URGENCY | “Do Not Wait, the Time Will Never Be Just Right. Start Where You Stand With Whatever Tools You May Have.” – Napoleon Hill + Proven Specific Steps to Grow Your Business NOW + 7 Clay Clark Client Success Stories

Audio Transcription

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Most people don’t realize how long they’ve been standing there. A year goes by and they’re still almost ready. Two years, five, and they haven’t been lazy. They’ve been learning, thinking, growing. When most people think about excuses, they picture someone who doesn’t have much going for them. Low ability, low effort, low output.

But some of the most convincing excuses you’ll ever hear come from genuinely talented people. Because when you actually have ability, Your reasons for not doing something sound reasonable. right before we opened the third location now to six locations. And so we’ve more than doubled our revenue. And these are ground up build gyms. And so it’s not the barrier for entry is pretty high.

It’s 20 plus staff at each location. So yeah, it’s been a lot as far as running systems, checklists, workflows, who does what, when and how. Training us on that, Clay’s helped a ton. We would not be where we’re at without him. So huge win. Charles, from an ROI perspective, if someone’s going to look at it and go, return on investment, I pay you $1 ,700 a month.

Will I make more money than I’m paying you? How would you maybe tackle or how would you respond to what kind of return on investment have you seen for the $1 ,700 a month you’re paying? Well, for example, Clay has got, there’s no better business coach in the world that has the way he works, the way his mind works. But he’s also got a team of other business coaches that have worked in lots of different industries. So he’s worked in every industry. His staff has worked in every industry.

He’s got videographers, web designers. I mean, just for the fact of like, just the website alone is worth the $1 ,700. Just the ability to take any of their proven systems, whether that’s a marketing thing or whether that’s a staffing thing, like one thing done in the month, it pays for itself. And then to understand this, there’s a part of where, you know, some maybe some week, you may be like, well, you know what, I’m not getting a whole lot out of this call. But the bottom line is, it’s like when you read the Bible, there’s times you’re just reading it.

And then you’re like, you know what, I really and then you read it that one time. And it’s like, God really speaks to your heart. And the whole truth is, it’s like, there’s no way that you can get that kind of value for $1 ,700 to have a whole team of coaches, Graphic designers, web developers, anybody that has that type of knowledge, you know, in your back pocket. And then in the whole thing is run your business with being somewhat conservative. Make sure you don’t run it to the edge all the time. But by doing that, you have that that skill set, you have that you have those.

It’s tools on your tool belt. And I just think it’s just like, it’s just like the cost of doing business. Like, just, just understand it. That’s a, that’s what I think. There’s a, there’s a, sometimes the payment we make, I feel like is peace of mind, even because there have been multiple times throughout the years that we will, we will either be butting heads on something. Um, we’re super confused about something.

We’re fearful about something, something in the markets changed and it’s a quick call to clay. Well, Thrive Nation, it’s a very special occasion because a lot of times on The Thrive Time Show, I get to interview people that I am friendly with or have an acquaintance with, that kind of thing. And I enjoy that. But it’s really an honor whenever I get to interview someone who I consider to be a friend or people that I consider to be friends of our family. And it’s awesome when we can celebrate a success story because it’s a life -giving thing. And for somebody watching today’s show, if you feel you need like a checkup from the neck up, if you feel stuck, if you feel like you don’t have the resources to get started but you You have the resourcefulness.

Maybe today’s show is the show you need to hear because this is a couple, they started this business together out of their house and they’ve now grown it into a multi -million dollar super successful company and I’ve had the opportunity to work with them in a consulting or coaching capacity over these past five or six years. And I am so excited to have them on today’s show. And that being said, Amber and Charles Cola, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. Amber, how are you? Great, thanks Clay.

It’s awesome to be on here with you. Yes, we are excited. Okay, so I got to ask this real quick because people think you’re a hologram. How long have we had the opportunity to work with you or how long have we worked with you guys together from a kind of a coaching relationship? We probably started back in 2017. So yeah, we’re looking at seven, eight years.

It’s coming up on eight probably. It’s a little over seven. And from that time, I mean, you guys have experienced tremendous personal growth and business growth. I mean, could you, Charles, maybe talk about, I’m not looking for your specific financials, but could you maybe talk about maybe the size you guys have grown over these past seven or eight years at colawfitness . com? Absolutely.

We started off, we’re getting ready to open our third location. And one of our accountants had said, you’ve got to meet this guy, Clay. So we ended up meeting with Clay. And he’s helped us go from Right before we opened the third location now to six locations. And so we’ve more than doubled our revenue. And these are ground up build gyms.

And so it’s not the barrier for entry is pretty high. It’s 20 plus staff at each location. So yeah, it’s been a lot as far as running systems, checklists, workflows, who does what, when and how. Training us on that. Clay’s helped a ton. We would not be where we’re at without him.

So huge win. Now, I’m going to ask you guys this story, because I want you to be able to encourage somebody. I’m not sure who’s going to watch this show, but I view every show as kind of a message in a bottle. So somebody is watching this show, and they’re going to relate to this story. I’m going to let Amber go first, because I think she’ll maybe have a less rosy view of how it was. But you guys started colawfitness .

com doing personal training to individuals in your actual home. So So like your living room was where the squat rack was, or the bench press was in the kitchen. Amber, what was that like when you started CoLawFitness . com? Well, I think when you’re starting something like that, you don’t see a bigger picture.

You’re not thinking that far ahead. You’re just kind of thinking, you have to work. You have to survive. You’ve got to make money. And you’re doing what you love. And so with that, it was just it was kind of more as a of a survival.

And also we couldn’t afford furniture to go in our formal living room, a formal dining room. And so. So, um, we were kind of stuck in a situation where Charles needed a place to train and he had a full clientele. And so we just were, why don’t we find like a big universal piece, stick it in the living room that cause it’s just an empty room. And, um, the dining room became more of the office. And so we bought a big universal piece and threw down some rubber flooring, ripped up the carpet and put some big mirrors on the wall.

And, um. We just started doing what we needed to do at the time with no, I mean, I definitely did not think it was going to be in my house for a couple of years for sure. But yeah, I, a lot of it was fear of failure. I was like, I want to make sure that, you know, I can provide for my family. And, um, we were trying to just, I was every lead I had and follow up with every client I trained, want to make sure that it gave me good results. And, uh, yeah, next thing you know, we have about 160 clients coming in and out of the door a week.

And it’s me and about four or five of the trainers training out of there, out of our living room. And so it became a revolving door of fitness. And then Amber also did some hair. So she had a hair salon in the back of the house. So it’s a, like a training studio in the front of the house and then a hair salon in the back of the house. So yeah.

Now I want to share this story because I don’t know if I’ve ever shared the story with you, but I think our listeners need to hear this. because your story is better than mine, but let me just show this to the listeners real quick here. If we go to 111th and Memorial in Tulsa, Oklahoma, my wife and I, we were 20 years old -ish, and I remember I was so excited to be able to build our house. I remember telling my wife, We can afford to build a house. We are going to build a house, a brand new house. She was so excited.

I remember we were driving down Riverside. She was like, we’re going to buy a house? I go, yeah. She’s like, we’re going to build a house? I’m going, yeah, because we’re a young couple. We’ve just been married a couple of years.

We’re right here at 111th and Memorial. I found a builder named Rob Brewer, who did a phenomenal job. I would hire him again. And this is a true story. So I built this house from scratch. And so my neighbor comes by, Wendy, God bless her.

I’m not going to mention her last name. Wendy comes by, and she’s like, hey, what are you doing? I go, what do you mean? Because I’m having like 40 couples a week that are walking up to my front door, hanging a right at my office. And there’s, not kidding, there’s probably eight DJ vans in my backyard. And she’s like, what are you doing?

And I’m going, well, what do you mean what I do? This is a residential neighborhood. What are you doing? I said, well, I’m running a business. She said, you can’t run a business here. So I had back here in the backyard.

No kidding. I had eight different vans back there. And then neighbors kept asking me if I was running drugs. I mean, people were concerned because the first DJ would come to load up gear at four in the morning. And our last guy would come home at three in the morning. And it was just a wild thing.

I got to ask you with the gym, Amber, how early were people coming to work out, to do squats and bench press and cardio. What time were they showing up? How many people were showing up? Oh, yeah. So Charles is, he’s relentless and he’ll fill any hour he can. And so he would start as early as 5 a .

m. with his first client. And, you know, sometimes it would last until about 10 o ‘clock at night. And so it’s it was, it was just a revolving door. And we always blocked out the middle of the afternoon at two o ‘clock every afternoon.

And him and I, and, um, as we added staff, we would all work out together. So it became this big, you know, workout session together. It was awesome. And this is a real thing. Now, Amber, I’m not looking for anything super salacious. But I mean, did you ever have awkward situations?

I mean, because you’re sleeping there. You’re living there. Do you guys ever have just, like, I remember with the DJ business, my wife, about once a week there for a while, she would come downstairs. One of my DJs would, Clay, where’s the bathroom? I’d say, right there. And they would walk into our master bedroom.

And I’m like, get out of there. That’s my bathroom, you sicko. I mean, did you ever have just weird client interactions? Oh, yeah. Totally from, you know, our kitchen became like the staff break room. And so all of a sudden I’ve got everybody’s lunches in my fridge.

And I remember one day a guy had went to get the barbecue sauce out of the fridge and just drops it. And it just shatters all over the kitchen floor, but his client was here. So he, he looks at me kind of like, uh, and I was like, just, just go. I got like some cleaning up barbecue sauce out of the kitchen. Um, one morning I had gotten out of the shower and I come out of the bathroom, which is at the top of the stairs. I, and I’m just making that short little.

jagged over to my bedroom door. And so I had my hair in a towel and a robe on. And I opened the door and right there at the bottom of the stairs, Charles has one of the clients doing calf raises. And they just good morning. And I thought get this out of my trainers napping on the couch between clients and our middle son was in pre K at the time. And so he’d come home half the day.

And he’d sit on the couch, he was just so little, his feet would just stick straight out. the couch. And he’d try and watch cartoons and there would be someone on like a ab mat on the floor, right in front of the TV doing crunches. And so he’s just watching his little cartoons and someone’s doing crunches in front of him. And so, oh yeah, the whole family was in on it. I just remember when I was building djconnection .

com, I would train my DJs out of my house. So we would practice announcements, like, ladies and gentlemen, coming up in just a moment, we’re going to introduce the bride and the groom. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the intro. And we would practice, ladies and gentlemen, coming up next, we’re going to be cutting the cake. Once again, we got the bride, we got the groom, we got an actor. It should be exciting.

And I’m practicing, and they have a script, and I’m practicing. So adult males are in my house, and we’re practicing introducing. Because, you know, we grew DJ Connection to do 4 ,000 weddings a year. So I’m training 30 disc jockey every week. So Havana, my oldest, who’s now 20, she starts running around in the office going, ladies and gentlemen, coming up next, the cutting of the cake, because she heard it so much. She’s like, ladies and gentlemen, coming up next, the Soul Train line.

She knew, because it was like, and I don’t think if you’re watching today’s show and these stories, you can’t relate to it. That’s okay, but I’m just trying to make sure we’re getting this idea. This is a real couple that I would now classify as a super success story, but they had to start somewhere. And it’s not about resourcefulness. It’s not about resources. It’s about resourcefulness.

Again, it’s not about resources. It’s about resourcefulness. Look at the backyard. I turned half my backyard into a concrete slab so that we could park all the vans back here. I mean, look at all the trees I planted to block the view. So now you look at Colaw Fitness and you go, Wow, this is a super successful company.

Wow, I want to be the next Koloff Fitness. Wow, these guys are really doing it. I want to be a kolofffitness . com. I’ll get the website to pull up in just a second. And people always come to me and they say, Clay, what do I need to do?

What’s the most important thing? I just had a guy today, huge ministry, huge ministry, multimillion dollar man. ministry called me and said, what’s the one thing I can do to grow my ministry? And I said, buddy, I’m going to send you today’s show. There are 14 things that we need to do and a lot of details on those 14. So we’re going to go step by step on today’s show.

I’ll go back and forth between Charles and Amber. And for sake of time, we’ll just go back and forth rapid fire. So here we go. And Charles, by the way, you get 60 seconds on the clock for each answer. So here we go. Box number one, you have to figure out your revenue goals.

You just have to know your revenue goals. You have to know your revenue goals. What are your gross revenue goals? What are your weekly revenue goals? What are your annual revenue goals? You have to know your revenue goals.

Charles, why do you have to know your revenue goals? calls. Yes, you have to know your revenue goals so you know if they’re going to be making money or not. And for us, we want to make sure that we’re staying bankable, that we can open more locations. Our gyms are a ministry for us. We want to make sure that we continue to expand and making sure we got at least a 20 % profit margin off of all of our expenses to income over expenses.

And we know how many memberships we have to sell. We know how many clients that we have to service to hit those goals for our set overhead costs. And yeah, you got to know how many units of items you have to sell. every week, every day. And so we track that stuff. And for us, we have a lot of recurring revenue.

But the whole point is that we want to make sure that we have enough of the payable, viable buyers in the system to continue to grow. And you track this stuff. And so we’ve got wonderful members of our team. We’ve got a young member of our team named Natalie, who’s learning all of this because she’s developing into a coach. And when you work with a new client, a lot of times the client’s going to have a bias to focus on just marketing, just branding, but you have to know these numbers. Amber, anything else you want to talk about as far as the numbers?

Because I know your husband is passionate about fitness and you are as well, but why do you have to focus on the numbers and not just marketing or not just branding or not just social media? Why do you have to focus on those numbers? Well, I think the numbers, it’s like the steering wheel that steers the ship. I mean, if you don’t understand the numbers, you don’t, you have no idea where you’re going. Um, and, uh, so I think that’s probably the biggest thing.

Like it just, it, It leads the whole way. And I think a lot of people tend to do, I’m going to do the marketing or I just want to perform the service. I think a lot of it because people are scared of numbers. I think they feel like numbers are overwhelming and they try to make numbers way too difficult. So I think that’s the big thing. This is such wisdom, folks.

I’m telling you, if you’re not familiar with colawfitness . com, go to their website. These guys give away a Bible. Every time they sell a new membership, they set aside a portion of the funds to give away a Bible to first time members at their gym. It’s an incredible, it’s a ministry. It’s a business.

It checks all those boxes. Let’s move on to box number three. Define the number of hours you’re willing to work. Now, Amber, you happen to be married to a man who’s willing to work every hour of the day if need be. I will say this, though. Most of my clients, if I had to think about my 160 clients I work with, and I had to think about the average client, 90 % of them are not willing to work as hard as you guys.

Most of my clients are willing to work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week. Some will work 60 hours a week. But nobody is willing to go sprint from 4 AM to 8 PM, 10 PM every day if need be. Your husband is willing to do that. Why is it important for you guys, Charles, to define the hours that you’re going to work? the hours that you’re not gonna work, block out time for the family cruise, for the family trip.

Why is that an important box there, Charles? That way my wife will stay married to me. And well, I’m like you, I like to just go, go, go. And then we do definitely, we take off and we go to church on Sunday. It’s important for us to do that. this Sunday.

as a Sabbath, as a day off. Other than that, I like to work. You talked about vacation, to vacate or to leave something. I love to work. I love to build the systems and build the documents and train staff, build the systems and so on. But we do have to make sure that once a quarter, we try to look at taking time off.

Go ahead. Well, I would say the biggest thing that we always talk about in marriage, family, and work, expectations and boundaries. Those two things have to be very clear all the time. So as long as he understands what my expectations are, and I need him to fulfill a husband role, in addition to working, as long as he understands that these are my expectations, and then these are my boundaries, and as long as we communicate that. then we’re good. I’ll say one more thing is that for us, we’ve kind of at the spot to where, you know, we just work on the business, not in the business.

So we don’t actually do the day -to -day stuff, but we work on the business systems, checklists, workflows, training, coaching people remotely, because we do live in Florida. Our clubs are in the Midwest, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, and Kansas. And so running remotely and running all that stuff, we’ve got to kind of say, how do we want to live our lives? Like you’d say, Charles, how do you really want to live it? You got to kind of map out and clearly define that for us Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, those days are just all in on zoom calls, training, coaching, working with staff. And so those days are really, really full days.

And then the rest of the time, like on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, those are all lighter days that we don’t block in a lot of meetings, it’s like no meetings that we plan, but we are still I’m still working on things that I want to work on, but I’m not leveraged to having to. So I’ve kind of created my three day Work week that’s like super long and then the rest of the time I don’t have meetings I don’t get held hostage on a lot of stuff and people have to kind of have a gatekeeper to get in to me. But other than that, that’s how I’ve tried to map that out so that I can continue to mastermind and kind of grow the brand and have some meta perspective on how I want to continue to grow. So there’s just so much. Again, for folks, if you want to learn entrepreneurship, this is this is real people.

If you’re in the Florida area and you’re looking for a job, if you’re in the Joplin, Missouri area, you’re looking for a career, not just a job. Kola Fitness is a company that’s going places. I’m not prophetic. I’m not claiming to have some view of the future. I just see patterns. And I work with clients, and I help them implement patterns that work.

And I also know of the clients that’ll work. Nothing works unless you work, right? So nothing will work unless you work. And I look at the Colaw family, and I look at the fuel that you put into the business and the diligence that you bring. And I’m telling you, folks, this is a brand that’s going somewhere. If you’re looking for a career, check it out, colawfitness .

com. Box number four and five, these kind of fit in together. Box number four is you have to determine your unique value proposition. That’s a unique thing. But what is it that makes you unique? What is it that makes you unique?

What is it that separates you from the competition? If you’re watching today’s show, let’s think about your website, your print piece, your auto wraps, your business cards. Let’s think about everything about your business. Let’s think about the sights, the sounds, the smell, the ambiance, the employees you have. What is it that makes you different from the competition? What is it that makes Chick -fil -A successful when there are many other fast food chicken restaurants?

What is it that makes Quick Trip super successful when there are so many gross, Dirty convenience stores. What is it that makes Chick -fil -A successful? What is it that makes Quick Trip successful? What is the secret sauce that allows Brad Stevens, the coach of the Boston Celtics, to bring out a winning lineup year after year? Brad Stevens took a dysfunctional Butler College basketball team and turned them into a top four basketball team. Think about this.

He took a college called Butler, the size of Earl Roberts University, and turned it Final Four multiple times. And then he takes that same recipe and goes to the NBA, and they win a championship, and he’s putting out a winner year after year. What is the secret sauce that allowed Phil Jackson to win year after year? Michael Jordan couldn’t win a championship without Phil Jackson. He played a lot of seasons without Phil Jackson.

He only won his championships with Phil. Kobe Bryant never won a championship without Phil Jackson. By the way, Kobe Bryant played a lot of seasons without Phil Jackson. magic formula. But a big part of it is you have to understand your unique value proposition. So Amber, what is it that makes Kola Fitness unique versus other fitness companies?

Oh, for us, it’s culture, hands down. It’s culture all day long. And we worked really hard at our first location to set the culture and make it what we wanted it to be. We wanted a fitness center that everybody could be a part of. And I mean, not everybody, not everybody likes it. But It’s definitely our culture and that was something we knew we had to be able to duplicate when opening other locations.

And so that is probably the number one piece that we we train, develop, encourage that we’re the biggest part of the company that we are still a part of is the culture part. Yep. And that’s the big part. I’m going to just kind of jump out a little bit more unapologetic in our Christian component to that. Think of if Planet Fitness is the McDonald’s of gyms, Cola Fitness is the Chick -fil -A. And what I mean by that is We are a strong Christian culture.

We hire and we look for people that match that. They don’t have to be a Christian, but they do have to align with those values. All of Christianity summed up in one word is the word agape. That’s an unconditional love. We want to make sure that we actually hire people that are into customer service, that likes people. Who’d have thought customer service, we’re going to find people that actually like to serve people.

And so we really vet that pretty heavily on the front side on the onboarding with our, you know, like our Christian culture, we play a video, we talk about who we are, we talk about the Christian values, devotion to God, discipline in living, denial of self, dream great dreams for God’s glory, determination, status quo, of course. So the Christian side of it is kind of strong. So either people lean in or lean and lean back. And so when we do group interviews, this is where you’ve taught us a lot of great systems. You see people lean in and see people lean back so when everybody’s on the boat rowing in the same direction And they really match that value set the culture is just it’s just better and when you hire people that actually like people like hire people that like people, they want to acknowledge your presence, close the gap, give them a fist bump, a high five, make somebody feel like the highest, like the highlight of the day when they walk through that door. So we train people on those systems.

So we took the culture that we did when we first opened the club, and we defined it into actual ways that we can role play and script it with our staff so that you have not a purple hair, McDonald’s, perpetually distracted, Cran -mark tattoo person, You have a person and opposed to like a McDonald’s, something that runs up to your car like a Chick -fil -A that’s you got their polo on and says, my pleasure. So that’s where we have to be very, very, very specific on how we do culture differently than the competition, who’s just, you know, scaling out like crazy. But people like the greatest currency in life is how you make somebody else feel. We want to make other people feel like the highlight of the day and hire people that are sincere. They’re just genuine, that truly like people. If you do that well, You have to lock the doors to keep people out.

I said, what do you mean, gremlin? He’s like, yeah, he’s just kind of a curmudgeon, kind of a negative guy, Debbie Downer. And he’s got a big background in fitness, though. And he’s into fitness. And he played sports at a high level. And he’d love to come work for you, Clay.

And I go, OK. And he’s like, yeah, I guess he applied for the Colaw guys a couple years ago, didn’t get the job. And I’m going, OK. Interesting. And I knew that you, and I met the guy, I’m like, this guy, I understand why you didn’t hire him. And I didn’t hire him either.

And I’m just telling you have certain standards. And if people aren’t up to those standards, they can come back and reapply later after they turn that frown upside down. But you have a certain standard there. Now, box number six, the three -legged marketing stool. Koloff Fitness, with every business we work with, every business that I work with, what we do is we develop a three -legged marketing stool. Now, I’ll give you a moment, Charles and Amber, to reflect on this.

And maybe this is true for you, maybe not. But a lot of my clients that come into my life, I think about Stacey Purcell, longtime client, great lady. I think about Shaw Homes, shawhomes . com. We helped Shaw Homes grow from $14 million a year to $150 million a year. I think about Satellite Phones, Tina, her company, SAT123.

We’ve helped them grow to $100 million a year of sales. I think about Oxifresh, oxifresh . com. We’ve helped them grow now to 500 -plus locations. And every single time I sit down with a business owner, they have not a three -legged marketing stool. No, no, no.

They have a variety of things that might work. And through tracking, we start to figure out what doesn’t work. And so with Stacey Purcell with her wonderful business, we found out that LinkedIn didn’t work 100 % of the time, thus saving her $8 ,000 a month by turning it off. I just had a client this week. True story, we found he was spending $4 ,000 a week on YouTube ads, Instagram ads, and TikTok ads. Got a lot of clicks, got a lot of views, no leads.

Another client, I’m using a stream of consciousness, another client of mine, they were doing mailers, getting zero response. Another client of mine was doing billboards to the tune of $6 ,000 a month between all their locations. And as you look at the different businesses and you track, you can really, really become much more profitable by nailing down a three -legged marketing stool. Could you talk about that, Amber? Maybe the impact it’s had or hasn’t had, tracking the results, getting rid of what doesn’t work, and focusing on what does work. Yeah, well, I would say none of that is my part of the business.

And I’m so thankful. I hate marketing. But I would what I would say to that is that has everything to do with like we were talking about your numbers and the tracking. So you’re talking about tracking these things. That’s my side, the financial side. And I want to know that when the money’s going out, that that return is coming back.

Right. And so I do that side of it with we talk about a marketing budget and watching that and holding true to that and watching those numbers and watching, you know, The revenue that comes back from that marketing and so you may be able to talk more on the marketing. That’s your yeah. No, absolutely Well, we’ve tracked where they come from sometimes you do get clicks or you do have like sometimes facebook shows you you make it but it’s really not getting people to walk through the door and Convert people into members and convert people into higher ticket items And so you really want to make sure that what you’re spending money on is actually quantifying out into dollars And so clay’s really been good with us to track that we’ve done that for years and so we can really we kind of see in our industry, we market in a five -mile radius, really heavy. That’s kind of our ideal and likely buyers within that five -mile radius or a 12 -minute drive time. We target those.

We see what marketing works best. And a lot of times, it’s the same proven stuff that Clay teaches with a lot of his clients is really seeing to making sure that you’re dominating on certain platforms. And I can go into that. But the whole point is Clay has done it in every industry. And when we follow a system, track it correctly, we can monetize it. marketing dollars a whole lot better.

And so there’s there’s ways you want to get in front of your ideal likely buyer, we make sure we got the right product offering in front of the right ideal likely buyer. And the things that Clay’s been doing with his clients over the last seven years with us, It doesn’t change much. There’s a few little things that adjust, but it’s a proven system and that’s what works. And we’ve done that. We’ve gone from three locations to six and we’ve more than doubled our revenue. So it’s been a huge win.

Well, I think sometimes people want to market in a certain way because that’s the cool thing to do. Like I want to be on TikTok, right? If TikTok doesn’t pay me, if TikTok is not, if it’s not paying my bills, I could care less. I mean, I can watch TikTok on my off time, but I’m not going to put my marketing dollars into it just because that’s what everybody else is doing. And, um, I think another part of that is everybody has marketing advice for you. Everybody, everybody thinks that it’s a marketing guru because they see ads.

And I don’t think that’s true either. Now, I’m going to ask you this, Charles. And I’m not ready for your answer yet. I’ve got to mentally prepare myself for this. But you do not have the ability to not be honest here, OK? So a guy called me here today.

And I thought, man, I’m going to send this to him right away, OK? Guy reaches out to me. He’s in the construction space, OK? And he goes, yeah. This happens every day, by the way. But he says, what would a relationship look like if I hired you guys as my coach?

If I hired you, Clay, and your team, what does that look like? And I said, well, we charge you $1 ,700 a month. So it’s less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. That’s what it is. We have a weekly meeting. And we follow a proven system.

And anyway, and I said, there’s accountability. So there’s kind of three parts to it. One is we have a team that helps you get your photography, your video, your web, your search engine done for you, all those things. The second is we provide coaching down a program. path. And then the third is we have workshops every couple months so you can kind of get a tune up.

And I said, you know, I said, Mr. Client, Mr. Potential Client, who I’ve known forever, I said, Clay Stairs describes me as the ass man. And he’s like, the ass man? And I said, yeah, Clay Stairs, longtime client of mine. He’s been a client of mine for like 15 years. He literally tells people that I’m his ass man. And they go, what?

He goes, Clay has helped me grow my company, claystairs . com. He’s helped me get into political office. But he kind of is like an irritant who follows up on the same things every week until they get done. So I want to ask you, Charles, how would you describe what the coaching relationship looks like for somebody out there that’s saying, what is it like to work with specifically me and my team? Well, to shoot you straight, I mean, Clay’s highest desire isn’t always your comfort in that coaching.

His highest desire is your continued development that you do hit your goals for financial and a good coach. Think of a good coach. A good coach tells you what you need to hear because he doesn’t just care about the comfort in the room or the comfort of the conversation. He cares about your character development, your personal development to becoming the better leader. And if you want to run a great company, you have to be a great leader. You have to be the avatar.

You have to be the great person. And Clay’s really pushed that in me. And for me, I thought I’ve always needed that. And I was just like, okay, Charles, stay humble, stay coachable. And that’s the biggest thing is most business owners, they don’t have the ability to stay keep a humble, coachable heart and be willing to grow. When you work with somebody that has a proven system, they’ve worked in every industry, they’ve got a team of videographers, graphic designers, web developers, people that will help you build the back end of your business correctly, the proven systems of continuous hiring, of staff team like like group hiring that you always have staff ready to go somebody in the bullpen so I’ll take it.

You always have continuous training staff you’ve never held hostage because there’s something that doesn’t know a skill set you can always replace somebody, because if you don’t create a system, you’re going to be a limited resource and clay creates a system. helps you with document creation file organization and make sure you’ve got that stuff. So you have a proven template. It’s really more like a franchisable prototype that you can handle the lowest skill set. So great people are great. But Clay’s been really good at shooting me straight.

If you have a humble, coachable heart and you’re willing to grow and you take two or three action items every week, next thing you know, 50 weeks, 52 weeks in a year, you’ve got a bunch of systems, you got a way better website, you got checklist workflows, you got staff following systems, you got backup for each position. Because if you don’t have people in the bullpen, you’re going to be held hostage. And so you want to make sure that you got the right systems, checklist and personnel ready to go. And to run six different businesses in four different states, From Florida, in the Midwest, we have to have good systems, checklists, workflows, and so on, and making sure people are holding to that. Clay’s been really great for helping set up the system. But it’s, to be honest, it’s not always, the conversations are definitely sometimes challenging, but understanding that both parties, me as the client, him as the coach, is really trying to have the highest desire to make you grow into a better person and to help your company grow and be better.

And for me, that’s a good coach. And that’s why I like working with Thrive and Clay. Amber, I wanted to tap into your wisdom on this. There was a statement that was made years ago by Robert Kiyosaki. It really resonated with me. I heard this about 20 years ago. But he said, amateurs don’t have a coach.

Professionals do have a coach. And at the time, I thought, you know what? From a legal perspective, I probably need a coach. a coach or mentor to help me. So I hired wintersking . com.

And I’ve used that company for, what, 10 plus years? And it’s really helped me. And I thought to myself, from an accounting perspective, I need probably to have her a coach. So I hired CCK. And so in the areas where I want to improve, I really do firmly believe in having a coach. When I wanted to become a better speaker, I hired Carlton Pearson.

And I worked with Carlton for as long as he would work with me. Because at the time, he was the top televangelist in America. And he was a phenomenal verbal communicator. and so but it wouldn’t have worked if I wasn’t coachable. and if he wasn’t willing to coach. And you guys have done such a great job over these years implementing, and I just see the future is so bright here.

So when we look at your website now, could you talk about just that weekly meeting and making those little iterations and every week making it a little better? Because I think some people want to get rich quick. They want to become successful in 10 minutes. They want to ready, set, let’s go. But you guys, every week we go to colawfitness . com.

Every week we enhance the website. Every week we enhance the scripts. Every week, we enhance the value proposition. Every week, we’re doing little tweaks that are improving the brand. Could you talk about that mindset of that weekly improvement? Yeah, absolutely.

Well, your numbers, you have to have good feedback tools, some key performance KPIs or key performance things you look at for sales over cancellations and how much dollars you’re spending in marketing. When we track that on a regular basis, we can see that we’re doing well or not doing well. We make pivots. We get coaching feedback from you on best practices. And one thing is, is that you’ve not just worked in our industry, but lots of industries. And having a team of people, a team of coaches that say, hey, this is what’s working.

This isn’t what’s working. It’s super valuable. And so like, I mean, I got an MBA in school, but I’m telling you, like, it’s real life is so much more important. And having good people that have good feelers. It’s like, you’re only as good as your team. And Clay brings a whole team to your team.

And anyways, we have a weekly meeting. Our weekly meeting, we look at like, what are the key things that impact us? It’s going to be sign -ups, sign -ups over cancels, what are those sign -ups, which ones upgraded to higher tier options, whether that’s membership, higher tier membership options, or whether that’s tearing up into higher services like fitness coaching, like one -on -one coaching, or fitness training, or nutrition coaching, or group training. But getting people into those things and understanding the scripts, how to roleplay that over and over again, making sure your staff understands how to communicate effectively with the customer, roleplay, roleplay until that socially awkward, you know, young person can totally get it and they understand how to do it until the cognitive, the critical thinking phase has gone away. They know how to do it.

Now you’ve got staff that knows how to communicate well, how to show the product offering benefits over costs, and then show them that, hey, if you don’t do it, this is what won’t happen. And you want to show them that you’re going to really change their lives and save their life, add years to their life, quality to your years by changing new habits. And when people see that value, you’ve got the right staff articulating it, you close a lot of deals, you upgrade things, and you change a lot of lives. Well, one thing, Clay, I think with the coaching is it’s been beneficial. It’s kind of like you’re our blind side, blind spot coach, we, this is what we’ve created there’s a lot of emotions attached to it it’s what we love, it’s what feeds our family, and so we can become very emotionally charged and I think you’re super helpful to kind of bring us back in and go hey, So you kind of keep us focused, separating the emotions from it. And I’ve heard a lot of people say to you, or in conversations we’ll have, and they’ll say, yeah, but you don’t understand landscaping.

It’s not about understanding landscaping. We don’t talk fitness every week when we meet. Um, but it’s about, um, it’s, it’s the, it’s about business and it’s about where we’re going and you really help keep us on track. There’s that accountability, like you talked about. You guys are super valuable. Your set of eyes is super valuable.

Yeah. Yeah. I’ll just say this. I mean, colawfitness . com. If you’re looking for a career folks, I’m telling you, check out colawfitness .

com. Now, point number seven, sales conversion. We have to have scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, lead trackers. What we need to have sales scripts, recorded calls. all the visuals in the store. We call that internal marketing.

There’s external marketing, marketing to your ideal and likely buyers, but internal marketing, letting your current gym members know that you offer personal training or group fitness. Box number eight, you have to have a sustainable customer acquisition cost. What? You have to know, what does it cost you to land a new customer? Box number nine, you’ve got to create repeatable systems. When you clean the bathrooms, every day.

When you clean the showers, every day. When you clean the locker rooms, every day. When you clean the equipment, every day. When you clean all these things, multiple times a day. When you change the light bulbs, every day. When you have to maintain the fitness equipment, every day.

When you have to hire people, every day. You have to build repeatable systems or your head will explode. You’ve got to have checklists and processes. Box number 11, you have to manage people. Manage people, what? This just in, we have to manage people.

We’ve got to hire people, manage people. How do you hire, inspire, train, retain? We have to do it. sustainable schedule. What is the schedule that your company will keep? What hours will you be open?

What kind of shifts do you have? What kind of org chart? Who’s in charge? Who isn’t? How do you deal with somebody that doesn’t want to follow the systems? Because this just in, a customer will fire you if you won’t fire your bad employees.

In box number 12, you’ve got to have a high standard with the A players, the B players. You’ve got to coach up the B players to become A players. You’ve got to coach those A players to become future leaders. You’ve got to coach the C players out into another job or to the local bus station. You got to get them out of your life or they will ruin your business. And then box number 13, you got to make sure you’re making money.

It’s not about how much money you make. It’s about how much money you keep. Box number 14, you have to sit down every day and say, What does God want me to do if every day is a gift? What does God want me to do if every day is a gift from God? What does God want me to do with my faith, my family, my finances, my fitness, my friendship, my fun, my focused time? What does God want me to do with this day?

That’s all these things we have to think about there. And I’m telling you folks, everything we’re talking about on today’s show, it wouldn’t matter if Koloff Fitness was not obsessed with wowing the customers. Charles Colaw and Amber Colaw are obsessed with helping you take your fitness to the next level. If you’re out there today and you are in Joplin, Missouri, you’re in Texas, you are in all the different markets they’re in. Go to colawfitness . com.

You can see the markets they’re in. I’m telling you, these guys are obsessed with wowing customers. So I’ll go to you, Amber. Then I’ll go to you, Charles. Everything we talked about, doesn’t work if you scam your customers. Everything we talked about doesn’t matter if you don’t wow your customers.

Can you talk about why at the core, even though we’re going over all this business stuff, all these details, at the end of the day, you guys at Colaw Fitness have to wow the customers. Why is that so important, Amber? Well, I think for us, it’s important because we love people. And everybody needs a belonging and worth. And they need to feel important and they need to feel cared for. And that’s our passion.

We just love loving on people. That’s what made Charles such a phenomenal trainer when that was the initial start of the whole company. It was just his desire to help people and his love for them. And that was the same reason a million years ago that I did hair. So I think for us, that’s just what we’re passionate about. We’re passionate about people feeling like they are loved and they have value.

And if we can pass that on through all of our front desk staff, if we can open more locations and bring in that many more people in these communities to feel loved, excuse me, and also spread the gospel at the same time. You know, let them know God loves you, you know. And so that that’s really what drives our passion in the coaching and development, even of our staff. Charles Cole, I got two final questions for you. And your wife can one up you. So here we go.

Two final questions. Right now, they’re thinking about coming to one of our in person workshops, you know, they know Tim Tebow is going to be there. They know Eric Trump will be there. They know that you might be there. But maybe if they haven’t been to a workshop in the past, how would you describe the in -person, two -day interactive workshops? How would you describe them, sir?

It’s just, it’s raw and real. I mean, if you really want to try to get, if you really, really, really want to build a company, not just get like, if you go to school, you get a business degree, you, they would say Clay’s program is, you know, business without the BS. There’s no bullcrap. He tells you the proven system, real proven systems, that have grown and scaled hundreds, if not thousands of companies, add millions, like we are millions of dollars more in revenue because of these systems that we’ve implemented. And we’ve been able to scale and not have to actually work in the business. We work on the business, just the business system.

So we can live in Florida. We’re definitely engaged with our staff that runs these locations and they’re great lieutenants, but we have the systems, we have the checklist, we’ve got the workflows, and we have the systems that we can hold people to. We’ve retained the right talent. We’ve got really people in the bullpen for every position. So they were held hostage to happen to do that. But all that to say it’s going it’s funny.

He’s very, very. I mean, Clay’s pretty much like a comedian. It’s hilarious to listen to. If you’re willing to be coachable, if you’re willing to have a humble and coachable heart that’s willing to grow, he’ll show you proven processes. There’s going to be a pathway that you can be successful. And if you’re a diligent doer and you just do one or two action items every week with your coach, the whole thing is just, it’s just being a more of a marathoner than a sprinter.

When you’re working with a coach, just do your two or three action items. And that two or three, If you times that by 52 weeks, that’s 150 next day, you got a way better website, you got a way better lead funnel, you got way better staff hired, you’ve got systems, checklists, workflows, all document created into mindfree templates, sales flows, training and development of staff, all that. So you’ve got people in the bullpen for each position, and you’re no longer being held hostage as an owner, and you’ve got a proven system. So that’s Clay and his team. Well, I’ll one -up you.

I will one -up him this one time. There’s truly nothing more exciting than to come to the conference, and we’ve been to almost every conference you’ve had for the last seven to eight years. And it is completely refreshing. I always get something new out of it. It’s very practical. You’re not sitting in this huge ballroom with want, want, want speakers that you feel like are trying to sell you something and you’re trying to stay awake.

And that’s not the case at all. It’s kind of a circus with a whole lot to take home. Even if you go to the conference and you decide, hey, this is not for me right now or coaching is not for me, hands down, you will leave with practical business application items. Now, final question I have for you guys. Just like Colaw Fitness, I mean, you put your name right there on the brand, Colaw Fitness. You can’t really go to thrivetimeshow .

com without seeing my cranium. And so I take a lot of pride in what I do and wowing our customers. But for somebody out there, in particular, this guy today who’s in the construction space, who’s like, hey, what would coaching look like for me? Or is coaching for me? He’s reaching out. Charles, what do you say?

What kind of impact has the coaching that we’ve had with you guys over these past seven or eight years made on the impact or the success? What kind of impact has the coaching made on colawfitness . com? Well, I would say first off, personally, I’ve developed a great friendship with some really great people. And I thought that’s been huge for me, that’s personally, and to know people that are in the same type of pressure that you have, is running a company running a business to have people that have that are intelligent and they care as a friend.

That is huge. That’s number one personally and then professionally to have a whole bullpen of a whole a whole data set. of lots of different industries, best practices, whether that’s, you know, generally it’s either a sales issue, like you don’t have enough sales, or then it’s a staffing issue, you don’t have the right staff, whether it’s a scaling it, how do I, you know, build this into a franchisable prototype? It’s all stuff that they’ve done over and over and over again. And to where you have like a cognitive dissonance, like a mental disease with understanding it, they don’t. And when you have somebody that gives you peace because it is something they’ve done before, that’s, it’s priceless.

So, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I would say that You were talking about it hasn’t just affected us in our business, but it has affected us in our personal life, too, because all of these things that you learn can be rolled over into your personal life. So that’s been huge. And like Charles was talking about the connections that we’ve made with other business owners. You know, Clay, you said at the very first conference we went to your network is your net worth.

Amen. I mean, that is hands down. If you’re hanging out with the old friends that have unsuccessful businesses and you’re hanging out with the old people who are complaining about having to work an eight hour day, you know, if you’re spending your time with them and, you know, it’s just going to break the bank to go to Chili’s for dinner that you’re going to stay there. You’re going to stay in that influence of people. And every conference we meet new people and we’ve got some of the most awesome Friends that own businesses across the country from the cheesecake store to a pizza shop right to dog training to. I mean, we’ve got we’ve got some of our friends that live in cities that we have gyms and they’re members of.

clubs. And it’s just so powerful. It gives us a whole community to bounce ideas off of and get encouragement from. Charles, from an ROI perspective, if someone’s going to look at it and go, return on investment, I pay you $1 ,700 a month. Will I make more money than I’m paying you? How would you maybe tackle, or how would you respond to, what kind of return on investment have you seen for the $1 ,700 a month you’re paying?

Well, for example, Clay has got, there’s no better business coach in the world that has the way he works, the way his mind works. But he’s also got a team of other business coaches that have worked in lots of different industries. So he’s worked in every industry. His staff has worked in every industry. He’s got videographers, web designers. I mean, just for the fact of like, just the website alone is worth the $1 ,700.

Just the ability to take any of their proven systems, whether that’s a marketing thing, or whether that’s a staffing thing, like one thing done in the month, it pays for itself. And then to understand this, there’s a part of where, you know, some maybe some week, you may be like, well, you know what, I’m not getting a whole lot out of this call. But the bottom line is, it’s like when you read the Bible, there’s times you’re just reading it, and then you’re like, You know what I really and then you read it that one time and it’s like God really speaks to your heart. And the whole truth is it’s like there’s no way that you can get that kind of value for $1 ,700 to have a whole team of coaches. graphic designers, web developers, anybody that has that type of knowledge in your back pocket. And the whole thing is run your business with being somewhat conservative.

Make sure you don’t run it to the edge all the time. But by doing that, you have that skill set. You have those tools on your tool belt. And I just think it’s just like the cost of doing business. Just understand it. That’s what you want to know.

a sometimes the payment we make, I feel like is peace of mind, even because there have been multiple times throughout the years that we will either be butting heads on something, we’re super confused about something, we’re fearful about something, something in the markets changed, and it’s a quick call to clay. And so that quick call to clay, and he’s outside the situation, and he has other data points. I mean, we’ve had times that, Clay, you’ve got a quick response, and you can tell us and direct us real quickly, and we’re right off the phone. And there’s other times you’ll go, I’ll call you right back. And Clay will jump in, and he’ll call his other contacts and get back with us. Sometimes it takes longer.

But there are times when you feel that way, when you’re like, Is this worth it? I don’t feel like we’re doing much right now or we’re not growing. Inevitably, something like that will come up and that’s our peace of mind. You’re like a crucial team player. You know, well, you know, I it’s an honor to serve you guys and everybody’s watching right now. I encourage you if you’re looking for a career.

Now, if you’re looking for a job, don’t fill out the form, but if you’re looking for a career, go to colawfitness . com because if you live in what Joplin, Missouri, Charles, Dallas, Texas, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Amber, we live in Topeka, Kansas. If you’re out there. Arlington, if you’re out there, go to colawfitness . com if you’re looking for a career and not just a job. Thank you, too, for carving out time with your busy schedule.

Oh, yeah. And I’m so glad to have you here today. Thanks, Clay. Awesome. Take care, guys. Bye -bye.

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

Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zilner. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses. It’s a very special occasion because on today’s show we’re joined by a real thriver. He could be, you might say, this guy looks like a hologram. He looks like an idealized hologram. This guy could be a male model, but no, he is an actual entrepreneur, a real client, a wonderful man.

We’ve had the opportunity to meet in person during multiple in -person workshops. He comes from the great state of Iowa. Josiah Ragsdale, welcome onto The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing great. So I got to ask you, how did you originally come in contact with us there, sir?

Actually through Spotify, yeah. Through Spotify, OK. Do you remember what you were doing on Spotify? Were you looking for business shows, or was it recommended? How did you find The Thrive Time Show? I think I was looking for business shows because I was I saw at the time I was actually in school to build like custom cars.

And then I was working on a dragster. And so like I was looking for some more, you know, I didn’t I didn’t like I’ve never liked listening to music. So I was looking for either an audio book or a podcast or something and ran across your guys’s business show because I always figured I’d open up a custom car shop. And then so that’s kind of how I found you. So Now, for anybody out there that wants to verify that you are a real person, the website is autoliftserve . com.

Autolift and serve, S -E -R -V . com. Josiah, could you share with everybody out there who wants to verify you’re a real person? What’s your first and last name? And what’s the name of your company? Yeah, it’s Josiah Ragsdale.

And then the name of the company is Automotive Lift Services. And what kind of services or solutions do you guys provide there? I think a lot of people are curious about that. What kind of services do you provide at autoliftserve . com? Sure, sure.

So kind of our main niche is obviously fixing lifts. Because we generally will prioritize speed of repair. So like we offer like 48 hour repair times guaranteed. But otherwise, as far as the rest of the equipment in the shop, if it’s in a shop, like in the mechanic side, you know, whether it be exhaust ventilation equipment or air compressor equipment, we service it and sell it as well. But lifts are our main bread and butter. Now, what I wanted to do on today’s show is really brag on you and kind of go through some of the wins that we’ve been able to work on together.

Because I think sometimes when people think about a business coach or a business consultant, they may think about a motivator. guy. They may think about some sort of motivational, feelings -focused, almost like business therapist. But that’s not what we do at all. We focus on implementing a linear path to help real business owners grow their real companies. So we’re going to go through all 14 steps today.

So step number one, Revenue goals. I’m not asking you to share on today’s show what your yearly revenue goals are, but why is it important for you as a coaching client and a business owner, why was it important for you to figure out how much money you needed to do per week in sales to hit your goals and what your yearly goals actually were? Yeah. Without knowing our yearly goal, there’s no way to break down into what you need to hit per week. Cause like, that’s a really important thing that we start with every single Monday morning, just between the, uh, my service manager here and myself is like figuring out, okay, this is how much cash we need to break even for this week. And this is how much cash we need to break even or should need to break even next week.

And then this is what we need to make a profit. Um, and, and the, here’s our goal for profit. So, uh, I mean, it’s, I don’t know how you would stay in business without knowing it. So let’s, let’s, let’s drill into that for a second. Are you coming to our workshop coming up here in March? Are you coming to that?

I will not be unfortunately. Nope. We’ve got a, we’ve got a two month old baby, so he’s not moving yet. Okay. Well, let me pull this up real quick so people can see that you’ve been to a workshop though. So you’ve been to a workshop.

And I’m just going to throw out some ideas for anybody out there watching. We have Eric Trump. That’s President Trump’s son will be there, Robert Kiyosaki, bestselling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Eric Trump obviously runs the Trump Organization. They have thousands of employees. We have Robert Kiyosaki, the bestselling author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series.

We have Tom Wheelwright, one of the most respected wealth consultants on the planet. And people say to me, Clay, man, it’s got to be hard putting together an event like that. And I say, well, we could define hard, but I’ll just tell you this. It’s about $175 ,000 for me to put on that event. And someone says, huh? Real numbers that you put out up front.

You say, where does that go to? Well, you got the president’s son here, so you need security. You need great security. We need all the police and all the law enforcement to keep him safe. You’ve got audio and visual people that work all weekend, and they set up for the event. We’ve got food.

Anytime you try to feed a small army of people, which will be 400 people, think about it. Even if the average person, if we only invested in $20 over two days to feed them, that would quickly add up. But it’s not $20. So you’re talking about $50 of food per person. You’ve got the security. Then you’ve got the flights, the hotel, the accommodations for the various speakers.

You can go on and on boring people with details, but you end up spending quickly about $150 ,000 to put on the event. And so because we only sell 400 tickets, you kind of do the math and you go, OK, that’s what you need to do to break even. And I think everybody out there needs to have clarity on that. You mentioned it. I want to go back to this workflow for a second. The break -even point, box number two.

Most people do not know how many customers they need to break even. Why is it absolutely essential for you and for any business owner, especially at autoliftserve . com, why is it important for you you to know how much you have to sell to break even. Yeah, I mean, if you don’t break even, you’re going bankrupt. So that’s about as important as it gets, you know, I mean, I don’t know how else to break that down. Well, I think a lot of business owners, though, don’t ever think about these things at all.

I mean, I would say 99 % of the wonderful doctors and dentists and lawyers and clients and automotive repair shops I’ve worked with, I mean, of all the clients in our portfolio, I would say 99 % of them don’t know their breakeven point before they start coaching. And I think that’s so important for everybody out there to really dial into that idea. Now, the third step, we’ve got the third step, is you’ve got to know how many hours per week you’re willing to work. Now, you have a baby on the way. Is this baby number one or baby number four? How many kids do you have?

This baby is baby number one. Yeah, and so I remember I first met you. You were baby free. You might have even been girlfriend free. I think you came to the conference with a friend. And I think one of the work vans stopped working, and you guys helped us fix the van or got it working.

So a lot has changed in your life. Why is it important that you and your wife, you and your partner that you guys have, that you’re on the same page with defining your schedule? Oh, definitely. That’s huge. Like, we want to be happily married and have a good home for, you know, our future kids and whatnot, because we want to have more kids too. But I mean, if I was just like always working, she would not.

we probably wouldn’t be married for very long. So like my curfew moved up from like 6 .30 p . m. and being able to start as early as I wanted to like now I quit at five. And then I don’t get to work all day and all night on Saturdays anymore. So my Saturdays start earlier and we’ve kind of changed when his bedtime is to kind of make it match too.

But yeah, I mean, that’s really important. So if you get divorced, you lose 50 % of what you built. So yeah. All right, now pops number four, defining your unique value proposition. What is it that makes your company unique? So that’s one thing we do with every client.

We help you achieve that. But let’s talk about autoliftserve . com. What do you guys do differently, autoliftserve . com, from your competition? What do you do to make you unique in the world of business?

Yeah, so we guarantee that we’ll fix the lift within 48 hours or it’s free. We’ll try and get people over to our maintenance plan right away. That’s kind of our biggest thing because most people you go to, you’re going to go ahead and you’re going to call them. They’re going to come out, diagnose it, bill you for that, and then they’re going to order parts you’re going to go through. It’s like a 30 to 60 day lead time on a lot of repairs. And kind of what we do is we’ll go ahead of that and we’ll go, okay, you know, Hey, for, you know, let’s say a hundred bucks a month, whatever, we’ll cover your lift.

And then if anything breaks, we’ll come out and have it fixed within 48 hours where you don’t have to pay for it that long. So again, you’ve thought through this, and you have a coach that works with you every week. Let’s talk about this here. Moving on to box number five, branding. That’s the website, photography, video, logo, print pieces, video testimonials. How has improving your branding impacted your ability to go out there and sell in a competitive marketplace?

Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s impacted a whole lot. I mean, like, even when I was first showing up, like, we were, like, right after starting up with you guys, like the difference between me going in and Dream 100 marketing beforehand and after it was huge, because, like, before I’d go in, they’d be like, okay, this is just some guy off the street, clearly. Well, afterwards, I went in, like, we got into the Gavis group here in Iowa, and, and I was talking to one of them there, and they thought we were part of like a franchise. They were like, Oh, wow, are you a franchisee for this company or whatever? And I was like, that was the point that made me think like, Oh, wow. Our brand names like really jumped quite a lot and that’s helped a lot because now they weren’t as worried about like, Oh, do you know specifically how you’re going to fix this or what you’re doing now?

It’s more so like, okay, this is a legit company. We’re not worried about it. Just book them. I’m telling you, folks, people do judge a book by the cover. People do judge you based upon your branding. It’s so important you nail it down.

Box number six, the three -legged marketing stool. There’s got to be a way that every business owner out there that you can stably, consistently, methodically market to your ideal and likely buyers. There’s got to be a sustainable, proven way for you to market to your ideal and likely buyers. Can you talk about the impact that it’s had having someone like Andrew, one of our coaches, working with you to make sure that you’re diligently implementing a three -legged marketing stool? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean, just having some accountability because one of ours is Dream 100 Marketing. So that’s pretty big where we like physically show up and keep dropping off donuts until they cry die or buy. But so that one’s that one’s big. That’s more so just the accountability of making sure we’re doing it. And then obviously, like getting top of Google is our other main one. And then we’re kind of we run a lot of retargeting ads, stuff like that.

We’re cranking that up. So like those are two boxes that I really know nothing about. And so Andrew kind of takes the whole takes everything from there. Like we have Lucky Orange on the website. Him and I go through it on our coach calls every, every week. And we kind of scroll through and see if there’s stuff that could be, have people hanging up on or getting caught on and whatnot.

But that’s pretty much, I mean, he’s pretty much taking on all that. Like we write some content too. You guys write a ton of content, but yeah, that’s, that’d be huge. I would have no idea what the heck to do with that. without you guys, so. If you didn’t have a team helping you get to the top of the Google search results, A, could you do it?

And then B, what kind of impact has it made on your business being top in the Google search results? Sure, sure. Yeah, could I do it? I probably could. It’d be horrible, though. It’d take me way longer, like way longer and cost a lot more money, because I would have screwed it up royally many times.

And the impact is huge because obviously people find us on Google. We’ve got like several, several of our largest customers have came from a simple Google search. And they’re like people that we’ve been trying to dream and under market to before that for, for years. And they basically didn’t know who we are. And then one of these days, you know, somebody’s just Googling at their company and finds us and they book us in that. That’s so much easier to when they find us on Google and they call us to book it like it’s it’s light years easier because now it’s like they’re looking for us.

It’s not we’re cold calling them and trying to get them to buy something. So it’s more so like order to. at that point instead of having to sell. So I mean, it’s a huge impact. Now, next area here. And again, this is what people always say to me.

They always say, Josiah, people will say to me, they’ll say, Clay, what is the most important thing I need to do to grow my company? And I would respond rhetorically, not in a difficult way. I’m just saying, what’s the most important ingredient that makes cookies? Is it butter? Is it eggs? Is it chocolate chips?

They say, what? I said, well, what’s the most important part of the house? I mean, is it the framing? Is it the tile? Is it the countertops? Could you skip the footings?

Could you skip the rebar? Could you skip the framing? Could you skip the shingles? It’s all of those things working together. And I think a lot of people really don’t think about business that way because of our educational system and the biases that are presented there. So box number seven, you’ve got to create a sales conversion system.

It’s a sales conversion system. You have to have a system that we’re talking about scripts, recorded calls. one sheets, pre -written emails, lead trackers, tracking the results. How has tracking the results and having a turnkey system in place impacted your business? Yeah, tracking results is absolutely huge. The lead tracker is probably, that’s probably the biggest, most game -changing thing we’ve done is with you guys.

It’s because now we’ve got like one spot all of our notes are in, and it’s nice and simple. We went through with Andrew, so it’s just like, If it’s a white box, that just means we need to keep calling them. They haven’t booked. If it’s green, they’re booked. If it’s red, it’s, you know, they said no, but that’s simplified everything. I mean, that’s definitely the biggest one.

The script, that’s kind of always a work in progress. We go through that with Andrew relatively consistently too, because there’s a lot of different steps and a lot of different questions that customers have depending on what they’re calling on. But it’s huge. What we have now and I would say our stuff right now is nowhere close to being done like it still needs a lot more revisions, but without further ado. it right now like we definitely would have sold the wrong equipment into many many shops and that would have been a big problem. Now we move on here to the next box here, folks, going 90 miles an hour.

This is how you do it. Box number eight. You have to determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs. What does it cost you to get a new customer? You have to know what does it cost to obtain a new customer? Do you have a tracking sheet?

Do you know how much you’re spending on advertisement? You have to know that. Box number nine. You’ve got to create repeatable systems, processes, and file organization. Repeatable systems. processes, and file organization.

Now, this is not a fitness advice to anybody out there, but I’m going to give you an example. One of my clients is unbelievably fit. I mean, this guy is looking incredible. And he made the comment to me years ago. I said, you look great. And he said, thank you.

I pay for it. And I remember he said it like he’d been thinking about it. And I said, man, you look great. And he goes, thank you. I pay for it. And I was thinking, so he was ready for that response.

And so I said, can I ask what that means? He’s like, oh, I pay for a trainer seven days a week. So seven days a week, I have a trainer, somebody who’s a coach who pushes me. And I said, you look great. You’ve had a trainer. This is a guy in his mid -40s.

I’m like, so you have a trainer seven days a week? He said, yeah. I said, can I ask why? And I kind of knew why, but it helps to hear it from somebody else. And he said, because if I don’t, I’m going to go to the gym. I’m going to have the workout pants on, the workout shoes on.

I’m going to be there. And I’m not going to work out. And if I do, I’m not going to push myself. And so I have a trainer that pushes me for 40 minutes a day and who pushes me. And I said, what do you pay per session? True story.

He said, $100 a session. I said, so you’re spending per week $700 a week. He said, yeah, that’s why I look like I do. I mean, that’s something I’ve invested in. Now, again, I hear that all the time with people that have a great lawyer. They say, man, your legal systems are dialed in.

They go, yeah, I pay for it. I have a lawyer. I see people. are phenomenal in the game of investing. And they go, yeah, I pay for it. I have a financial strategist.

I think everybody in any area of our lives where we want to get better, we need to have a coach of some kind. Could you talk about the impact of having a coach, what that’s done for you? Having somebody like Andrew that actually gives a crap about your business, that actually is 100 % focused on how he meets you every week, knowing it’s a flat rate, but also knowing that you have somebody that each week is going to follow up with you and make sure that all these systems are being implemented. Can you talk about the impact of that? Yeah, it’s huge. I’d say the biggest impact is probably every week kind of pulling me out of turtle view and back up into kind of a looking further out.

So like I’d commonly so like for a long time, especially in the beginning, I was still doing a lot of technician work, not so much anymore, but I was doing a lot of technician work. So it was like every Wednesday was like, our call. That’s like what got me back up to the point of thinking about, Oh, okay. You know, I’m actually building a company, you know, eventually we’re going to have somebody, somebody in this role. I’m not going to have to do this forever, you know, that kind of deal. Uh, but it’s big, I’d say a lot of it’s just like, you know, of course the accountability and getting numbers in your tracking sheet and stuff like that.

So you know where you are and if you’re gaining or not, but I’d say the bigger thing is like helping you get out of your own head. and kind of see, at least for me, helping me get out of my own head and see that, oh, OK, I’m not trapped, you know, and here’s the next step I can do to get us a little bit further down the road. And he really kind of pulls that out, because a lot of times I’ll feel like I have no idea what to do next to keep growing the company. But in my conversation with him, a lot of times he can kind of pull that out just through us talking. And then it’s like a lot more clear on how to keep growing. I find it very interesting that all of the people I’ve met in my life who are very successful, they all have a coach, an advisor, or somebody that pushes them.

You know, the guy that I meet that has like the jacked -up haircut is normally the guy that cuts his own hair. The guy that I meet that has a really, really nice car typically did not hand make the car. They typically reached out to someone who has proven to be an expert in car making, and they bought the car from the Ferrari dealership. from the Lamborghini dealership. The guy that has the great haircut typically has a professional they’re hiring.

And in business out there, if you feel stuck, you’ve got to implement all these systems. So box number 10 and 11, box number 10, you’ve got to learn how to manage people. And that’s not something that’s normal in managing people. Do the people on your team know what their jobs are? And are they being held accountable for doing those jobs? Do the people on your team know what they’re supposed to be doing?

And are they doing those things? Could you talk about the impact of having a coach, how much that’s made on your ability to manage people? Yeah, that’s, that’s another area that’s really helpful. Because, you know, I had no management experience prior to this. I, yeah, I don’t connect with a lot of people very well, either. So I don’t, yeah, it was like, basically, every single week, I just have a problem, we go over with Andrew, I’m like some kind of crazy thing that I didn’t think people did, which is probably the most common thing that’s like, why is this like, like, this is the job, this is all you got to do, like, What’s the problem here?

But Andrew’s very helpful in us helping us figure out how to manage people. I’d say a big part of helping me manage was helping me get the group interview going, enrolling properly, because that has probably been the biggest influence on helping me manage people better is maybe kind of moving some people out sooner and or moving some job shadows in, which kind of speeds people up then a little bit too. Yeah, but like none of that, I wouldn’t have figured out any of that without him. Now, we move on here to the final couple of steps here. You have to create a repetitive weekly schedule. You have to schedule a time every week for the group interview, like we talked about, or your daily huddles.

And that’s something we work with. teaching our clients how to time block and build a schedule that works for them. Box number 12, teaching you how to hire and recruit great people. How do you hire, inspire, train, retain great people? Box number 13, step number 13, you’ve got to create an accounting system so you’re actually aware of your money. Where is it going?

But all of this, the whole point of doing all this, box 14, is so that you can achieve success in the area of your faith, your family, your friendship, your fitness, your finances, your fun. your focus. And so I encourage everybody out there, make a list today. What are your goals for your faith, your family, your friendship, fitness, your finances, your fun? Your focus, what are your goals for faith, family, friendship, fitness, finances, fun, focus. What are your goals?

And then the business exists just to help you achieve those goals. And so my final two questions I have for you, the listeners out there know that we’ve helped you with accounting and branding and online ads and search engine optimization. But my final two questions for you would be this. If you could explain to somebody in 60 seconds or less -ish, what kind of an impact has weekly business coaching made on you and your business? Yeah. It’s made a huge impact.

I mean, like I said, I don’t think we would be anywhere close to where we are right now if even still in business without it. It’s like you guys have really helped just continue us, continue growing because like without you guys, we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have our website cranking. We wouldn’t have a bunch of leads. We wouldn’t have, I’d probably be stuck in my own head. I’d probably still be stuck as a self -employed technician and not have really figured out how to get out of that phase. Like I really think I’d be stuck there for, for many years without, without a weekly call.

Final question, there’s somebody out there that is a big statistic guy. They want to see stats. I’m not asking you for your private numbers. But as far as a percentage, how much have you grown since we met you? Are you up like 2%, 7%, 10 %? What kind of a percentage?

How would you quantify that? Yeah. When we met, we were probably at, I don’t exactly know what the percentage, but you could probably figure it out. When we met and first started with you guys, we probably had done like maybe $60 ,000 in a year. And we probably now do more like $2 million to $2 .5 million in a year. So you would say from, let’s just do some math here.

So if I take $2 million and I divide that by $60 ,000, we could say you’re up 33 times? Yep. I mean, that’s an accurate number. You guys have grown 33 times. That’s powerful. So I encourage everybody, go to thrivetimeshow .

com. I have two calls to action for everybody out there today. First off, I want everyone to go to autoliftserve . com. And even if you don’t know why, share this link on your socials. Because what it does is it helps my wonderful client, Josiah.

It helps Josiah to rank higher in the search engine results. So if you just share. A link to autoliftserve . com, it does help him rank higher on the search results. Second thing, if you want to come to one of our in -person workshops, you just go to thrivetimeshow . com.

The tickets are always $250 or whatever price you can afford. So we’ve made it affordable for everybody. That’s thrivetimeshow . com. They’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. How would you describe the workshops?

You’ve been to the workshops. You’ve done the 13 -point assessment. How would you describe the free 13 -point assessment and the workshops? Oh, the workshops are a blast. It’s like you’re in a room with a ton of other people who want to do kind of the same thing. It’s probably the most, I don’t know, it’s just excellent.

Like, you just gotta go. Like, you go in, the whole thing is very different. Like, I’ve never seen anything like it. You get to see a bunch of people who, like I said, are kind of in the same boat as you. Meet them and they’re not normally just people who are kind of like, I, you know, I’m just trying to sell insurance to this to this small group that you’re somehow a part of in your town. But no, this is like, these are like people who are like, really growing their talent.

Like I can think of like Ryan Wells, for instance, grows like crazy. Like he’s a ton of fun to talk to when we go down there. And I always get new ideas from it too. So I’m like, wow, we’re really dropping the ball in this area and these guys are killing it. So it’s awesome. Well, congratulations on baby number one.

Thank you for carving out time for us. I encourage everyone, one more time, folks, if you haven’t checked out that website, it does help our wonderful client, Josiah Ragsdale, to rank higher if you visit that website. So you might say, how do I do it? All you got to do is just go on over there to AutoLift. Let me pull it up again here. The domain is AutoLiftServe .

com, A -T -O -L -I -F -T, Serve, S -E -R -V -E. If you go there, what it does is it helps our client rank higher in the search results if you share today’s link, if you share a link to his website. So make sure you do that, folks. Again, Josiah, thank you so much for your time, sir. And we’ll talk to you soon. Thanks.

Bye -bye. The other day, I was looking at my grass Thinking about ways to make the time pass And I thought about prank calling Calling people I don’t know all morning So I called 918 -872 -0338 I put that call through And the phone rang, somebody picked the phone up They said hello, and then I said what up Next thing I know, I’m scheduling a professional To landscape my lawn and to mow that grow It was like a show, on the mowers they go Back and forth, whacking that grass like whack -a -mole It was total control, the way they roll We’re kicking grass now, we’re kicking grass now Peace out yo! My name is Kevin Falcon. I’m the owner, operator of Kicking Grass and Taking Names Lawn Care. Overall, I mean, I’m from when I first started to now, I’m like over 1 ,200%.

It’s the energy that it brings. It’s the revitalization in what you’re doing. I see what works. I’ve gone through the process and it’s just a flood every every spring and summer. It’s great. It works.

It’s so much easier. It’s like if you enjoy the pain, keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want to be successful, if you want to have that freedom, have that. I mean, it happens very quickly. It’s not like it’s OK. And it’s so many years we’re going to get you here is if when you implement your systems and your suggestions and your guidance, it happens.

It goes, it takes off. Ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, we’re joined by a man who had a job and he says, you know what? I want to keep my job and then I want to build something for my family. I want to build some different income streams for my family. I think what today’s guest brings to the table is a really large slice of the American pie. Most people that I know, they have a job and they’re looking to earn a little bit more money, time, freedom, financial freedom.

And so he started what I would call maybe a landscaping business or a lawn maintenance company. His name is Kevin Falcon. Kevin Falcon, welcome onto The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I am great. How are you?

Brother, I’m excited to be with you here, and I’m going to pull up your website real quick so you can verify that you are not a hologram. Could you share with us, that website is kickinggrasstulsa . com, kickinggrasstulsa . com. Yes, that is my website right there. Could you verify what your first and last name is and what the name of your company is, sir?

My name is Kevin Falcon. I’m the owner -operator of Kicking Grass and Taking Names Law and Care. Now, OK, I’m going to go through rapid fire. No trick questions, just rapid fire. So here we go. How long have you worked with us approximately?

I think this is going to be my sixth year with you guys. And Andrew always brags on you because you’re just a low maintenance, hardworking guy. I want to tap into your brain and just for anybody out there who’s watching this, that, you know, maybe they have a job and they’re kind of looking to start a side gig or a side hustle or a side company. Could you tell us what were you doing before you started kicking grass or maybe what were you doing while you were starting kicking grass? So I work for a local convenience store in the Tulsa area. I worked with them just over 20 years.

I’m actually just, quote unquote, retired from them, if you will. But I’ve always kind of maintained lawns on the side. And it’s just something that I feel good at when I accomplish it. Now, what was your goal when you started Kickin’ Grass? Or how did you come up with a name? How did you design that name, Kickin’ Grass?

So you guys came up with it. There was a moment you guys had had mentioned in one of the meetings, or what at your conference, where, have you ever spent. eight hours working on your logo moving it millimeter to the left millimeter to the right, trying to perfect it. And, you know, in my early 20s, I was trying to you know do all that stuff, and all of it just really hit for me. And I’m like, it doesn’t matter. The name doesn’t matter.

The logos don’t matter. So they asked me what I wanted, and I said, whatever you got. And they gave me eight names, and I thought Kicking Grass was great, and I ran with it. I’m just curious, because I was part of that meeting. This is what happens a lot of times. Clients will reach out.

We have 160 clients, and the coach will say, Clay, We’ve got a lawn care company that needs a name. We’ve got a restaurant that needs a name. And so I’m just sort of. Long on ideas, but I’m not emotional about which idea you approve or which idea you go with. So you could say, step one, we sat down together. We came up with a name.

And then the logo and the website, so many business owners get stuck there. As part of our business coaching program, we guide you through the entire path. And part of that, obviously, is building a website and the print piece and the graphic design. How much has that impacted you, having all of that with one flat monthly bill. How has that helped you from a peace of mind perspective knowing, hey, I’m going to pay these guys a flat rate of this. And not only are they going to do the coaching, but they’re going to provide photography, video, web, search engine, all those tools.

It simplifies everything. Just like I said before, when I tried doing a lot of these things on my own, trying to remember everything as far as the, you know, advertisement and things like that portion of it, that’s all handled and controlled, so to speak. I just have to worry about closing the deals and getting the jobs done. Now, this next area, whenever someone thinks about growing a company, they always say, people will come to me all the time, and I’m sure you can imagine these situations, they’ll come to me and they’ll say, Clay, what’s the most important thing I need to do to grow a company? In fact, I was talking yesterday to a lady who’s looking to grow her dentistry practice.

And she said, at the end of the day, what’s the most important thing I need to do? I need to do to grow a successful company. And I said it’s kind of like asking you know a baker what’s the most important ingredient to make you know a dessert item or it’s like asking a landscaper what’s the most important tool you have. Is it the screwdriver. Is it the lawnmower. Is it the weed eater.

Is it the leaf blower. And I would argue it’s all of those things working in concert. What’s your thoughts on that? Because I get asked that question a lot. They say, so with business coaching, what’s the most important thing? I want to get your thoughts to that kind of question for somebody who’s on the outside right now.

In particular, this lady’s a dentist, a wonderful dentist, sharp dentist. She has no leads, no real traction, but she’s got the degree, she’s got the overhead, and she’s got what’s the main thing that moves the needle for your clients? I would say the experience. the experience of trying to do all that stuff yourself and realizing there’s only so many hats you can wear successfully. And knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, what to give up and who to delegate what to, just that is the most important thing, realizing your shortcomings and trying to have somebody else maximize that for you. So we’re going to pull this up here.

I wrote a book here. I’ve written 30 -plus books. This particular book is called The Millionaire’s Guide. And again, folks, if you might have missed it, that website is kickinggrasstulsa . com. That’s the website, kickinggrasstulsa .

com. And by the way, if anybody shares today’s show, you’ll help Kevin boost up higher in the search engine. So please feel free to share that URL, kickinggrasstulsa . com, no matter where in the world you’re watching from. But if you go to thrivetimeshow . com and you go to forward slash free resources, you can follow along.

I’ve written 30 -plus books, and you can download for free one of my books, A Millionaire’s Guide. is guide how to become sustainably rich. And if we turn here in that book to it. five, we’re going to go through this 90 miles an hour, all the steps here. So step number one, I’m not asking you to tell us your numbers, but why do you have to establish the revenue goals? Like, why is that important for you as a business owner to know what your revenue goals are and what your weekly revenue goals are?

Why is that important for you as a business owner? That way you can judge how well you’re doing, where you can improve at. If you don’t have a benchmark, then you don’t know whether you’re meeting your full potential as a company. And again, you came from a world where you worked very successfully for a long time in the convenience store industry. So you actually worked in a business where you had to know the numbers. You had to know the numbers for the store.

You had to know inventory. So a lot of the things we taught are very applicable for your career as well. Box number two, you’ve got to know your break -even numbers. Whether it’s the convenience store you ran or the landscaping company, you have to know, how much crap do I have to sell to break even? Or perhaps a more articulate way to say it is, how many customers do I need to break even? I need.

Why is that important? Why do you think that most of our coaching clients don’t know that number before we start working with them? Because they’re just worried about trying to get their product out there and doing it. They don’t realize that they may have a little bit of money to start with, and that’s going to be depleted real quick unless they figure out, oh, if I don’t hit 10 customers a week, that’s my break even, let’s say, then I won’t be able to maintain this lifestyle or this business at all. Now, we talk about number three, defining the number of work hours you’re willing to work. You are working full time at a job, having a lot of success in a career, while you are also growing a landscaping company.

And one thing I never want to do for my clients is I never want my clients to try to feel the need to work the schedule I work, nor do I ever feel the need to work the schedule that my clients work. So clients always ask me, Clay, what hours do you keep? And I say, well, I really like to work from 5 AM -ish to 6 PM -ish. six m. -ish, six days a week.

People say, what? I just personally enjoy the idea of going from five to six, pretty much six days a week. I get up around three. That’s what I like. Some of my clients work literally two hours a day. One of my clients I just talked to today, he’s doing great.

And he works less than four hours a day, and he’s a multi, multi -millionaire. Why was it important for you to figure out your schedule, your boundaries, and the hours that you were willing to work, and the hours that you weren’t willing to work? Because for me, it was about the family. We’ve got six kids, you know, and in a blink of an eye, they’re moving out, they’re going to college, things like that. We’re down to our last two, so I really wanted to make sure I had the time to spend with them. And then it’s those little moments to be there for those kids.

So with the time I put in with my previous job and the experience I now have while doing my My new my new career, so to speak, I’m able to. have that fluctuation and that time and that availability for all my kids wherever they are in their life. It’s powerful. It’s powerful, folks. I think somebody out there, if you’re watching today’s show, that’s a little gut check for somebody out there. The whole purpose of a business is to create time and financial freedom so that we can pursue the goals that we believe God’s given us.

And a lot of that has to do with family. We talk at the Thrive Time Show workshops about sitting down and very intentionally making a list of your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. And all of us struggle in different areas. I mean, some people are incredible family people. Maybe they struggle in finances. Some people are great at fitness.

Maybe they struggle in business or whatever. But I encourage everybody out there to take the time to do that. Box number four, we’ve got to figure out how to make your company stand out in the clutter of commerce. How do we define your unique value proposition? Who are your top three competitors? How do we compete versus that?

And we try to help our clients do that. marketing and branding. And I want to kind of move on to box number five, which is branding. We want to make sure your branding is incredible. I ask everybody out there watching today’s show, rate your website and your print pieces on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being the highest, highest rate your marketing on a scale of one to 10 with 10 being the highest and ask yourself, how highly would you rank your own website versus your competition? And that’s the kind of stuff will help you bridge that gap and make your website, your photography, your video.

Great. Box number six, you have to have a three -legged marketing stool. And Kevin, as you know, there’s endless people reaching out to you, trying to convince you that this is the best way to market. You should try this ClickFunnel. Do this magazine ad. Do this mailer.

Do this thing. Join this chamber. Go to this networking thing. Do this trade -out sort of where you do bartering and trading. There’s a trade association. And if you’re not careful, I mean, you get pulled in multiple directions.

How is it, from a peace of mind perspective, how has it impacted you knowing that generating leads is not a problem for you now? It’s good. It’s wonderful. I’m very skeptical now of everything else, like you were mentioning, the mailers, the magazine joiners, and all that stuff. I see what works. I’ve gone through the process.

And it’s just a flood. Every spring and summer, it’s great. So you would say, you now know it’s wonderful. You’ve gone through the process. You now know what works and what doesn’t work. Is that accurate?

Yes. OK, I think it’s big. Because I think somebody out there doesn’t know the process. They haven’t gone through this process. They’re running around looking for leads, scavenging for leads. And you said a flood.

You just have a flood that comes in every spring. You just know it’s going to happen now. Yeah. OK, box number seven, having a sales conversion process. And some people adhere to this very fastidiously, some not as much. But you have to have sales scripts, recorded calls, print pieces that make sense.

And at the end of the day, you have to track your results. Can you talk about the impact that tracking every week with a business coach has had on your life and business where you weekly look at your numbers and you actually track those numbers every week? It’s mind -blowing to see how many leads we get. We’ve even started tracking how much acreage we’ve mowed. I think we’re somewhere just shy of just under 1 ,200 acres we mow for the season, things like that.

It’s astonishing to see when you go back over these numbers just to see how much you’ve actually accomplished because when you’re in the moment, and you’re performing the task or the service that you have, you don’t really notice all those details until you can step back and look back at what you’ve done and accomplished. And one of the things that’s so great about working with you is I know you’re going to come in on Friday. There’s homework you have. There’s homework we have. And it’s really fun to help somebody, because money is just a magnifier. And so if you’re out there today, and I’m telling you, if you’re struggling to get leads, you too can do it.

Hey, by the way, do you know who Lou Fregno is? He’s the guy who played. He was the Incredible Hulk back in the day. Remember the Incredible Hulk? Yeah. Did that resonate with you?

Did you care about the Incredible Hulk? Was that a big thing in your life? This isn’t a trick question. I’m just curious. Were you a big? I liked the Hulk a lot, yeah.

I’m giving you an invitation right now. Check your calendar, seriously. The Incredible Hulk just reached out. He’s going to be on my show on Friday at 1 PM. He’s going to be in the studio. So if you want to be in the studio to interview the Incredible Hulk, I just found out he’s coming to Tulsa.

He’s going to be in our studio. I just found this out. So if you want to be there, open invitation to your friend. I know Friday’s the day you normally meet with Andrew. Yeah. Because most of our clients are not in Tulsa.

So if you want to take advantage of that, you, me, Incredible Hulk, Friday. It’s Friday at 1 o ‘clock. Friday at 1 o ‘clock. OK. Now, next is Mike. number eight.

You have to determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs. This might blow someone’s mind. This might blow someone’s mind. I’m going to give people some facts here. Folks, did you know from our upcoming business workshop that it’s going to cost me over $170 ,000 of cash to put that thing on? I don’t think people recognize that.

So when you talk about, let me just walk people through this. You’ve got Eric Trump. This is President Trump’s son. You know, this is the guy who runs the Trump Organization. You’ve got Robert Kiyosaki, the best -selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the top entrepreneurial author of all time. You have myself, and I work very cheap.

You have Tom Wheelwright, the financial planner for Robert Kiyosaki. I just got off the phone with the law enforcement community. I mean, we’ve got security. I mean, we’ve got a secret service detail. We’ve got lunch. We’ve got the dinner.

I mean, you get this because you ran a very successful convenience store. You know how costs can pile up. I’m not at all shocked that this just in, folks, if I’m spending over $150 ,000 to put this on, and there’s only 300 people here, how much am I spending per person on putting this together? Someone might say, you’re spending $500. Yeah. So I’m just being real.

The costs can creep up. And you say, man, why does it cost that much? Kevin, you’ve been to our workshops. I mean, we offer a workbook. We serve lunch both days. We bring in first class talent and speakers.

Could you explain the impact of attending the workshops and what that’s made on your life and or business? It’s the energy that it brings. It’s the revitalization. in what you’re doing. They talk about a lot of times in lawn care how sometimes a lot of us are solo operators and you get alone and you’re out there and you’re by yourself. It’s always good to get back refreshed, see everyone else in whatever element that they’re in.

They’re excited, they’re pumped, they’re hammering down the fundamentals of business with you and just making you kind of reevaluate, a self -reevaluation of what you’re doing and how you’re doing. I just concur. And do you ever laugh at the conferences? Do you laugh at all or not so much? OK, because it’s just so raw.

I absolutely love it. OK, so next area here, box number nine, you’ve got to create repeatable systems. And I won’t ask for the name of the convenience store you worked with, but I can say you were very successful in that field. And so that business is all about repeatable checklists and processes. And my dad had an opportunity to work for the same great organization that you did. So may my dad rest in peace.

But he worked there as well. And you talk about checklists. You talk about scripts. You talk about daily to -do lists. You talk about no bathroom goes uncleaned. You talk about greeting customers with a smile.

You talk about an expectation of excellence. You talk about no uncovered shifts. You talk about high and tight uniforms. You talk about mystery shoppers. You talk about merit -based pay. I mean, there’s so much we could talk about from that business that’s applicable to this one.

But could you talk about what it’s like to build these systems and to have our team help you build these systems for your own business? It’s a lot of trial and error, but it’s also, as the saying goes, it’s better to be a pirate than a pioneer. So having said that, I was able to mirror a lot of what I was already doing and just copying over and just kind of changing words here and there for my business. That way it could apply to what I do. And just like I said, just taking those great ideas, I see that it already works and applying it for me. Love it so much.

And again, folks, for anybody who’s scoring at home, if you’re scoring at home, if you’re scoring at home, that’s sort of an odd thing that you’d be scoring right now at home. But if you are scoring at home, that’s kickinggrasstulsa . com. We’ll continue here, final four minutes together here. Box number 10, management systems. I mean, once you start generating a little bit of data,

you got to manage a team of people. You have to manage a team of people. And we talk about that. Once you’re managing a team of people, you have to hire people. Box number 12, you got to learn how to hire people. How do you find people?

How do you recruit people? people. Box number 11, you got to have a repeatable, a repetitive weekly schedule, a schedule that’s sustainable for your family. You mentioned you have six kids. I’ve got five kids. You had me beat.

You win. There’s a competition. I just lost. You just won. You’ve got six kids. I’ve got five.

What I’m saying is all of this is what makes a successful company. It’s not just branding. It’s not just marketing. It’s not just videography. It’s all of it. So if you had to describe to somebody the growth you’ve seen maybe as a percentage over the past six years.

Are you up 1 %? Are you up 10 %? Have you grown by one lawn, two lawns, 1 %? Is there some way to quantify the growth you’ve had over these years? So from last year, I’m up by around 7 % from last year. Overall, I mean, from when I first started to now, I’m like over 1 ,200%.

just within the first couple of years of when I was doing it to where you guys have gotten me. I mean, I was less, I mean, like I said, we started following how much acreage we mow. So when I first did this, the acreage was barely nothing. I’m up to almost 1200 acres a year now that we’re doing. So there are some measurable points that we have. So just to be clear, and I want to make sure I’m hearing this correct, you’re saying, since working with us, that you’re up over 1 ,200 % in that time? From my first year, yeah.

That’s an incredible thing. I think somebody out there, because I know what I’m talking about. first company, djconnection .com, com, full disclosure, I haven’t owned it in years. But this is what would happen to me. Kevin, I would go to a conference, and they would say, you’ve got to build a world -class website.

And I would think to myself, I’m going to have to hire a guy. I called my web guy. I’m not complaining. I’m just being real. I called the web guy. And the web guy’s like, well, it’s going to be, this is the web guy now, first -class website guy.

He’d built the website for Garth Brooks and other leading people. He’d said, well, it’s going to be $6 ,000 a month for a year for the website to maintain it. I’m going. Okay. You know, again, I’m building America’s largest DJ company. I don’t know it yet.

We’re doing like two weddings a weekend. And this guy’s telling me $6 ,000 a month. And he says, however, for your website, Clay, you’re going to need a video for the website. I’m going, yeah. So for clients like Colawfitness . com, we build their website and we make a video for them.

That’s included. But this guy said, you got to make a video. And I said, well, how much is that? He said, I don’t make videos, but you can call my video guy. I’ll never forget. I called the video guy, 10 grand he wants for a great video.

And I’m thinking, $4 ,000 a month for you, $10 ,000. I remember I was trying to figure out public relations and how that works. And so I’d heard about this cat named Michael Levine. And I thought, man, I need to get, because my web guide is the web. My video guide is my video. But nobody knows how to do public relations.

I know what I’ll do. I’ll call this guy Michael Levine. I’ve read his books. And I paid $25 ,000 for three hours. of consulting, and this goes on and on. Can you maybe articulate for anybody out there that’s on the fence who’s thinking about scheduling a free consultation with our business coaching program?

I mean, obviously, you’ve been a longtime client for a long time. Can you explain for anybody out there, if they go to ThriveTimeShow . com and they schedule a free consultation, that part’s free, but can you kind of explain the monthly fee, what you’re paying versus what you’re getting in your mind as a business owner? You don’t know what you’re missing until you go and see what you can get. You know what you’re going through as a business and what you’re trying to accomplish and all the things you’ve gone through, but it’s a free consultation. It’s simple.

It’s easy. They’re very workable with you. They provide a very guided stepping stone. And if you’ve done any of it on your own, as soon as you see it laid out in front of you, you’re going to be like, oh, this is a much easier path. Final question I have here for you. You’re stuck in an elevator with somebody.

I know you’re a man. You didn’t say, Clay, please let me on your show. Different. You’re a guy who’s humble. You’re behind the scenes. You’re raising your six kids.

I think he’d probably rather be at the dentist than being on today’s show. And I appreciate you stepping out of your comfort zone. So you’re stuck in an elevator with some guy. You got five minutes until the rescue comes. And he’s like, so give me like a 60 second. How has the business coaching program impacted you?

And would you recommend it? I, you just, it’s for me, it’s experience. And I’ve been there and I’ve butt my head against the wall and, and I’ve gone through what you guys have given me and it works. It’s so much easier. Um, it’s like, if you enjoy the pain, keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want to be successful, if you want to, uh, have that freedom, have that, I mean, it happens very quickly.

It’s not like it’s a, okay. And it’s so many years we’re going to get you here is if, when you implement your systems and your suggestions and your guidance, it happens, it goes. It takes off. You know, I’m super excited to see you Friday morning. But also, if there’s any way I could see you for that Lou Fregno interview, I think that’d be awesome. I think you’d have a lot of fun with that.

We can harass him. I want it to be two on one, where it’s not just me versus him, because he’s a big man. He’s the intimidator. He’s the Hulk. So maybe if you show up, maybe I’m less nervous. Maybe it’s a good fit.

If you can’t, I get it. But open invitation this Friday. I’m not BSing you. I just found out the Hulkinator, the Incredible Hulk, Lou Fregno, is going to be in studio at this office. coming specifically for this interview at 1 o ‘clock on Friday. So if you want to be here, you’re invited, my friend.

Appreciate it. Thank you. 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. You can learn the proven 13 -point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. I mean, we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate.

We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two -day, 15 -hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve.

You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell.

At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get -rich -quick, walk -on haul. coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying. And I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction.

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

Transcribed with Cockatoo