and this done and have it done by this day. And, you know, we move on to the next step.

So it’s been great.

Now, we have a weekly meeting. The purpose of a weekly meeting is so that you have a week to get your homework done. We have a week to do our homework. I mean, we do photography, videography, web development, search engine optimization. And you and I meet on Saturdays at 6 .30 AM. I find a lot of my clients like to meet in the mornings.

How important is it to have that weekly meeting? Because again, I’ve done, I’m 42, but when I was 21, I was hiring business consulting programs that would do quarterly meetings or oftentimes even monthly meetings. And I found that nothing got done. How important is it for you to have a weekly meeting? I think it’s very important as a business owner to have that weekly accountability, to make sure you’re staying on schedule. Because as a business owner, you wear so many hats.

It makes it difficult to get the important things done that you need to get done, but that you want to put on the back burner. But when you know you have somebody to be accountable to, and it’s a weekly thing, and they’re steadily putting in your ear, you’ve got to get these things done. Get the reviews.

Get the video testimonials.

It just makes it to where, you know, you have an assignment and you just get it done.

Now, at the business conferences, we walk people through the entire system. This is the system we teach from. This is from my newest book called A Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich, which everyone can download for free right now at Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash millionaire. Um, you and I, we track the numbers every week. So box number one, we establish those revenue goals.

We do that.

We know the breakeven numbers. We know how many hours you’re willing to work. This is crazy. You’re married. Your wife loves you. You love your wife.

Uh, I’m not ever advocating during our coaching meetings, like forsake your family and grow your company. Can you do that? that? How important it is to work with maybe a coach that understands that you want to have a healthy family and a healthy company? Oh, I think it’s very important. You know, like yesterday I had a good dinner with my wife, you know, and we had a good evening with live music and really enjoyed each other’s company.

Um, you know, I took my, my kids camping, uh, twice this month already, um, for four days. And we’re enjoying the summer. But I think it’s very important that as a business owner, as you put the hours in, put the hard work in, but you also take the time to spend with friends and family. And I mean, it’s important, you know, rising up early to get my meditation time is very important to me too. So I think just again, having somebody that knows the value of these things is important. Yeah, as we go through, I mean, you are knocking it out with the marketing and the branding and all the things we have to do to optimize your website and make the ads work.

We’ve determined your unique value proposition. We’ve improved the branding. We have a three -legged marketing stool. We know how to generate leads online and offline and referrals. The sales process, and I’m not picking on you, but I mean this, you’re like a super humble guy. So I feel like that the sales process was something that once you learned the proven process, you kind of took to it right away.

but I think a lot of contractors don’t want to come across as too aggressive or too passive or too whatever. And I feel like the sales process of your team really doing a good job of calling all the leads and the calls are recorded for quality assurance. I feel like that’s been a big needle mover for you. Maybe I’m wrong.

I’d love to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, no, it’s been great. I had my own way before I joined your team. You know, I had my own way of sales and what I thought was working really wasn’t working. And at first I put up a wall, but once I was opened up to the Why do you do it the certain ways you do it? It really opened up more ways to be more successful, you know, with the call scripts, with the recorded calls.

We’re still trying. scripts and things like that, but it’s like an ongoing process. But it’s been great.

And I think that it has helped us a lot. We do have, we call our people, our leads back right away, within hours, a few hours, most of the time. And it’s important. And we’ve gotten a lot of leads and where I needed to hire my first sales employee. And now we’re working on more of the systems, creating these repeatable systems and managing a large group of people in that daily huddle. I hammer all my clients.

It’s so important to have a daily huddle with your team, to huddle with your team every morning and to have a weekly staff meeting. Could you talk about the importance of implementing these human resource strategies for managing people and what impact that’s had for your company? Yeah, so the impact that daily huddles have for my company is that they brought the team together. All of our employees, which is 17 of us full time, it’s brought us all together to where we’re getting to see each other in the mornings and grow together.

We start off with some wins, keep it brief. We go over company updates. Then we go over all our projects and we ask like, you know, how’s that client doing? How’s this project on schedule? But what it did, it helped us a lot with the daily interruptions with, hey, so what’s going on here? And these questions that can be answered in the morning.

So they learn to answer these important questions in the morning so that there’s less interruption throughout the day. Now, the final two areas I wanted to cover here is, you know, there’s so much to growing a company and that’s what we talk about on our weekly coaching calls, but building a sustainable and repetitive weekly schedule. You’re like every week we’re doing the group interview.

Every week we’re gathering objective reviews from clients. Every week we’re gathering before and after images. Every week you’re gathering testimonials from your happy clients. You have to do this stuff every week. It’s like a garden.

You got to pull the weeds every week. Could you talk about the importance of having these human resource systems in place where you these systems every week so it’s proactive as opposed to reactive, doing these same things over and over? Yeah, I think it’s important to do it every week and repeat them so that things don’t fall to the cracks.

And if you get too relaxed on not doing it or you go two or three weeks without listening to recorded calls or whatever it may be, You start to slack off a little bit.

The next thing you know, you’re in trouble. And now you’re putting out another fire that wouldn’t have been there if you would have been on track and keeping up with the systems and processes. So just doing it repeatedly helps with building that system.

Everybody knows it’s this day at this time. Our morning huddles are every day from 7 -07, you know, last 15 minutes. And everybody knows to be there. And it’s just been great. Now, final two questions for you. People out there that maybe want to do business with you, they’re hearing about you.

Again, it’s very hard to gather objective Google reviews if people don’t like you. It’s very hard to gather video testimonials if people don’t like the work you do. What’s your website, and how do people go ahead and get ahold of you if they’re looking to hire you guys for maybe a big project? Yeah, so our website is moralesbrothers . net. And you can definitely just fill out our get in touch form to reach out to us.

And I personally will actually be in touch with you, and I’ll have a conversation with you.

And for anybody out there that’s contemplating coming to one of our workshops or scheduling a free 13 -point assessment, what word of encouragement or what advice would you have for anybody out there? Well, I would say don’t wait any longer.

Jump in. Because if I would have jumped in seven years ago, I would have been in a whole different place today. I guarantee you would be.

I’ll say this, though.

And I’m not prophetic. I’m saying you’re on pace. You’re on pace to have a business that’s going to be about five times larger than what it was when I first met you. And I say that because the first thing you see is the leads coming in, and you start to see new teammates joining your team, and you’re building that foundation for success. And I totally see you guys going to a great place right now. So I wish I would have met you earlier.

That’s my only complaint. But that’s Ronnie Morales. Ronnie, I really appreciate you.

I’ll give you the final word. What do you want to say to everybody out there that’s maybe contemplating taking their business to the next level?

Like I said, guys, don’t wait any longer. Reach out to play in the team, do your assessment, and be a diligent doer.

Amen to that. Ronnie Morales, take care, sir. Have a great day. Thank you. Bye.

I think I just experienced the promised land.

I went to a neighborhood that I wasn’t needed for anything.

There were no fires. Everything was running smoothly. And it was the most activity we’ve ever had in that neighborhood. Like that felt good.

And it was like, aha.

Hi, my name is Mike Granacy. I’m the owner of Haven Homes and I build homes in Northwest Indiana. To be honest with you, we’re just, we’re blown away with the results we’ve had in just one quarter.

And the last three months they have increased our exposure through Google reviews and customer testimonials to the point that our phone rings off the hook already.

It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. It freed my time, increased our sales, and at the end of the day, increased our profitability beyond my wildest expectations. It’s been a significant investment, but it’s the best money I’ve ever spent. It’s been a very positive experience. We’ve only been at it for six months or so, and we’ve already seen a significant amount of growth and I can see everything becoming much more organized, much more efficient. I know what my numbers are in a much more realistic way on a day -to -day basis.

So my experience has just been very positive overall. Our leads have gone up dramatically. It’s it’s not one of those things where it’s like, yeah, I kind of notice it’s, it’s holy cow. We’re all these, it’s, it’s, you almost feel overwhelmed at times. And it’s just our presence in general has been changed just dramatically.

He’s genuinely invested in your success. And it’s just, it’s been wonderful. 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 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 together and it has really 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. And hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only have one job. 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 every single week. It’s just been great 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 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’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, perseverance and, you know, work until 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. 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, and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. 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, you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean?

And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, you know, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches.

So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important.

My rich dad was one of those persons.

I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life.

So he was my coach.

Well, Carter, you know, we have an opportunity here at the Thrive Time Show to work with some really great business owners, people that are actually serious about growing their company.

They go to ThriveTimeShow . com and they reach out to schedule a free 13 point assessment. And oftentimes I hop on the phone with these folks and we figure out if they’re a good fit. And once we start working with a client, our goal is to help the client to actually grow their actual business. And on today’s show, we’re joined with a man who we’ve had the opportunity to work with. The company is called NWA Gutter Perfection.

And my understanding, Carter, is that they’re up over 60%.

Is that right? I would say that’s correct, yes. DJ, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show.

How are you, sir?

Good. How are you doing, Clay? I’m doing great. So for anybody out there who is doubting whether you’re a hologram or not, what’s the name of your company, sir? Dutter Perfection. How did you guys first hear about us?

Do you know? It’s actually a friend of mine found out about your business conferences there, and then we went there. And I guess I was sold the first conference we went to. If you go to nwagutterperfection . com, you can see they’re a real company. They’re a real business.

They really are growing.

What markets do you service there, DJ? For people out there that might be looking for your services, what’s the market area that you service? Pretty much all of Northwest Arkansas, Bentonville, Springdale, Fayetteville, Rogers, the little surrounding towns there, too. And again, if you go to the website here, folks, nwagutterperfection . com, you can see they are a real business, real people having real success. DJ, I really do appreciate your time today, sir.

And we’ll talk to you soon. 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 that people can work with on a day -to -day basis. And that simplicity brings power with it. So it shocked me how simple some of the stuff is. And at times, I’m like, why did not think about that? Workflow creation, systematic marketing, and coaching has helped our church so much.

You know, the workflow creation is what it really is is they’re going to look and see every moving part of your church, of your ministry, what needs to be done. And it’s going to go up on a massive board. And so now what it does is it takes what you know needs to be done out of your heart and out of your head, really takes the pressure, the stress off your shoulders, and it puts it on the board where your entire team, your ministry, can see exactly what you want them to do every day. And so they know this is the playbook, this is what we’re doing. And then there’s a laser -sharp accountability with a meeting every day. Did it get done or not?

Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur. And as they say in stoic, the obstacle is the way. I think YouTube is a tremendous educational platform for good and bad. So you’ve got to really get to choose your teachers wisely as anything else. So the biggest, best lesson that sits in the back here, and I think you do it and Dr. Z does it, Once you learn something, if you really want to learn it, you got to teach it.

I think it was a life changing for me and how I approach business.

Could you explain Okta Nonverba, what it means and how our listeners can apply it? Clay, you gave me goosebumps, man. I’m glad it hit you as hard as it did.

Okta Nonverba is the model of the U .

S.

Merchant Marine Academy at Kingspoint, New York. I had appointments with Naval Academy and Kingspoint Merchant Marine Academy.

And Merchant Marine Academy’s model was Okta Nonverba.

In other words, don’t listen to what a person says, watch what they do. The first time that I ever met you, Clay, was at that first conference in Tulsa. And that was an incredible conference. And I was so impressed with just the whole thing, just the professionalism, you as a person, your business, your work ethic, and really just who you are.

And I was very impressed with all of that. And I thought, gosh, you know, This might be someone that I would really consider working with. Like maybe he could really help me. And that’s really what got me interested because I was so impressed with just the professionalism of all of it. And I learned a lot. I come about once a year to a business conference.

Um, and I’d like to come more, but every year I try to come with my marketing girl with me and we always learn something. We always learn something. And I’m, I think next year I’m going to bring my husband. he really needs to come too. And you’re in McKinney, Texas, right? So how long have you been an orthodontist in McKinney, Texas?

So I’ve been an orthodontist for 26 years, practicing in McKinney. And when you went to medical school, what percentage of the time in medical school or dentistry school, dental school, did they spend teaching you how to market and or grow your own practice? Absolutely zero.

Zero marketing skills.

Okay.

Okay.

And I, and I, from when I talked to Andrew, you’re the coach who works with you. I’m always hearing that you’re more and more patients are coming in from Google. Could you talk about that? How much of an impact does it have having a, maybe a rebranded or updated website and Google leads coming in? It has had a huge difference, absolutely huge difference in our patient load coming in. And, you know, before I really wasn’t tracking really well.

And that’s one of the things I learned from Thrive Time Business was how to track patients coming in, how to really how to see where they’re coming from.

And at the time, I really didn’t know much about Google.

And, you know, being an orthodontist for 26 years, I didn’t really know a lot of, I kind of went through a time where I went through shock.

It was really what I call culture shock because the old ways of marketing were not working anymore. And because I really didn’t know about online marketing, I really didn’t, I was still doing, you know, phone book ads and magazine ads and all of these things. And so, Thrive Time has really helped. And I will say that it’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. But if you stay the course, you’re going to see results.

Because I’m absolutely convinced. Dr. Christ, thank you for allowing us to take up some of your valuable time today. I really do appreciate you. And I can’t wait to see you in person here soon. Thanks so much, Clay. Clay.

Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? 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, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. The Thrive Time Show two -day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow.

You can learn the proven 13 -point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan?

We teach you everything you need to know here during a two -day, 15 -hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You can work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this.

And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything.

It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop.

And the great thing is we have nothing upsell. At every workshop we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get -rich -quick walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction.

I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you.

And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in -person two -day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news. The tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in -person two -day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow .

com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. This is built, right? You don’t even know a lot about real estate, but the fact that you literally used the last couple spurs. That’s incredible.

Transcribed with Cockatoo