Is This the Year to Light Your Entrepreneur Fire? Celebrating the BelovedCheeseCake.com, & LiebeCandleCompany.com Success Stories + Join Tim Tebow At Clay Clark’s April 9-10 ThrivetimeShow.com Business Conf.

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

One of the gentlemen, his name is Bob Healy, came to our conference with a quasi -functional prototype. He had terminal cancer, and Bob came to me and said, help me.

Entrepreneur Clay Clark has built several multi -million dollar businesses. Now, he helps budding entrepreneurs like Bob turbocharge their ideas with a 14 -step plan.

and grillblazer .

com is now a massively successful company that’s becoming a household name in many American homes.

In this episode, we dive into how to rebuild American small businesses and industrial capacity.

Let me introduce you to the grill gun. You guys remember I have a good buddy named Ty and he introduced me to the grill gun a few episodes ago.

To the grill gun.

How will I learn so far as a client of the Fry Thicker so much from what I’m learning at this conference and my regular weekly that it’s helping me establish the business and get it off the ground.

Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the grill gun.

This nozzle on the top you slightly turn like almost nothing so a little bit of the gas starts coming out and then you press the trigger. You can either turn the nozzle on the top to have more power. This one here is a full power trigger basically madness. Push it down and yeah it is a lot of fun.

Check it out!

There’s not another conference like it.

You just don’t go to a carnival atmosphere and learn like we do here at the Thrive Club.

It’s great.

The reason people should attend at least one of these conferences is because it’s common sense. And everybody’s fed an entire line about the way you should run a business, but it’s really the experience of running a business, which is, candidly, what you learn here, how to run a business.

You don’t know what you’re doing.

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.

This year’s sales for this week.

The same week last year.

Do you see the difference?

What? I can’t really tell. One is, Michael, can you, can we just, I was going to get it. Jason, can you comment on that?

this end maybe?

Just so we can see it.

Kind of pull it that way.

Let’s get the length. It’s more of a, I can’t tell without the length.

It’s hard to tell.

So that was last year’s sales. This is last year’s sales. And the total is a mere $4 ,711 .73.

Same week this year, 2015.

The total is, read it, Michael.

11 ,313 .50.

Oh, boom.

There it is.

Awesome. I baked from home for years as I was raising my children and teaching. And it was there that people continually said, year after year, Kat, you really need to go into business. You should open a bakery. And I’m thinking, I don’t have time to open a bakery. I’m raising two kids.

I’m getting my master’s degree. Not to mention, I know nothing about business. So here I am. I’m super thrilled. My little bakery is being built in Bixby and all is well. We move into the new bakery.

The excitement is like over the top. And three weeks into it, my husband and I separate. Talk about a blow. That was the most difficult thing I had ever experienced to date. I had that blow. And I did have to make a decision.

Am I going to be a big girl? Am I going to get better or am I going to give up? I couldn’t give up. I’m a divorced woman. I have to earn a living. And so 18 -hour days, you know, bring it on.

Let’s do this thing. Four years later, my business partner’s husband, Demer, asked me a question one day. He said, Kat, are you going to give up? treating this business like a hobby? Are you going to treat it like a business? That was huge for me.

That was super significant in pushing me to get help, pushing me to find a way to make it work. Through several people encouraging me to become a thriver with Thrive 15 was, without question, the pivotal moment in my business. I went from lacking some confidence to becoming empowered through knowledge of how to grow a business. Our sales are 50 % plus what they were a year ago. I feel I’ve regained confidence in myself as an entrepreneur and in my business.

Becoming educated through Thrive 15 is what made the difference. Well, folks, on today’s show, I want to tell you a story about an entrepreneur out there, somebody who saw a problem and came up with a solution, and she’s growing her business. Again, let me tell you a story. This is somebody out there who saw a problem, saw a solution. She started selling that solution, and now she’s scaling her company all across these United States.

With that being said, Ingrid, welcome to The Thrive Time Show.

How are you?

I’m great.

How are you, Clay? I am doing well.

I’m very excited to talk to you, and I want to pull up your website.

What’s your web address for our listeners out there that anxiously want to visit the website to verify you’re a real person? It’s LiebeCandleCompany .

com, and I will spell that.

Liebe is L -I -E -B -E, and then CandleCompany .

com. So it’s LiebeCandleCompany . .com, pulling com, pulling it up.

There it is.

Is that you?

Yes, that’s me. OK, so that’s the website.

That’s where you are.

Now tell us about the solutions that you provide or the products that you provide there at libacandlecompany . com. OK, so just a little background of why it started was I used to be an avid candle buyer. and I love burning candles, but then I started noticing my walls had dark black areas on them. I’m looking and I’m like, do we have a mold problem? What’s going on here?

And realize this is soot coming off of these candles that are made from petrochemicals. So I I’m like, well, I don’t want to breathe this in. This is not good for your health. And I don’t think this is good for anybody else’s health.

So that’s when I started researching all natural waxes and oils for scents and things that I could put together to make an extremely clean product that would burn very clean and not be a soot producing product.

And yet you would still get the beauty of the scent. coming into your room.

Are you making these products in China, in some sweatshop somewhere? Or where do you make your products? Actually, these candles are made right here in America. They started out in my kitchen, but I just moved last month into a new facility where I can make them and have help if I need help. But I really source and pay attention to everything that I purchase.

I call companies, ask a lot of questions, and source American -made products.

Now, on part two of today’s show, we will be interviewing Jen Brusa.

Her company is called BelovedCheesecakes .

com.

BelovedCheesecakes . com. She’s been a long -time client, great individual, and we’re going share her story as well. And

And I know Jen, you know, she started making cheesecakes right out of her house, just like you started making candles.

When did you decide to go out and sell these things? I mean, once you had been resourcing and looking up and researching, when did you decide, you know what, I’m going to go out and sell a couple of these? OK, well, it started because of a friend of mine who had opened a store and asked me the question if I had ever considered making candles. And I said, no, I have not. But I don’t like I don’t want to dismiss things. I’m a believer.

And I thought, you know, it would be smart of me to pray about this and see what the Lord would have to say. And after praying for three days, I had the answer. And he said, yes, make candles. And I’m like, okay, Lord, I have been researching all kinds of companies. There’s a million candles out there. What makes me different?

And he said, your mother’s story. And so that’s how it started. And so then I, you know, my kitchen became a research science lab and to find the right solutions.

I’m a math person, candles is all about math.

And that’s how it started.

When you say candles are all about math.

What do you mean by that?

I it you have to formulate everything. I mean, everything is very particular from the type of wax you use, which the wax determines the wick and the percentages of oils and things to bring forth what you need.

So how did you go out and sell your first 10 candles? Like, how did you get those first 10 deals? Okay, first one was my friend’s store. But it wasn’t that I sold them, they were on consignment. So that was my introduction. So when she sold them, I got paid.

But then within a couple months, she had a market, a Christmas market, and I was part of that.

market. And I literally had a table set up and had where people came and started purchasing personally candles in front of me where I could talk to them and start building relationships. So with with your business, as you as you’re looking to grow this thing, how have you developed traction?

Are you going to trade shows, local markets, going to stores, selling online? How are you marketing these products? Okay, I do the trade shows. I am in a couple of stores in the area. And, and actually, I’m in Indiana and also have one in Illinois right now. But I have a website as well, hoping that people would go there and purchase candles.

And I was non existent. People would come see me. And and at the trade shows. But I but no one was buying candles on my website. So it really literally my website got built for when COVID happened. And then, like I said, I, I wasn’t doing anything.

And that’s how I came. Well, one, I was watching your reawaken America. conferences that you were having. So I was aware of you. Then I started learning about your business conferences. And it’s like, it’s time to go to Clay Clark’s business conference to find out what I can learn from that.

And that immediately was, oh my gosh, this is all this is the help I need. I am not a very techie person.

My website was dead in the water.

And then now within, let’s see, I think we started in October with you.

And by December, I became the number one ranking candle company in Northwest Indiana within that.

months so in three months you moved up to the the number one ranking candle company uh and uh why does that matter to you i guess for people out there that maybe don’t see the world the way you do or understand what that means why is that important for for our listeners to know that well how else am I gonna expand it for people to get to know that I’m there?

People can drive locally to a market, you can drive locally to that store that I’m in, but if you’re living anywhere else, how are you ever gonna see me? And I need to get out there where it’s a bigger circle or circumference or what I can go across the United States instead of just staying in this little world of Northwest Indiana. Now, you know, someone’s going to Google you right now to verify you’re a real person and not a hologram. So can you tell us real quick, what is your first and last name and what’s the name of the company? Cause I know someone’s going to Google you. That’s a big, big concern.

People have buying online is, is this person real? Is this a scam? So it’s everybody out there.

What’s your first and last name? And what is the name of your company? My name is Ingrid Schilling hyphen back and, and I am a real person. I’m a real person with Liebeck Candle Company. And you will be able to find me out there. You will see pictures.

You will see posts. And you will see Google reviews.

All of it is out there.

So I’m easily verifiable at this point in time. So if people want to buy products from you, do you have a particular product that’s maybe most popular or something that you might steer people towards if it’s their first time buying from you? Oh, absolutely. Our number one seller is I have numbers on my candle as they can see if they look at my website, the number one seller regular scent. not Christmas, is number 44, which is OMG Olive. And I know that’s probably not going to sound too exciting.

You’ll see it on the candle bowl in that one picture that has the different products that we make.

And that is leaves and branches of an olive tree with a little bit of citrus in it.

and hands down number one seller ever since it’s been growing ever since I brought it out. Wow. Okay. So that’s where we go right there again, folks, website. I’ll put the link on the show notes there so everyone can find it. I’ll put the link to your website in the description of today’s video.

So everybody can find it right there. As I always do with the guests we have on the show. With that being said, you know, we’re in a time where there’s a lot of people out there, you know, competing for people’s interest.

Who is your ideal and likely buyer?

Like who’s the kind of person that most likes your candles or who are you here? I know you want to sell to everybody, but I mean, is there, are there certain people that your product tends to resonate with more or tell us about who your ideal and likely buyer is. Well, my ideal buyer is and who I seem to gravitate towards is anyone who’s really kind of in their 30s, mid 30s and on and then to retirement age. People who are willing to spend a little more since like I said, I source everything, I’m still small, I don’t buy pallets yet of anything.

So I I’m paying a higher price to make these, and I make everything by hand. So that buyer is willing to spend a little more money to have a very clean handmade product. Now, for somebody right now, you’ve got their full attention, and they’re taking notes. What is the message you want to communicate with our listeners out there?

For anybody who’s maybe hearing your voice for the first time, discovering your product for the first time, what’s the message you want to communicate to our listeners on part one of today’s show? before we introduce them to the Gin Brusa Beloved Cheesecake story? Well, my message would be trust God. When you have a desire in your heart to go after your dream, and when you see something that you can improve in this world to help people and to grow people, Follow that dream.

It takes love, courage, freedom, and faith to just go out there and do that. And we care about people, and we love people, and we want the best for them. Ingrid, I really do appreciate you. Thank you so much for carving out time with us today. And for anybody out there, if you haven’t gone to the website, I’ll put a link to it right there in the show notes. Everybody can find it nice and easily.

Or you can type it into Google there, folks. It’s LiebeCandleCompany . com here. So I’m going to pull it up again here just so we’re on the same page, looking at the same website. So we’re all there. W -W -W -L -I -B -ECandleCompany .

com. Go there today. Check it out.

That’s the website.

Learn more about it.

Ingrid, thank you so much for your time and we’ll talk to you soon.

Thank you Clark. Great to see you.

Bye. Bye It is Jen Jacobson Bruce and our web address is shopped up beloved cheesecakes calm We have definitely broke records, especially in the month of October and we’re shipping 130 cheesecakes every Tuesday We could ship more, but we’re just running out of space. We don’t have enough space. We don’t have the freezer capacity. And our bakers are struggling to keep up.

And we have two full -time amazing bakers.

It’s a great problem to have. We are super blessed. Yes. But it’s just, you know, overcoming, digging, digging, digging. Yep. Don’t use preservatives or anything like that.

That’s why we can’t, when we ship them, we want to be able to add all of our fresh ingredients.

However, to make the best possible cheesecake arrive at the best possible way, we have to ship the toppings separately. Our growth has been through the roof.

Now, when our phone dings and there are cheesecake, that means it’s been a cheesecake sale. It used to be a rule. Wow, look at that. We got cheesecake sale. My stars. Look, we’re, we’re, we’re shipping it to now.

It’s, oh boy, I hope I have the product available. I hope everything’s going to be perfect.

And now our cheesecake shippings are anywhere from 125 to, I think this week, Tuesday the 28th, we will be another personal record.

I think we’re pushing 140, possibly 145 cheesecakes.

Are you like, so you’re up like 14 times? Is that, is that accurate, Jen? Am I getting that? Yes. I can’t get over enough of Clay would always tell us.

It’s about consistency.

It’s about being at the grind and you develop your systems and you repeat them and you develop everything that works and you repeat it over and over and over.

Regardless if you’re tired, you’re discouraged, it doesn’t matter.

These systems work and if you continue to just put time into it and do it repetitively over and over and over, the fruit will come, the results will come, and you’ll be like us.

How are we keeping up with all these orders? Jen Brusa owns and operates a successful business called Beloved Cheesecakes, where she sells an amazing variety of them. Jen says her made -from -scratch desserts are award -winning for a couple of reasons. I just chalk it up to it’s Jesus, and it’s made with pure love, and my heart goes into it.

Before Jen became a business owner,

she had separated from her husband and was raising her three sons by herself. Jen received food stamps to help cover her expenses.

She also worked as a waitress and got another job in guest services.

But even then, it wasn’t enough to take care of her three growing boys. Overwhelmed is an understatement. There were times where I didn’t even think I was going to make it.

Honestly, it was my boys that kept me going. After Jen and her husband divorced, she joined a food share co -op program where she paid $20 a month to get surplus food at a discounted price. That’s when she received a parcel of blackberries and started making cheesecakes. They were so popular, she began to sell them. A major blow to Oregon restaurants and bars as the state enters a third shutdown is going to take effect today. And it will be the third indoor dining ban for some major cities like Portland and Salem and Bend.

And Eugene forcing recovering restaurants to shut their doors yet again to indoor diners. Jen Jacobson is a mother of three and the owner of Beloved Cheesecakes.

And she joins us right now from out in Oregon. Good morning to you Jen. Good morning.

Thank you for having me.

When you heard the news you must have thought you’ve got to be kidding me. I’ve already had to let all my employees go. It’s just me and my three kids running this operation. What are you going to do. keep going and doing what I can with the to -go orders and trying to survive that way. I mean, that is what it is.

It’s like just surviving right now.

I do feel like for small businesses, you know, Governor Brown talks about being the underrepresented population of people that she cares for.

I mean, we have that in common. I care for underrepresented people myself, and I think she’s oversaw. small business owners and especially in the restaurant industry and we’re being underrepresented right now. Yeah. And there’s a picture of you with your three children who are helping you run your your operation. By the way we’ve got your Web site.

We’re going to give the the Web site in a moment.

So people if they would like to get. In fact there it is right there. People would like to help her and her family out. Beloved cheesecakes dot com is where you can go to see what she’s selling and she’ll ship it to you. All right, folks, we have the beloved Cheesecakes team broadcasting live here from Oregon.

And they have some exciting news.

They’re continuing to set records because great people like you are buying their cheesecakes. But the company started with very humble beginnings.

Jen, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show.

How are you?

I’m doing great.

Thanks, Clay, for having us.

So Jen, for anybody who wants to verify you’re not a hologram and you are a real person, can you tell us your first and last name and your web address for your company? Yes. And who’s this handsome man next to you, for anybody who wants to look at you? That’s Makai. Makai. Now, Makai, people want to look you up.

How do you spell Makai? Someone says, how do you spell Makai? It’s M -A -K -A -I. OK, now we’ve got through the controversial stuff. You guys are winning awards.

You’re being nominated for awards. Your sales records are being set. Jen, tell us about the kinds of award or awards you’re being nominated for. Tell us what’s happening there at BelovedCheesecakes . com. Yeah, well, recently we’ve been put in the top 150 mom and pop shops, America’s mom and pop shops and from the entrepreneur magazine.

I thought it was a scam at first because you know, we get a lot of scammy emails and then the tournament started October 6, then round one we were made it through round one and round two came and we made it through round two. And so what it is, is every we don’t know when they’re tagging us, but they’ll just tag us on a random day. And it’s we’re facing off with another local or not local, but another small business in America. And this last week was round three, we faced off with a business in New York. And we We made it in the top four finalists.

So next week, we have no idea when beloved cheesecakes will be tagged. But well, I guess we’re going to be facing off a it’s their terminology as a local legend. So but we’re the only business in Oregon that is going to be facing off with another business somewhere elsewhere in the state. So for four of them, so it’s pretty cool. Now, I want to showcase and share your product with everybody here. It’s BelovedCheesecakes .

com. That’s the website.

And if somebody out there is watching this show, Jen, and they want to be an entrepreneur, they want to be successful, they want to turn their dream into reality, could you tell us about how you started BelovedCheesecakes . com? Because, again, now people see the momentum. They see the awards. They see just all the nationwide success you’re having. But for anybody who’s going, I want to start my own thing, how did you start BelovedCheesecakes .

com? Um, well, how I started the whole thing was in 2019, and actually started even before that in 2015. So Makai has married in, but I came out of a domestic violent marriage with three boys. I was on a food share program, got a flat of blackberries, made a cheesecake, a blackberry cheesecake for my kids school. And from there, it was, um, you know, turned into a side hustle, God’sidentally, is what I call it. And then I had a Kickstarter that started us, you know, funded us and we opened, my boys and I opened in August 2019, eight months before the lockdown.

And then I chose to stay open during the lockdown. I ended up meeting my husband during the lockdown as well. And like I said, he married in and here we are. God wanted Beloved Cheesecakes.

That’s his business. I’m his beloved. He is mine. It’s pretty amazing. We have two locations. We ship nationwide.

We’re in about 20 different restaurants here locally and grocery stores and bougie grocery stores that is. Now, I met you guys at the Reawaken in Oregon, and people kept saying, Clay, you need to meet Jen. You got to meet this lady. She did not comply with the lockdowns. She stayed open, which, by the way, Oregon is a very tough state to stay open in. For anybody who doesn’t know, it’s probably the most progressive and liberal state out there.

I mean, it really is wild, the persecution you faced.

You stayed open.

You were featured on Fox News and other outlets for defying the lockdowns and the mandates. We met in Oregon. And now, as you’re growing this, business, we have the opportunity to work with you and help kind of coach you. And what’s fun about your business is you’re scaling it. And I really wanted to get into that part of the, I want to dive into your wisdom on scaling something. So let’s talk about scaling.

What does that mean? It’s where you sell something and you sell something else and you sell another one. And now Makai, you’re selling eight and then you sell another one. You’re selling, and the people who bought the cheesecake at belovedcheesecakes . com, they love the cheesecake so much. They tell their friends.

And now all of a sudden you’re selling 16.

And now all of a sudden, those 16 love it so much. And now we’re headed into Thanksgiving, and people are going, whoa, I think I saw you on the 700 Club. Aren’t you that lady from Entrepreneur Magazine? And now you’re selling 32. Jen, I believe, and I want to get Makai’s thoughts on this too, I believe now you’re selling so many cheesecakes that the local shipping services might not be able to even keep up with all the orders. Is that correct?

Am I making that up? No, you’re not. making it up. We have definitely broke records, especially in the month of October. And we’re shipping 130 cheesecakes every Tuesday. We could ship more, but we’re just running out of space.

We don’t have enough space. We don’t have the freezer capacity. And our bakers are struggling to keep up. And we have two full time amazing bakers. It’s a great problem to have. We’re super blessed.

Yes. But it’s just, you know, overcoming digging, digging, digging. Yeah. Now there’s this thing called the tracking sheet. There’s a thing called a recipe. So if you didn’t have a recipe, you would not be serving up the world’s best cheesecake.

I mean, if you just said, hey guys, girls, people, just do your best, make the cheesecakes how you feel, we’ll go off the feel method, just paint your way through this, have some fun, we’ll be creative. So you have a recipe to standardize the excellence and the quality, and then you have a tracking sheet, so you make sure you’re managing the numbers. Jim, let’s talk about the recipe. When you started making, I’m going to belovedcheesecakes . com, folks, and I’m clicking on the gallery button.

And I’m looking here, I’m finding myself getting hungry. You’ve got, what, the pumpkin spice going on, got the Oreo thing. When you first started experimenting with cheesecakes, how did you know that, OK, this one’s good enough, I should begin selling it? How did you know that? It was the research and development of it, and testing different recipes, and making sure that it was perfect, and having other people sample them, and making sure that this was high end, high quality cheesecake. And so by testing it, I do the quality control now, now that I’m not baking, I definitely taste my fillings, make sure that everything is still staying the same.

And that’s the biggest compliment we get is the consistency and our quality. We don’t do shortcuts and we still hand zest and hand juice all of our citrus. Someday I would like to get an actual juicer but we just don’t have the room for it right now. And so when you’re filling these orders, you have bakers, and they all want to make the cakes. You want everyone to make the cakes to a certain quality standard.

Your quality standard, Makai, is sincerely higher than that of your competition.

I’m trying to word this in a way that makes sense. You’re not trying to be some diva, bougie cheesecake. But if like a Ford Escort was the cheapest cheesecake in the world, and a Lamborghini was like the best, you’re kind of serving a Lamborghini cheesecake, but maybe at like a Honda price. I mean, it’s not the cheapest thing in the world, but you offer that Lamborghini quality.

Can you talk about that?

Just what is the idea? How do you position yourself in the market? How do you see yourself, Makai? Do you see yourselves as like the Lamborghini of cheesecake, or do you, how would you describe the quality that someone will receive when they get one of your cheesecakes? I would definitely say it’s the Lamborghini. We like to also reference Ferrari.

We call ourselves the Ferrari of cheesecakes, best cheesecake in America.

And I think what it all boils down to is we use real ingredients and we make real cheesecake, scratch made, handmade, every one of them.

It’s a small batch.

And when I say real ingredients, you can look at our ingredients because we have to give them out to these bougie grocery stores. And our ingredients, I think it’s 10 or under.

And then other cakes that are involved, other cheesecakes from other facilities.

The list is ginormous compared to ours. And people all the time say when they have our cheesecake, they eat it. They don’t feel heavy. They don’t feel bloated. They feel still light or they don’t get heartburn and things like that. We’re not using all the fillers.

No, we don’t use preservatives or anything like that. That’s why we can’t, when we ship them, we want to be able to add all of our fresh ingredients. However, to make the best possible cheesecake arrive at the best possible way, we have to ship the toppings separately. Now, what I’m going to do now, Jen, is I’m going to open it up. We have two members of our team here on the mic. They’re not on camera, but they’re on the mic.

We have Rihanna here, and we have McKenna. They’re very solid, good people.

And they might or might not like cheesecake, but I know they like you.

And we’re going to ask you a couple of questions, if we can, about growing your business.

Because there’s somebody watching this show today, and they’re going to be inspired by the answers you provide here. So let’s go with Rihanna first. And Rihanna, what question would you have for Jen, who’s been a client of ours for a long time? She’s a diligent person. She’s putting in the work. She’s making a great product.

What question would you have for Jen? Yeah.

So what habits would you say would be the most critical to your success? Definitely. Well, keeping a schedule. And then also, we really focus on being diligent doers. So I tell people when we do group interviews that we’re not just we’re in these restaurants, not because they came to us, we’re in these grocery stores, not because they came to us, but we’re diligent doers. And we’re calling them one grocery store, it took us a year to get in.

And that’s from us being diligent and calling them. Even with the rejections of nose, we still continue to call. So that is one habit is to continually follow through call do the be a diligent doer. Now, I have a follow -up question, then we’ll go to McKenna here. And I’m not asking you to put your financial numbers out there for the world to hear, but I do want to ask you this question. Makai, when we met in Oregon, I just remember hearing that you would not lock down, and I knew, well, boop, boop, boop, boop, we can help you.

Because there’s a certain defiance you have to have.

By the way, there’s a great documentary series called The Defiant Ones.

One of my favorite documentaries of all time called The Defiant Ones, and it is mind boggling.

But you have to be a little bit defiant in terms of you have to stand up your principles and be focused if you’re going to be a successful entrepreneur. And I knew when you guys stood up to the lockdowns, I knew you would do very well as business owners. From the time that we met in Oregon to now, How much growth have you had? Are you selling one extra cheesecake a month? Are you one time bigger? Are you 10 % smaller?

Is it getting worse? Is it getting better? How would you describe growth, just to give people a context of kind of the growth you guys are having over there at BelovedCheesecakes .

com?

It’s easy.

It’s been significant. Just last year to this year, and you’re just talking shipping, we were excited when it wasn’t a holiday week or a holiday month, and we would ship 10, 15 cheesecakes on a Tuesday.

We thought we were big stuff.

But as of August, well, we’ve been really playing around with Facebook ads on our advertising and marketing, because all about that marketing. Our growth has been through the roof. Now, when our phone dings, and there are cheesecake, that means it’s been a cheesecake sale. It used to be a rule. Wow, look at that. We got a cheesecake sale.

Oh, my stars.

Look, where are we shipping it to?

Now? It’s Oh boy, I hope I have the product available. I hope everything’s going to be perfect. And now our cheesecake shippings are anywhere from 125 to I think this week, Tuesday the 28 we will be another personal record. I think we’re pushing 140 possibly 145 cheesecakes. Are you like so you’re up like 14 times?

Is that is that accurate? Am I getting that? Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

And I’ll tell you this, folks.

What we’re going to do right now, we’re all going to come into an agreement right now.

If you’re looking for a holiday gift, and I know you are. now someone says, I’m not looking for a holiday gift. Okay, if you’re Scrooge and you’re not getting a holiday gift, we’ll pray for you too. But if you are watching this show right now and you’re looking for a great gift for mom or dad or somebody, I want everyone to go to Beloved Cheesecakes and at least consider buying an incredible cheesecake from BelovedCheesecakes . com. And again, you guys are having exponential, massive growth.

McKenna, you have a chance to work with great clients. What question would you have for Jen about scaling from a small business to a regional business to now a national brand.

Well, I have you muted. That’s terrible. I’m back to you. Yeah. How has implementing the tracking sheet, um, ultimately helped you and like helped impact your business as well as scaling it? Oh, the tracking sheet has been an absolute lifesaver.

We ask every single person how they hear it about us. And in the beginning, when we first started working with Clay, we were, um, We had ads on a radio station. We had ads in magazine. And when we started using the tracking sheet of how do you hear about us, we saw where our marketing dollars were going and not getting any, um, no fruit from it. And so being able to track how everybody heard about us, being able to see our numbers, you know, so then we can push like, okay, we’ve got to have sales this week.

We had a loss last week or whatever. Um, The tracking sheet has been an absolute game changer for us. Do you have a follow -up question about tracking sheets, McKenna?

We’ll go back to Rhianna. Do you have a follow -up question for Jen? Because again, somebody watching this show, you are highly motivated, highly caffeinated, maybe even agitated. You want to have success. And you’re maybe saying, wow, can I do it? I know.

I mean this sincerely. I know you can do it. I know Jen is doing it. Any other question you have for Jen there, McKenna? What was the most surprising thing that you found through tracking? I think, like I said, We, you know, we had our ad, we have a really conservative awesome radio station here in the area and we were spending money with them monthly.

And I think finding through the tracking sheet and asking people how they hear about us, not seeing fruit from that was really surprising and shocking and sad because we also want to support another local business here. But When you’re a small business, your dollars, every dollar counts on where you’re spending it. And so I think, wouldn’t you think that’s like, I would just to say, I’d love to add to that, um, asking for objective reviews. Uh, at the very beginning, when we started working with Clay, we thought this might be a little ridiculous, this little obnoxious pestering people. Hey, we’d love to have an objective review. Your, your opinion really matters to our business.

Um, but then fast forward to where we’re at 2200 or plus five -star reviews. And to hear when you ask people, hey, how’d you hear about us? They’re like, oh, I want a dessert. And I Google dessert. And bam, you came right up, best dessert. Or a company in Vermont says, where’s the best key lime cheesecake?

They find us. Now we build a relationship where we send them cases of key lime cheesecake all the way from Oregon into Vermont for her restaurant. I want to show people this, too, just to hammer what you just said, because what you said, Makai, is pretty powerful. If you Google search Oregon cheesecakes, you guys now come up as the top search result. And I have run into so many people that have come to me and they’ve said, hey, Clay, I heard about Beloved through this, through that, looked them up. They always say that part.

They go, I heard about Beloved through this and that, and I looked them up, and they were great. But they always say I looked them up.

So what does that mean to look it up, to look them up?

I’m looking it up.

What does that mean? I’m looking it up. It’s usually somebody Googling something. And then they find something. And because you stood up against the lockdowns for a while, the only thing that ever came up was like some toxic news story. And so we’ve had to work through that.

So it’s been pretty awesome to see. Rihanna, again, BelovedCheesecakes . com is the topic, scaling a company. What question or questions would you have? for Jen about how to scale, how she has scaled her business BelovedCheesecakes .com? Yeah,

com? Yeah, how have you dealt with the criticism and the rejection that comes with scaling your business?

It’s pretty easy. I think it’s free entertainment, to be honest.

I don’t pay much attention to it.

And I’m very vocal here in Oregon. I stand for our freedom and Jesus and America. And so what people that are hating on us or criticizing us, we are also fighting for their freedom of speech. I mean, they are they have the freedom to have their opinion, their thoughts, their beliefs. And so when they hate on us, it’s like, that’s okay. That’s your opinion.

We’re allowed to have our own opinions and beliefs. And so I don’t take it to heart at all. Behind you, you have all these signs, these wonderful, encouraging signs. You and I share, I think, a similar worldview in that we’re always putting out signs and things on the wall. You’ve decided to not apologize for your faith at BelovedCheesecakes . com.

As you’re hiring people through the process of the group interview, aka interviewing a lot of candidates, how has that helped your business, Jen, interviewing a lot of people and just knowing that, hey, not everybody’s gonna fit into a culture where I’m putting up Bible verses on my walls? The group interviews is probably one of my most favorite things about running Beloved Cheesecakes and learning the group interview from having you as my coach.

I just had my first walkout last week, actually.

And I always start with, Hi, I’m Jen, the owner and founder of Beloved Cheesecakes. First and foremost, we love Jesus. Secondly, we love America. You do not have to know Jesus to work for us. But if you do not like America, you will not like working for us. It doesn’t offend me if you leave.

I just have to tell you who we are. had a gal get up and she’s like, Yeah, I don’t think this is gonna be a good fit for me. And which is totally fine. And I’m like, we’ll still serve you cheesecake. We still love you. But you just have to know who we are.

So I just in the Right at the beginning, everybody knows there’s no question and clearly they come in our shop and they see that as well. I want to show this real quick.

This is a copy of a book I’m editing for Pastor Jackson Laumeyer right now.

And it’s on my desk. And I don’t have to hide this book. I don’t have to go, oh no, someone’s coming in my office. I should hide the book. Or this is on my desk right now. This is Rich Dad Poor Dad, The Guide to Investing.

I was just on the Rich Dad Poor Dad podcast this week.

I don’t have to hide this book and say, Oh no, someone’s coming to my office.

I don’t have to live in duality. Mark Batterson just sent me his book. This is the pastor of one of the largest churches in America. He’s in Washington, D . C. I just interviewed Mark on our show this week.

I don’t have to hide the book like it’s contraband. I don’t have cognitive dissonance. I’m not trying to appeal to everybody. And if you’re watching today’s show and you feel stuck because you’re being held hostage by crazy, toxic, nefarious employees, Folks, we can help you get unstuck. Jen, what would you say to anybody who has not been to one of our workshops? Because I think, and maybe I’m wrong, but I think when you came to our workshops, I think you kind of felt like you’d found your tribe or like you’d found home.

How would you describe the business workshops? For the business workshops, it’s not a motivational workshop. That’s why I first tell everybody. It is action -packed, and you are going to learn the skills and the skills things to do in your business that will help grow and scale your business. And I think everybody should go I tell everybody about your business conference all the time. And just if they want to, they don’t even have to have you as a business coach, but just to go and learn the steps to grow their business and

also to have that boldness and courage and to stand up for what they believe in and bring their values, their personal values into their business and not be afraid of that. So here’s what I’m doing today on today’s show. Someone says today, well, just between now and December 4th and 5th. So between now and December 4th and 5th, kind of get some mojo going. Uh, if you’re, if you’re watching today’s show or you watch the show, whenever you watch it between now and December 4th and 5th, if you will go to belovedcheesecakes . com, And you will buy any cheesecake at all.

You buy any cheesecake at all for the holidays, for yourself. Maybe you’re trying to pack on 45 pounds before the holidays. That’s great. But you just go to BelovedCheesecakes . com. You buy a cheesecake.

Buy multiple cheesecakes. If you’ll just text me a screenshot to verify your purchase. So you say, what do I do?

Go to BelovedCheesecakes .

com. You buy a cheesecake. And you want to text my cell phone number. This is my cell phone number. We’ll keep that very private between you and me and everybody. That’s my cell phone number, 918 -851 -0102.

If you’ll just text me a proof of purchase.

I’m going to enter you in for a chance to win a backstage pass to the upcoming conference featuring Eric Trump, featuring Mel K, featuring yourself, featuring Michael Levine. So again, you say, I want to go to the business workshop. How do I do it? Go to ThriveTimeShow . com. You say, I want to have a great cheesecake.

How do I do it?

BelovedCheesecakes . com. Now, if you’ll just buy anything at all from BelovedCheesecakes . com and you’ll text me a proof of purchase to my cell phone number, that number is 918 -851 -0102, 918 -851 -0102. you’ll be entered in for a chance to win a backstage pass to the upcoming event. So my final question, Jen, is if somebody’s looking at buying one of your products and they’re going, OK, I’ve never bought a Beloved Cheesecakes product before, what’s the one?

What’s the move?

If someone goes to your gallery, they go to the shop, what is the one thing that everybody should check out?

What’s the one product everybody should get? I think everybody should get the Ultimate Sampler. It’s one slice of everything that we have. And you get the two seasonals. At Christmastime, you’ll have the pumpkin and the white chocolate peppermint in them. And we tell everybody that 11 cheesecakes is a great gift to give someone that has everything right.

So that’s what we say.

Look at that.

Look at look at that.

Don’t look at it too much, folks, folks.

Look at it. Go to BelovedCheesecakes . com. I’m going to do it again. I’m going to BelovedCheesecakes . com.

Fingers on the home row. Feeling the flow. Working it. Finding the shop button. Clicking the shop button. Find the ultimate sampler.

Where is it? It’s over here to the left. I click the ultimate sampler, and there it is. What is it? Half price? It’s only $89?

Come on.

This is incredible cheesecake.

So again, Jen, thank you so much for your time. Mekhi, I appreciate you allowing the Ferrari of cheesecakes. to be available for just $89. Makai, I’ll give you the final word, final 30 seconds. What say you, sir? I’m glad you said that, because I can’t get over enough of Clay would always tell us it’s about consistency.

It’s about being at the grind. And you develop your systems, and you repeat them. And you develop everything that works, and you repeat it over and over and over. Regardless if you’re tired, you’re discouraged, it doesn’t matter. These systems work. And if you continue to just put time into it and do it repetitively over and over and over, the fruit will come, the results will come, and you’ll be like us to where, how are we keeping up with all these orders?

Thank you guys so much for carving out time. I know you have more orders to ship. Have a great day. We’ll talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye -bye.

Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. 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 little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing.

And I think for a lot of people, they 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 better. 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 eighteen hundred percent increase in our internet leads going from ten a month to a hundred and eighty a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it, because we sure haven’t. Workflows.

Every business has to have a workflow. A workflow.

Workflow.

Workflow. Building a house, gotta have a blueprint. Workflow. Gotta have a workflow.

So if we can pull up the workflow, Sean, for, is Weimer here?

Weimer, are you here? I saw Weimer and his wife making out by the waterfall and I knew he was here. No, I’m just kidding.

Weimer’s great.

Let’s pull up the Weimer workflow.

Weimer.

W -E, it’s on the agenda, Sean.

Weimer. W -E -I -M -E -R, Weimer. Weimer is a guy who has a pool maintenance company and he came to this conference and he was sitting right about Here, this isn’t a prophetic moment. This is just real. It’s right about here. But we were facing that way at the time.

We were facing that way. And he’s there. You find Weimer, W -E -I. Is it tracking or? Nah, you can find. Let’s look at the one sheet W workflow.

Do the flow photos workflow. Let’s do that one. Okay, got it. That’s fine. I didn’t know. Just to give you an example.

So, but Weimer’s sitting here and it occurs to him, I can build a successful pool maintenance company with my current car. With my current budget and my current

mind, and I could make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and all I need to do is do it. It just like, it occurred to him like, I could, because he was working for a pool maintenance company, and it occurred to him, I just got laid off or transitioned out, I could just open my own. So there, he did it. So Sean, if you look up, Weimer Works real quick.

Weimer Works Pool Maintenance is in Trophy Club. He’s doing, what he does is he knocks on your door, or he comes up in Google, you find him in Google, and Aaron, he does a thing where like your first pool maintenance service is a dollar. Why does he do a dollar? No brainer, you gotta get somebody to try you out before they’ll buy. People wanna try before they buy, they wanna check it out before they check out with you. Then he sits down with the customer and says, hey, based upon how long it took today, based upon the size of the pool, it’ll be X amount per month.

Sean, if you pull up his tracking sheet, I think he now has 87 pools. At like, you know 500 a month or something and let me walk you through the expenses Weimer And that’s about it.

Yeah Because it’s pool maintenance.

Yeah, you see that but it occurred to him like I can do it So i’m trying to make sure everyone has that moment the aha moment A couple things. One is you have to have a no -brainer, okay? And a lot of you have been asking, so I don’t want you to feel like I’m hard pressuring anybody.

What I do with my business is I do a 13 -point assessment for free with everybody.

Why does he do a free pool assessment, a free cleaning, and why do I do free 13 -point assessments?

Yeah, because you’re going to bring along one sheet, you’re going to check them out, make sure they’re a client you want to do business with.

You don’t want to walk into the backyard of the pool and they’ve got three Cujo’s in the backyard and, you know, there’s

all kinds of problems with the pool and you know if you barely start to clean it the walls are gonna fall off a bit they’re gonna blame it on you and…

Chrissy can I pick on you for a second?

I’m going to pick on Chrissy because I like her.

I’m going to pick on Jen.

Jen come up here. Jen and let’s bring up Jen and Chrissy.

There are two ladies that I want to pick on because I think they are very indicative of what I perceive to be great clients.

So maybe you say, I don’t like them. I don’t do well with women, clients, women, business owners, I’m a sexist. That’s fine.

I’ll bring up other dudes and women and old people, young people, whatever.

Okay.

So Chrissy, if I had to describe you and you can rebuke me and say, that’s not true.

I think you’re super passionate about your customers and empathetic about the experience of your customers to the point that you would live a personal hell if your clients would be happy.

Yes. Is that right? Yeah.

As long as my clients are happy, I’m happy.

But I mean, I think you would maybe potentially be stuck there forever as an employee, because you’re so obsessed with your customers being happy.

Yes, I want my clients happy all the time. And I don’t think you ever think about your self -health or self -wealth ever if it potentially wasn’t for a weekly meeting. I agree 100%.

So in the meeting, I have to argue with her on behalf of herself to pay herself.

So I’m like, you have to pay yourself.

He keeps me on track. She’s great. But I’m just telling you, that is an example. Now over here, you Jen, I think if we weren’t careful, you would spend your whole day sharing the gospel and wouldn’t worry about, I mean, you’re like the most passionate Jesus sharer of all time. Maybe a little bit, a little bit. And you’re, you love your cheesecake.

Yes. Cheesecake, Jesus in America. And I think that Jen is very self -aware where she needs help. And it’s very, very coachable.

But I think you’re aware of like, okay, I need help in this area So I think a lot of times we come into our meeting and you’re like jim.

You’ll say this is where I need some help. I feel like a failure a lot, just being honest, but it’s good. And I need that. I need, so I’m going to give you a fast way to fail. I’m going to give you a video that’s running parallel while I’m teaching you something.

Okay. So the word charisma, you should write it down. Carlton Pearson. I just Carlton Pearson. I will, I will try not to cry when speaking about him. Cause he was such a big impact in my life, but Carlton, he, would sit me down, and he would sit me down, and this is after, we’re talking, guys, we’re talking week after week for a long period of time.

And he says to me, Clay, do you know what the word charisma means? And I go, I don’t. I mean, I do, I know, but I know there’s a trick, there’s a riddle, there’s something here, tell me. Yoda, please. And he was kind of one of those Yoda kind of guys. In due time, tell you, I will.

He’s speaking in Proverbs. And he says, the word charisma was originally spelled with a K. In my shallow mind, I go, that clears it up, that’s good, okay.

But in the Greek, the original word, it meant the ability to, it’s the gift of grace, the ability to coach people up, lift people up, mentor people up.

The word charisma now has been perverted like so much.

It’s C -H -A -R -I -S -M -A.

And now it means a very exciting person who talks down to you and leaves you feeling full of holes instead of feeling whole. He said, so my job with you, Mr. Clark, is to make sure every time you leave my office that you feel whole and not full of holes because there are no bad students. They’re just bad teachers and bad preachers. And so I’m going, Oh, just so much there.

And so I think that’s the, one of the things about being a coaching client is there has to be a little bit of a self -awareness going on.

And I think these two are just absolutely great.

I think Christie will go technology, not necessarily my game eyebrows all day. Eyelashes, got it. Skincare, okay. The dermis, epidermis, the whole deal, I got it. Google, hard pass.

Facebook and HTTPS protocol. No, I don’t. GoDaddy.

And so remember the day that we had the website problem? Yes. With the GoDaddy? I 911 you’d. Yeah, and we try to hop on it. So with our coaching service, just to be clear, you know, we do the photography, the video, the web, all that.

I’ve tried to take what I believe to be the burden that most clients hate away from them so they can focus on the thing they like to do.

So with you, do you like, Jen, do you like, google and graphic design print piece and photoshop and No, not at all. Not my strength. What part do you, do you like about business? Um, the part I like about business is the relationships, the networking, being able to see people smile when they have our cheesecake building and growing the business. I never thought we have 11 employees now in two locations. I’m in 20 different restaurants and we just landed a prestigious store in Portland and just the growth and the growth in myself.

And I would not be. growing Having a coach and having clay. He does push me on be on where I I would quit everyone and I just think it’s important So if you if you’re thinking about your business here What is your no -brainer and who is your ideal and likely? Client you might want to write that on page zero and think about it because if you’re a pest control company There’s a client I worked with for years and years a pest control company before they sold the brand and they were in Texas and Aaron their whole meeting would be focused on like 1 % of their customers. Whoa Why is it that 1 % of angry customers can control someone’s whole meeting by default? Oh yeah, well because of a high emotional person coming into your sphere, one of your clients who’s highly emotional, it transfers to you.

and you become highly emotional about it. Then you get caught up in things that aren’t that meaningful towards your business. The bell curve of the center of your business, where the majority of your clients are, is really where you need to focus in on, because you are not the perfect solution for everybody.

There’s people outside the bell curve on those low parts of the bell curve.

Those aren’t your clients, and don’t let them hijack your business and make you change it into something. It doesn’t need to be. This is not a judgmental thing. I’m trying to help somebody out there, okay? There’s a book. You’re asking me, sir, how do I know all this stuff?

I just read all the time. So, like, I don’t know. Most people, I believe, converse with other people. I don’t really do that. I just read. So I go home, I read.

I talk to my wife and kids, but if they ever go away or sleep or somewhere, I’m reading. I was sneaking away to read. If that makes sense, I just read. There’s a book called the service profit chain. It’s a Harvard case study, but it asks you to break your customers into five parts. Okay.

Five customers. One group, Chrissy is what we call an apostle. They love your business and they run around promoting you to everybody and you don’t pay them. One group, Chrissy, is called the loyalist. And they buy from you because they buy from you, but they won’t tell anybody. It’s like a secret buy.

They don’t want anyone to know, Jen, that they eat cheesecakes every week. Third group is what we call the mercenary. They’re only here because it’s a good deal. It’s a good deal, they’re going to eat someone else. They’re about as loyal as the discount. The other group, the other group here, this is a hostage.

They hate you, but they’re stuck with you.

They hate you, but they’re stuck with you.

They feel like they have to use you, but they don’t like you.

Most people feel that way about their accountants, most.

And the other group is the terrorist.

This guy wakes up thinking about ways to actively screw you every single day.

So what you want to do is you want to fire your terrorists. You want to make sure you don’t have any hostages that don’t like you. okay and then you want to make sure you celebrate those loyalists the Apostle we’re on the same page there are certain clients I’ve had that worked with for years I would never bring them up on stage because they’re like I can’t but one of my clients I’ll just be vague he’s told me my company that I work for he’s a franchise they don’t even allow me to talk to you I go really do tell And he’s like, because this is pre COVID, but it’s like, you know, that podcast you did about no days off and like skipping birthdays or whatever, they hate you. So you’re like on the do not hire list. So his wife hired me as her consultant and that’s how that works. Okay.

So he would be a loyalist because he can’t actually tell people about it, the growth we’ve had. And then there’s people that are apostles where, um, you work with them and they just tell everybody about the success they’re having. That’s a good thing. So you got to be really intentional about those things. So we’re going to kind of get into a couple of details, but I want to keep these two up here so you can hear about real people doing it. I’m sure I get that video pulled up here.

I believe I found it here. Come on. It said it’s about five minutes.

Yeah.

So as bill Belichick’s number one fan who remembers the Patriots, somebody doesn’t like him.

Someone does. Okay.

Um, before I found Jesus, I found the Patriots.

No, it’s real. I didn’t have any time for Jesus because I watched the Patriots all day. I never missed a game.

I never missed an update. I was obsessed and that’s why I’m Bill Belichick’s number one fan. By the way, I probably will be going to a UNC game this year to see Bill Belichick whoop up on somebody because I love his philosophy because running a football team is very similar to running a business. You’ve got about 50 players. There’s a lot of turnover. If people do well, they want to go to another team.

There’s a lot of similarities there.

You got a certain budget, you know.

But there was that game they played.

It was the Patriots versus the Falcons. Remember that game? I do. Okay, Sean, hit player. Toss running left.

Locker in front of him.

Matthews. Good start.

Freeman breaks loose.

Devontae Freeman, welcome to the Super Bowl, out to the 45. Applause. What’s happening now is the Falcons, in this scenario, this analogy, they represent Jen’s competitors. They represent Chrissy’s competitors. They’re like adversity, okay?

I happen to be the Belichick, okay?

Which is why, in my life, whenever there’s a funeral, people will call me and go, hey um could you help plan the funeral because they know that i’m very like a stoic getter done kind of guy but it’s why no one calls me if they’re having like an emotional crisis they’re only like don’t talk to him you know even the guy that was the suicidal guy was telling you about he told me he’s like things you said to me were so rough but so true and it honestly kept me off the ledge but thinking back on it it could have gone the other way pretty quick So it’s it’s a but I get all insane is your business is by default not growing Okay, and so watch what happens here play patients are losing Falcons are winning Super Bowl. You’re watching. There’s not scrubbing head here. Keep going. You’ll get it air air. Maybe you help Sean find the clip Okay, it’ll be NFL Mike.

You’ll see it and so who remembers this game where the Patriots were down by like a I don’t, 28 points. I want you to see the mic. It has to be mic’d or it doesn’t make any sense. There you go. 28 to three, but it has to be mic’d. If it’s not mic’d, it doesn’t help.

Mic’d. So what happens is the team’s down by a lot.

And whoever watched the Patriots, there’s a guy named Julian Edelman, who’s about like you, your height.

He used to be a quarterback in college.

He’s probably what, 5 ’10 ish? Are you 5 ’10 ish? How tall are you? I mean, we can look up Edelman, about the same height build. And Edelman’s like, we got this and like how do we got this we’re down by 28 and then there’s this last round draft pick Tom Brady who’s like guys we got this and then Bill Belichick who by the way Bill Belichick started his career you should look this up don’t don’t assume it’s true he started out his career after going to Wesleyan University which is not necessarily a football powerhouse He was not a good football player.

He started his NFL career by writing a handwritten letter to every coach and begging them for a job. And the first team that said yes was the Baltimore Colts.

And they said, we can pay you $25 a week, which in today’s money is $125 a week.

So Belichick’s like, OK, sure. So Belichick ends up starting to work his first job. Could you imagine, in today’s world, working for $125 a week? He made $25 a week at the time, 1974, I believe it was. It’s crazy. So hit play on this video.

Go for it. You’ll see. There you go. Good. Okay. Pause.

Now, if I’m not here with you guys, this is how I am. So you guys might have, you guys might’ve seen some of that this week.

I’m just being real with you guys.

I’ll fight you.

You know? So the other day I had this company, it’s not there. It’s like every day almost.

But the other day we had somebody who was doing some really crazy stuff in our business and I’ll keep it kind of vague, give you enough detail.

How many of you are afraid of snakes?

Show your hands. Afraid of snakes, Jen? You afraid of snakes? Who here is afraid of snakes? Imagine you went into a place of business and there were snakes running around freely. and that place of business was my business that employee brought you know these exotic animals to the event to my office to my thing to my not here but every place and it didn’t go well with me you know but I’m like I don’t know what it is I don’t understand people I’m not attacking I’m sure I don’t understand cheering for sporting events I don’t get it first I don’t get I watch the page it’s good it’s fun I can learn from it but I don’t understand cheering for a team that I’m not a part of that I will never play for where the outcome doesn’t impact my life at all.

But I do understand cheering for myself and my clients. Does that make sense? So like I’ll cheer and celebrate a client, but I really don’t care who wins the Superbowl. I don’t know if this makes any sense. I have a hard time getting excited about things that don’t directly impact my clients or myself. Okay.

So Edelman, his career is football. Edelman, that’s the short guy right there. Can you play? No fear, let it loose! We gotta get a touchdown here, boys. Let’s go, gotta pick this up.

Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! Let’s go, baby. I’m gonna be a hell of a story. Pause. A lot of the conversations I have with Eric are like this. We might have a conversation, it’s like, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, boom.

That’s kind of a deeper conversation, because there’s a lot of that. I remember we’re stage side in Oregon. Joe, you were there. JoAnta’s big part of the Reawaken tour was helping organize speakers. Can’t thank you enough. Joe’s doing that.

And we’ve got a $600 ,000 structure that we had to build. You were there. And Antifa was there.

And I look and Flynn’s there.

He’s got his knee on the stage, standing up on the stage, one leg up on the stage, on the stairs, headed up there.

He’s kind of leaning over.

And, you know, it’s getting going kind of crazy because we got, it’s like five in the morning, Antifa’s showing up.

There’s all sorts, it’s just a weird energy, weird energy.

And some of the speakers are bailing.

A lot of the speakers are canceling.

I can’t make it. I’m so worried. I don’t want to get hurt or get injured. My wife doesn’t want me to go. My husband doesn’t want me, all that. And I look at Flynn and I said, how did you get over your nerves of public speaking?

He goes, I never did. And he grabs the mic and goes up there. I remember him being like, You know, so then when he’s off stage, I’m like, hey, what do you do with guys that didn’t want to? Because he was a higher level general, the most respected general of his era. Like, what if a guy doesn’t want to jump out of the plane with a parachute? He’s like, well, what you do is you throw them out.

And there’s a lot of that, you know? And so that’s kind of what coaching looks like a little bit. OK, so let’s go back to this video for a second. Stop, baby. Get us a stop, baby. Let’s go, man.

So it’s a fight. Boys are going to be having a story. We score a game, right?

Let him leave, boys.

He’s in for two! But it’s kind of a thing we’re like that’s sort of like am I Mike running a business is like you’re down by 28 points and nobody cares so when I got motivated to start DJ connection calm and I got motivated to do it I I remember my dad, he was on those, who remembers those, do you remember the, it was like a Stairmaster, but it was a skiing kind of thing where you would, NordicTrack, yeah, my dad’s on the NordicTrack, he’s six foot five, he’s NordicTracking, and he’s like, son, what are you doing? I go, I traveled to Minnesota to tell him the news, and he’s just like, what are you doing? And I’m like, dropped in at college, gonna get married to my girlfriend, and I’m starting a DJ company. He’s like, okay, don’t know if that’s really the plan. Have you done the math?

And like, my dad was a great guy, but he was so concerned that I was making the wrong decision. And so I’ll never forget, may he rest in peace. But we were in my dorm room and I remember telling him, I just, I can’t talk to you anymore about the business because I know you’ve never done it and you’re not trying to be negative, but you don’t get it. And I need someone that gets me, that fits me, that understands the song I’m singing. And I love you. I just can’t talk to you anymore, but someday I’m going to hire you.

So I was like 25, 26, called my dad, dad. Hey dad, what’s up? do you want to come move to Oklahoma? And we grew up really poor, you know, so my dad’s like, from Minnesota? What would I do? I go, I’ll have you do it.

or bookkeeping He’s like, I’ve never been a bookkeeper and I’m like, I’ve never been the man who ran the largest DJ company in America But I am so he’s like really yeah, what will my email be? I’ll never forget that.

What’s my email?

That’s a good question. He was working at Medtronic making pacemakers. They pulled my email beyond it I don’t know.

You’re the man.

You’re my dad cuz corporate American that corporate America works. It’s like Tom Clark at Medtronic, you know And he’s like, so what would be my title? Big deal, founding father, literally.

But he’s like, I’ve never done it. And I’m like, whatever. He’s like, all right, I want to talk to your mom, but I’m going to move down there.

And to me, that was like a huge highlight of my life, because growing up poor, being able to hire my dad, it was like, wow.

But I had to have certain people that kind of guided me down the path.

So I’m just telling you who I had in my life.

But Michael Levine, you guys have heard of Michael Levine before.

I paid him $25 ,000 for three hours. Because he said he didn’t want to meet with me. I paid him $25 ,000 to teach me PR and marketing.

Bruce Clay, it was like $8 ,000 a month for 12 months to teach me search engine optimization.

I’ve been to like all these seminars, all this stuff. But if it’s not actionable, it doesn’t help.

And so Jen, talk to the listeners, talk to everybody watching online, everybody here. How does it help having specific, like very specific action steps to take as opposed to, hey, go read this book?

um to have specific action uh steps to take well one um it’s that accountability and you’re going down your checklist and your to -do list and you’re getting everything on there done otherwise i probably wouldn’t get it done if i didn’t have those action steps that you’ve given me i think too with the carnivore diet the

the, the, uh, Nathan Jordan, you know, those guys are great.

They were saying just knowing specifically to eat only meat, it kind of clears up a little bit.

I’m sure Sean, you hear that kind of feedback too, but there’s no, it’s not a, you don’t have to go.

Does that include lettuce?

How much lettuce can I eat on the carnivore meat only diet?

Okay. Chrissy, can you talk about just having action at the specific action plan?

What that is, how that impacts you?

It’s about keeping it simple for me and the checklist and repetition because I like to go off and do other things.

So I get it keeps me grounded. So when it’s simple and easy. I will do it. So Sean, what page do we turn to for the sales conversion system page 101? I think it is page 101. Yes, 101 and 102.

Okay. So Chrissy, you have physically customers that come into your spa. Yes. And primarily women, uh, Jen, who comes into your store? Men, women, who comes in primarily? Yeah, men, women, kids, elderly.

Is there a certain group that’s mostly probably more 45 on up who comes in for the free samples the most? Everybody, we even have the tweakers that come in and get their samples. Tweakers? Yep. We’re in Oregon. It’s Oregon.

Come on now. If you had to have a tweaker or a streaker come in, which would you prefer? The tweaker. OK. All right. So 101, here we go.

You have to have a sales checklist, box seven. And I think a lot of people, if I’m a poor teacher, and I’ll never know if this event is effective or worth your time until I hear the results. That’s kind of how I look at it. But page 101. You got to create an inbound sales script. Yep.

Everybody has to have an inbound sales script. There has to be a way in which you answer the phone for your business. And if you don’t have it, it’s going to be a problem. You should circle it.

come back to it later.

Second, you have to have an outbound script.

Outbound script. How many of you feel like you’re pretty resourceful? Pretty resourceful? Not in a bragging notions way. You can just kind of figure stuff out. So I remember I got tickets to go take my kids.

One of my clients, his father is a billionaire, and he said, Clay, I want to honor you for helping my son, my son -in -law. I want to give you tickets to go see Oklahoma State University, Gallup, and go watch the football game. And they’re great seats. I said, great.

And in my enthusiasm, can you turn that mic up a little bit?

And in my great enthusiasm, I did not ask how many tickets. And I didn’t recognize that he thought I had like two kids, and I have five kids. So we’re driving to Stillwater, and I’ve got four tickets, and I need seven.

Any parents out there can relate to these stories?

Oh yeah, you gotta pick your favorites real quick. We can drop off three.

Hopefully they… Guys, why don’t you go hang out on the playground for four hours? We’ll come back. And they’re like age two, three, five, you know, because we got the twins. We had five kids under the age of seven. And to my wife, I’m looking at her, and I’m like, I can’t tell her I’ve got four tickets.

No. And what you do as a dad, you know, your wife says, you got a plan? What you do, man, is you go, oh, yeah, I’ve got a plan. It’s a solid plan. It’s a plan built on strength. It’s focused.

It’s intentional. It’s principled. It’s good. I’m going to go get some gas. You know, I’ll get some gas while I just kind of organize the plan, which I have. This is a great plan.

So you guys, if you get too much information, your wife gets suspicious, which I did to my wife. She knows you don’t have a plan. I was like, you got nothing? You got a plan here? You have tickets for all the kids, right? Yes, why would I not open up the envelope?

These are like premium tickets and there’s four of them and I’m like Gretzky denied, you know, so my thought was I’m gonna go to the game. I’m gonna make this a teaching moment I think Havana might remember the story but I’m like, we’re gonna ask every single person that we run into is there any way we can exchange four ultra premium tickets for seven tickets somewhere? And I just kept doing this. I’m not kidding, I asked every human I ran into, is there any way I can change it? Four great tickets, 49 yard, and I got, over time I got my pitch better, I kept saying it.

I got 49 yard line, row 12, four tickets, can I exchange for seven? Four, you know, I kept doing it, and I kept, how many of you know the beer vendor, he has a pitch? Ice cold beer, get your, you gotta have a pitch. Well, by about an hour of solid rejection, I got a pretty good pitch going.

I’m like, I got four tickets on the 49 yard line, free tickets, four tickets, 49 yard line, free tickets. And one guy’s like, free? I go, well, it’s kind of a swap, but here’s the deal. And he says, I got eight on like the, you know, like eight on the 30.

And I go, done.

He’s like, oh, this is sick.

Row eight, 49, whatever it is.

We swap it out.

And I was teaching my daughter at the time, it was like six or seven. I’m like, We are going to ask 60 ,000 people until one says yes. And we’re going to get so much rejection, but I hope you remember this in your young life. If it doesn’t go well, hopefully you forget it, but here we go. So my six -year -old daughter’s with me and we’re asking and sure enough, we got it. And we come back and my wife said, you got tickets?

I’m like, yeah, you know. And that’s a lot like entrepreneurship. But that’s not scalable. That sort of optimism or positivity or expectation, that’s not. Because the employees who work for you aren’t going to read all the Brian Tracy books, all the Jim Rohn books, all the Napoleon Hill books, Proverbs. So you have to scale it out.

You have to make a scale script. We’re on the same page. Next step, you have to have an inbound sales script, inbound and an outbound. Jen, with your business, if you didn’t have a script in place for how you make the actual cheesecakes, if you didn’t have a recipe, what would happen? It would be a disaster. It would not taste good.

It would be all wrong. You have to follow it to a T with baking is so precise.

Have you ever had an employee Chrissy that has suggested removing a core component from your spa experience because it would be more convenient for them?

No, but yeah, not really. We just keep it really consistent for our manicures and pedicures because it works. What about you, Aaron? Has an employee ever suggested removing something? Well, many times. And just going to the script thing, I mean, we’ve had, I remember when Clay told me for the very first time, he said, you should record all of the phone calls of anybody who answers the phone for your company and listen to them a lot.

And so we got call recording. We started listening to the calls. And to say that that first day was a train wreck would be just drastically underselling it. It was the worst thing. You know when you have that fingernails on chalkboard on the inside feeling?

Because you are horrified at what, not just what they’re saying right now, but when you look behind you at all the phone calls that have come in that they’ve done the same thing, you’re like, how did we ever sell a home to anybody?

because we had our phones forwarding to everybody’s phone so we could answer all the time. And we found out that they would answer when they were doing inappropriate things. And I won’t make the bathroom sound effects that were going on when we actually had people answer our phone, but that’s a real thing. And there are many other things you can think of that it would be weird for somebody to answer the phone during the middle of. Many of which are very personal activities. I won’t go into more detail.

Then we literally had people answer the phone and it’s like, why did you answer the phone while you’re in the middle of that? And then, you know, eating food, smacking on the phone, just all the crazy stuff. And then they would just say stuff that was so random. and had nothing to do with our business at all. It was painful. You’ve got to install call recording.

Yeah, and we put in the scripts, and like you said, like you pitched, trying to get your tickets, we just kept refining, define, act, measure, refine, right? It’s like, well, that didn’t sound good. Let’s write something that sounds good. And then we would test A and B script, whichever one booked the highest percentage over the next 30 days. Boom, let’s use that one. Then we threw away the bad script, we wrote another one, tried to outdo that one, fix the objections we were getting, test it again for 30 days, the one that booked the highest, boom, and just keep repeating.

Now, again, on page 101, don’t feel overwhelmed, just circle stuff.

Pre -written emails, pre -written text messages, a one sheet.

Somebody asked me, what’s a one sheet for my business? What does that mean? A one sheet is a way, when you come in your store, Jen, how long does it take for someone to figure out that you are a cheesecake bakery thing? Before they come in, they see our signs and cheesecake and free samples. So a one sheet, let’s look at this one sheet for a second. This isn’t like the perfect one sheet, but it’s just a one sheet.

This is mine here. It tells you about our podcast, and I just list some of the guests we’ve had on the show. So theoretically, you might be interested to listen because you know those guests. I didn’t list maybe the ones that are the best. I just thought I’d list the ones that you would know the most. So you’re trying to know in your one sheet, you’re gonna make a one sheet, a document that clearly creates the most compelling argument possible for that which you’re wanting the person to do, which in this case would be check up the podcast.

We’re on the same page? So you gotta have a one sheet. And again, what happens, I see a lot of business owners, they hire people, and they don’t have any of this in place. And it’s just craziness, it’s chaos. Now, on to box number, or this is on page 101, number five. One sheet, six, create pre -written sales presentation books.

Seven, pre -written presentation scripts.

Eight, create an FAQ sheet, frequently asked questions sheet.

frequently asked question sheet so I’ll be vague about this example because it started well person I was working with married a weird weirdo and it ended weird but it started great went great how many of you know the person you married impacts you the person was rocking then they married a weirdo and it got weird so we won’t tell you how it ends but it started was great okay the person was in the bakery business different than what you do but the wedding cake business primarily and I went into her store and it looked really hideous. And so I said, because you’re calling me, do I have permission to give you feedback on how to make the business better?

Absolutely.

Yeah, sure. I said, so your lobby, your cake that you’re making is like art.

I mean, it’s like, you know, if you guys have seen the very elaborate fondant art kind of like, this is like the unbelievable art cake kind of thing.

And I said, so it should look like a gallery, like an art gal. It should be awesome. And I said to her, so can we do the review of the lobby? She says, absolutely. And it was really bad. And I didn’t say the word bad, I just said it’s not, you know, it could be improved, that kind of thing.

She was super coachable. Well, then the fiance is like, I designed it. You know, so it’s weird, because you’re like, okay, how do we process this? I’m not like the best, you know, cake guy. I’m just objectively telling you it looks not good.

You know, I’m trying to be nice.

And it’s like, well, I made it. I’m done. She goes, listen, just, I hired him, just let’s do it.

So we’re doing it. Then we go to raise the prices, wedding cakes. Jen, why do people pay $1 ,500 for a wedding cake? It’s a wedding.

Chrissy, what do you think?

Why do people pay $1 ,500 for a wedding cake?

Because they want something spectacular. So Homeboy had watched the show, this fiancé guy, on some cheesecake company, some viral, like, you know, these reality shows, which by the way, reality shows are not real. This just in, okay?

So true.

So he’s been watching a reality show about the cupcake or the cupcake boss or the cupcake, whatever that is. And he’s like, no, no, we need to pivot to cupcakes. Now, Jen, I’m not trying to pay you to quarter Chrissy. I’m just spit ball. This idea, the cupcakes they wanted to make were $3 a cupcake.

And I’m going, if you sold 500 cupcakes a week, you wouldn’t create the gross revenue of just selling one cupcake. Furthermore, you don’t have the oven capacity to make 500 cupcakes. Furthermore, there’s not 500 people in this area that want to buy the cupcakes. But he was passionate about the cupcakes. There was a passion because of the show. Oh yeah.

In your business, there’s a balance. You end up doing things that are profitable versus things that are fun. I want to get your thoughts on that, the balance of what’s fun versus what’s profitable. The balance of what’s fun and what’s profitable. Well, I learned from you, RPAs, Revenue Producing Activities, so we really focus on that hard, which is our emailing list, our text messages, our sales every day, we go to events, we’re passing out cheesecake. And then what’s fun for me is you know, learning and growing, uh, the, I have a women’s group that comes on Friday mornings and it’s other business women who are growth mindset.

And I get to share what clay has taught me. I don’t teach them cause I’m not a teacher, but I get to share. So that’s fun. What’s the balance between fun and profitable in your business? Um, the balance, um, going to the reawakened tours, that was fun for me. Um, the balance, um, I was hanging out some, With my team, we are, we have so much fun together, but we can get sidetracked. So we just have to remember to take care of the client first.

So we get kind of lost in. Now I’m going to walk you through the experience. I’m hoping you can take notes. Okay. Is this right here? in our system.

We’re taught we’re teaching you here This is box number four the unique value proposition. So I’m gonna just go 90 miles an hour. So you hear we did Okay, we renovated the lobby. So it looks like an art gallery.

Okay, the music was like Harry Connick Sinatra Buble, that kind of vibe. We offered moms and daughters or anybody who was there to do a taste testing. We did free, very generous taste testing. And we did champagne.

We served champagne with the taste testing.

And it was just awesome experience.

And the guy who greeted you was dressed sharp, kind of like you feel like you’re going to a jewelry store or a high fashion retail store.

Maybe like you’re going into Macy’s or something.

It felt nice.

The music was intentional.

And it was working.

And it was growing.

And it was booming.

And things were great. But what happens is when you’re working with somebody’s business and they get to a place of emotion where the emotion blocks the motion, it gets weird real quickly.

And so we would always go back to, well, this is our script, this is our system, this is our process. But said fiance would change the playlist from like conic and buble to like gangster rap. No, but all the time.

Oh, that’s fitting.

And he would change the music. He would change the uniforms. He didn’t like the tyranny of a uniform. And so as we’re talking about scripts, I’m not just talking about a sales script.

I’m talking about you want to script out every interaction your customers have.

So it feels intentional.

Are we on the same page?

Even though you got to watch them do the script to like, you know putting in a camera you can catch those things You know, we have video cameras in the model homes Really funny example of this that we have we had somebody we have a presentation and there’s a young lady there She’s supposed to be dressed nice.

She’s supposed to do a very specific presentation Well, she decided to wear her gym shorts in that it looked like she’d been running in with some flip -flops and a client comes in and the client comes up to the

table where you’re supposed to interact with them.

She kind of pulls her foot up and sets it on the top of the table and takes her flip -flop off and starts digging toe jam out of her toes.

Now, hey, hey, real quick.

This actually happened. This is real. This is real. This is real. This is real. The worst part of this is, you know when you’re wearing gym shorts and sometimes people, especially if you go like this, can see up the gym.

No, I’m not kidding. This happened. Joe, am I right? Did this happen? This really happened. Yeah.

Yeah, and I do say you have to script out every aspect of your business. OK, and we’ll take a break. That wasn’t in the script, by the way. We’re going to make sure you get this idea is once you once you have the scripts in place, we’re going to talk and we come back. But it’s not about what you expect. It’s about what you inspect.

Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do. I hear. The ripple effects from you are good ripple effects. You know what I mean? People rave about what they 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, Russia. Yes. We’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show world headquarters, June 5th and 6th.

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 time management. and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here. Also at the two -day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be, oh, there it is. We’re going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train, and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization.

Sean, what’s the area where most clients actually ask you for help the most? Is it generating leads? Is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops? Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners and being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control, then generally the numbers.

You know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. 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? Thanks. 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, 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 got to have sales systems in place. We help you with that. Box number eight. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized.

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 the 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 tickets? Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You could be at a startup phase, or you could be way along in your business. But we want to make it accessible for everybody. I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad.

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

Now, 7 a .

m.

to 5, Sean, why do 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 enjoyed 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 there, Sean?

Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker.

Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in -person two -day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford.

Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards?

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

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. It’s 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. people playing the drums.

The conference is kicked off. This house is packed. We’ve got Aaron Anzis with shotguns up there. We’ve got Steve Burrington with Total Winding Concepts up there. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the improvements. It’s so exciting.

People are going crazy. 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, 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. And the last year, and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February. in the last two and a half days.

I heard about it on the podcast, started listening to the podcast, became a fan and then figured out about the workshop.

I own an insurance and financial services agency, and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big on systems and processes and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none.

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 expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons.

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. Clay Clark has helped us take our three locations in three different states and create 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 kind of where we’re at, how we can get from there. And even like emotionally, like when we’re stressed about something, you’ll have a story to relate to. And it really helps us in every area of our business. It’s been 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 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 the 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 are ready to just take off and help you get that stuff done. 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. not as many things get done on a weekly basis, so 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 you, 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 you know 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 in 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 and is now being successful. It’s really encouraging to see other people, you know, accomplish that stuff. So 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 re -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. 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. So very encouraging, and give 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. 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’ll 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. 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 on, you know, as a part of your team and your own company is huge, super valuable. So I would definitely encourage people to use him. But one thing is you got to be coachable.

You got to be wanting to get feedback. You got to be wanting to really grow your company. You 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. 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 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 little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing.

And I think for a lot of people, they 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 1800 % 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 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 the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to be successful. 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. what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. 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 sixty three thousand dollar 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’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. 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. We went from expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000. Hi, I’m Kelsey with K &D’s Woodfinishing.

I’m a business owner at 23. So I’ve been working this K &D’s company for about five years now and we started working with Thrive. Expecting maybe $200 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000. 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 such good insight, the resources that they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible.

It’s been a great experience. So I would 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’m gonna check my notes here. So in four months, my leads have tripled.

I was getting probably like two leads a week, now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week.

I have doubled my number of employees. I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments 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 mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. do what they say even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous just do what they say because it’ll work. You know people when they look at my business you know people in my town they think I’m lucky they think I’m just you know things just happen for me and you know maybe I am lucky but it has a lot to do with hard work and perseverance and working till you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that.

But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening. And I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited every single week when I’m having all these wins and things like that. They’re so excited for me. So it just, it’s the best thing ever.

And I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long -winded reply, but I just had so much to say, and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me, and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. My saying is, if it’s important to you, hire a coach. And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they You know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach.

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

So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach.

Transcribed with Cockatoo