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Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

What are you doing?

I’m just cleaning the bathroom.

That’s good.

Let’s go watch.

growndjconnection . com all over again.

How could you have scaled it faster?

So I tell you what, let’s get started.

Oh, Bob, and we will. But first, I want to make sure the listeners know that on today’s show, we’re going to talk about when it’s the right time to take on business debt.

Let’s get started.

Oh, Bob, we are going to get started. But first, I want to make sure the listeners know that on today’s show, we answer a question from a thriver based in Sacramento who asks, Clay, what advice would you have given to a 21 year old version of yourself? I certainly like that.

Bob, I’m glad you do.

And in our world, we can do anything that we want to do here.

Any old thing.

Bob, in your world, could you stop interrupting me?

So be careful.

Be careful.

Bob, did you just threaten me? Yes, Thrive Nation, welcome back to another exciting edition of the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast. Download Z Full Disclosure here. I have had a great day and a ton of DayQuil.

You know, we sometimes do our best work under the influence of DayQuil. We’ve done a number of shows because we do not let a little viral bug, smaller than small, a little, you know, allergy or whatever it is out there.

Swine flu can’t stop us.

Swine flu.

Bird flu, and with all the birds in the backyard, you might have bird flu. Right? I mean, you could.

It is possible. It is possible.

What’s the thing going on in China right now?

What’s that?

In China?

I’m going to say the thing in China going on right now is cheap labor.

No, no.

The inflation.

What is that?

I got to go.

The inflation of their currency.

Yeah, but you know what it is.

What is it?

The corona.

The corona.

You could have the coronavirus.

Deflation of their currency. But that will not stop The Thrive Time Show from moving on. We continue. Now, let me share real quick with the listeners some great things that have been happening. One. Donald Trump Jr., my friends, shall be on The Thrive Time Show very soon.

We’re excited about this.

Donald Trump Jr.

Very excited.

Shall be on The Thrive Time Show podcast.

Also the founder of Square. What? This is a billion dollar business reached out to be a guest. Very excited to have the co -founder of Square.

The co -founder of Netflix.

Just booked him. I was watching Mexican Narcos just last night.

Were you really?

Yeah.

On Netflix? I was.

It’s unbelievable. I don’t even know who to cheer for anymore.

It’s like, you know, you love them all and you hate them all.

We’re getting so many great folks.

We’ve got Sean Spicer, who is the former, he worked with President Trump there as, what do you call the guy who, the press secretary. Yeah, he’s the press secretary, P . S. Unbelievable. We have just so many great things going on. And with Dayquil, everything is really great or really bad.

I’m going to queue up this audio. You’ve had less dayquil than I have. I think you’ve had zero amounts of dayquil so far.

I could take a couple of hits if you want me to. Let me queue up the audio here. This is a Thriver by the name of Kat, who has a question. Let me hit play here. Good morning, Luke. I just had a few more questions as I’m going through this information about the group interview, more so about specifics with scaling.

I don’t know if you or Clay or anyone has experience with a company that’s so spread out geographically, but my intention is to plant therapists all over South Florida so they can serve the women close to them in their own homes. So what would you recommend as far as processes of accepting payment from the patients and scheduling? Because I’m learning from my experience of the therapist who just left me that it’s very possible.

she was breaching contract and scheduling patients longer, and just cutting out painless pregnancy, all that stuff.

Because I know I need to have some control over these factors, like payment and scheduling, but I don’t wanna be the middle person between the therapist and the patient.

I want them to have a good bond, I want them to communicate with each other frequently, and I have no desire to be on the inside of that.

So I don’t know if y ‘all have any strategies or processes that you would recommend for those things. Now, Z, I’m going to tee up what I believe the question is here.

Good.

But I’m dying. to know what it is.

Well, with Oxifresh, as an example, there are 400 -some -odd franchisees out there. And when anybody calls to schedule a carpet cleaning service or to get a carpet cleaning quote, they call a central call center. Yes. And that is for two reasons.

One, it is more convenient for the customer to call a call center that’s always available. But they don’t know.

That’s the beauty of it.

They don’t know that.

They think it’s a local person answering the phone.

I mean, the local customer calls a local number. Right.

And the National Call Center answers the phone.

And acts like they’re local.

There it is. Right. There it is. And so it’s a benefit for the customer because someone always answers the phone.

And it’s a benefit to the franchisee because they don’t have to answer their phone.

Can I tell you a funny story real quick?

Yes, please. So Tulsa, Oklahoma is known as an area that has a lot of call centers because we are in the big scheme of the United States of America. We are what would you call it? Neutral on our on our call recording laws.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Our twang.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes.

Yes.

Our twang.

What’s the official word? I can’t. I can’t. Now my smell. No, no. Our, our, our taxes.

Come on.

Our sounds with.

Yes, and so we were kind of more neutral gender accent and a lot of places like you could have a call center in Boston You know, how do you do it?

You want some lobster with that phone call? You know, I mean, so a lot of places have really more more of an accent So it was funny because I was calling in I was somewhere around the world calling in to rent a car Yeah, and little did I know it it actually funneled through Tulsa one of these call centers through Tulsa sweet And so they said, you know, I need to know your name and so I said, okay So they’re like, are you? The lady on the line said, are you from Tulsa? And I said, in fact, I am. Yeah. And she goes, I think you’re my eye doctor.

Nice. Somewhere in the world renting a car through, I don’t know.

It’s so funny, but it’s kind of known that Tulsa has a lot of those call centers, and so the key is that when you call in, the call center acts like they are the local representative taking care of the business.

So think about this for a second.

Again, when you call to schedule carpet cleaning with Oxifresh, you call a central call center. It is a benefit to the local service provider, the franchisee, and a benefit to the consumer. Now here is where we have the question. This particular listener says, how do I maintain control over my local employees and or contractors without being that middle person? And this is, it’s probably not going to be encouraging, probably not going to be what you want to hear, but it is the reality. And Devin, if you could take notes here, please, on the notes here.

It’s going to feel a little difficult. Are you going that way?

Well, it’s what happens is.

We have to embrace the way life is and we can’t embrace the way life could never be. So like socialism, many people would say socialism might be the best economic theory in theory, but it never works because of humans and some people who are inherently lazy and people who are inherently hard drivers, whatever, and so it creates a disparity and resentment. So the point is capitalism is the only thing that works. As it relates to employees, if you do not do the following things, it won’t work.

And I’ll give you what you have to do here.

Put a GPS in their vehicle. Gotta put GPS in your work vehicle. And you’re saying you don’t trust them. Never trust. Always trust but verify. Ronald Reagan.

That’s kind of like saying don’t trust and then make sure you don’t trust but really it sounds better if you say trust but verify.

It does sound better actually.

Or inspect what you expect. That kind of thing. So you want to install GPS.

The second thing you want to do is you want to install Nest cameras if possible if managing employees remotely and with the cameras and the systems. And third is you want to install call recording. that way you know what was said on the phone. Now this person in the in the voicemail they left us they mentioned that the person who worked for them was clearly in breach of contract but yet continued to operate afoul of the agreement and I hate to bring it up I hate to say it I don’t want to kill any dreams out there. Don’t do it. But it happens 100 % of the time unless you have some way that you are the middle person.

Don’t you have to? I mean, if you have employees or contractors who are accountable to no one, don’t you as the owner always get screwed? More times than not, and yes, you do. And what happens is that entitlement creeps in. I’m doing all the work. I’m out here seeing the, I’m being the therapist, because her business model is, and check me if I’m wrong, is that she’s a therapist, and she wants to take that model and hire other therapists, or at least, is hire the right word?

Or just partner with them?

I believe that she, what she does is she does, it’s called Painless, it’s an idea, it’s a therapy for women who are having a baby, and it’s like a pregnancy therapy, pre -pregnancy therapy kind of thing.

Okay, so in other words she’s trying to now train up other therapists how to do it or how to follow her system and implement her system So she’s hiring them. Yes, I believe as contractors. Okay as contractors or employees either way there.

She’s trying to whether she’s trying to hire them Okay. Yeah, and so now she’s saying listen, I want to gather them up.

I want to teach them my system and Does she want to give them leads also?

Is she having a central call center?

Let’s go off the assumption that she is giving them leads and if I’m incorrect, I’m sure we can gather more data later.

Okay, so she’s giving them leads. She has a central call center place and people are calling in looking for a therapist in Tampa Bay, Florida and she’s like, oh, go see Jean Marie or go see Billy Ray or go see whoever. they go to go see they funnel them into them and then and then they go see them get their therapy and then she gets a piece of the action right okay so I’m kind of getting I’m kind of pieces together now so she’s wondering do I really can I just sit back and collect the check for providing the stuff And the leads, I believe.

I believe she provides the secret sauce, the system.

She provides the system.

System.

And the leads, I believe. And the leads. Okay.

Yeah. And so is it based upon the leads that she, is it the whole package that she gets a piece of? Or is it just the leads that she’s giving them?

I believe she gets a percentage of the whole package.

Okay, so she’s kind of selling a franchise? It sounds like that is how, not a franchise, but that’s how kind of she’s viewing it, I believe. Okay, so there is a difference between a franchisee and an employee. Yep. It’s not a big difference, but there is a difference. And I guess she needs to get her head wrapped around on what is the value of her processes and how does she Protect that.

Because even when you have a franchise agreement in place with something like Oxyfresh or Tip Top Canine, local owners do try to run afoul of the agreement, even when they have an agreement in place. And the only way you keep people on the rails and on the right path is by having some sort of way to check in and to control the relationship with the patient or the client.

There has to be some way.

I want to ask you, Clay. You’ve got elephant in the room.

Rock star.

high -end men’s grooming lounge.

You’re now franchising.

Let’s say some guy buys, wants to do one up in Chicago, okay?

You know, South Chicago.

And they get it, and they think, you know what?

It’s a great model. I love it. They got it all set up right to your specs.

And then a couple, three months later, they go, you know what?

I think I want to start selling ties in here. And people in the franchise world do try to do that kind of thing. Okay, so now they’re going, I’ve got high -end guys in here. Yep.

They gotta wear a tie, so I’m gonna put a little tie rack over here.

Maybe sell some shoes to them, too. You know what? And while they’re in here, we might do some shoes or some shoe shining.

Right. Yeah, shoe shining’s not part of your thing.

It is not. Okay. So now they’re doing ties, and they’re selling shoes, and they’re doing shoe shining. And you know, they got a dry clean service. You know, if you want, you can bring your shirts or your suits in and drop them off here. When you find that out from a franchisee up in Southern Chicago, How would you handle that?

What would you say? Well, first off, we would know if they’re doing that because we do not take cash. Just by taking any cash at all, you violate the agreement. It’s just credit cards only, so that way we know every transaction and where it’s coming from.

What if they don’t report that? What if they take the cash on the side?

That’s what I’m saying.

There’s cameras in the store, so if you see someone exchanging cash, that alone is a violation.

And so yeah, you have to shut them down. There’s things in the agreement that state the kind of fines and penalties that they will incur if they violate those agreements.

And you would be surprised how often in the world of franchising that franchisees violate their agreements, even when they know clearly there are certain penalties going into it.

And I would just say, if you’re out there and this is your business, we care enough about you to tell you this.

You’re going to have to somehow be involved in the relationship.

You’re going to have to control the software and the bookings because you have to know what’s going on.

Because if not, what you don’t know is definitely going to hurt you. You’ve got to have it. You’ve got to have it. And so you didn’t know because you have a camera. Yep. In that facility.

And she would know by having recorded calls and GPS on the vehicles.

She’s going to have to know that.

Now, why?

Because did they go to the homes that did the therapy?

Yes, I believe so.

Okay, I’m a little confused with the GPS.

I’m like, I thought that was more of a traditional therapist where they come to the therapist, but I guess I believe she’s driving to the location.

Yeah, and we’ll get more.

We’ll get more details.

on coming shows. I would just say again, if you cannot manage people remotely, unless there’s some sort of verification loop, just they’re just going to screw you. Now, see, we have a thriver out there who wanted us to call us at this time to answer to ask us some questions.

Oh, wow.

Somebody use some phone technology here.

Wow. And yeah, it’s huge. It’s huge.

Catching on here. Let me pull it up here.

Phone. And as I wait for it to make, you know what? The phone’s going to come back.

I’m just telling you right now.

The phone’s making a comeback.

Pretty soon everyone’s going to have one.

I actually got a call this morning on my home hard dial phone.

Do you have a landline at your house?

Phil, this is Clay Clark and Dr. Zellner.

How are you, sir? I’m doing great.

How are you guys?

We are doing very well.

Sorry for the delay right there. We’re new to phone technology. Yeah, we’ve been trying to text you, but it didn’t work out so well.

We’ve been trying to send you a fax. Yeah. I sent a fax to your pager and then I realized it wasn’t your pager. I tried to feather my hair until I figured I didn’t have enough to feather.

So, you know, it all works out.

We were watching Miami Vice right up until the time to call you.

My bad. You had a few questions here and I love it if you could ask us any questions you want at all and we’ll answer them rapid fire.

Sure.

You know, I’ve been spending a lot of time with the podcast as far as trying to edit them and clean them up as far as filler words and yeah, taking out pauses and things like that. And, and I just was wanting to know how important is that?

Well, let’s do that.

Now, just so we just say we have clarity for the listeners out there and for yourself as well. You’re doing podcasts that customers will hear or ones they will not hear? Well, they may hear them.

I mean, we’re posting them on my website.

So I think it’s important.

few people might be listening. So you’re uploading the audio file or are you just transcribing the text? I’m doing both. OK, let me do an example then. Z, let’s do an example. Let’s do an example.

I’m going to go here right now to a website that it’s, let’s type in Tulsa Security Systems into Google there. Phil, I’m doing a search for Tulsa Security Systems.

Oh wow, you’re going to Google. Tulsa Home Security Systems is what I’m going to do.

And as I’m searching for it, the company that comes up top in my search, and Phil, I’m not sure if you can see it.

Do you see Witness Security coming up top?

Actually, I don’t. I’m unfortunately sitting in front of my wife’s Mac and I don’t know how to operate it. which for all the listeners out there, go to witnessllc .

com, go to the sitemap, and there you will see these articles. And the articles that Keith and Tyler, the owners of Witness Security, have up there are just transcriptions of podcasts that they did. And see, check this out. These guys used to show up at like four in the morning to record podcasts that no one will ever read because they knew whoever has the most content can be top in Google.

and they didn’t have the budget to pay somebody else to do it. So in that case, I mean, Z, you just bought a new property.

Do you have a home security system you’ve installed?

Not yet.

I’ve actually got some bids. Would you go to the bottom of somebody’s sitemap and read 700 articles or so just to see what happens? I wouldn’t read for seven minutes on the bottom of their article. Okay, so all I would say is nobody really reads those things, and so I would say if you’re just going to transcribe it and put it on the sitemap, you do not need to worry about taking out the pauses. Now, if you’re going to have people actually hear it, I would recommend investing time in editing. Does that help you at all, or is that vague?

No, that helps.

I mean, we do anticipate people will listen.

So I do want them to sound professional.

And just didn’t know how much time I should be spending on that. Yeah, and I’m trying to make them perfect. I spend on this podcast more time editing the shows than I do recording the shows, if that’s any help for you. Okay. Yeah, so that makes sense. where i’m at also yeah it’s like when i called you here um when i go back and edit i’m gonna add in a phone ring sound As opposed to the Skype sound.

And then when I called you, the volume came in really hot. Because, Z, I cranked it up.

I was so excited to talk to Phil the Thrill here. I cranked it up, and so it peaked, you know? Yeah. So I had to go back and edit it. And Z, you’ve done a lot of radio commercials. Sure.

A lot of commercials. I mean, Z’s the king of radio commercials. 25 plus years. When’s overkill, Z? When is too many takes? When do you get to a point where you’re like, we just gotta leave it?

When do you get to a point where you say, guys, because you know the editor guys always want to do one more edit.

Help us deal with that. When do you say it’s good enough? Well, I mean in an ad you want it to sound live you want it to sound real and raw Yeah, so if sometimes a little a little little bump bump in it is okay. Yeah, because that’s just normal human each That’s yeah, that’s how you talk and you know, so, you know if you’re trying to say hey, listen What’s what is your objective for what you’re doing?

If your objective is to be able to get yourself first and in Google and the Google map

Then, you know, having it real pretty doesn’t really matter to them, you know.

True. So spending the time to do that, I would say instead of spending the time to edit it to where it sounds like perfect for the few people that actually listen to that one, if they do all the way through, I’d say go make another one.

You know, because that’s what that’s what it’s about.

It’s about getting the word and the content on your website, get it transcribed and getting it on there so that you can drive you.

Because I tell you what, right, wrong or indifferent, it’s a whole new world out there, folks.

30 years ago, we started a business.

We didn’t have to worry about Google and reviews, WWW, which is the World Wide Web. And so, you know, it’s a whole new world and you’ve got to kind of adapt to it.

And so now it’s it’s getting at least on the front page.

Get on the front page.

Get on the front page, baby.

Now, Charles Kola, you guys are topping Google there with with Kola Fitness.

I mean, you guys are doing really well.

How many articles a week does your team write at this point? Probably around 50, 50.

I think so. Every week.

Do you go and read every article? I do not. But Giancarlo does, right?

Somebody in our team kind of, yeah, they bet it and kind of clean it up a little bit, but not a lot. I mean, it’s generally. So what’s the balance when you and Amber do the podcast that people hear? How much editing do you do on that? I do zero. So you just let it go?

I just go. You let it flow? Okay. Phil, is that helpful at all? Yes, it is. Thank you.

For the listeners out there, if you do a search right now for Joplin Gyms, J -O -P -L -I -N, Joplin Gyms, you can see Kola Fitness dominating the search results. And Phil, what’s your next question there, Dr. Phil? Well, my next question concerns the structure or the layout of the podcast. I’ve been trying to structure them in a sales format like rapport need that’s closed, you know, kind of fill my topic in like that. Is that a good idea to do it kind of systematically like that?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I will defer to Dr. Z here on this in just a second.

But for the listeners out there, the formula is this.

You build rapport with your audience, and usually you do that with a story or a joke or an in -depth discussion of Dayquil. You know, that kind of thing. Anecdote. Yeah, an anecdote. And then the needs, you point out, hey, here’s the problem that we’re going to solve on this show. We’re going to solve this problem.

And then the benefits are a solution supported by facts. And then the close is, hey, as a result of this, what do you want me to do?

That call to action.

Z, why do you want to start off with a joke or a story?

You do this in your office meetings with your staff.

You do it at Christmas parties.

You do it when you’re having dinner parties.

Why do you always want to start off with kind of breaking the ice?

Well, I tell you what, laughing actually is a physical thing where it sends off endorphins, dopamine.

Sorry about that.

Sorry.

Yes.

It actually physically makes people feel better. As crazy as that sounds, and smiling and laughing, it puts people, it kind of relaxes them, it gives them a little quick little jolt of, you know, how’s your father? And they smile and they kind of relax a little bit because there’s a certain amount of nervous tension when you’re starting a meeting, when you’re starting something new, it’s like, what is this? Is it a waste of time? What am I doing? Do I have to listen?

Do I have to pay attention? And so the nice thing about doing a joke at first, in the middle, and then maybe throughout it is, is that that joke kind of centers them back, it gets them listening, it gets them laughing, and for goodness sakes, if they miss the punchline, they’re like, oh my gosh, I gotta rewind. That’s why we talk about Dayquil so much on the show.

That’s right, that’s right. We figure the first time we mention it, you’re gonna go, that’s not funny.

That’s not funny. The second time, you’re like, I think they really have had that much Dayquil.

I think they’re really on Dayquil.

Before the fifth time, you’re like, I’m worried about how much Dayquil they’re having.

I want some Dayquil myself now.

Right. Right. And so, there’s a reason why we say laughter’s the best.

medicine and it really is in that sense. You said it was Dayquil. I’m sorry. Well, only when you’re laughing. You want to kind of break the ice, and a good icebreaker is a good joke, a good story, and it’s something that puts people at ease, and they’re looking forward to the next.

Now they’re looking forward to people want to laugh, they want to smile, they want to be entertained. Do I entertain you? Do you have a joke that you can share with us today, Z? Because you normally have like a great joke you’re sitting on right now. No, I don’t have a joke, but I’ve got a serious story I can really tell you.

We’ve got to finish early because I have a very important meeting at one of the big banks in town really yeah and if it goes well I’m gonna be completely completely out of debt and what I need is for you guys to help me figure out what ski mask I should wear for this meeting he’s that good folks You just say, be funny and you are. It’s a gift. It’s a curse and a gift rolled into one.

Needs.

Why do we have to say eventually, hey, this is what we’re talking about. This is the problem we’re actually going to solve.

Why do we have to pretty quickly establish why we’re here?

Well, now you have to figure out whether they want to keep listening. It’s kind of like, here’s a problem.

And if they don’t have that problem, they don’t care about that problem, they don’t even want to think about that problem, then they can punch out then.

You know, you don’t want to waste their time.

And so what you’re doing is you’re being proactive.

So now all of a sudden they’re going, OK, listen, I know I can tune into this.

I can get a little bit of a little bit of air candy and then I can figure out what he’s going to talk about.

And if it’s not something that concerns me, I’m going to punch out.

He’s not trying to do me into listening to something and all of a sudden go, gotcha.

You know, so you want to be proactive in the sense of, you know, Here’s what we’re going to talk about.

If this affects you, if this matters to you, then let’s…

On today’s show, we discuss Dayquil. and its effects on you. Surgeon General warns having 18 bottles of Dayquil before noon may cause problems. Stay tuned for today’s show as Dr. Zellner explains the keys to chronic erectile dysfunction and Dayquil. If you ever pooped in three weeks, stop using DayQuil. I mean, this is serious stuff.

Oh, I’m going to keep listening to this show. Oh, yeah. I know. I get all the weight. Oh, this show relates to me.

Hey, honey, give me some DayQuil.

Do you have an addiction to DayQuil?

On today’s show, we discuss DayQuil.

and addictions. Significantly reduced rashes on individuals. I mean like clay. Do you still have that one rash? Do you have a rash? I do So my point is is that you have to give to back up what you’re saying, you know Not only say listen, here’s the problem.

Here’s how we’re gonna fix it And here’s the proof that you know what what I’m gonna tell you is gonna fix it And that’s what people want to hear.

People don’t want to, you know, it’s like me when I have employees come up to me with the problem. Yep.

You know what that, you know, the bathroom is just never getting.

I walk into the bathroom again today and the darn thing’s not clean.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. What are we going to do? What are we going to do about that, Dr. Zeller? I mean, you have dirty, very dirty bathroom and it really bothers me as your employee. And I’m here all day and I need to use the bathroom.

Keep canceling.

I won’t even use it. You know what I would do?

So I would start taking breaks and driving over to Quick Trip.

use their bathrooms because there’s a so what are we gonna eat?

I’m like, you know, if you’re gonna bring me a problem Bring me a solution.

And that’s what you’re telling them in this episode is that, listen, I’m going to capture your attention and put you at ease. I’m going to tell you the problem, and I’m going to tell you how we’re going to solve it. But I’m also going to kind of back that up on why these check, say like a bathroom checklist helps solve the problem of a dirty bathroom.

You know?

And so now all of a sudden people go, okay, yeah, not only is what they’re saying sounds legit, but they can also back it up. Why it works if I do what he tells me to do. And Phil, you do handyman services, correct?

I do.

Yes. Yeah. So you would want to if you could have a customer on is doing a testimonial, that’d be great. You know, a customer that you fixed a bunch of problems for them. That’s huge. I mean, you know, it’s hard to find a good handyman.

So if you have a if you find one that really does a great job, you want to be loyal to that person. So if you get some of your happy customers on your show, that’d be awesome. Now in life, unfortunately, you know, we’ve run into a lot of handsy men, but you know, they’re not a handyman. On today’s show, we interview men from prison, men who touch men. handsy man no no it’s handy man and then the final step is the call to action the call to action is where you say listen folks you you can’t just have a little bit of a head cold you must buy the day quill buy the day quill now only only two only two bottles left One bottle left. What’s that?

Only one bottle left for the first one. There are some tablets.

So you have to eventually do a call to action and the call to action has to be an offer or a deal so hot that people can’t say no. Phil, does that all make sense to you?

Are we are we communicating effectively?

Yes, absolutely. OK, what other questions do you have, my friend? Anything at all?

We want to help you with your with your business.

Well, my next question would be, how do I know anybody is listening?

A word of discretion. and encouragement for you.

Devin, put a link to it, please, on the show notes. But one is you want to install the Libsyn player, L -I -B -S -Y -N, Libsyn player. And the Libsyn player will allow you to track, kind of. So I’m going to show you an example. I’m going to do a Google search right now for John Maxwell. Thrive Time Show in Google.

John Maxwell Thrive Time Show.

And when I search for that, I’m going to tell you all the places where the show we recorded and launched on our website is now available.

You can find it now on iTunes.

Devin, did we ever put the podcast on podtoppin . se?

Not intentionally.

But this is a website that now we’re on.

It’s pod Toppin . se. So when you put your podcast out there, other aggregators grab it.

See, look at your face. There you are on pod. Wow. Toppin.

Wow.

Just half of it.

Yeah, probably a good thing.

And then we’re on Apple podcasts.

We’re on podcast.

We’re on player . fm.

We’re on Stitcher.

We’re on iHeartRadio.

We’re on Spotify. Podbean.

And we’re everywhere. And so a lot of the times you can’t really know who is listening to the show or not. But Libsyn allows you to track from the major ones like iTunes, Spotify, and that kind of thing. Is that helpful? Yeah, definitely. What does Libsyn cost, Devin?

It depends on how much space you’re going to need per month.

Phil the Thrill needs all the space.

I think the lowest plan, let me pull it up here.

Oh, he’s pulling it up, folks.

As he’s pulling it up, make sure you go to Dayquil to get your supply of Dayquil. They’re down to our final two bottles. Is that right? Final two bottles. We should get Dayquil to be a sponsor of our show. by the way.

We really should. We support them a lot. For 50 megabytes a month of storage space on Libsyn, it’s $5 a month. Phil, does that answer your question? Yes, it does. What other questions would you have, sir?

Any questions at all while we have the man of the myth, the Zolhan, right here on the Thrift Time Show? Well, I mean, right now, my I’m doing the podcast, basically to for for content for the website.

My wife actually does it with me.

She acts as the host on the show.

And I’m the resident expert or whatever.

She asked me questions about topics and things.

But at what point does is it makes sense to her?

How does this transition into something that because my ultimate goal is to build a franchisable model?

Yeah. And I can see down the road where podcasting really helps with that.

I mean, talk, explain to me how that transition might take place or when it becomes really a serious thing or how do I know when?

Well, I’m going to pick on a brand that my wife and I have invested in called Tip Top K9 that’s doing well. And then I’ll pick on another brand called Oxifresh, where I get paid every time we sell a franchise. So those are two examples. But for Oxifresh, there will never be I don’t think a corporate podcast. Why? It’s not their core competency, and it’s not something that the team, as of this point, wants to do.

But for Tip Top K9, I do believe at some point a podcast will be in the future. And I mention this because Ryan Wimpey’s passion for training dogs

you can just feel it. He’s into it. So if I interviewed him about training dogs, you could sense the passion. Now, at Oxifresh, a lot of the franchisees are passionate about their customers, their employees, and their profits, but there’s not a lot of passion there for cleaning carpets. So whenever you do a podcast, somebody at the core has to really, really be maniacally obsessive about that topic. And so Zee, you and I, we love talking about entrepreneurship.

We’re nearing on 2 ,000 shows right now.

I know, I love it. And every time we put a show out there, we like it. We love it.

It’s a life -giving thing, is it not? We try to make it that way. We like it. It ain’t for a cause of not trying.

I mean, it’s our passion. It’s our core.

It’s what we love to do. We love to hear results of our show, helping people start their business, save their business, grow their business, still stay in business. Yep. And so, yeah, when you connect with a podcast that really they’re passionate about what they’re doing, you feel it, it comes through.

And so if a company says, listen, that’s not our core competency, but yet what they might do is being able to enable the local franchisees to do that for their local website. And say, hey, here’s some scripts. Here’s how to do it. And you know what?

We’re going to back you and support you and give you just another tool for the franchise model that’s going to help you dominate your area for whatever it is.

And another option would be shawholmes .

com.

They have their team podcast, but they do not ever play them anywhere.

and they just transcribe them and put the content on the website to rank top in Google. Or a fourth model would be a company like Kola Fitness at a time.

You guys, it paid me to write content for you, now you write content yourself.

So you have a few options there. Phil, is that providing any clarity at all, or is it as clear as mud? It’s good. No, it helps out a lot.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, the 1 -800 -GOT -JUNK founder we’ve had on the show, that dude is passionate.

and that kind of guy could carry a podcast because he’s so passionate about his thing.

But if there’s not a certain level of passion from the host, and I’m not saying there is or isn’t for you, I’m just trying to help you and other listeners out there, people won’t consistently tune in.

Do you have any other questions about growing your business there, sir? I don’t really have any more questions about podcasting, no.

I think you pretty much covered it.

Well, I appreciate you so much for not being a stranger there. And we’re having some really fun guests coming up here in the not so distant future.

So hopefully we can make you laugh. Do you have a favorite show that you’ve heard so far, a show that you thought was, that show, that was so disturbing, that show, or so good, or so funny, or so, do you have a show that you listened to and you thought, uh -oh, uh -oh?

Gosh, nothing like that really.

sticks out of my mouth. I mean, listen, so many of them. I can’t really, I love them all. You’re in 2000 deep now. You’re stuck.

Yeah, I’m I’m I’m in deep. Y2K baby, Y2K.

I’m looking. I’m looking forward to seeing you all this this week. I’m heading down for the conference. Oh yes, I’m excited. I’m excited.

It’s going to be fun to see you here. And again, thank you for not being a stranger, my friend, and we look forward to seeing you in person here this Friday. Can’t wait. Take care, Phil.

Take care, Phil. Thanks bye. Now, Z, we’re calling a Thrive right now in the great state of California. And Z, do you remember when you used to call people long distance and it was a big thing? Oh, my God.

It’s a big, big deal. Mom, it’s long distance! I have a funny long distance story for you, and I won’t mention the person’s name who’s involved in this.

Yeah. But there’s a very eccentric man that I’m very good friends with. Uh -oh. And every time that he wants to wrap up a conversation with people today in the year 2020, he says, I’ve got to take this call.

They’re calling long distance. He was in Tulsa visiting me recently. And I said, hey, hey, this is really funny.

We’re out to dinner.

And I said, dude, that move.

is amazing.

You just told somebody who’s 30 years old, I got to take this call, it’s long distance.

And they go, walk me through the move.

He goes, well, it makes it seem like I have to take the call. And I just put the phone up to my ear and I walk away.

But I’m like, that’s a great move.

And you really have to just say, I need to take this call. I mean, we’ve all done that. We’ve all walked a gauntlet.

You see a room that you’re thinking, I’m going to get, I’m going to get tagged and tapped at least three or four times.

So you put the phone up to your ear.

It creates a force field. And then you walk through with the nods and the points and the, you know, how you doing and the nuance of, I got to take this call long distance. It creates a further intensity. You’re like, Oh my gosh. It actually adds a layer of, of, of, of non -belief because Whether it’s long distance or not doesn’t matter anymore.

It used to matter.

It’s like, you know, 87 cents a minute. How sold out do you have to be to that quote to go with that? I mean, seriously, in the year 2020 to say, I’ve got to take this call long distance.

I mean, Devin, when you call me, it’s long distance because you have a Phoenix phone number.

Half of our employees have different area codes. Right.

So it’s no big deal anymore. So the fact that he still hangs on to that old move I respect that.

I respect that.

That’s the equivalent of saying with all due respect during a political debate and then just unrelentlessly just attacking it.

Just pounding them. With all due respect.

Yeah. That’s what that does. I love it. Now we’re going to call another thriver here. Long distance here, Z. Vic, what’s up, man?

Hey, how are you, Clay?

I’m doing well here.

We’re here with Dr. Zellner and Charles Kolaw calling you from beautiful Tulsa, Oklahoma.

How are things out in the great state of California?

Oh, it’s great here in sunny Sacramento. Hey, Dr. Z might not be super familiar with your situation, but I’d love for you to share with him how busy or not busy is the mall that you are leasing space from?

Yeah, that’s a great question, Clay.

So the mall, not very busy.

It’s a mall that they’re trying to revitalize right now at the moment. So they have like a movie theater and a couple other spots that are leased in that particular space. But overall, the traffic itself is not very busy. Did the mall’s traffic fall apart before you signed the lease or after?

Way before. So actually the space is like, the rent is like insanely cheap right now. Well, not right now, but before I leased it, before they put the actual movie theater in. So after the movie theater, the traffic’s actually picked up a little bit, but still pretty dead. And tell Dr. Z what you do for a living. What is your business?

Yeah, definitely. So I own Luchador Coffee. It is a lucha libre, like a Mexican wrestling themed coffee shop.

Oh, nice. Thank you. Oh, go ahead.

Z, Vic has some questions for us here.

And so, Vic, I’ll give you the floor.

You can tee up the question. And no matter what advice I give you, Z is going to one -up me.

So get prepared.

Let’s do it.

Let’s do this thing. Let’s do it. You know what? Let’s put on our mask and wrestle about it. OK, Vic, we’re putting on our masks right now. We’re ready.

OK. Definitely. Yeah, so this question is for you, Clay. Well, Dr. Z as well.

But knowing what you know now, how would you

BJ Connection faster and more efficiently?

I’ve got a lot of them, so I’ll try to go as fast as possible. One, and Devin take notes because I want Z to be able to one -up me on all these because this is true stuff. One, I would have discovered right away that I am a disc jockey. I’m an owner of a disc jockey business. I am not a life coach. I would have recognized that right away.

I did not recognize that until the second time I had a lunch interaction with Dr. Z, which was a four -year span of time. So this conversation could have saved me four years. Z, could you please explain what it means to embrace that you are not a life coach and that you are a business owner? Well, when we had lunch, I remember that distinctly. You had been running your business and you had some struggles. And your struggles were that you were hiring young men that you’re trying to teach them how to be a disc jockey.

And a lot of them were pretty dysfunctional. Right. And you didn’t know, and you didn’t want to fire them because they were your buddies. You guys would, you know, finish out the margarita machines after the shows, after the weddings. You guys would hang out, you’d burn stuff in your backyard. Pirates.

Pirates. I mean, you were pirates together. And so you were like, you felt this burning brotherhood of this bonding with these men. And you’re like, you know, hey, these guys got some really bad habits. I’ve got some really bad things going on in their life.

And I’ve got to, you know, I’ve just got to I just got to love them and coach them up and and like be a big brother to them. And, you know, really just kind of take up their life. And I said, why? I said, are you a certified life coach? Is that what you want to be on the side? You said why?

Why? And this is what I felt. I felt like that everything I learned through church and through church and through the self -help books that reminded me of church told me that this is where I needed to spend all of my time. So even though I could have easily fired the guys and replaced them with better people, I didn’t. Now, I just sort.

I don’t inspire at all. I find inspired people. I don’t make people happy.

I find happy people. Crazy situation today. We just hired a young lady today for The Elephant in the Room, who she just started on our team, and I’ve had two people today tell me, they said, Did you just hire such and such?”

And I said, yeah. They go, oh my gosh, she used to work with my kids at this business and she’s the best. Or my kids go to school with her kids. She’s the best. And I haven’t talked to her at all about motivation. And she’s just the kindest person ever.

And there was a little bit of a miscommunication about her new schedule. And she had the kindness and compassion to go, hey, I just have a question. It wasn’t heavy about it, wasn’t upset about it. Then I haven’t taught that skill.

But man, when you start having to teach people like life skills, like how to wake up, how to stay sober, how to not Facebook message people while at work, how to not look at adult content while making coffee.

I mean, it’s a weird culture. It is a weird culture. And unless you want to take that on as your job, then that’s a weird culture. get a different employee.

So and so that’s that lunch that we left. I hope you were empowered to do that. Because it’s kind of like, you know, there’s a lot of great people out there.

And I hear that all the time. It’s hard to find good help. And I and that’s why we we talk about the group interviews. Yep. And I always make the analogy. It’s like going to TJ Maxx.

You don’t know you got to dig a little bit.

But man, once you dig a little bit, you find that Just that polo shirt that’s your size, you’re like, oh yeah. That’s like a fourth of the price at Dillard’s. You’re like, oh yeah, I found it. And so to kind of make this actionable, Charles Kolaw with kolawfitness . com. You have implemented the group interview for the past couple, three years.

Can you talk about how the group interview is so much different and more efficient than one -on -one interviews as you’ve grown your big box, Jim? we have had. Oh gosh, we have about 94 on payroll right now. And the group interview is the only way that we could keep up with that type of volume of entry -level workers that work the front desk and clean and do all that stuff. And the systems just work so phenomenal. We have the same time, same place.

Group interviews, they come in. We have scripts. I get to share my mission and vision of who I am and the company. And you can quickly see which ones are engaging with our core values. on that video, basically they just turn on a video, they listen to me talk, and the manager watches who’s the most engaged and asks a handful of questions, and you got the top one or two. It’s just amazing.

Second thing I would have done that would have saved me a ton of time, and I know Dr. Z mentioned this, and my wife benefited from this because my wife worked for Dr. Z, is I would have made a checklist for everything as soon as possible. Like a script and a checklist for everything. The mind -freeing checklists and scripts for everything. And Dr. Z… What time out? Are you saying you can’t remember things?

Is that what you’re saying? Is that you’re forgetful? Not only that, but check this out. When my wife worked for you, I remember I’m in the car with her and I said, how was your first day of work? Or how was your first week of work? Or something like that.

And she was already fully up to speed.

and was able to do the job.

Yeah, you get a sharp one and you have a list of the processes in place. I mean, there’s no reason why they don’t get that down.

It’s kind of like, you know, it’s kind of like in football.

You know, if you don’t have a playbook, you don’t need to say, hey, listen, I’m going to go through the plays. and I’m gonna tell them to you, and then we’re gonna go outside, run them so you’ll remember them, and we’re gonna do this, okay? Okay, so, Red 47, X, Y, J, flip, you do this, and I’m like, oh, it’d be nice if I wrote this down, because I don’t really remember. There was a coffee place in Tulsa, I’ll keep it there, Vic, I won’t get into any details, they reached out to me for coaching about a decade ago, and I remember sitting down with this guy, and I almost vomited in my mouth, because I could feel the pain that he was feeling, because I used to do it.

And I’m going, can I ask you, what’s your biggest limiting factor?

And he says, finding good people.

And I said, OK, well, how long does it take you to train a coffee person, a barista? Because he wanted to do the whole barista thing. And he says, about six months. And I said, six months?

and he said well yeah he’s like the complexity of it and so i’m like what do you mean he goes well if you want a yada yada coffee with the yada yada coffee we roast all of our beans they’re all fresh and it’s more of an art And I’m going, so how much can I make?

And he was paying people just over minimum wage.

And he said the whole thing is he didn’t want to use a checklist because he wanted to be like an art.

He didn’t want recipes.

And this is the kind of work out for him.

It did not work out.

He was literally at the age of like 45 working in a coffee shop 70 hours a week as a result of this.

And this is where it got epic with me.

He said to me, I watched I go I go into the coffee shop and I noticed that no one wrote anything down.

And so you’ve been to those fancy restaurants where no one writes anything down.

And I’m not sure if that wows people or not. It doesn’t wow me, but some people it wows them, I guess.

But he’s not a high -end restaurant.

He’s a coffee shop where the average ticket’s six bucks.

And I’m watching his baristas go, bro, so what do you want to get now? And I’m going there like mystery shopping. I’m like, I want hot chocolate with the skim milk, OK? Cool.

Well, the person in front of me is like, excuse me, can I go ahead and get a, and all of a sudden, four or five people are ordering at the same time.

And I watched this dude get almost one out of two, one out of four orders wrong.

Oh, sure.

every time and I’m like how often do you guys have to do refunds he’s like oh yeah constantly constantly people today just can’t remember imagine that so checklists are big the other thing I would have done there’s a lot of stuff I would have advertised Aziz told me one time he said advertising is like gas for your car it’s a it’s it’s a foot pedal the gas pedal of your car and I thought you know yeah but I can’t afford it and so there was about a year and a half that I didn’t work at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV to afford ads. I was trying to DJ kind of full -time. And once I met with you at Ruby Tuesdays, and you told me that advertising is the gas pedal for your business, and I said I couldn’t afford it, and you said something to the effect of, well, then you need to get another job.

And so I went and got a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV, and that advertising was what fueled my rapid growth.

It fuels it, yeah.

See, talk to Vic about advertising, because a lot of people starve their business without advertising.

Here’s what happened, is that in life, we go out and we get that dream car.

We get it we get it we stretch a little bit Because we get a few options on there that we didn’t even know they had and of course We never ever ever ever think about insurance and after insurance, and you know, it’s only insured for the first 36 ,000 miles Oh you wonder you want to get it I’ve extended warranty the time you bundle all that up and you get your payment, you know All of a sudden you got this really You get the color you want, the extra fine leather.

It’s rich mahogany leather.

It’s an upgrade.

But you know what?

You’re worth it.

You’re worth it, baby. You’re worth it. You get that deep burgundy color, the one you’ve always wanted. That light cream, upgraded leather. You get a CD player that holds six.

That’s right, six CDs.

I’m kind of a big deal.

Which one of these six CDs do you want?

You can Bluetooth your phone in there and talk.

Hands -free, baby.

No hands involved at all. Hold the wheel while I play with your hair.

That’s right.

You can sit in that car and talk all day. Just run your hands through your wavy hair. Wave to people passing you. Shampoo in. And you can just sit there.

Herbal essence.

And then you take out that key.

It’s that special key.

You don’t even need to put it someplace.

You just have to have the key. That $600 key. And you hit the start button. Yeah. And you hit the start button. I hit the start button.

And you want to drive something, you hit the start button. You hit the start button. Because you kind of want to drive around the neighborhood and let everybody see you in it. That’s the third time you hit the start button. That’s right. And all of a sudden you realize, oh, crap.

It’s out of car. It’s out of gas. My car is out of gas. And you’re sitting there thinking, wait, I spent all my money on the car. I can’t afford gas. Shirley, you can’t be serious.

I am. I am serious.

Don’t call me Shirley. Don’t call me that.

I told you. Yes, back to you.

So you have to, when you start a business, you have to understand that part of your budget, the starting, you can’t spend it all on the business, on the cart of the cool cups.

You know, I got cool coffee cups for everybody, you know, because it’s a cool place.

And I got everybody a mask they get to wear while they’re drinking their coffee, because that’s what we do. I didn’t get the cheap mask.

I got the good mask because I could afford it.

Right. Because I’ve been saving. Don’t be an ass. Get a good mask.

Get a good mask. And all of a sudden you realize, You don’t have any money for advertising. You’re like, what the hey, who? No one told me that. I could have gotten regular leather and had a little money for gas.

And so that’s what I find a lot of times people start in a business. They don’t put that as a budget item.

They don’t understand that that’s very important. And it’s not only just to advertise, because I know people all the time who said, I did that for a month, it didn’t work. For a month in a row, I did it every day.

I advertised for a full month.

I didn’t get enough business to pay for it, and I’m done.

Advertising doesn’t work.

Charles Colaw, you’re going against huge big box gyms as you’re growing Colaw Fitness.

You and your wife, Vic, he started his business in a $115 ,000 house in the small town of Bartlesville, Oregon.

Oklahoma. You being in Sacramento competing against huge companies is a lot like Charles Kolok competing against Planet Fitness. Charles, what would happen if you didn’t advertise?

Oh yeah, we would not get near the traffic.

near the leads, for sure.

You see fitness people that don’t advertise.

You’ve seen your peers.

Well actually, I had a guy that was kind of supposedly a mentor. He says if you’re good, you don’t need to advertise. Oh boy. Oh yeah, there you go.

I am 100 % in disagreement.

And he is still doing the same thing, probably making less than he did when he spoke to me like 15 years ago.

I’m sure he is.

And his business is him and his wife. And our business is now, what, 94 employees?

And we’re looking at doubling in the next nine months.

So it’s definitely the fuel, like you said, Dr. Z, that you put on it. Other things that I would have done, I’ve got so many. One is I would have, my wife, this is what happened, Vic. My wife came downstairs, the year was 2016. It was 2006, Z, you heard this story the other night at Mazzeo’s Pizza. And by the way, Mazzeo’s Pizza, Vic, is like, how would you describe a Mazzeo’s Pizza?

Kind of old school pizza. It’s got a salad bar, the calzone. Like $8 salad buffet thing. Charles Colon and his wife were there. I was there, Z. We went old school. It was kind of fun.

It was great.

It was awesome.

And we’re there.

I will say this.

Charles Colon ate every egg. that was in that building.

Those poor chickens, I mean, they were like, they thought they did a good job, they just got started. So this is what happened.

Bring another crock out.

True story.

Squeeze another chicken.

If you want to look this up, Vic, at some point you can.

Our office used to be at 8900 Southland Lane. Devin, you can put a link to it there. By the way, they’re still trying to sell that property right now, so if you want to buy that property, you can buy a piece of DJ history by 8900 Southland Lane. Really? Broken Arrow.

Let’s do just DJ a party there.

Seriously.

So my wife and I officed there, I kept running out of room to book clients because we had great checklists and scripts and systems now.

And so I kept convincing my wife, hey, let’s just turn the dining room into an office.

We’ll close the wall.

Let’s just turn in the front office into a separate area. Let’s just turn the hallway.

We converted almost the entire house into a office to book clients.

We were booking about 80 weddings a week at this point. And there was one particular week where, you know, Josh, who was working for me at the time, he’s trying to find my wife. He’s going, hey, hey, are you here?

Clay, Clay, are you here?

And I’m on the other end of the building.

I can kind of hear like, Josh, I’m up here.

He can’t hear me. And he walks in and right there, lo and behold, he finds my wife nude. In her room, which was not a move. Not a move. Not, not, not, not a move. Not a move.

And my wife is going, oh, you hear that?

Ah!

You know?

And then Josh walks up and says, our relationship has changed.

And I said, what do you mean?

He goes, it’s a different thing.

It’s unspeakable.

I’m going to go to Charlie’s Chicken.

Why did he walk you to the bedroom?

He was trying to find her to process a credit card.

Oh, I see.

So he just walks in. Yeah, and he’s like, I got to go to Charlie’s Chicken. I’m like, what happened? He’s like, I can’t, I can’t talk about it. So I’m not kidding, it was probably five or six hours later. So you’re obviously out of your home.

Make sure that everybody knows it. We’re obviously out of our home. So you’re obviously out of your home. Right. Josh pops in. He’s trying to find Vanessa to do the credit card thing.

And he’s trying to find me. He’s walking around the house trying to find you. And she’s in the shower.

She’s taking a shower.

Taking a shower so she cannot hear him. Right. And then she gets out of the shower and he just. And he’s walking in.

He walks into her little, you know, it’s her bedroom, but there’s an office there.

And then lo and behold, there he sees the unspeakable. And all I’m saying is that that was not the plan. And the teaching moment here is you have to know when it’s time to invest in infrastructure. because I should have moved out, Z, right? At a certain point when you got 25 guys working at your house. Or you got to get your wife oogled at least, you know, once.

Right? So, Z, I mean, at a certain point you had to man up and invest in that beautiful optometry clinic right in the parking lot of Woodland Hills Mall. Yes. It was a big investment. It was a big investment. That actually leads to my next question.

question.

Oh good, perfect.

For you as well Dr. Z and Mr. Cola, do you guys take on any debt to grow your company? Absolutely! You want to try to use other people’s money, OPM, as much as possible. Now real quick, this is not the Dave Ramsey show. This is not, now I want to make sure you get this idea, I just talked about it during our staff meeting today. When you have a credit card, it is a weapon that can be used to magnify your spending capacity.

if used properly.

As an example, I don’t have to run around with $4 ,000 of cash.

Devin, I think last week you had to buy those Sonos speakers for Elephant in the Room. I think they were about $1 ,400 for the nice speakers. Am I correct?

For the three speakers? I didn’t have to give Devin $1 ,400 of cash. He has a credit card that we pay off every month.

We build up our credit score, and that is how you build up your credit. just because we have credit doesn’t mean that we need to buy things we don’t need.

And so many people who lack discipline talk about debt being a bad, bad thing.

And I would say, A, if you don’t have self -discipline, yeah, you shouldn’t have a credit card, and also you shouldn’t have a business.

Right?

I mean, if you have self -discipline, then you’re going to need to use debt, but you don’t want to borrow money until you’ve proven that you can solve a problem, for humanity in a scalably profitable way. You don’t want to scale it until you’ve nailed it, at least on a small level. So until luchador coffee is profitable, and I don’t know if you are profitable yet, but if you are profitable in a small way, you want to say, if I scale this out, will magnifying what I’m doing grow the profits? But Z, I see so many people get a lot of debt before they’ve generated any profit, and that becomes a problem.

Right.

It’s like it’s like the old fellow that I used to know. He was in trucking business. And did I ever tell you about him? Anyway, he he came to me and a lot of people come to me with business issues, business problems.

And he came to me and said, you know what?

We’re we got a trucking company.

We’re trucking product all over the country. And I’m losing about a thousand dollars per load.

What do I do?

I said, well, what’s your plan?

Because, well, my plan was just to get more trucks and just to try to kill it with, you know, try to do more, you know, more, more, more loads.

I’m like, like, Oh, that’s a joke actually.

No, it’s a the thing about it is is that if you haven’t, you know nailed it Don’t try to scale it, but don’t be afraid of debt, because especially now, bank loans are so low historically. Renting money has never been cheaper. It’s almost like getting free money. I mean, we’re talking 4 and 5 percent if you have good credit and a good relationship with the bank. And you know what? You should use other people’s money, OPM, as much as possible.

That allows you to grow if you have that ability to do that. So venture capital money and going out and getting other kinds of money is a little a little bit different game because they expect more as a return, they expect a piece of the action, they expect some things a little bit differently. But if you could go get money from a bank, a lending institution, and get a very good rate, by all means, and if you have nailed it, in other words, you’re making money, you’re profitable, then baby scale it. Go for it. And Z, you own a bank. I own a part of a bank.

If Vic were to reach out to bankregent . com, would you meet him in part of the bank to make that deal happen? I would call Sean and say, you know, if he’s nailed it. Have you nailed it? Vic, have you nailed it? Are you making money?

Yeah, I mean, we’re profitable. It could always be better, you know? Sure. Charles Kolar, you had a hot take about debt. My hot take is I did the first 10 years of my life pretty much trying to do everything debt -free as much as possible. and it is a really long grind to try to save up a million in cash to open a $2 million club, the next one that I did.

It’s ridiculously long, and you’ll be really old, but by the time I have 10 clubs, it’ll be a really old man. growing it, but I can borrow at like four to about 4 .3, 4 .7 at a bank and get a return of like a 27 to 35 % return in my business. So I would rather borrow at four and a half and make at 35 and I have a net profit off of 30 % using somebody else’s money. So yes, it’s a great, great, great way to go. Vic, we’re gonna go lightning round here. Then we have about five more questions left. We’re gonna go fast and furious.

What’s your next question, sir? All right.

So as the pioneer of Thrive 15 and the Thrive Time Show podcast, what does the word thrive or thriving mean to you?

Well, let’s explain this real quick.

We have an online platform where everybody out there for just 19 bucks a month can have access to the mentorship that Zee and I would have begged for.

I mean, both of us came from…

Well, we did beg for it back in the day.

We did beg for it.

That’s actually true. We did beg for it.

But we both came from nothing and to build something.

And so we wanted to give that as a profitable gift to you.

So everybody check that out. If you don’t have access to a mentor in your life, your network is your net worth, why not hop into a community where you’re surrounded by people that know their stuff. That’s what Thrive15 is.

Thrive15 . com, the online school, 19 bucks a month. And when you buy a subscription, you can come to the workshops. You can do that. Now the podcast is something we give away, we gift away for free because we recognize that many people want to put their toe, their foot in the water and check something out while they’re driving before they’re going to invest the time in doing a conference or that kind of thing. But that being said, thriving means where you never have to think

about money as it relates to the achievement of your F6 goals.

So your goals for your family.

Should we take the family on vacation?

Yes or no. We don’t want that decision to be at all clouded by money or lack thereof. Should you get a gym membership at colawfitness .

com?

You want to, but can you afford it?

We don’t want that conversation.

Should you take the kids to mass or to church on the other side of town?

It’s 40 miles away.

You live in LA.

The cost of gas is expensive.

We don’t want that decision to be impeded or affected at all by money.

Thriving is where you can live. the life that you want to live on your terms, to spend the time with the people you want to spend time with, where you never have to think about money.

In the absence of money, it’s really weird, all you think about is money when you don’t have money. So that’s what thriving means to me. Ze, would you echo that or do you want to one -up me in some capacity? Yeah, and I think thriving also lets you know that you’ve reached a level of, you know, you first start off when you start a business, you have a job. You’ve given yourself a job, and you feel satisfied because you are your own boss. You own the boat.

You own the business. Yes.

You’re the man.

You’re the man with the plan. Vicks Coffee. And then it goes from being a job to being a business, and now you’re overseeing it. You’re on the chessboard. Luchador Coffee.

You’re Luchador.

Not just Vicks Coffee, Luchador.

Let’s have midget wrestling this weekend.

Luchador Midget Wrestling.

That’s right.

Only at Luchador Coffee in the mall.

where nobody is.

So what you want to do is you want to change it into a business.

And then eventually, as you as you can go higher in the clouds looking at it from a from a distance, you still want to come down and touch every now and then, you know, everybody has their kind of their, their method, how sharp a manager you have, how good a division manager, how good a district manager you have, how good a people you put around you very important at this point.

And then and then you want to to inspect what you expect you want to put things in pretty soon you wake up pretty soon You get to the point here’s thriving when you wake up one morning, and you say to yourself self gotta get some self music Yeah, let me cute up here. This is the music. This is what you’re talking to yourself.

This is what I get up to yes You wake up and people say when you wake up you go I don’t know when I wake up and you say to yourself you roll over and Now you’re on your left side cuz you were on your right side You flip the pillow because now you got the cool side.

So you’re laying on your left side with the cool side of the pillow, and you kind of give a baby yawn, and you think to yourself, you say, self, now that I’m on my left side with the cool side, what do I want to do today?

I might surprise myself.

I think I want to buy bronze horses to put in front of my new house. Maybe. Maybe I just want to pack it over an iBag and head to the airport to see what flight I can catch. I don’t know. Two weeks ago or four weeks ago, didn’t you put on your list you wanted to buy bronze horses for your house? And they look fantastic.

But I mean, that was on your list. It was on my list.

And then one day it was big. Give his huge mirrors installed.

I loved it when you came over to my old house and you were there for to meet with you and face to face.

I said, well, I’ll be at the house from whatever to whatever. Swing on by, you know, whenever you can. So you did. You popped in.

And what was I was working on my.

You were feeding a fish. You know, you were introducing a new fish. Yes, that’s right.

Into the aquarium ecosystem.

and it appeared as though you’d been doing this for hours or at least many minutes. It’s a process. And I’m going, what are you doing today? Like, I’m trying to introduce my gym tang to the other. Yes. I don’t want the other tangs to not to be offended.

I’m like, all day? Do you not have to make a phone call or return a voicemail or sell something? Or sell something. I seriously thought that. I know.

It’s awesome.

That’s thriving.

That’s thriving.

What’s your final question, Vic? Your final question as we are short on time, but we’re not short on time.

on love for Mr. Sacramento 4000. Yes.

All right. So since I just turned 21, what advice would you guys give your 21 -year -old self? Only hang around people who are where you want to be or who are going where you want to be, because your network is your net worth. And when you’re around idiots, you will fall to the average of the people you hang around with. And when you’re around poverty speaking people, entitlement people, victim people, you are going to absolutely start to think that way. But when you’re around successful people, when, you know, when we host a podcast where everybody who’s on the show is successful, has been successful, has come from nothing to something, we don’t accept the bitterness.

We accept better.

We don’t accept excuses. We accept, okay, there might be an exit ramp to go around the detour cones, but we don’t…

See, when you say that, you gotta surround yourself with good people, man. Yes, and also, now that you’re 21, always drink really expensive alcohol.

Don’t do the…

Yeah, don’t do the…

Single malt scotch. I prefer Lagavulin, but no, seriously, you definitely want to say this. I mean, if I told you, hey, the people that have access, and I mean really access, we’ll call buddy buddies, your close core friends, are there any that are idiots? Don’t answer, because they could be listening.

Hey, I think you meant me.

And what I’m telling you is kindly and gently move them out of your life.

And spend less time with them.

I’m not saying completely ghost them, but ghost them.

No, seriously. And really be proactive in saying so you’re. That sounds kind of weird, but no, it’s not. It’s like if you were dating a girl that didn’t have a lot going for it, you’re like, I think I want a little bit more firepower in my future wife. You would then be proactive in trying to find that. So what I’m telling you, it’s the same thing in your core, your core competency, your inner core friends.

You want to make sure that you have them that are, you know, some, if you don’t have a buddy, that’s an entrepreneur all the time. shame on you. If you don’t have a buddy that says, hey listen, I want to go and build something like this, shame on you.

And if all your friends are like, hey man, it’s your 21st, let’s just go party every night, come on now, booyah, booyah.

Listen, we’ve been there, we’ve all had idiots as friends, we really have. And God bless the idiots, and you know what, there’s plenty of them out there and they can all be friends amongst themselves. offset their entitlements. Surely you can’t be serious. I am. I am serious.

Don’t call me Shirley. 47 % of Americans don’t pay taxes. Charles, you had a hot take, final hot take for Vic in Sacramento before we wrap up today’s show. Proverbs 1320, walk with wise men and you’ll be wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. And so if you surround yourself with a goat, that’s like the greatest of all time. And think about it as narrow as you can and exactly what you’re doing.

Go find that guy, sign a non -compete, talk to him, beg him, talk to him, beg him. Eventually, he’ll see your diligence and your drive and he’ll want to help you. And so find your goat. and Proverbs 1320. Vic, you are a an awesome, awesome individual for reaching out with great questions. Don’t be a stranger, my friend, and I hope you have a great rest of your day out there in Sacramento and may your business continue to thrive.

Thank you. I’ll see you guys at the conference this weekend. All right. Take care, boss. And now, with any further ado, three, two, one, boom.

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 two -day interactive business workshop, and he’s going to teach us time management and his approach to personal self -discipline and getting things done.

Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here. Also at the two -day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? Is it creating 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. 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. break even numbers. What kind of sales do you have to do to even break even?

Third is how many hours per week do you want to work? What is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur? Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your company unique from all the different businesses?

In a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows, how can you be the purple cow that stands out?

How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil? Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand. Box number six. 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 gotta have sales systems in place.

We help you with that. Box number eight. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer?

Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized.

We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization. Box number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people, on the planet Earth. This just in.

We’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth.

Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people. Box number 13, accounting. This just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know.

And step 14, finally, What is the point of even achieving success? We’re going to go over that. 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. Yes.

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 ticket? 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 just your average people out there have access to the things that work.

Now, 7 AM to 5, Sean, why don’t we go from 7 to 5 both days? I mean, it’s 10 hours a day.

20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 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. 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, uh, 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? Uh, P, uh, M, U, R, T, C, 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, 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.

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. Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show.

As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference, and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here. We’ve got people playing the drums. We’ve got a fire breather. And, man, people are excited as they come in.

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 we I think when we first started with you we had 60 to 65 employees and now we have a little over 300 employees. Before we got involved with Thrive Time, we didn’t really have any systems or processes in place. I’ve probably been to, oh, in six, seven years, I’ve probably been to 12 to 13 business conferences, and amazingly, each time I go, I learn something new, and I’m so excited to bring it back and show the team. 4 ,000%. from February to February.

Now, I can better that. OK, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself.

And if I cry, forgive me.

In the last two and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February.

and 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 are 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 going to 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, companies, has learned a lot of lessons. You know, that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that 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 can help your business. Hi, this is Charles and Amber Cola.

We’re the owners of Cola fitness. We heard about clay Clark through Paul hood, our CPA. We’ve worked with clay Clark for the last two years. 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. Yeah, he’s a great coach. He helps push us. on certain areas, helps coach us in certain areas. You know, 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, he’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 have his amazing staff come in and help you accomplish all these goals that you’re setting. And of course he has all these resources, whether it’s videographers or whether it’s web developers, that they can quickly jump on your project, knock things out. He can quickly give you 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 and it just 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 like over and over again, hear things over and over again. I’ve been to like, 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. 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 and the revenue improved.

So it’s really cool to see people that just a year ago, that of course we’ve been here two years, that just came that I met is now being successful. It’s really encouraging to see other people, 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 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, um, to know that I’m ultimately

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

You go to bed at night, you’re worried, like, did we cover this, did we cover that? So he helps extract everything out of your brain, 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. just trust the system.

I honestly believe everybody needs a coach. I think we’re all inherently lazy and 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 does it, who’s done the right thing. of companies. You know, really look at your company, reflect on your company, and see like little chinks in the armor to make sure you cover that up so your competition can’t get to you and that you’re successful overall in the big picture. 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 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’ve got to be coachable. wanting to get feedback. You gotta be wanting to really grow your company.

You gotta 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. 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,

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 he does. 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 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 make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time, and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us.

We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago. And in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions.

Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge.

It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing.

Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies.

I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient, and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out.

But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63 ,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult.

He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development. and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in. 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. Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show, and thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects, you know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you, so congratulations. We went from expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000. We’re finishing a business owner at $23 ,000.

I’ve been working with K &E’s company for about five years now and we started working with them. We’re expecting maybe $200 ,000 this year to where 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. 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’d recommend it to anybody.

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

They’re the ones that people can work with on a day -to -day basis.

Hi, there. My name is Stephanie Pipkin. I am 24 years old, and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid -June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least.

I started working with them in mid -February of this year. So we’re about four months in of working together, and it has been amazing. completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. Um, so I’m going to check my notes here. Um, so in four months my leads have tripled. Um, I was getting probably like two leads a week.

Now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. Um, I have doubled my number of employees. Uh, I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company. A week to week it seems like. Um, 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 pay him a million dollars a month if I can and maybe someday I’ll be able to but I would just say go for it if it seems like a good fit just go for it Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that.

But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have 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