Business Coaching | Why You Must Measure What You Treasure (Why By Default There Will Be Slacking Without Tracking)? + Join Tim Tebow At Clay Clark’s April 9th & 10th ThrivetimeShow.com Business Growth Conference

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Business Coach | Ask Clay & Z Anything

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

You know, it’s a strange thing about life. Most people spend more time planning their vacations than they do planning their financial freedom. And yet they wonder why 10 years go by and nothing changes. Same paycheck, same stress, same story. You see, the truth isn’t that life is unfair. The truth is that most people never learn the rules of the game.

They trade their time for money, and then they spend that money buying back tiny bits of happiness they could have owned permanently, if only they’d learned how to think differently. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment, tracking every dollar. What gets measured gets improved. When I first began to manage my finances, I didn’t have spreadsheets or fancy apps. I had a small notebook and a pen. Every week, I wrote down what came in, what went out, and what I saved.

Tracking your money turns confusion into confidence. It allows you to make decisions rather than react emotionally. For example, if you notice you spend $200 a month on dining out, you can choose to cut back or reallocate it to an investment or asset building activity. The choice becomes intentional, not accidental. Now, the strategy here is simple, but it requires discipline. Start small.

Begin with a weekly money log. List your income, every expense and your savings. Use whatever method works for you, a notebook, a spreadsheet. Don’t skip weeks because it feels tedious. Every Sunday, review the numbers. Ask yourself, where did money leak?

Where did it work for me? What could I do differently next week? Over time, these small acts of awareness compound just like your investments. The more you track, the more intelligent your decisions become. I’ve seen people transform their financial life just by starting this one habit.

A simple weekly review turns waste into opportunity, stress into confidence, and uncertainty into freedom. Tracking every dollar is not about fear or deprivation. It’s about empowerment. It tells your money where to go instead of asking, where did it go? The moment you take control of your money through awareness, you step into the mindset of the 3%, the mindset of the wealthy, disciplined, and intentional. When you track every dollar, you not only see your finances clearly, you see your values, your habits, and your priorities.

Awareness is power. Start today and watch how this one habit begins to shape your financial future. Let me ask you something. How many of you have felt like no matter how much you earn, it’s never enough? You get a raise, a bonus, or even a windfall and somehow it disappears as fast as it came. That’s the trap most people fall into.

They let their lifestyle dictate their income instead of the other way around. I learned early in my life that if you can’t live on 90 % of your income, you can’t live on 900 % either. It’s not about how much money you make. It’s about how much control you have over it. Wealth begins when you take command of your lifestyle before it starts controlling you. I remember when I first started my career, I earned very little, but I had dreams of wealth.

And yet I saw friends who earned more than I did, living paycheck to paycheck, trapped in debt and impulse purchases. They thought money alone would solve the problem. But the truth is discipline is what builds wealth. Money without discipline is just a mirage. It vanishes under the weight of habits that go unchecked. I knew I had to live differently.

I had to adopt a rule. Spend less than I earn and save the rest. The strategy is simple but profound. Divide your income in a way that serves your future. I like this formula. 70 % for living expenses, 10 % for learning, 10 % for investing, and 10 % for giving.

Why this division? Because life isn’t just about money. It’s about growth, contribution, and building assets that work for you. The 70 % is enough to cover your needs and keep life comfortable, but it forces you to be intentional. Emotional spending, the kind that makes you feel good for a moment, but leaves your finances empty, has no place here. You learn to differentiate between wants and needs, between instant gratification and long -term growth.

I remember when I wanted a new car early in my career, I could have stretched, borrowed and spent, but instead I chose discipline. I delayed that pleasure and invested in myself instead, books, seminars, mentorship. That small act of delayed gratification created leverage that paid dividends far beyond any car I might have bought. And here’s the key, the rich by leverage, the poor by luxury. If you spend every dollar on luxury now, You rob your future of the tools and assets that can make you wealthy. But if you live below your means and invest the difference, your money begins to work for you.

Practical steps are straightforward, but require consistency. Automate this allocation if you can. Let 70 % cover your living. 10 % flow into knowledge that sharpens your skills, 10 % into assets that grow independently of your labor, and 10 % into giving that expands your perspective and influence.

Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show, but this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi -million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you and they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U .

S.

Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zillner. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. 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.

See it’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the Fox Squad, I’m alive. So if you see my wife and kids, please, it’s the CNC up on your radio. And now. Okay, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we’re gonna talk about tracking. You see anywhere, anywhere, any place in your life where you’re not tracking, you shall be slacking.

Yes, folks, whatever you measure is what you treasure. Come on, folks. Whatever you measure is what you treasure. Let me give you an example. Let me give you an example. As a statement of fact, less than 1 % of the people that watch this show ever subscribe.

Did you know? Yes.

Less than 1 % of people that watch this show ever subscribe.

Huh? How do I know that? Well, because I look at the number of subscribers and I see roughly, we’ll call it 300 ,000 subscribers between all platforms. And I look at the number of views and you see millions and you do the math and you go, wow, less than 1 % of the people that watch the show subscribe. Yes. So I would just say, if you’re watching the show, it would mean the world to me.

It’d be exciting. If you would click subscribe and do the whole subscribe and share thing. Um, but if you don’t, That’s okay too, but I do track because I measure what I treasure and I do track, otherwise I know I’m going to slack. And I think a lot of folks watching this show right now, you want to become financially independent. You want to improve your net worth. You want to become financially successful.

Yes. However, you are not measuring what you treasure, and therefore, you are slacking where you’re not tracking. And here to talk about it is the man, the myth, the legend, a guy we’ve seen grow his business from one location to now 11 locations. We have worked with this man. We have watched him execute his plan. It’s been an awesome joy seeing this man transform his dream into reality.

The man, the myth, the legend, Gabe Salinas. Welcome on to The Thrive Time Show.

How are you, sir? I’m wonderful, Clay.

Thanks for having me today, man.

First question I have here for you, is it shocking to you that When I look at my weekly tracking and I look at our tracking sheet, less than 1 % of people

that watch a podcast subscribe.

Nah, that doesn’t surprise me. It doesn’t surprise me either. You know, because I look at the numbers all the time. I mean, maybe somebody’s hearing that and it seems shocking. But again, I know that less than 1 % of the people that watch this show click subscribe because I track the numbers.

And therefore, I can say, please click the subscribe button.

Please, please. I could do that. I could ask for people to subscribe. But I track and I know the results. Is it shocking to you, Gabe, that 98 % of the people interviewed by the late, great author Napoleon Hill, 98 % of people interviewed by Napoleon Hill said they were not happy with their lives?

Is that shocking to you, Gabe, that 98 % of people told Napoleon Hill when he was writing Think and Grow Rich that they were not happy with the way that their lives were going? It is pretty shocking.

I’m shocked that it’s not 99%.

That’s, you’re an entrepreneur, so you get it.

Is it shocking to you that according to Inc Magazine, Gabe, that 96 % of businesses fail by default?

No, makes sense to me. So I want to ask you this. If everybody watching this show, if I were to tell everybody watching this show, in order to become successful in any area of your life, you have to measure what you treasure. I know that you measure what you treasure. Why is it that most people by default do not measure what they treasure, Gabe? What is that?

What is it within the deep human psyche?

What causes wonderful, smart, intelligent, otherwise kind, great people to not track? I think it’s two things. I think one, I think there’s a lot of people that think they’re ostriches. They always like to put their head in the sand. But man, reality is like most people don’t like doing the extra work. It’s just too much for them to do.

So if you have to go look at your numbers, review your numbers, make sure the numbers are accurate. And then once you verify that they’re accurate and say, hmm, hey, I was up 10 % this week. It’s kind of hard, right? Or they’re saying, well, dang, I’m not happy that I looked at my numbers because I’m actually down 20 % this week or this month or this year. You know, they’re just burying their head in the sand again.

So, I mean, yeah, it’s not surprising to me, man. People are afraid of finding those bad numbers.

You ever notice that? I’m going to pull up your website real quick, and then I want to ask Jackie a question here. So Jackie works in our office, does a phenomenal job, great teammate. And he asked me the other day, he said, Clay, tell me some financial management moves or something to the effect of that. I’m butchering the question. But personal finance 101, let’s get into it.

And I thought, you know what? I got to do a rendezvous with you, because you are great at the numbers.

So windowninjas .

com. Do you remember, Gabe, when you first started windowninjas .

com, approximately where you were?

Did you hit your head on a toilet seat?

Or what happened?

What happened? Yeah, I remember. I remember it was like yesterday, man. I mean, this road has been an awesome road to be on. But yeah, I was with a terrible franchise company, and I was tired of waking up every single day with my hair on fire because they didn’t have systems and processes and everything. It was like, let’s see what the wind blows today. And man, when I just was done, I was done.

And I was like, you know what? I know what not to do. So that’s the direction I went. And then I met with you. And you calmed some of my nerves from some of the things that I didn’t know. And I mean, yeah, man, I was like, well, hey, this is this is good.

I’m just going to keep on rocking and rolling and we’re going to be successful. And yeah, we’re going to have system and processes and everything’s going to be great.

You know, it’s going to be on auto drive at some point.

So you got 11 locations now.

Why is it that you track the numbers at least on a weekly basis for each location?

Why do you do that? Well, there’s a lot. I mean, there’s a lot of different reasons.

But I mean, like, here’s a good example.

I was talking to our director of sales today. And, you know, I just told him, I said, hey, man, you got to you got to I want you to look at these numbers with me every single week. I said, and then what I want you to do is I want you to take these numbers and I want you to go out and call each and every one of our franchises. And I want you to discuss those numbers with them. I want you to figure out or understand why pictures are important every single day.

All of these franchises got to send us 10 pictures every single day. They got to get a review every single day. Every single one of the franchises, every day. Track those numbers, right? Go to my tracking sheet. He’s like, pulls it up.

He looks at it, sees the numbers. He’s like, okay, yeah. He’s like, yeah, now some of these guys are okay.

And some of these guys are not so okay.

Like, yeah. It’s like, so now he has those numbers that I’ve been tracking. He understands what they are. He sees them all. And he’s like, well, I know exactly what meeting I need to have with these franchises every single week. Good.

You know what to talk to him about? Absolutely. These four things. Cool. So we’ll get videos, we’ll get reviews, we’ll get video testimonials, we’ll get Google reviews.

I mean, those are the four main things that we need, you know, every single day. And so now he’s like, well, that’s easy. If you’re not tracking those numbers, you don’t know if you’re up or you’re down. So I want to get your thoughts on this, Jackie, because you’re asking, you’re asking me about financial management.

Okay.

So, uh, this guy, uh, one wonderful guest we have today, you know, Gabe, he runs 11 locations.

He does it well, but at one point he was a, uh, starting his process.

So what question would you have for Gabe or questions we have for Gabe about financial management? Let’s see. What questions we have about financial management? Whenever you get your paycheck, is there a certain amount you allocate towards like certain like bills or like investing or anything? That’s more of a Melissa question, but yeah. when – so yeah, Melissa knows that she has to delegate a certain amount of money towards taxes.

She has to delegate a certain amount of money. And see, I don’t really – we get paychecks, and then we get draws as well. So we get these profit checks, but I still get a paycheck.

And so that’s the way our corporation is set up.

Now, fortunately for us on our company side, the company pays taxes, you know, so I get my taxes taken out just like everybody else. It’s a, it’s just a regular employee. But on these, um, our profit checks, we don’t get taxes taken out, but she has to know exactly how, what percentage that she needs to hold back so that at the end of the year when the tax man says, Hey, We got to figure out how much money you made this year. She already has either paid estimated taxes or paid estimated tax and already has the other cash on hand so that she knows exactly what our tax liability is going to be. And in my wife’s case, she has a reoccurring appointment booked with CCK. That’s our accounting company.

And so she looks at it every month. So it’s we’re never drifting. But when I started DJ Connection, I literally had my calendar full of Every single week. And every single week I would look at the numbers. Here’s my sales. Here are my expenses.

Make sure we’re good to go. And then once it grew, you know, 10 employees, 20 employees, 30 employees, 40 employees, 50s, at a certain point we go, okay, let’s have an accounting firm that we meet with weekly. And then I hired a full -time person to do that. But what question do you have, Jackie?

Because most people don’t ask these questions or even think these thoughts.

And so you’re, you’re doing a great job.

Any other questions that you have for myself or Gabe as it relates to financial management?

I’m ready. What do you got? So what? For people who are too scared to track their numbers, what would you say the benefit is of tracking those numbers? I’ll go first and I’ll let Gabe go second. When you track your numbers, it lets you look at the reality.

So as an example right now, if you’re watching this right now, I’m saying to you directly, hey, I know you’re watching this show right now. and I know that less than 1 % of the people watching this broadcast, on average, subscribe. How do I know that? Because I track the numbers. And I look at how many views we have, and I look at how many subscribers, and I know that less than 1 % of the people watching this subscribe. So because I track the numbers, I could say with great enthusiasm, please click the subscribe button.

That would greatly help this broadcast reach more people. And it might not be a pleasant thing, for me to confront the reality that less than 1 % of the people watching this show subscribe. It might not feel positive to say that, but it is in fact a fact.

And I think most people tend to avoid that which is difficult to confront.

That is what I think. I think most people just don’t want, because it could be depressing when you go, only 1 % of the people that watch this show even subscribe. people hate me or you could I don’t know exactly the reaction but Gabe you have 11 locations now and each franchisee joins your location at a different level of maturity as an entrepreneur and some of them are excited about tracking when they start and some of them you have to kind of coach them into that mindset. Why do you think that a lot of people by default are hesitant to track their numbers? I just don’t think they want the reality. I mean You know, I mean, if you wake up one day and you say, well, I’m going to check my check my numbers.

OK, great.

What did we do yesterday in sales? And you got a big fat goose egg. You’re going to like, oh, my gosh. Right.

Where somebody like myself and probably you too, Clay, if we look at those numbers, say, how do we have zero in sales?

We’ve got like all these people running around here. Like I’ve got a big payroll. So how did we do no business today? Right. Or, hey, maybe you were like, hey, here’s a good example. Me and CJ were looking over some numbers today.

We’re looking over our leads for the week, every single week. Same thing. Typically, we do it on Monday. Today’s Wednesday, but I was on vacation, so I’m two days behind. So I’m sitting there saying, CJ, OK, great.

Look, man, are we up or are we down?

You guys have good close rates. What were the total amount of leads, new customers that came in last year this same week? I was like, those are some better numbers to show me, right? If you had 50 new leads come in this week, and same week last year, you had 100, that’s the reality. I’m gonna flip it for a second to maybe give you a better answer, Jackie, because I wanna make sure that you get this stuck in your brain, your cranium for the rest of your life. Jackie, do you know why I don’t?

track the price of gold every day although i do buy gold all the time like why do i why do i personally buy gold but not look at the numbers every day because eventually it’s going to go up keep going and every every day the price is going to fluctuate yeah i don’t want to know like i don’t want to know all i know let me just show you a little i’m looking it up you could look it up too on google i started buying and by the way 1971 i was negative nine years old okay so the price of gold Okay, of gold per ounce in 1971 was $44 an ounce. I wasn’t I wasn’t on the earth yet. Okay, so I started buying gold in 2005. Okay, so I bought gold 2005. I started buying gold price of gold per ounce. It was 450 bucks an ounce ish.

And then we go into 2015 2015. And it is $1200 an ounce. And then we go into 2025. And it’s $4300 an ounce.

And then we go into 2026.

But I don’t look at it every day. Because I don’t want to know So in the reverse reason why I track every day in the business, I don’t track the price of gold every day. Does that make any sense? Yes. Because if I know the number, it’s going to cause me to go, well, I think I should buy more. I should buy less.

The price went down. I should buy more. I should buy the dip. Oh no, the price is going down. What should I do? So it’s important that you only measure what you treasure, if that makes any sense.

You only want to look at the numbers if there’s something you can do with it as a result.

Let’s focus on elephant in the room real quick.

This is our haircut chain, so Gabe can pick on me.

Gabe, if you were going to get your hair cut at a men’s grooming lounge, how low of a rating would you put up with before you’d peace out? Like if a business had, you know, let’s say a 4 .9 out of five stars or a 4 .8 or 4 .2 or a 4 .3 or a 3 .1 or how low of a star rating would you go to, to a business for the first time if you said, you know what, I’m looking for a hair place to get my hair cut.

Would you go to a place that had a 1 .2 rating overall or a 0 .8 or a 2 .1 or how low would you go?

4 .5 would be my low.

Jackie, what about you?

Would you, if you’re going to take, you know, let’s say your girlfriend on a date, you’re going to take her to a 2 .2.

Like what’s the lowest score that you would take somebody on a date to what’s the lowest rating? Probably like 4 .5, 4 .7. You wouldn’t take her to a, you wouldn’t take her to a 2 .3? No, definitely not. See, that’s interesting. So all I’m just saying is that I have to look at that number.

Cause that number does impact me. So I do look at this number every day, and I obsessively ask our customers to leave us objective reviews after we wow them. Let me do one more example. Charles Koloff, you do a search for here, folks, for Topeka Gyms, a longtime client of mine, great guy. Look at this guy. If you type in Topeka Gyms, he’s got 12 ,000 reviews, his closest competitor coming in at a close second with 462 reviews, all right?

So Charles is on it. Now, why is he on that number? He’s on that number because that number impacts his in Joplin, Missouri. He has 13 ,000 reviews. His closest competitor has 177. Come on, you know.

So, I mean, it’s a thing where like he he’s on that number every single day because that impacts his life. So final question I have here for you, Gabe, is I think it’s important that everybody watching this show right now, you figure out the numbers that you need to know and you put that on a daily spreadsheet and you look at it. So for somebody out there watching this, it’s your weight. You want to lose 20 pounds this year, 40 pounds, one pound, whatever. I’m telling you, one of the most physically fit guys I know, he literally tracks every meal he eats. and what he weighs every day.

And this guy is jacked. Why? Because he obsesses on it. Is it mentally healthy to obsess on what you eat every single day? I don’t know, but he does and he is jacked. right?

So if you’re going to be jacked, then it’s going to cause you not to want to have snacks because you’re going to be tracking that thing, your caloric intake, right? Now, if you’re focused on growing your company, perhaps it’s gathering objective Google reviews. If you’re focused on becoming smarter, track how many minutes per day you read books or whatever it is, but you’ve got to measure what you treasure.

Gabe, what do you say to somebody out there who’s like Jackie, And they’re fired up, man.

They’re taking life by the horns, and they’re just doing it. And they’re just going, hey, teach me, wise business guy. What kind of numbers should a young man like Jackie be tracking on a daily basis? What do you think? Well, I’m assuming Jackie does not own a business, and so he’s probably working very diligently for you. So I would probably think that Jackie would be tracking how much money you’re paying him every single week, if he’s Ubering on the side or something, how much that’s producing for him.

I would also be trying to figure out how much my rent is so I know how much money I got to put away each week, how much food I like to eat. Maybe he likes to drink a couple beers on a Friday night.

How much of those beers? I would expect him to be very diligent in tracking his expenses and his income so that he can make sure that he’s saving the right amount of money. He is putting enough money away for taxes. and he is putting enough money away for those couple of beers that he likes to have each week.

and you buy real estate with that. I recommend you take a quarter of your income and you buy real estate. I recommend you do that. I recommend everyone out there does that. Maybe you don’t agree. That’s fine.

I recommend you do that. Now, someone else says, maybe I want to take 10 % and do real estate. But you have to have a set number of your money. that you earn that you put into investment vehicles, whether that be real estate, whether that be precious metals, whatever that is. But you have to have a set number. I recommend from my personal life, I take a quarter of what I earn, I put it into real estate.

I take a quarter of what I earn, I put it into gold and silver. And that’s what I do. You don’t have to do that, though. You can do something else. But again, You’re watching this show, and you want an opportunity to own your own business, windowninjas . com.

It’s a brand that’s heavily refined.

It’s very systemized. It works. Gabe, how much money does it cost if somebody watching today’s show wants to buy a windowninjas . com franchise? How much money does it cost to buy a windowninjas . com franchise, sir?

Franchise fee is $59 ,500, Clay. That gets you the system, all of us, our support, all of that good stuff.

But then you got to buy your truck and your equipment and things of that nature.

Man, we’re looking, guys are spending anywhere between $150 ,000, $175 ,000, all in, all new equipment, all set, ready to go in their backyard. Marketing spend, everything. Man, it’s turnkey. It’s ready to rock and roll. They can produce millions.

You look terrific.

You sound terrific.

His business is terrific, folks.

That’s Gabe Salinas.

It’s windowninjas .

com, windowninjas . com.

Gabe, I really do appreciate you, and we’ll talk to you next week.

Sounds good, Clay. Thanks. Bye -bye. Hello, my name is Leah Calvert, and I’m with 918 Design Company. We are a screen printing, embroidery, and laser engraving company. We have been a client for

for just over a year and a half. In the first year, 2021, that we were a client, they helped us grow the business 96%. And then this past year, in 2022, they helped us grow the business an additional 67%. Can’t say enough about Clay and his team. They’re absolutely amazing. And we’ve been very, very happy with them.

He’s very proactive. He’s very intuitive.

He anticipates problems and has had me set up processes and systems to deal with those problems before they even arise. It’s just been an overall great experience.

We’re thankful that they work with us.

You just can’t thank them enough for all the work that, you know, that they’ve done on our company. I would recommend them to absolutely anybody that wants to grow their business.

Thank you so much. As business owners and leaders of any organization, we all know now that these statistics have been proven true time and time again. that according to the U .

S.

Chamber of Commerce and CBS News World Reports, 75 % of employees are stealing from the workplace. And most are doing so repeatedly. Now you’re just focused on the facts.

Let’s not be so negative.

Be positive.

Okay. We know that 85 % of employees are lying on resumes, according to Inc. Magazine. You are just such a negative person. It’s just negativity everywhere.

Well, what happens when our employees are on the phone?

What?

With our customers?

Our potential customers?

No.

What are they saying?

You’re a scary man.

To our customers?

You’re a bad, bad, scary man. I don’t want to know what they’re saying on the phone.

I don’t get it!

Yes, this is Toby from Vacuums and More. Uh, I was wondering if I could – Hey, hey, listen, listen here. Before you get into your pitch, I just want you to know that – No, no, no, no, no.

This is – this is not a sales pitch. What? This is, uh, this is more than that, actually. Well, okay, it’s a sales pitch, but – Is this an air code caller? Who are you calling for?

I was calling for Mr. Gene Banks. Well, let me tell you the story of Mr. Gene Banks. He was a man who once answered this phone, and he kept calling too much, and I counted on his eyeball! And I buried him alive! Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does.

Two men.

Eight kids. Co -created by two different women. 2013 multi -million dollar businesses ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the thrive time show Today’s show we are interviewing an incredible source of wisdom and somebody who has improved my life and my business life by Z I would say at least a 40%. I was thinking more like 47%, but I, you know, I wouldn’t call you a liar for 40. I’m not going to exaggerate that this, I’m not going to say that this guest has doubled my happiness, but I’m saying, I’m not kidding.

And it’s definitely gone up at least 30 to 40%. And you know why Dr. Z? I don’t know why, tell me. She gives me peace of mind all the time. So an elephant in the room just this weekend, we had a wonderful customer who said, he said on the phone, he said, Hey, um, I am so sorry, um, that I showed up at the wrong location. but your call center rep told me to get my haircut downtown.

He said, I asked him if I could book my haircut downtown.

And he said, absolutely. And so I went downtown and then turns out he booked me at South Tulsa. And that is why I’m late. And I thought, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to check the recorded calls.

So I had John Kelly check the calls, and it turns out this particular customer was correct, and my call center rep was incorrect.

Then we had another person claim the same thing last week who was very irate. See? Very. 4 ,000 customers. Oh, yeah. And I pulled the tape, and our call center rep definitely said, sir, your haircut will definitely be at our South Tulsa location.

Here’s the address. And he went to the wrong location. So I didn’t have to do he said, she said. I just pulled the recorded calls.

Peace of mind. Heather, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, ma ‘am? Well, we are at least 17 % better now that you’re on the show right now. Now, you obviously are the Vice President of Franchise Accounts for Clarity Voice, ClarityVoice . com, who we shamelessly recommend on the show.

But can you tell the listeners, what is Clarity Voice, and how does Clarity Voice itself help entrepreneurs? Clarity Voice is a voiceover IP phone service and phone service provider. We’re built around helping businesses drive dollars to their bottom line through utilization of their phone system. So we really refer to ourselves as a true partner rather than a simple telecom or utility partner. So you view yourself more as a partnership.

I can say with Oxifresh, if you took Clarity Voice away from the good folks at Oxyfresh.

It’d be tough to manage a call center when you don’t know what’s being said.

Dr. Z, you don’t work for Clarity of Voice, but talk to me about this.

Have you ever called… Devin, I think we have a cat in the studio. We have a cat. We must wrestle the cat. Heather, we have a cat in the studio. We must be taken outside here.

But let’s talk about this for a second. With American Express, Dr. Z, when you call American Express, do they often say, for quality assurance, this call may be recorded?

Have you ever heard that message? Oh, absolutely. Why do they record their calls over at American Express?

Well, you gave a couple of great examples. One, if someone makes a mistake, it can be a coaching moment. Or two, maybe their team did make a mistake and they do need to make good to the customer. And so that’s one way you can verify that. Before you had this technology, it was always he said, she said. Nobody admitted to ever make a mistake.

Everybody was always correct. And it was always this kind of a cage fight of who’s right, who’s wrong. And you finally shrugged and go, Well, let’s just err on the side of the customer and eat whatever we need to eat or make them happy in whatever way we need to. Heather, I mean, Dr. Z and I see the benefits, but you work with so many more accounts that we could possibly speak to. What are a few ways that call recording can improve the lives of the business owners who listen to this show? Really great question.

So call recording is a very useful and powerful tool for many of our customers. We see it utilized for things as simple as what you’re talking about, like call coaching.

Even if you’re sitting right next to your employee, you can only hear one side of the conversation.

So call recording is really great from an employee coaching standpoint.

We also see it utilized when customers end up having some kind of dispute with their customers.

And so from that perspective, It’s really a great tool.

So kind of going back to what you’re originally saying, did they go to the right location or not?

So you know how to deal with any kind of customer dispute that comes up.

And one of the big things that’s a little bit different with our call recording is it records through the end of the conversation. So even if you have calls forwarding out to, let’s say, a cell phone or an answering service, at the end of the day, all of those calls are still recorded. So you can still hold your team accountable. You can still listen to those calls. You can still do employee coaching. And you can actually listen to your answering service calls That way, it really gives you as a business owner the full transparency into your business 24 -7, 365.

You know, Heather, I have found, and I’ll just, see, I cannot mention the specific names of the business owners that have benefited from this the most. I don’t have their permission, you know what I’m saying, Z? Sure, sure. But I’m going to mention a few.

Of course.

Shawhomes . com. This is now the largest home builder in Oklahoma. And I started working with them when they were doing $37 million a year of sales three years ago, three and a half years ago. Now they just passed $80 million of sales for the year. Wow.

And the moment they put in, and Heather, you might know how long they’ve been in account more than I would, but the moment they installed the calls, I installed Clarity Voice to listen to the calls. As soon as they could hear the calls, Aaron Antus and I, the sales manager, we sat down and listened to the calls. and Z, what we found blew his mind.

I mean, we had great salespeople that we didn’t realize how great they were, and then we had some people that were off the reservation. I mean, where you’re going, whoa. Heather, how often do business owners have an eye -opening conversation? epiphany when they realize, I mean, is it common for people to realize that they are literally leaving thousands of dollars on the table on a daily basis or a weekly basis?

Yeah. So one of the things that we really stress to the business owners that we work with is to take a step back and work on their business versus working in their business, which means that they need to do things like listen to their call recordings. Because again, it goes back to, they don’t hear both sides of the conversation, even if they’re sitting right there. They don’t know what’s happening when they’re not in the office. They don’t know what’s happening when they have a salesperson who’s on the road all the time. And so by taking that time to really listen to those call recordings, it gives them an opportunity to really hear what’s happening, the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything in between.

The stories that we hear about the way that these call recordings can impact their business is amazing, and a lot of them have made very tough decisions for their business based upon what’s happening on these calls.

Yes, you can improve your employee coaching and things like that, but it really has an immediate impact if you can just take that time and listen to those calls.

It makes an immediate impact on customer service, closing rates, And all of those things drive dollars to the bottom line because you have happier customers.

Heather, would you address the legality of doing this? Because that’s one of the pushbacks I hear from business owners.

Well, it’s just not legal. I mean and maybe it’s like what what so would you address that?

I know I know state by state has different laws I assume right and so you probably know them all I would imagine sure so every state does have a law around a requirement for notification of call recordings and It might be one party notification.

It might be both parties have to be notified.

One of the things that I strongly recommend to all of our customers, especially if they’re going to be using this for employee coaching, is that they immediately notify their team that every call will now be recorded.

And really tout it as a benefit, right? It improves them as an employee when you do so. So you don’t make them nervous. But if there is a state where it has to be a two -party notification, then we simply can just turn on that this call may be recorded recording that we have on file and simply help from that standpoint. Sure. Z, how long does somebody have to be deceased before you’re allowed to reference them in a comedic way?

And not in a disparaging way, but a comedic way. A comedic way is different than a disparaging way. Well, because comedy can be disparaging. But I just want to know, what is your statute of comedic limitations in your mind?

I would say death.

Was there dismemberment in the death? If somebody died in 2019, can I share a funny story about them?

I was gonna say six months, so it depends on when it was in 2019.

Everybody could look this up real quick. Look up the name Oral Roberts. Oral Roberts famously started Oral Roberts University.

And in 1918, he was born, January 24th, and he was a very busy man. See, there’s a lot of people who are very, very busy people. You know, very busy, busy, busy, busy. And back in the day, we didn’t have a cell phone or a smartphone, right?

So after he passed away, they put his house up for sale.

and I ran a company called fears in Clark Z the real estate company with Braxton yes and we got a call from somebody who wanted us to list the property.

Now he had a beautiful home located behind the university, see?

Swanky.

So we’re getting a tour.

Have you ever been into the house?

Have you ever seen it?

No, but I’ve got a funny story also about the house, but he was living out in California at this time, late in his life.

He still owned the property.

He still owned the property, you’re right.

So I was asked to look at listing the property.

So I went to the house and there were two things in the house that blew my mind, like super funny.

One, there was the longest, most narrow hallway I’ve ever seen, almost like an airport, where you’re like, why is, you know, airports have these massive hallways. It’s like, this is the longest, I mean, it was a hallway as long as some people’s house. And I thought, wow. It must go someplace special.

Well anyway, so we get into the restroom and we’re doing a tour of his house and I look at, I open up the restroom and there’s a restroom, see there’s a toilet there.

That’s good.

And there are phones, two phones next to the toilet. Two? Two.

One on each side.

That’s impressive. And I thought to myself, under what scenario I know he’s a very busy televangelist, but in what scenario are you going to answer one phone and say, um, Bobby, uh, and you can hear the echo. You can hear all the, I mean, you know, you can tell if someone’s in the bathroom.

Sure. And this is the great thing about clarity. I mean, you can hear all the background noise, all this, and you can definitely hear, I mean, his bathroom definitely had some tile going on the porcelain palace. What scenario do you answer that call? Do you take the call? Is it that important?

With your right hand. So nature’s calling with your non -hand.

You’re answering the phone with your right hand.

And then with your left hand, you say, Carl, I got to put you on hold.

Greg’s on the line.

Yeah, I got it.

I got to answer this.

I got another call coming in.

What?

I want to ask you this, Heather, because you are the phone wizard. I have seen this, unfortunately, with the mobile sales reps when we have sat down with business owners to help them sales coach. They’ll tell their mobile sales reps, guys, we’re now recording the phone calls even if you’re on your smartphone, okay? So be aware. And there’s a lot of guys that wear that Apple headphone thing into the bathroom thinking that nobody knows that they’re in the bathroom.

I mean, Heather, have you ever heard of stories like this? I mean, some of the calls I’ve heard are crazy. Oh, it happened to us with customers. Oh, no. No.

Yes. Yeah, so I’m very well aware. It’s such an awkward conversation because when you’re in the bathroom and let’s say you can control the sounds that you make, The guy next to you maybe isn’t observing those. I’m being serious. It happens a lot.

So talk to me about this.

Once somebody tells their team, I just want to make this very actionable. And Devin, I want to put the notes on here. So step one, let’s say you install Clarity Voice or some sort of call recording system. Step two, I’m tracking, you tell your team that you’re going to be recording the calls for quality assurance. Step three, how do you break it down to your team? Like, hey guys, you know, let’s not be, you know, calling in the middle of the night.

bathroom, or let’s not be calling when the kids are in the background. I mean, do you ever have those kind of calls? And how do we have those kind of coaching calls?

Yeah, so part of my role here actually with Clarity is I actually coach and train all of our account management team, ongoing training as well.

So one of the things that, you know, we tell them right out of the gate is, yes, it’s really nice that you have a mobile app and you can have simultaneous ring. So regardless of where you are, you can take those calls, but just be observant of those areas of where you’re taking the calls. You know, if you’re in the restroom, if you’re in a loud restaurant, if you’re out shopping. if there are certain situations where you shouldn’t really be answering a call, it’s okay to let that call go to voicemail at certain times. And so that’s really one of the things that I really talk to my team about is to just be aware of where you’re taking those calls, even though you’ve got these great mobile options, Sometimes it’s okay to just leave your phone on your desk and take care of some business first. Now, I have a success story.

I’m not going to share the name of this business, but I’m just going to tell the listeners out there. This was a business that does some kind of repairs.

They do some repairs, and we put the call recording on, and we found out that the business owner, he had family working for him.

So the call goes like this. Thank you for calling Yada Yada, how can I help you?” And the potential customer says, yeah, I want to know what are your prices on the Yada Yada service? And this person’s mother was saying this. They’ll just kind of get my mother. Oh, there we go.

That helps us. Robert’s in the restroom right now. Well, Robert, you know, he’s out of town right now. So you’ll have to call back. And this is what they were doing to virtually every calling. He’s out of town right now.

You’ll have to call him back.

They were just like repelling business. Oh, yeah. So they replaced him with somebody else. And this guy told the customers that all the pricing was clearly stated on the website. People would say the reason why I’m calling is because I cannot Find it on the website. He would say well, you just kind of need to go up there, you know And you know call back if you can’t find it and that reminds me a lot of yesterday I went to a big -box retail store and I asked for pillow covers and the lady told me it’s in the pillow cover section, which is logical Where else would you expect to find in those seriously, I mean, so is that a shocker con?

This is what I have found it. I was these are my stats that I keep If I coach a business owner and they’re doing an average of $1 million of gross revenue per year, I have found that they are repelling $100 ,000 a year per year by doing a poor job on the phone minimum. That’s just the minimum. Many of the clients have doubled in revenue. Do you have any kind of stats that you guys keep?

Because you have thousands of accounts, and I only have a couple hundred clients I work with, but talk to me about this. How much money is the average business owner leaving on the table as maybe a percentage? How much money is bad customer service and bad sales really costing us? Well, we don’t have the actual stats. It’s not something that we are able to easily gather. And the reason being is that we work in a lot of different verticals.

For example, let’s say for home services, right?

You get a busy signal, or they’re not listening to those calls for coaching improvement.

There’s a lot of dollars that are left on the table. But that industry is industry -specific, where if we go into another industry, The way that they handle missed calls and call recording and coaching is completely different. So for us, it’s a little bit all over the board because we’re not industry specific.

Industry to industry, those numbers are going to be very, very different. But I can tell you that the more that a business owner spend time focused on their business and working in their business or working on their business versus in their business, they’re going to see that bottom line impact. And for some of our specific customers, I’m thinking of one overall, one of the tools that they’ve used of our system is, yes, call recording is a really big piece of it. But the other piece of it that he used was with our missed call notifications. So with a missed call notification as a call is coming into a business, if there’s a missed for any reason, your staff is busy.

The person hung up before a live answer.

You can get an immediate email and a text message notification. Well, that franchisee, specifically that business owner, would pick up the phone and started calling back every one of those missed calls. And in a year had closed almost 60 % of those missed calls. Oh, yes. Come on now. For a cosmetic surgeon in town, we’ve started making calls.

And it is amazing how many appointments we’re booking. Now, Z, do you remember back in the day when you got your phone system installed before clarity voice.

Do you remember back in the day?

Oh, yeah.

Well, first off, you you call you call a company that is some sort of phone installation company.

And this is the kind that they show up with a team.

There is usually a tech. There’s like an engineer guy. Oh, yeah. And he would start talking to you about words that I wasn’t aware of, like now, you know, sir, you want a T one?

And are you wanting to have a router set up?

But you have a server and you have a integrated redundant, whatever. And then you firewall, firewall, you have a firewall. And it’s like, do you want to lease the system, sir? or pay out right and you’re like oh pay out right i’ll tell you that i’m no i’m no fool i’m not gonna pay out i’m not gonna i’m not used to your little scams and then you sit down and you talk to the guy and i remember this for djconnection .

com back in the day when i still owned it i got a quote for 70 $70 ,000 and I had a machine about the size of a refrigerator.

They came over to install well for 70 grand It’s got to be big and this is this is the sound of them installing it It’s just like there’s a whole team of people you record that back There’s working on it. There’s like a whole team like a crack squad of Geniuses it might sound like they’re repairing a car, but that’s really not what’s happening.

No of course. They’re installing the recording system And you’re, I mean for days, you can actually buy a pretty nice car for 70 grand, especially back then. I mean, think about it. And for days, your phone system is down. You know, you can’t, people can’t be calling you, you can’t be calling them. And you’re going, what are they doing?

And then, you know, day two, you’re still. doing? They’re still working day two. They’re still and then they’re now they’re polishing it out. They’re finishing up. They’re changing the shocks and the struts on the call center.

Oh, yeah. It rides better.

I mean, it answers better that way. Then you have a guy who all of a sudden you notice that the building is stopped and he says, I’d like to schedule an onboarding program to teach you how the system works. And then, you get a manual that makes VCR manuals look interesting, or the manuals for a Ford Escort look interesting. You’re like, I’m so bored after reading this thing, I need to go back and read my Ford Escort manual that I’ve never read. You never read it? You know what I mean, Z, though.

Now, it cost a ton of money. It cost a bunch of time. and it had very limited features. I want to get into this whole thing here. What does it cost? Is it $50 ,000 to set up a system?

Back in the day, it’s $1 ,000 per phone and then $50 ,000 one time to set up. I paid like $1 ,500 a month every month to use this phone system.

How much are we talking?

Yeah, so for every business that is a little bit different, because we don’t have a one -size -fits -all phone system or phone service.

We really tailor it to the specific needs of each business and each business owner that we work with.

So one of the great things with Clarity Voice is that we have a dedicated account manager who works directly with small to medium -sized business owners to really hone in on what they really need at their locations. And realistically, it can be hundreds to, I mean, yes, you could spend thousands on a new phone system with us as well, depending on the size of your business and depending, again, on if you want to purchase a new phone system versus we do have a rental program as well, which I know a lot of people do kind of do the same thing you did.

No, let’s not go that route. But from that perspective, we’re looking at it’s not going to break the bank. We work with business owners to really put the best plan in place and really determine, is it going to be a purchase? Is it going to be a rental program? The timing, right? Right now, we’re coming up to the end of the year.

some business owners who have extra dollars that they want to spend, and some are planning for 2020. And it’s all about us working with you to tailor the service in the system and really design it around what your needs are. Because you can add on additional services with us very, very quickly in the future, we don’t need to think about what does our business look like in six months.

As your needs change, you simply just call us back and we continue to grow with you and change with you. Now your phone system here, and Z, do you mind if I break down some hard facts?

Yeah, I would really appreciate you breaking down some hard facts.

So this comes to us via JP Morgan Chase.

And these guys said that 88 % of employer firms have fewer than 20 employees.

employees.

Z, do you buy that or do you find, are you saying, ah, JPMorgan Chase. I mean, you know, Z, you’re involved in Regent Bank, you own 10 % of a bank.

I mean, do you even believe the statistics from JPMorgan Chase, a competitor like them?

For the purposes of the show, let’s just go with it, okay?

So let’s talk about that for a second then.

88 % of employers have less than 20 employees.

So let’s just, let’s go with the idea that I’m listening right now and I have five phone lines I need. five phone lines for my business that has 20 employees, okay?

I’m a plumber, I’m a doctor, I’m a dentist, I’m somebody with 20 employees or less.

You’ve got a lot of degrees.

You’re a doctor, plumber, and a dentist. That’s impressive. I’m a polymath. Wow. That’s just impressive. I watch a lot of YouTube videos.

The point is, as a polymath, and I’m also inventing the Franklin stove part two.

Wow. And bifocals part two. Wow. And Transformers 67 and Star Wars part 10. Can I get a picture with you? Can I do something with you?

Less than 20 employees.

Wow. I’m like the Chuck Norris of business. So let’s talk about this. For five phone lines, how much do you charge per phone line, roughly, just to give the listeners some idea? Because a lot of times when I talk to people about you guys, specifically Purcell, Stacey Purcell, she reached out to me and she said, what is it going to cost? Because the cost is so much for people.

It’s just a huge number.

Just give us some sort of ballpark. The great thing is that we aren’t an add -on to their business. In most cases, except for a new business, they already have phone service in place. If we’re looking at somebody who’s got, let’s say, five phones or extensions, they’re going to be spending roughly $200 a month, give or take, plus taxes. And really, again, it’s all about we just design it out to what the business owner needs.

So you’re looking at probably $200 -ish a month.

And to get started, again, it could be as low as a couple hundred dollars if they determine they want to go with our rental program, up to probably a little over $1 ,000 if they determine that they wanted to purchase. How much per phone is it, roughly, purchased for the phone itself, the physical phone?

Yeah, great question.

So with our system, we have, I couldn’t even tell you how many phone options across the board, because we really want to maximize the usability of our system.

And so again, we’re matching the equipment to what the actual business owner needs.

And so the phones can range anywhere from, you know, we’ve got some free, like, entry -level phones that would be great for things like a break room, you know, a lunch room, things like that, all the way up to, you know, some of our conference

room phones are $600, $700 and everything in between.

But on average for a desk phone, you know, we’re looking at probably anywhere from $160 to $200 per phone if they purchase. Heather, are there any phone systems that a fella could have or a gal could have that you would say, we can’t add on to that system or you can add on to any system?

So we’re, we’re, We actually would come in and replace whatever they do have today. Whether they have some analog -based phone system or just an analog phone service like an old AT &T or something similar, we would come in and replace that phone service provider with our phone system and our phone service.

If they have another VoIP provider, we would come in and replace that VoIP provider as well.

Sometimes we can reprogram the equipment.

Sometimes they have to buy new equipment. We do sell and support Polycom Equipment, which is the leading voice over IP equipment on the market.

Do you have any rotary dial phones?

Oh, nice.

I mean, can I do a rotary dial option? Maybe hanging on my grandpa’s wall at his house.

Could I get that?

He wouldn’t mind, would he?

Probably not. Oh, man.

Sometimes retro’s in, Clay.

Retro’s in.

Retro’s in.

Am I?

Yeah.

Let me cue this up real quick.

This is great.

This is great audio here.

Let me get this.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, look at that. Just listen to that.

Oh, yeah. Oh, love it. I tell you what, folks, if you’re out there and you’re wanting to use retro technology that does not improve your sales team, do not call Clarity Voice.

If you have that old school tech where you don’t know what’s going on and you can just hit that rotary dial.

Yeah, if you don’t have any, if you don’t, let me cue it up here.

The good old days.

Here’s a collection of telephone sounds of the 1970s.

Oh!

Here we go.

This is just a small sampling, but it does…

Here we go.

Yeah, this is not Clarity, boys.

They don’t have this. Oh. This is not good.

So if you want this, don’t call Heather.

Is that what you’re saying?

Yeah, I mean, this is, let me try a different one. This is, this is, I think, more what we’re looking for. This is, uh, Clarity doesn’t do this. I want this rotary dial. Let me try this. Give that action, come on.

They don’t do that.

That one, the phone with the red, the red phone that Commissioner Gordon had.

Oh, yeah.

Hit the button.

Oh, yeah.

They don’t…

There we go.

Oh, just turn it up.

Oh, I can’t get that loud enough. Oh, that takes me back to my my youth, my youth.

There we go.

Sit in bed.

You sit in bed.

You got that girl at school that you want to call.

And then you get about you get about six numbers into it. And you hang up, you get scared, you know.

So then you go deep breath again.

You pick back up that phone.

You go this time.

I’m gonna let it ring. right here waiting for you. Oh yeah. Because you had the high -speed dubbing technology. Oh yeah. And you were dating a girl named Amanda.

Yeah. Or Ashley. Someone with bangs. Huge bangs. Huge. Huge bangs.

The bigger the better. And they had massive bangs and they had a jean jacket.

You loved the jean jacket. Who didn’t? And they had buttons on it that would have like the Milli Vanilli on it.

Oh yeah.

And you’re like, crap, where’s my Paula Abdul?

I can’t find it.

Crap, where’s my Richard?

And you found the Richard Marks.

It didn’t work. The tape no longer worked.

So you’d have to record the FM.

The radio station would be playing Richard Marks and you would time it because you wanted to hit record as soon as the song started like I’m doing right now.

So song cues up and then you call back using your rotary phone that Clarity cannot provide you. No, they can’t. So you’d call and you would… then she’s so sweaty you miss a number you gotta go yeah I got to start over and then she would say hello this is this is Amanda this is Amanda and you’re like girl the song goes out to you and you get that play in the background her dad’s like What are you talking to? And then you’d hang up the phone and you’d look to your buddy Mark or John. Everyone’s name was Mark and John.

They were encouraging you.

They were like, dude, you gotta call back.

Come on, man.

And then you’re like, dude, we gotta wait till our dad goes down.

She’s got the biggest bangs in school.

Come on, man.

So now it’s like 12 o ‘clock.

Oh yeah.

And you’re wild now because it’s midnight. You had a friend spend the night. It was a spend the night party.

You’ve been drinking Mountain Dew all day. Twizzlers, big one pound bags.

And so you’re going, we’re going to call her back.

And her friends are going, dude, You’re the man.

You have to call her back. I will call Ashley back because I met her for the first time. We danced slow at the school dance. Well, with the appropriate distance in between you. Right.

And so they’re going, dude, you cannot call her back.

It’s too late.

I’m going to.

I’m going to.

I’m going to show you.

We’re going to go together. I know she’s sitting right by that phone waiting for me. I don’t have a car.

And even if we’re going together, we’re not going to go anywhere because I don’t have the vehicular means to get there.

But I’m calling her back.

So you get your phone.

You do it again with no regard.

for humanity.

You’re calling back.

Oh, yeah.

And then you hit the numbers.

You’re dialing.

And then she says, hello? And then you hit it. And you play Do Me Baby by Bel Biv Devoe. And her dad picks up on the phone in his bedroom.

He’s like, hello, who’s this? And you’re like, oh yeah, Amanda, this song goes out to you.

Because you think she’s on the phone. All by herself. And he’s like, who’s this?

And you’re going, oh, this song goes out to you, Amanda.

Woo! Everybody starts cheering for you.

Come on, shake those bass. And now you’ve never seen her again. No, never. That’s what happens. That’s why you’ve got to use Clarity Voice. Yeah.

And that’s why the dad filed that stalking charge on you, and you know, there you have it. That’s why you’re listening to this show from jail.

That’s right.

You got to get serious about the call recording. I want to ask this seriously. Let’s talk about features. Features. You’ve talked a lot about benefits, but let’s go deep into the features, because Z, there are features that Clarity Voice has that are so vast and so powerful that they scare me when I think about them. I mean, there’s so many.

I’ve had John Barnett explain them to me, and I’m going, whoa, whoa. I mean, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I mean, it was like a Bon Jovi. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So tell us about the features. There are so many good features. include over 100 features and benefits automatically with the service. And of course, we’ve touched on a few of them here, right?

So we’ve touched on call recording.

We’ve touched on analytics a little bit. But it goes a little bit deeper than that, because this is really about the design of a phone system. And with our over 100 features and benefits, it includes everything from unlimited lines to making sure that your customers never hear a busy signal. even though we only need your main business telephone number, which I know everyone with analog lines is like, what?

What do you mean? Right. So with our unlimited lines, it ensures that because of the way we set up the service, that no matter how many calls you have coming in or going out on simultaneously, nobody ever hears a busy signal, which means that you can capture every single call coming into the business. which helps to drive dollars to your bottom line. We help design things like your daytime call routing, your after hours call routing, ensuring that every call gets to a live answer no matter when they’re coming into your business.

Things as simple as voicemail box. Everyone thinks, oh, I have a voicemail box on my system. What about voicemail -to -email and voicemail transcription? Or better yet, what about getting a quick text message letting you know that you’ve got a voicemail back on your system? for you to check so you can have immediate customer response even when you’re not in the office.

That transcription thing is hot.

That transcription is hot.

That transcription is hot. That is a very effective service. It saves so much time. What about texting? If I’m in a call center and I have inbound people calling all the time, can I text people back using Clarity Voice? You can.

So we offer SMS and MMS text messaging capability, both through our online portal that also houses the call recording analytics. And then we also, right through our Clarity Office Anywhere cell phone app, not only can you make and take calls from the app, but you can also check voicemails and send and receive those text messages as well. Right from your business telephone number. We use the heck out of that featured elephant in the room.

This is what happens is guys will search for Tulsa men’s haircuts or Oklahoma City men’s haircuts online and they’ll call us and we’ll pick up the phone.

They’ll go, Hey, I’m so sorry.

I gotta go.

This happens a lot.

We get called from people and then they go, I’m sorry.

I gotta go. So I think they’re calling while driving.

Maybe they’re calling while going into the office.

I don’t know what happens, but it happens a lot. Probably will call while they’re going to the bathroom. Who knows? Right.

They’re like, oh, and then so we’ll say, well, and so we’ll text them back.

Hey, when do you want to schedule your haircut?

And they’ll tell us.

And we book it all online.

We book it all with the text.

The text feature is a hot feature.

Now, I also want to talk about this. There’s a thing called self -awareness. Are you aware of self -awareness?

I don’t know that I’m aware of awareness.

Heather, have you seen Step Brothers, the movie?

Of course.

Z, have you seen Step Brothers?

Of course.

Can I show you the scene real quick, Z?

Just picture it in your mind, Heather.

Yes, okay.

From the scene, Step Brothers, Will Ferrell and his brother, these guys, they’re trying to get a job.

And they’re 40 years old, and their parents want them to get a job because they’re living at home.

And their parents got married kind of later in life, and so their parents want them to get a job because they’re both 40 and they live at home.

And so they get their first interview with a lady named Pam, and this is what happened during the interview with Pam. I’m a bit of a spark plug and human resources lady.

Oh, no, it’s actually, it’s Pam.

I’m sorry.

Well, Pan.

No, my name is Pam.

Are you saying Pan or Pam?

I’m saying Pam.

Yeah, I’m sorry.

Who is this gentleman sitting behind you?

Hello, Miss Lady.

I’m Dale.

I’m Brennan’s stepbrother. And I think I might be able to help with the Pan Pam dilemma. Yeah, that’d be great. Pam.

Pam.

Pam.

Pam. With an M. There’s a D on the end. There’s no D. It’s Pam. It’s like calm.

It’s P -A -N -M.

M. There’s two M’s.

Two M’s.

That was a confusion.

No, there’s just one M. I think we’ve had enough here.

Shut your mouth.

Wait, shut your mouth.

Shut your mouth.

I’m sorry? What did you just say?

You’re just coming off stupid.

I’m coming off as stupid.

You’re wearing tuxedos to a job that requires you to clean bathrooms.

Please leave this office. We’re done with this interview. Do you get any sort of souvenir? Get out of my office! Now that, unfortunately, we had a guy on the call center who, and he’s helped a lot, and if you’re listening out there, we know you love, you know we love you. But when I listened to his call the first time, I said, I want you to know something.

And he said, what? I said, you know those movies where, to save the day, MacGyver would have to cut the blue wire, or the red wire, or the yellow wire, and if he didn’t do it, if you cut the wrong wire, someone could die. Oh yes. And this is how he was answering the phone at first. He would go, um, thank you for calling.

Elephant in the Room. This is, this is.. . And the person would say, yeah, I’d like to get my hair cut. And then he would say… I’m having a good time.

I’m not. And he was just nervous. And I told him, I said, you sound like a nervous bomb defuser. And he said… But I don’t know which wire to cut. And he goes, you’re right, I do.

But he heard it, and it’s become a joke now, because he wanted to do so well. for so long, but he just sounded nervous. And without him being able to hear himself, I do not believe he would still have a job with us. And he’s become great. But he was just in a job previously where you didn’t engage with people over the phone. He was he was nervous.

Can you talk to me about how just the you guys have filters that limit the wind, you know, breathing into the mic. You guys have cool things like that. And just talk about the self awareness benefits of having this great system. Yeah, so let’s start with the self -awareness and then I’ll move into some of the other great features to help block out that background noise. So in terms of self -awareness, one of the things that we strongly encourage with our employees here at Clarity is that you cannot do a great job unless you’re really aware of the job that you’re doing. And so we really encourage our employees to listen to their own call recordings.

I don’t care how long you’ve been with Clarity. There’s always room for growth. I’ve been here for about 10 years now, and I’m still learning things every single day. And as long as you’re keeping an open mind, you can continue to expand your horizons and become a better employee. So from that perspective, we really encourage our employees, as well as the businesses that we work with, to have their employees listen to their own call recordings. With listening to your own call recording, you’re going to pick up on things that maybe somebody else isn’t going to pick up on.

so you can become better at your job instantaneously. One thing to note is within our portal, we also offer the ability, when they go in and listen to their own call recordings, they can actually make notes and set the tone of the call. So they can actually tell whether it was a sales call, whether it was a good call, bad call and so they can actually go in, listen to their own calls and then mark the ones that they would like their managers to listen to for better coaching and training. So from that perspective, you really can’t be aware of something until you’re aware of it.

And so having our employees listen to calls is crucially important. Ongoing. My team does it now.

I have an employee who goes back and listens to her calls almost every single day because she wants to improve.

I think it’s great.

From an overall kind of equipment standpoint and being able to block out some of that background noise, there’s a couple of different things. that we do to help with the overall, no pun intended, help with the overall clarity of the phone system.

First and foremost, with Polycom equipment, there’s something built into Polycom that’s a little bit different than a lot of other phone systems out there.

It’s called HD Voice, and so it really does come through as a crystal clear connection.

And if you’re talking on an older Polycom phone and you switch to an HD Voice Polycom phone, you can absolutely hear the difference.

It’s kind of like when you switch from those old analog lines to our system, people comment on how clear that connection is.

So we’ve got that going.

We also offer, which is turned on for every single one of our customers, it’s called Acoustic Sensing.

And it’s actually a Polycom supported feature. And this feature actually helps to drown out that background noise.

So whether you’re in just a busy environment, busy office environment, you have an open concept office, there’s a call center environment going on.

Or, you know, if you’re working in kind of like what you were playing before with that audio clip, you know, an automotive shop, right, it helps to drown out that background noise so your customers and prospects as they’re calling in can really focus on the conversation versus hearing all of that chatter and everything else going on in the background. It’s really great too for our customers who maybe have a home office and they’ve got kids constantly coming in and out of the house and just that background noise, it really helps with that.

But then we also sell and support headsets that also have noise cancellation built into them as well. And we really strongly encourage, if you’re going to have a headset, to purchase one through us just because it does have that noise cancellation built into it as well. So there’s lots of great options when you’re looking to help your customers stay focused on the calls.

Z, let’s see real quick if Clarity can cancel this real quick.

I’m going to cue up the sound effect, and you tell me. Are we calling you on a Clarity voice phone right now? Can you cancel things right now?

Of course.

I’m going to cue up this audio, Z, and you tell me where you think, because again, we don’t know how good this technology is. Now, mind you, on my end, we’re not using the technology, so the feature may not work.

It may not.

I’m going to cue up the audio, and you tell me, Z, where you think we might be at this point here. This is off to my background sounds, by the way.

Where do you think this is?

It’s probably my living room. If you are thinking about participating in the running of the bulls, you need to use Clarity Voice, because if I had the Clarity system right now, I could block some of this out, Z. And I could talk to you clearly as I’m running from the bulls.

Yes.

You’ll be able to know I’m running with the bulls.

Z, think about that.

I’m thinking about that.

That’s really good.

Don’t think too long on it, though.

Don’t.

Okay, now I want to ask you some questions about the future.

Can we talk about the future?

Okay. Z, do you have any music you want to cue up for the future? I think maybe it’s like maybe the Star Trek theme.

I think we should do the Star Trek theme to get into the future. I’ll go get my phaser.

Wait, I left my phaser in the car.

I’ll be right back.

Let me cue it up.

Do I need my phaser? Should I just wait? Here we go. I normally carry it. Dr. Z. Yes? Stardate log 27390210.

What does it say? In the future.

Yes.

People will be using video conversations.

Oh my. Video calls. Really? What do you think the future is for Clarity Voice as it relates to video call recording? I think it’s impressive. I want to know how I can get more of it.

I own a business and I want clarity.

Heather, I want to ask you this. Is that going to be a thing? In the future, is video recording going to be a huge thing? Is it a thing?

Is it already a thing? Yeah, great question. So we have already rolled out the first version of our video conferencing platform, which is available now on our portal, available to all of our customers. And being the first iteration, there are a few things that we are still working on for a secondary rollout come first quarter of 2020.

But with the video conferencing, it is a point -to -point video to where you can have one person up to 15 people in your video conferencing platform. And it also, which we just recently tested, it also works on an Android phone. And I’ll tell you, a useful application for this is with some of our customers, they actually have to see a prospect’s home, whether it be for some kind of repair that they’re going to be doing or a move that they’re going to be making. And so that feature is going to be really powerful from that perspective as well, being able to set up a point -to -point video call with a potential customer. Is there going to be…

There’s a couple of things that Oh, go ahead. Is there going to be a lag in it? Because, you know, Z, a lot of these voice, these video recording things in the past, you’re talking to someone, and it seems like they’re like in one of those oriental Asian ninja movies, where their voice is always a little bit behind what they’re saying. I mean, does it feel like you’re watching an old school, poorly produced Chuck Norris movie when you’re talking to people? Or is it, I mean, does it feel like this? Dr. Z, I shall call you now.

I mean, does it feel like that, or does it feel more of like, is it natural? How does it feel? It’s very natural. So if you think about something like a GoToMeeting or a Zoom, right, and how those technologies work, that’s exactly how this technology works as well.

So there’s absolutely not a delay. We use it every single day, and we are pushing the feature just because we have so many customers who it would be really useful for. So let’s just say for a show like this, Z, we get on the phone all the time with people and we’re calling people all over the world, very successful people. We just had the founder of Paychex on the show. We got great people like Wolfgang Puck on the show, Heather on the show, these great people. Would we have to have the system on our end and then the person we’re calling doesn’t have to have it on their end but we could still see them maybe via a camera that’s on their Mac or their computer or something?

That’s correct.

Absolutely.

So it works very similar to every other video conferencing platform out there. The other person that you’re going to be having the conversation with does not have to have the service.

So from that perspective, I could send an invitation out right from my phone.

right from the portal, our video conferencing platform, send them the invitation and then they just click to join.

So how long, I think I read this correctly, I could be wrong, but I believe you guys have over 10 ,000.

plus users.

How long have you been around at Clarity Voice? What’s sort of the story behind it? And please shamelessly name drop some of the big brands you work with, because I’m a name dropper. I don’t believe anything unless there’s a celebrity endorsing it.

I will not go see a movie. I won’t buy Gatorade unless there’s a celebrity. I’m not going to get headphones, the Beats headphones, without Dre’s endorsement. Tell me some of the big companies you’ve worked with and kind of the history. So we work in a lot of different verticals.

As you know, we did start within the franchising vertical and have really expanded from there.

We work in everything from home services to quick serve restaurants, retail, consulting firms, pizza locations, restaurants, call centers.

So you’ve named some of the clients that we work with.

already, but we also work with some name brands that everybody would probably know.

Two Men in a Truck is a very large one that we work with.

Really?

Yeah, we’ve been working with them for a lot of years.

Marco’s Pizza, that’s another big, I’m just trying to think of some big names.

Oh, Name Drop, and this is great.

This helps me because I’m the kind of guy, Z, I’m the kind of guy. You’re a PAC follower.

Right, I mean, I need like Brett Favre, I need like oxy -fresh, I need two men in a truck, I need these sort of endorsements.

Is that why you buy those copper bracelet things from Brett?

Yes. I don’t have the ability to make my own decisions. I can’t just look at the features, I can’t do my own comparison. I am a name dropper. Do we have anybody else we can name drop? Sure, absolutely.

So another big, I’m just trying to think of like household names people would know.

We have Molly Maid.

We have a lot of medical, like many weight loss centers that we do business with.

In home health care, we’ve got Bright Star and Comfort Care, Comfort Keepers. I mean, you name it. I think right now we are probably over a hundred plus franchise brands in general that we work with.

Plus, of course, small to medium sized business owners across the United States and Canada both we are in the process of beginning a relationship with Keller Williams and From a dealership side of things to we’re also looking at auto dealerships and have a few auto dealerships who are now onboarded Do you work kind of all over the board? You’re gonna be a communist dictatorships. Did you have a big Russian presence?

Do you work with the North Koreans Venezuela?

Cuba Cuba makes sense, it’s close. Yeah, I mean, it makes more sense.

Are you working with the Cubans?

We are.

We can service the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and then also Canada.

Okay. Canada’s like a state, we just don’t really recognize it.

Well, Canada, one of my clients, Mr. Spurl, he’s a Canadian CPA up there. We joke about it, but the Canadians continue, no disrespect to our Canadian listeners, but you know what I’m talking about.

Two clients I’ve worked with for a very, very long time, based in Canada.

Their government consistently does things that make capitalism hard to do.

The cool thing about being a Canadian is they get to borrow our military whenever they want. Safety first can we buy and we and right back at we get the rocky the Mounties whenever we want and Bieber or whenever we want Yeah, they don’t want to be more. We gave us Bieber and the Mounties and at Bryan Adams and maple syrup I mean and Alanis Morissette’s coming to a casino near you. That’s a trifecta.

You really don’t need anything other than that.

Now Devin you’ve had some some clients we’ve worked with that have called you and said, hey, could you help me plug in the phone and set it up?

How hard is it to set up the phone system once they’re mailed to the business owner?

It’s really pretty simple to install.

It’s as long as you have that wired internet connection to your router and to the internet.

then it’s pretty simple to just plug in the phone and go. And Heather’s team is fantastic with walking you through the process. Quit manipulating us, Devin.

Be honest with us. How hard is it? It’s a plug -and -play system for the most part.

And like I said, Heather’s team is fantastic at helping you get up and going with it.

I’m sorry I had to yell at Devin with a megaphone.

But he and I have a good relationship.

He sometimes requires that.

So Heather, I’ve got a hard -hitting question for you.

Oh, boy. Here we go. Are you at the headquarters?

Are you based at the headquarters?

Have you ridden the Chattanooga choo -choo cuz you know do you know what that is?

Are you too young to know what that is really?

This is controversial.

This is this is this is the Chattanooga choo -choo. Yeah Let’s see if Heather can block out the sound as she tries to be dishonest with us because she’s actually on a railroad right now while she’s doing the call here. She’s probably on the Chattanooga choo -choo. What is the Chattanooga choo -choo? The suspense is killing me. I was on their website just kind of doing my homework after it was due, of course, and I noticed that they were in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And what is the Chattanooga Choo Choo?

Well, it’s an old song, and it’s the only song I could think of with Chattanooga, and so I thought for sure by me giving you that softball, you’d already have it cued up by now, and you could play a little bit of the Chattanooga Choo Choo.

Are you accusing me of not having the Chattanooga Choo Choo cued up right now and filibustering?

I don’t know a better DJ in the world, and it doesn’t take even that much, you know, information.

There we go. There it is. A little old school. Oh yeah.

While you’re on your rotary dial phone. Making a call.

This is what it sounds like to work at Clarity Voice.

That’s it right there. That’s probably why their headquarters are there. The owner’s probably a big train aficionado. You know what?

I’d love to listen to the rest of the song. I really would.

I don’t think so.

But standards and excellence prevent me from doing so. So let me ask you this here.

Who’s the guy who started the company?

Who’s the lady who started the company?

What’s the history of Clarity Voice?

I need to know the history.

I cannot have the history be a mystery and trust the company just because you work with thousands of clients and you have name brand, name drops, just because I use the service and just because it’s affordable.

All that is crap unless I know the history.

Good call.

They’re absolutely right.

So the company was actually founded in 2005 by an individual named Gary Gerke.

He actually started the company because at that time, he was actually working for another company and was tasked with finding a voice over IP service for the company that he was then working for and found it very, very difficult to find any VoIP providers that would provide business service because at that time, It was still a home -based service.

Being that he was in the technology realm, he started the company and very shortly after started partnering with some individuals that were in the franchising industry and the company has just grown from there.

What I’m going to do right now is I’m going to play my final game of today’s show, because Heather has to go do beautiful, incredible things.

She cares a lot about her audience, but not so much about you and I. You know what I mean? You can’t blame her. But I want to play a game, and this game is called Can Dr. Z

guess where Heather Conley’s from?

Can Dr. Z guess where Heather, now I’m going to queue up The the music is II and then I would like for you to just get yourself into a good place you have three guesses Okay, if you get it right you win a mega point a mega point if you get it wrong You lose all the mega points and you have to ship Heather I mean one of your make it mega points.

Oh, okay.

So let me let me here we go Let me get the audio level here.

It’s a little too loud. I wish I had a filter on my mic Okay, here we go All right, here we go. And you can’t get any tips from the audience. Okay, so here we go.

I don’t get three lifelines for three mega points.

You can use a friend.

I had a friend.

You can use a megaphone to call across the studio to Devin if you want to hold the trigger down. Okay. So you get to guess what state do you believe that Heather?

Here we go.

Here we go.

Based on the vocal patterns.

Okay, Heather, would you say Hello, my name is Heather.

Heather.

Oh, I got it.

I got it.

Okay.

Northeast.

She’s from the state of Maryland.

Maryland? Two more guesses. Okay. You’ve just lost an immediate portion. Okay, we’re East Coast, right? Or not.

We’re probably California. Are we East Coast or West Coast?

Can I get a hint?

Let me give you a hint.

Are you East of the Mississippi or West of the Mississippi?

I think when she goes home to visit family, she might end statements by saying, oh, don’t you know. Like if she’s around him too long, I think she might say, you betcha.

Are you from Minnesota? Nope. Michigan, of course.

You got it.

I got it right there.

I get a mega point.

Yes, you got your mega point.

That’s so exciting.

Best day of my life right there. That moment.

That moment right there. Nobody’s been better in the history of Where’s Heather Connelly. You my friend are the winner of mega points, which are not redeemable.

I could die a happy man now So good game took us to a dark place I should have known my uncles from there. Heather, thank you so much for putting up with us. This was my favorite hour of Power. Seriously, in weeks, this was great. Heather, I own a small business. I’m out there listening to this podcast right now, and the whole time I’m thinking, how do I get it?

How do I get it? How do I get it? I want it.

How do I get to clarity? What do I do?

It’s super simple.

You can shoot me an email direct. It’s heatherc at clarityvoice .

com.

Or you can call me direct at 248 -436 -3435. Can we repeat your email address and your phone number two more times each, just so the listeners who are taking notes right now with a pen, they can write it down.

They’re pulling over right now to do it.

Here we go.

Absolutely. Yep. My email again is heatherc at clarityvoice . com. And my direct line is 248 -436 -3435. See, I tell you what, this was a great show.

That’s exciting. I’m going to put this show on the record, on the book. I’m not sure what record it is or what the books are. Just put it in the book. We’re going to put it in the book and in the records. Well, I don’t want to brag, but I think

pretty sure my guessing where she’s from is kind of a big deal. I’m just saying. Heather, thank you so much for putting up with us.

We’re going to go see a counselor.

Of course. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. All right, you take care. Thank you, Heather. You’re awesome.

See ya. All right, thanks. Bye.

And as you know, we like to end each and every show with a boom, and so without any further ado, three, one, boom.

You have to record your calls or your business will fall off a cliff called mediocrity.

You’ve got to record your calls or your business will fall off a cliff called mediocrity.

Now, what’s the company I recommend?

I recommend Clarity Voice.

How do you get a good deal?

Go to thrivetimeshow .

com forward slash clarity, thrivetimeshow .

com forward slash clarity. Tim, you work in the call center.

What’s your final justification and reason why you think all the business owners out there should record their calls?

Yeah, if you want to make sure you actually have a good call and don’t sound like you’re having a panic attack while you’re talking to a customer, it’d probably be a good idea to record your calls.

Daisy, what’s your final encouragement as a call center manager?

How impossible would your job be?

without recording calls. What’s your final tip for the listeners out there as to why they should record their calls? Well, I just look at Tim. He’s like my personal testimony. We literally called him the nervous bomb diffuser for the first six months he worked with me.

And it’s like he went from nervous bomb diffuser to Brad Pitt overnight. And I used to be the fast talking confused guy at my first job. And then they played my calls and they’re like, wow, you talk fast and wow, you’re confused. And so we all have some sort of dysfunction that we can’t fix, right? Absolutely. If we can’t hear the calls.

So if you’re out there today, again, go to Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash clarity. You know what they say.

Go to Thrivetimeshow .

com forward slash clarity.

You know what they say. Go to Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash clarity. You know what they say. Quit saying that because I don’t know what they say, but I know that I say go to Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash clarity.

clarity. You know what they say, see a broad to get that booty. Thanks. That, that, that clears it up. Wow. 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 learned from you. So congratulations.

Sean, guess what’s happening?

April 9th and 10th, 2026. Uh, we are probably going to have an amazing business conference here at Tulsa, Russell.

Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow.

Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters, June 5th and 6th. He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman award winner, but he’s also a very successful entrepreneur. Now, when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies, do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? Every day. How often is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time.

It’s almost like maybe 90 % of the issues as people are trying to grow their company. Well, Tim Tebow is going to come join us here at the in -person Thrive Time Show 2 -Day Interactive Business Workshop. And he’s going to teach us time management and his approach to personal self -discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here. Also at the 2 -Day Interactive Workshop, Sean, we are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train, and retain. I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners.

their time is the first thing once they get that under control then generally the numbers You know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. And we teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay. You love to hammer on time management. It’s my favorite part of the conference. Now, I’m going to pull this up real quick here, because we’re going to go through it. If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here, OK?

OK. All right. The two -day interactive workshop. This is my 20th year hosting workshops. So I’m telling you folks, we’re in rare form here. So one is the idea of establishing your revenue goals.

I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals. Would you agree or am I off my rocker? No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board is we have to establish the revenue goals. And generally speaking, we have a vague idea, but not an exact idea that can be engineered down into like the daily goals for sales. And so that’s a really big one. even numbers.

What kind of sales do you have to do to even break even? Third is how many hours per week do you want to work? What is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur? Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your company unique from all the different businesses? In a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows, how can you be the purple cow that stands out?

How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand? Box number six, branding. Marketing, your three -legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed?

Because if you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed. If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads. Sean, how often do business owners, by default, tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle.

And many times, they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth. So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems, and then they need to create more. leads, but they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Box number seven, create a sales conversion system.

Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre -written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business, whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you gotta have sales systems in place. We help you with that. Box number eight. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer?

Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized. We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization. Box number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people, on the planet Earth. This just in, we’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people.

Box number 13, accounting. This just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know. And step 14, finally, what is the point? of even achieving success?

We’re going to go over what is the point of even achieving success, how to design a life that you’re excited about, how to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re going to spend your focused time.

We’re going to go through that, all this and more. Now, the workshop, Sean, it’s April 9th and 10th. It’s a two -day interactive workshop. And tickets, we always do it.

It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford.

Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available? if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket? Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You know, you could be at a startup phase, or you could be, you know, way along in your business. But we want to make it accessible for everybody.

I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad.

And, like, it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that, you know, you’re just your average people out there have access to the things that work.

Now, 7 AM to 5, Sean, why don’t we go from 7 to 5 both days? I mean, it’s 10 hours a day. 20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back -to -back workshops? We do a 30 -minute teaching session. We do a 15 -minute question -and -answer session.

And then we take a break.

30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question -and -answer.

Then we take a break.

Why do we do that format, Sean?

That format is so that we can keep people engaged and not just sitting there listening, but also getting involved. We really encourage people to ask questions. And that’s really where the juiciness of the conference comes out, is you can put your personal situation and your questions on the board and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program, you can get direct coaching from Clay. It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoy it a lot.

Once again, folks, this event is April 9th and 10th, 2026.

Get those tickets at Thrivetimeshow .

com.

Once again, that’s Thrivetimeshow . com. Who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference here, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in -person two -day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford?

That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford.

Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards?

P -U -M -U -R -T -C -T -R -U -M.

I -R -E.

Ooh, that took a long time. I’ll have to listen to this.

All right, again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, and inviting you to come join us at the in -person Thrive Time Show two -day interactive workshop. This event is April 9th and 10th, 2026. Get those tickets at thrivetimeshow . com. Once again, that’s thrivetimeshow .

com.

Right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tim Tebow, baby.

It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Russia. 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.

Guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference, and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here. We’ve got people playing the drums. We’ve got a fire breather.

And, man, people are just up. They come in. The conference has kicked off. This house is packed. We’ve got air handles with shotguns up there.

We’ve got sticker blinds. My name is Kevin Thomas and the name of our company is MultiClean. We are a commercial janitorial service and we serve the entire state of Oklahoma. and Kansas and soon to be Arkansas. We have probably grown probably five times. We’ve added, I think when we first started with you, we had 60 to 65 employees and now we have a little over 300 employees.

Before we got involved with Thrive Time, we didn’t really have any systems or processes in place. I’ve probably been to Oh, in six, seven years, I’ve probably been to 12 to 13 business conferences. And amazingly, each time I go, I learn something new and I’m so excited to bring it back and show the team. 4 ,000 % from February to February.

Now I can better that. Okay, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself and if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have have bettered our entire month of February in the last two and a half days.

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

Just something every entrepreneur I think would appreciate and love. I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance, which I think is the key.

A lot of business coaches or seminars Maybe you’re high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of substance that you could take back and implement, you know, the following Monday, where his does. Man, there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say, like, I came to, this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that saving my time on that part is valuable. It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far.

Man, I think they’re missing out on, you know, expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons. You know, that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that I can learn from that’s ahead of where I am. And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business. Hi, this is Charles and Amber Colaw. We’re the owners of Colaw Fitness. We heard about Clayclark through Paul Hood, our CPA.

We’ve worked with Clayclark for the last two years. Clayclark has helped us take our three locations in three different states and now checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks for every employee. He’s helped us with creating systems and audits for every department, quantitative scorecards for each department and every position so that everybody has a number.

It’s been able to give us a lot of time freedom and financial freedom and peace. of mind to know that everything’s running efficiently, and he’s been helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google, and pretty much every area of the business. He’s been very, very helpful. We would describe the experience of working with Clay as very energetic. He’s full of energy.

He’s very encouraging, very motivating, but also accountable. So he keeps us accountable, and we love that accountability. It keeps our drive in the right direction, so we’re not chasing things that aren’t worth spending our time on. He’s a great coach. He helps push us on certain areas, helps coach us in certain areas. We’re all emotional creatures, and we go up and down, and he actually will tell us where we’re at, how we can get from there.

And even emotionally, when we’re stressed about something, he’ll have a story to relate to. And it really helps us in every area. of our business and very, very helpful. I think Clay’s ability to have a whole team behind him that helped him with all of his clients, all his coaching clients, is that it allows Clay to do what he’s really good at, and that’s working one -on -one with the client and coaching them. And then he can have his amazing staff come in and help you accomplish all these goals that you’re setting. And of course he has all these resources, whether it’s videographers or whether it’s web developers, that they can quickly jump on your project, knock things out, he can quickly give you feedback.

right coaching. He’s just got a whole team of people that whatever area you’re lacking in, in your own company, he’s got resources from like video, web design, search engine guys who are just knowledgeable in that. Even though he knows a lot of that stuff, he’s got these capable lieutenants that can are ready to just take off and help you get that stuff. More stuff gets done on a weekly basis than you would on like probably most individual or some other company. We’ve worked with several companies before and it just not as many things get done on a weekly basis. It’s been very helpful.

Well, the conferences for me, I’m a slow learner, so I have to learn over and over again, hear things over and over again. I’ve been to, I think, eight different conferences, and each time you come, I learn a few new components. Some things are repetitive, but a lot of the stuff just resettles, and I get a little bit more depth into each component. So, I mean, I’ve been to eight of them. They’re all super entertaining. He’s very funny, very encouraging.

You get to kind of self -reflect a lot and a lot of the stuff is really polarizing. You do a personal inventory of yourself and you’ll think like, hey, I’ve really got to work on this, really got to work on that. So every time you come, I still get a lot of value out of it. And as much as every conference is the same, it’s totally different. So I think we’ll hear stories we haven’t heard before.

He’ll have entertainment or he’ll have speakers he didn’t have before. And like you said, you just always catch a different part of the material that maybe you didn’t catch before.

It’s worded differently. And it’s really cool, because some people that you’ve seen like a year ago at a conference, now they’re being showcased as a success story. And you get to see their website. You get to see how their stats and all their metrics have improved and the revenue improved. So it’s really cool to see people that just a year ago that, of course, we’ve been here two years, that just came, that I met, is now being successful.

It’s really encouraging to see other people accomplish that stuff. Clay has helped us optimize our website and helped with really topping the right search engines that we need to make sure that we are very, very competitive with all of our other competitors. He’s done Basically, he outlines exactly what you need to be accomplishing and he creates tasks that we have to accomplish and his team has to accomplish. I would say over the last two years, we’ve totally ramped our website. We’re topping Google in every one of our markets. I would say just doing really, really good.

I feel very, very confident in all of our future locations and making sure that we’re in front of the ideal and likely buyer. It’s very encouraging. It’s important to me that to know when I’m working with Clay, you know, I’ve been in business for a while and met with him even when I already had three, three businesses in three different states. And to know that what I share with him is staying private. He’s not sending that out to anybody else. to know that when he’s working with me, he’s only working with one other, no other gyms that are in direct competition with me.

It’s very encouraging to have somebody you can trust and rely on, that he isn’t going to like somehow tell your trade secrets or give information away. Just really awesome that he’s a trustworthy guy, really cares about you as a client. For us, it’s been a complete mind freedom, because Clay has helped us create a lot of different documents and one sheets for every department, put quantitative scorecards to each department. And so for us, it’s been very encouraging. It gives us peace. Like as an entrepreneur, it’s stressful.

You go to bed at night, you’re worried, like, did we cover this? Did we cover that? So he helps extract everything out of your brain, everything from your business, put it into document creation. put it into checklists and workflows for every person in each department, and make sure that everything’s getting done every week, every month, and funnel that all into KPIs or key performance indicators. as you can see, on a weekly basis to make sure you’re moving the needle in the right area of your company. It’s very encouraging and gives you a complete mind, freedom, and peace to know that that stuff’s created so you’re easy to duplicate and scale your company.

Right, and then we can spend time doing what we’re really good at. and just trust the system. I honestly believe everybody needs a coach. I think we’re all inherently lazy, selfish, and carnal. I truly believe that humans are humans. If we’re standing, we’d rather sit.

If we’re sitting, we’d rather lay down. And if we’re laying down, we’d rather be asleep. So to have somebody that challenges you, have real active candor, and be honest with you on every aspect of your company is really, really encouraging to me because I want to know, I want to work on what we’re weak at. I want to see any areas that we’re not doing well in and see his perspective from a third party because you can look at your own business and just see the good. It’s good to have somebody who’s done this with hundreds of companies. You know, really look at your company, reflect on your company and see like little chinks in the armor to make sure you cover that up so your competition can’t get to you.

and that you’re successful overall in the big picture. So yes, I would recommend Clay Clark because he is a great friend, great encourager. To me, he’s been a wonderful friend. He’s also, you can tell he cares. And he also, he has this wealth of knowledge. He’s worked with so many different companies and different businesses.

He could take a concept that he’s used before in the past with somebody in a totally different industry and see how it would work perfectly for you in whatever niche market you’re in or whatever type of service you’re providing. And so his brain is just a wealth of knowledge and just to have that type of perspective as a part of your team and your own company is huge and super valuable. So I would definitely encourage people to use him. But one thing is you’ve got to be coachable. You’ve got to be wanting to get feedback. You’ve got to be wanting to really grow your company.

You’ve got to want to put that extra 10 hours a week to working on your business and not just in your business. And so, yes, I would recommend it to anybody who’s wanting to grow their company and provide great systems, checklists, workflows, great encouragement, and have accountability. I had a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes.

And then I met Clay. And my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15 -year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay.

So when I came to know Clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website Has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 Internet leads in a month just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot. of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us, and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening.

One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses, that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me.

It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because The results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic. And as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a business.

prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town.

And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 -year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way.

I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1 ,800 % increase in our internet leads, going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it, because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

after being a stay at home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full time. I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education. But after being a mom and staying home and all of that I just didn’t have a passion for it. like I once did. My husband suggested real estate.

He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people, I love working with people, I love building relationships, but one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. the processes and the advertising and marketing, I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us.

We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent.

We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions.

Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents.

But I have to give credit where credit’s due.

And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge.

It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient.

I don’t answer anything. companies.

I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient, and that’s it.

My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63 ,000 embezzlement.

I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development.

and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I am Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Classroom. 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. this K &E’s company for five years now. Expecting maybe $200 ,000 this year to, we’re at $400 ,000.

That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that. Pretty much just listening to what they have to say, their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly and like such good insight, the resources they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience. So I’d recommend it to anybody.

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 completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So I 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 week in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about 6 appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. And hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month, if that, and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses.

I have amazing employees now, and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews and interviewing every single week. It’s just been great 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, 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… 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 fun. 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.

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