Decking | How to Build a Successful Decking & Wood Floor Installation + How to Build a Successful Garage Building & Home Remodeling Business + Celebrating the MASConstructionLLC.com & TulsaWoodFloorsAndMore.com Success Stories

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

Honestly, when we first met, we were running out of hope. It was getting tough. And I didn’t see a way to have a funnel of customers coming in. Now we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do with all the customers. And our problems in life are now, how do we deal with all the blessings, which is, well, from an emotional point of view, it’s just, it’s, it’s hard to even explain how things have changed in the last Couple of years. And quantifiably, did you say you’re up 15 times more leads?

Is that, is that a safe number? Yes. If you had to put a number on Joe, what’s the number of increased lead lead number? Cause again, we have people watching this show. They’re like, well, what’s the ROI going to be? How would you describe the increase in the number of leads?

Um, the phone rings more. Greg, how would you describe it in terms of you to quantify the increase in the number of leads? Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot. 15 ,000.

We started out having one to two a week, and now we have, you know, typically these days, three, four, five a day, maybe some days even more. I’m just making sure you get this. If you were going to have, I’m not trying to paint you in a corner, but if you had one to two a week, let’s say you used to have like eight a month, and now you’re getting, I mean, the impact that can make on someone’s business, folks, I’m just telling you, just everyone, I encourage you to marinate on that. Everybody out there can do this. How would you describe the return on investment for the $1 ,700 a month you pay versus the results that you’re getting? You’re almost waiting for the punchline at the end.

When you say, I hired a guy at $1 ,700 a month to build my website and turn my business from zero to millions for $1 ,700 a month, and you stop talking, I think they’re waiting for the punchline. There isn’t one. That is the bargain. the century. I mean, I still, I paid that much money to a guy just to write SEO, as he said, before I met you. And we never, the phone never rang.

No one ever called. So paid a lot of money for it, but we didn’t get anything out of it. So we certainly do here. So that way, you know, you got to put time into it. I mean, just like anything, anything that you work at, well, whatever, is you gotta put time into it. You can’t just expect to put in an hour and, oh look, I’m a multi -millionaire by putting in an hour a week and it just doesn’t work.

Now that we have so many calls coming in, now we’re having to refine and whittle our system down as best we can in order to get customers serviced quickly and properly. I don’t know that I understood for the first almost year that it is so ridiculously simple What you have to do now i’m not saying in the business But this portion of getting yourself seen and getting that phone to ring is so simple follow the steps. You just said bism That’s it. What do you say greg for anybody out there? That’s going man. It’s just I don’t know if that’ll work for me.

What do you say greg? I say That I am a very skilled carpenter and I know somebody that’s very skilled in making those things happen online And that would be you of course, I think um In the beginning, I had no particular concept. I knew what a website was until working with you guys, of course, that there is this sort of machine that you build. Like I like to say, you know, I’m great at driving a car. You’re great at building it. So I can drive it, that kind of thing.

It’s so important that you understand that you can’t drive a car without gas. You can’t drive it without fuel. You can’t drive it without an engine. So you have to have all the pieces together in order to make it work correctly. And that’s what your team does, is you know what it is that Google wants, and you just point us in the right direction, and we do the homework. How would you describe the kind of impact it’s made on your business?

Clarity, being able to be more organized. It’s still a work in progress. Little things that you’re like, I didn’t know I needed to organize this right here needed to be organized. I got to organize it, have a system, have a checklist, have the schedule, all this for all these things that you learn as you go. Just the organization and learning that is one thing that I’m learning. Well, Thrive Nation, on today’s show, we have quite a success story here.

This is a father -son combo where these guys are really growing their business. They’re dramatically increasing the number of leads they’re getting. They’re real people. And someone always says, are these people real? Are they holograms? Are they male models?

No, no. The company, it’s a real company. It’s called Tulsa Wood Floors and More. Tulsa Wood Floors and More. Everybody check it out. Tulsa Wood Floors and More.

With that being said, Greg and Joe, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you? Thanks, Greg. Good to see you. OK, so I got to ask you real quick, Greg, what’s your first and last name and what’s the name of your company, sir? Greg Parks, Tulsa Wood Floors and More.

And Joe, could you tell us your first and last name and your web address so people can verify that you’re not a hologram? I think I’m not a hologram, but my name is Joe Parks and the website is www . tulsawoodfloorsandmore . com. Now, we’ve had the opportunity to work with you guys now for what we’ll call a couple years, and you guys have had a tremendous increase in the number of leads that you’re getting offline. Greg, if you had to compare where you were at a couple years ago in terms of leads to where you’re at now,

How would you describe the amount of leads you’re getting now versus where you are a couple years back. Well, it’s like a flood right now. It’s a lot. And of course, I would say one to two a week a couple years ago and now. 20 times that, 10 times that, certainly. Right before the meeting, we just had one call in right before the meeting.

We’re handling one call right now. Now, Joe, would you say that your amount of leads you’re getting off the internet between all the things we’re working on, is it maybe 20 times more than it used to be, 10 times more, if you think about the number of leads? At least 1 ,500 more. Yeah. And so what I’ll tell for anybody out there, I’m going to pull up this thing called a workflow. I’m going to pull up the workflow.

If you don’t have leads, your business just cannot succeed. It’s just not going to happen. It can’t work. If you don’t have leads, you can’t grow your business. And we’re going to get into all 14 parts of the business. And Greg, I really want to tap into your wisdom on this.

You’ve learned a lot of this. You’re doing it real time. So first off, you’ve got to know your revenue goals. I’m not asking you to share your revenue goals with our listeners, but why is it important for you to step one, know your revenue goals, and step two, to know your break -even point. Why do you have to know your revenue goals and your break -even point there, Greg? Well, I mean, obviously, you have to know what the goals are.

You have to set those goals ahead of time in your own life, wherever you want to end up. And then you obviously need to know how much money you’re making per job so you can tell how many jobs you need to complete in a certain period of time to reach that goal. Now, box number three, again, all these steps, we have to do all these steps. Box number three is the number of hours you’re willing to work. I want to pick on your son for this one. Joe is a very skilled, I call him a trim carpenter or skilled contractor.

Your son really is skilled at the skills he brings to the table are really next level. But after the skill, there has to be a work ethic that follows that. And I would say son’s one of the hardest working people that I know. Joe, I want to get your thoughts on this because I think a lot of people want to become multimillionaires or super successful, but they’re unwilling to put in the work. Why is it important for you and your dad and your whole family to figure out how many hours per week that you’re willing to work?

So that way you know. But you got to put time into it. I mean, just like anything, anything that you work at, well, whatever it is, you got to put time into it. You can’t just expect to put in an hour and, oh, look, I’m a multimillionaire by putting in an hour a week. And it just doesn’t work. Now, box number four, Greg, back to you.

You have to figure out your unique value proposition. Now, this is kind of exciting stuff. Every week, every week, I mean, every week we get on the phone, I say, listen, guys, this week, And every week, we need to put fuel into our business vehicle. And the fuel we need to put into the business vehicle is a three legged marketing stool. So I’ll demystify those legs for any of the listeners out there. Leg number one, You got to appear or be present at a certain number of trade shows to get in front of your ideal and likely buyers.

Leg number two, you got to wow that customer so you get word of mouth. You got to wow the customer and so you get word of mouth, which you guys do. And then that third leg is you got to be top on the search engine results. And so if I go to Google right now and I type in wood floors Tulsa, I type in wood floors Tulsa because I’m a sick freak and I put in wood floors then Tulsa. You come up top, there you are, Tulsa wood floors and more. Then you come up again and that’s if I type in wood floors Tulsa.

Now somebody else is probably more educated than myself. They type in Tulsa wood floors. Tulsa wood floors. You come up top again, Tulsa wood floors. You come up again, Tulsa wood floors again. Three of the first ten, Tulsa wood floors.

You might type in wood flooring Tulsa. contractor for gymnasiums right so you type that in you type that into google and after the ads here we go you come up again you come up top or near the top and you say well ai what does ai do well ai is now recommending you so many clients ask but what about ai what about ai ai now ai now says that you guys are a says top wood flooring contractors for gymnasiums in tulsa and the surrounding region include Tri -state, Z floor, and Tulsa wood floors, and more. This is AI recommends you now. I mean, you couldn’t be more recommended. But what makes it work is you guys are doing V -I -S -M -D.

Let’s get through it. V -I -S -M -D. What does that mean? V, video reviews. You guys are gathering video examples, video testimonials. I, images of your work.

S, search engine content. M, more Google reviews. And D, we do a diagnostic on your website every month to make sure your site is optimized. Let’s look at it one more time. V, videos. Where can I find videos?

I go to Tulsa Wood Floors and More. I click on testimonials. Boom, videos. I, images. Where can I find it? I go to your gallery.

I find those images. S, search engine content. How can I prove it’s real? I go to the site map at the bottom of the website. There it is. Tons of articles.

And V -I -S -M. M, more Google reviews. I type in Tulsa Wood Flooring. Tulsa Wood Flooring. I type it in. I spell it right.

That’ll help. There you go. You come up top again. Now what’s happening is you now are the authority. For anybody who doesn’t know, once you have the most reviews, and Greg, this just happened this morning, you became what’s called the authority listing. So now when I type in Tulsa Wood Flooring, you actually are recommended as the largest.

Look at this. Your map comes up top. Then the website. Then the website again, you now have the authority placement. Uh, what do you say, Greg, for anybody out there that’s going, man, it’s just, I don’t know if that’ll work for me. What do you say, Greg?

I say that I am a very skilled carpenter and I know somebody that’s very skilled. in making those things happen online. And that would be you, of course. Now, let’s talk about this, though, because Greg, every week, you have to get video clips, and you’re doing it every week, every week, reviews. And for those out there that may not know, there’s not one meeting that I see, Clay, and that’s quite frequently. that the words don’t come out of his mouth.

How many reviews did you get this week? It’s just really, it’s hugely important to get people’s opinions of the work that you do. That’s how people find you and that’s how people make a decision once they found you on whether or not to give you a call. Now, Joe, VISMD, if you guys were getting Google reviews but not getting video clips and images and more content and the monthly diagnostic wasn’t being done, AI would not be recommending you. It’s all of those things. VISM, could you talk about that for a second of just maybe the maddening simplicity of knowing that every week, no matter what, You got to get video clips.

You got to get images. You got to get search engine content. You got to get more Google reviews. And every month, we have to update the website for the diagnostic compliance. Just talk about the simplicity of that system. It’s so simple.

It’s maddening. You take your phone, and you push the camera app, and you take pictures. And then you switch to video, and you film. So people know that you actually do work, that you aren’t robots. And that’s all really Google’s looking for. I mean, that’s it.

That makes you the authority. You just have to do that little bit of homework every single time. Now, Natalie, I’m going to add you to the mic here. You guys know Natalie. She’s off the camera but on mic. Natalie, you work with some great clients, many of which have to do this same process.

We work with online retailers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, people that sell products. And I would say half of our clients at least have to go through this process. One question would you have on behalf of Google of maybe your clients or on behalf of anybody out there that maybe would struggle to be as diligent and consistent as Joe and Greg are at implementing these systems? Yeah, I think one thing that most of my clients have a question about is when and how does it look like when you block off time on your calendar to go work on your business? Let’s go with Greg first.

We do block out time for trade shows. And we try to do at least two a month. If we can do two a month, that’s what we try to schedule. Depends on the venues in our area. And then every day, I would say it’s sort of mixed in like a chocolate chip cookie for us. You just dump the chips in.

You have to remind yourself every minute of every day, I need to take pictures before I start this job. I need to take a video before I start this job. You’re working on the business while you’re working in it. So we sort of mix it together. Joe, anything you want to add to that? Because, again, I’m talking to doctors, dentists, lawyers, photographers, wedding photographers, event photographers, videographers.

I’m talking to lawyers. I mean, we’re talking to cosmetic dentists. We’re working with home remodelers, East Coast, West Coast, small town, big town, all having massive growth if they follow the system. What do you say to somebody out there that’s maybe struggling to get video clips or images or to gather reviews? Write it down on a checklist. Make yourself a list that when you first walk into the job, put it on the checklist.

We have it on our paper. It’s in big, bold, bright red letters that say, get before photos, get videos, get pictures. It’s written down so that way we don’t forget. Because if you don’t write it down, you’re going to forget. It’s simple. It’s powerful.

We’re going back to our stack of stuff here. Again, all of these systems, we teach these at our in -person workshops. We’re going to box number four. You have to know your unique system. proposition, okay? And you have to have great branding, box number five.

Greg, if you were not coming up top or near the top in the search results and you didn’t have a website that looked professional, None of this stuff would work. You can’t say it’s either or. You can’t say, well, what’s the most important thing to growing my company? It’s all of these things. I see clients all the time that are topping the Google search results, but their website looks hideous. Or I see people that have a beautiful site that no one gets to.

You have to do all of it. Can you talk about the importance of becoming the highest rated and most reviewed and having a beautiful website? Well, what you just said is absolutely true. In the beginning, I had no particular concept. I knew what a website was until working with you guys, of course, that there is this sort of machine that you build. Like I like to say, you know, I’m great at driving a car.

You’re great at building it. So I can drive it, that kind of thing. It’s so important that you understand that you can’t drive a car without gas. You can’t drive it without tires. You can’t drive it without an engine. So you have to have all the pieces together in order to make it work correctly.

That’s what your team does is you know what it is that Google wants and you just point us in the right direction and we do the homework. And you’re doing it. And I want to encourage somebody out there that they can do it. I think, Natalie, sometimes people think, man, wow, Greg, I met him at the conference. This guy’s doing great. I mean, he’s doing now so many sales.

I could never do that. And I remember, Greg, the first time I met you, the first time you came to a conference, it can feel that way when you’re looking around the room and you’re surrounded by client success stories like Aaron Antus, who we’ve helped him grow from $14 million to $151 million. Or you’re in the room with Steve Currington, one of the top mortgage providers, and there he is. And you’re in the room with you know, a podcast host with a million listeners a week, John Lee Dumas, EO Fire, or the room with Eric Trump, President Trump’s son, or whoever. Now, box number six is you got to have all three legs of your marketing stool working.

Let’s recap your rule, the moves here for your three -legged marketing stool. You have to wow the customers, Joe, you got to wow the customers. Got to do it. Two, you got to participate in trade shows, Joe. And then three, you’ve got to get your search engine optimization going. You got to get the videos, the images, the search engine, the more Google reviews, the Dream 100.

If you stopped wowing your customers, if you stopped going to trade shows, if you stopped doing the search engine optimization, all of these things have to work together. Joe, what do you say to someone who says, ah, you know, I, I just want to skip a part. I’m in a small town. You know how it is in a small town. I grew up in a small town, by the way, Joe, I grew up in a very small town. So for the people out there who grew up in a crazy small town, by the way, I’d say what half of our clients are in very small towns.

They go, ah, you know, Google, people don’t use it in a small town, small towns, it’s different. Or somebody says I’m in a big town. I’m in such a big town. By the way, half of our clients are in big towns. I’m in a big town. Big shout out to James G. Cristofaro, James D. Cristofaro, one of our clients who’s in New York, who now dominates the search engine results as an attorney.

What do you say, Joe, to someone who says, oh, I don’t know about the three -legged marketing stool. I’d rather spend my day making reels and TikTok videos. Ah, the TikTok videos. I guess that’s one way of advertising is TikTok, but let me know how that works out. Your stool gets really lopsided when you have, you know, one leg. It’s kind of difficult to sit there and balance on just one leg.

You know, you have to have all three. It’s really nice and stable. Just help people find you, and that’s how Google sees things, too. Greg, what do you say to somebody? Because again, I’m not mentioning names. I’m just going to mention the concept.

Greg, you’ve been to conferences where we’ve seen people that have literally a million views on their Instagram videos. I’m literally, I mean, we’ve seen people. I’m not going to lie. names, I kind of want to, but I won’t. But Greg, you and I know people that are going viral on Instagram, they’re going viral on TikTok, they’re going viral on YouTube, they’re showing up on ESPN and various other platforms with no leads and no money to pay their bills. What do you say to Greg, for someone who says, I just, the maddening simplicity of doing all these systems and getting them all working together, I’d rather go Chase a TikTok video.

What do you say? I say, you do you. I can tell you this. When I started, I’m not sure if I knew. I’m very pliable, I think, in my way of thinking. I’m easy.

I saw the success you had and the people that you showed success. And I just wanted to follow that. I don’t want to lead through the minefield. I want to follow the path of whoever’s footsteps went through. And so if you said you got to jump up and down on one leg and whatever, I would do that. But I don’t know that I understood for the first almost year that it is so ridiculously simple what you have to do.

Now, I’m not saying in the business, but this portion of getting yourself seen and getting that phone to ring is so simple, follow the steps you just said, B -I -S -M, that’s it. That’s really all we ever talk about. What do you say, though, to somebody who says, you know, I don’t want to put the car in the gas, but I want the car to move. I kind of don’t want to get reviews, and I kind of don’t want to get video clips, and I kind of don’t want to get images, but I still want it to work. What do you say? I would say you’re probably a really cool person, but hopefully you don’t like money.

As long as you like being at the bottom of everything. Right. And if that’s your goal is to be like on the bottom, then that would be the way to do it. All right. Well, we’re moving on to box number seven. You got to have sales scripts.

And by the way, for sake of time today, we don’t have time to get into all these things. but you have to have a sales script, a sales system, an ultimate sales machine. You got to have sales scripts. And Greg, when you meet with people, you have to have sales materials that make sense. You have to have a gallery so clients can go to the website and click on the gallery at Tulsa Wood Floors and more. And they can click around and see examples of the great work you provide.

You guys are doing so well now. You’re moving into where you’re doing gyms. I mean, we’re talking massive. I mean, look at the size of these wood floors here. This is a huge project. But Greg, again, no matter how many leads you get, you ultimately have to meet the customer.

You got to build rapport with them and establish trust and explain to them how you can solve their problems. Then you ultimately have to sell them something. So you have to have a script. You have to have a plan. You have to have a system. Can you talk about that for a second?

Because I think it’s very easy as an entrepreneur to say, I’m so busy, I don’t have time to follow a process. What would you say as you’re refining your sales processes now, as you’re having so many leads, now the need to find a lot? You’re now in a place where you have so many leads coming in that the processes are becoming more and more important. What do you say to our listeners out there? We certainly did struggle in the beginning to have a system. I think that was my biggest roadblock was, what’s the system?

I see all these pieces floating around in the air, but I don’t know how to line them up and make it work. And it’s getting better now that we’ve done it many, many times over. But customer service, in my opinion, customer calls and says, there’s a problem. You don’t ask, you say, how do we fix it? We’ll be there and we’ll take care of it. And that literal thing happened last night.

Um, we are taking care of that customer right now that had an issue happen, customer service and allowing your customers top of the line and, you know, having a system, uh, now that we have so many calls coming in, now we’re having to refine and whittle our system down as best we can in order to get customers serviced quickly and properly. Greg, uh, you know, you and your son, uh, love working with you guys. I consider you to be kind of part of the family at this point. I mean, it’s been great helping you guys. Joe, you’ve seen it.

I mean, you’ve been a part of the ride. And if you were going to explain the before and after, obviously we’re not done, but the before and after from the time we first met you to now, how would you describe the kind of impact it’s made on your business? Clarity, being able to be more organized, It’s still a work in progress, finding all the little things that you’re like, I didn’t know I needed to organize this right here needed to be organized. I got to organize it, have a system, have a checklist, have the schedule, all this for all these things that you learn as you go. Just the organization and learning that is one thing that I’m learning. Greg, how would you describe the impact?

Because, you know, Natalie works with great people that are maybe starting the journey or maybe are maybe six months into the journey or a year into the journey. You’ve been doing this for a couple of years. How would you describe the before and after impact that’s made so far? Well, we honestly, I have no issue working in my life. I never thought I could work harder till I met you and the crew. And now for somehow we’ve figured out how to organize and work even more than we did before.

But honestly, when we first met, we were running out of hope. It was getting tough and I didn’t see a way to have a funnel of customers coming in. Now we’re trying to figure out what we’re going to do with all the customers and our problems in life are now, how do we deal with all the blessings? Which is, well, from an emotional point of view, it’s just, it’s, it’s hard to even explain how things have changed the last couple of years. And quantifiably, did you say you’re up 15 times more leads? Is that, is that a safe number?

If you had to put a number on Joe, what’s the number of increased lead lead number? Cause again, we have people watching this show. They’re like, well, what’s the ROI going to be? How would you describe the increase in the number of leads? Um, the phone rings more. Greg, how would you describe it in terms of you to quantify the increase in the number of leads?

Yeah. Yeah. It’s a lot. 15 ,000. It’s, it’s, it’s good. We started out having one to two a week and now we have, you know, typically these days, three, four or five a day, maybe some days even more.

I’m just making sure you get this. If you were going to have, I’m not trying to paint you in a corner, but if you had one to two a week, let’s say you used to have like eight a month. And now you’re getting, I mean, the impact that can make on someone’s business, folks, I’m just telling you, just everyone. I encourage you to marinate on that. Everybody out there can do this. Now you move on to box number eight.

Cause that goes after seven, uh, determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs. You ultimately, man, if you’re spending huge amounts of money, paying Angie’s list or Google AdWords or spending money on YouTube videos or Instagram videos or Facebook videos, it costs a lot of money to get a customer. But through this system here, Greg, the cost to acquire a customer is very inexpensive. Can you talk about what it’s like to know that your lead generation system doesn’t cost you $150 per lead or $200 per lead like it costs most contractors? Yeah, we actually spend about $16 a month for our Google page, whatever that is. And of course, we have a fee that we pay with you.

But that’s, you know, the acquisition cost for a customer for us is virtually zero. We don’t do any advertising at this point. We just do the system that you say, and the calls happen, we could advertise and I suppose as things grow, and we start getting larger, then we will do that. But right now, we don’t even need to spend money on advertising directly on advertising. So powerful. Natalie, any question you have for Greg there?

Because again, you work with great clients, doctors, dentists, optometrists, lawyers. and a lot of times they go, seems a little too simple. What would you say? Yeah, I guess my biggest question is for those who are at the gas station, but don’t want to get the gas or those who have leads, but don’t want to call their leads. What would you say to those people who don’t want to call their leads? Everybody has that sort of spot.

I have a spot in my world where doing the estimates was the tough part. You know, it’s like everybody’s going to have a thing they don’t like to do in the business. You just look, if you want to succeed, the ingredients are there and you have to follow the formula. And that’s that simple. This absolutely works. Don’t know if I believed in the beginning when we started doing this, that we would ever be millionaires.

I’m now everything’s different now. Everything. And you’re getting, I’m not asking you to mention the size of the jobs, but I think it is, maybe you could clarify or interject, but I believe you’re now getting multi -million dollar inquiries. I mean, you’re getting people inquiring. They’re not saying, hey, could you come fix a door? Could you fix a window?

Now they’re going, hey, could you put the wood floor in my entire gymnasium? Could you remodel my entire house? And that all wouldn’t be possible unless you had step number nine, systems. You gotta have systems, and Greg, you’re building systems, building processes, even as we stand today. You’re building systems, putting stuff on the whiteboard, putting stuff on checklists, building the systems real time. Box number 10, you gotta manage people.

We have entire courses, podcasts, shows, workshops dedicated to the art of finding great people. Box number 11, you gotta build a schedule that makes sense for you and your family. Box number 12, you have to hire people. Inspire, train, and retain good people. That’s a challenge in itself. We have a system for that too.

How to hire, inspire, train, and retain people. Box number 13, you got to do your accounting. It turns out that you’re not a bank, I’m not a bank, and if we act like a bank, it won’t go well. What am I saying? We can’t extend ridiculous credit terms to our clients. We can’t operate like a bank.

We can’t lend our clients money that we don’t have to impress people that we don’t know. We have to get our clients to pay us. We have to quote properly. There’s so much to it. So I’m going to go to a final thought here from Joe and then a final thought from Greg. Somebody out there is going, OK.

Are you telling me, because I’m in a small town, that if I do this, it’s going to work? Someone says, I’m in a big town. Are you telling me it works? Joe, what do you say to somebody out there who’s on the fence about maybe scheduling a free 13 -point assessment at thrivetimeshow . com? Just do it.

Schedule it, and yes, it works. You can get pictures, and videos, and reviews, and talk to customers. And you just do what Clay says, and it works. Greg, you know, when we charge people $1 ,700 a month, $1 ,700 per month, we make a 20 % profit margin. What does that mean? It means we have great people like Natalie who work here who get paid, turns out.

We’ve got utility bills. We have graphic designers, photographers, web developers. We have a whole team, you know, there’s a whole team supporting you. And we try to charge our clients as little as possible. So we often will do $1 ,700 a month. That’s our deal, $1 ,700 a month.

And then we typically, these relationships evolve over time into partnerships or non -equity partnerships. But no matter how you look at it and how you see it, How would you describe the return on investment for the $1 ,700 a month you pay versus the results that you’re getting? You’re almost waiting for the punchline at the end. When you say, I hired a guy at $1 ,700 a month to build my website and turn my business from zero to millions for $1 ,700 a month, and you stop talking, I think they’re waiting for the punchline. There isn’t one. That is the bargain of the century.

I mean, I still, I paid that much money to a guy just to write SEO, as he said, before I met you. And we never, the phone never rang. No one ever called. So paid a lot of money for it, but we didn’t get anything out of it. So we certainly do here. I am going to make sure that everybody out there, I want to make sure everyone, if you’re watching this show, I want to make sure that you can kind of pay it forward for Greg and his family there.

And how do you do that? You go to, if you learned anything on today’s show, maybe you say, Clay, I actually lost IQ points as a result of the show. That’s okay. But if you’ve learned anything at all or benefited at all from today’s show, go to tulsawoodfloorsandmore . com. Just go to the website and it would be great if you could share a link to their website because every time that anyone shares a link to the website, it helps the website rank higher in those search engine results.

So for everybody out there, if you’re watching today’s show, please go to TulsaWoodFloorsAndMore and share the link to today’s show or share the actual web address itself. Go to TulsaWoodFloorsAndMore . com and copy the link, share it somewhere. That’ll help Greg and his incredible team to have their website rank higher. Joe, thank you so much. Greg, thank you so much for carving out time.

I know you have a very busy day today. Thank you for dropping what you were doing to come join us, and thank you for encouraging everybody out there. Thanks, Natalie. Thanks, Clay. See you guys. Bye -bye.

one to two a week. And I mean, we’re getting… Three or four a day. Yeah. I mean, it’s just astronomical how many more there are. Now, they are a little bit harder to close in that the people don’t know us, but sending them the testimonials and all of those things have really made a difference.

We were doing well, by all means, but I wanted… I’m getting older, and I want to… And I hear all the results that you guys produce, and I’m like, why not me? And It’s fantastic is what it is. There’s lots and lots of leads. My phone goes nuts.

I’m Mark Schmucker with MAS Construction. My name is April Schmucker, and I work for MAS Construction. All right. I’m going to pull up your website so people can follow along at home and check out what we’re doing here. That’s masconstructionllc . com.

Mostly we’re doing garages. I focus on outbuildings more than anything, whether it’s detached or attached. We’ve done barns and larger buildings, for that matter. But mostly we just focus on garages. It’s just a quick in -out. It’s good turnaround.

You know, like Mark said, mostly we were a referral business before. And so the leads are great. It’s a little bit of a different beast in that they’re not people that we know. So it’s a completely cold market that we’re dealing with with sales. So that produces its own challenges. But at the same time, it gives us the opportunity to then spread the news about what we do and how well we do it.

So it’s been really great. And it definitely helps out a lot to be more systematic. And that’s just the start of where I want it to be. I want it to be like you guys have in place. I can give this to someone in here, follow this, and that’s the end result. Same as a blueprint.

All your answers should be on the blueprint. You shouldn’t be having to ask any questions. And that’s what I’m striving for. And that’s what I want, because I can’t do everything. Fantastic. Now I just have to find out a way to get more time out of the day because it’s a good problem.

Carter was telling us that, but I never had a website. I did everything word of mouth. Why? Why wait? I mean, that was me for the longest time. And finally, I’m like, I’m just done with this.

I pulled over to the side of the road. I didn’t know exactly where I was. And I’m like, it was winter. And I’m like, I want to thrive. I see all these people thrive. And why can’t it be me?

And I’m like, well, I’m going to call them once. And so I did. And I encourage anyone that’s looking like, and not just do I want financial freedom, which we’re doing okay, but I also want time freedom. And if this is ability to produce time and money, then why not? Or at least just call and try it.

Well, folks on today’s show, we have a wonderful opportunity to introduce you to a wonderful couple. What? This is a wonderful couple. They have a wonderful business. I’m using the word wonderful a lot. And they’re receiving, they’re experiencing wonderful growth as a result of being diligent.

And if you’re out there today and you’re feeling a slight bit discouraged, I want to leave you with encouragement, empowerment, and specifically walk you through steps that you too can implement if you want to achieve the kinds of results that today’s guests, Mark and April, are receiving with their business. Mark, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Good to be here. Now, Mark, for anybody out there who may wonder if you’re a hologram, what’s your first and last name? And what’s the name of your company, sir?

My name is Mark Schmucker with MAS Construction. And Mark, who’s this wonderful woman next to you here on video? That is my wife, April, that I have been blessed with. And she’s helped me out a lot. Now, April, for anybody out there that’s not familiar with you, just to prove you’re not a hologram, could you share with us your first and last name and the name of your company? My name’s April Schmecker, and I work for MAS Construction.

All right. And I’m going to pull up your website so people can follow along at home and check out what we’re doing here. That’s masconstructionllc . com. Mark, I’ll start with you. If you could tell us a little bit here, what services do you guys provide with your company, masconstructionllc .

com? Mostly we’re doing garages. I focus on outbuildings more than anything, whether it’s detached or attached. We have large, we’ve done barns and larger buildings for that matter. But mostly we just focus on garages. It’s just a quick in, out, it’s good turnaround.

Now, you guys seem to be very normal people. April, how would you describe yourselves? I mean, you seem very normal. I think a lot of people feel like, man, I can’t have success because I’m not like April. I’m not like Mark.

I don’t have what it takes. How would you describe your role in the business? So my role is mainly administrative. I do a lot of the office work and the financials. I work in taxes as well as work with M . A .

S. So I’m a homeschooling mom. So we have a lot going on here at the house. And Mark how would you describe your role with the business. At this point here, more than anything, I am just conducting it, like with sales. I’m just doing a lot, meeting the clients and all that stuff, which I really enjoy.

I mean, there’s a large spectrum of people that you meet, good or bad, but mostly it’s dealing with the people. And if you had to clarify, Mark, what you do or what industry you’re in, would you call it home remodeling or home building, or how would you describe what you do? I don’t exactly know, because mostly I did a lot of home building, but it’s I just kind of got out of that. It’s too many things and I just focus on easier, like in, out. So I guess a builder more than anything. Now, April, how did you first come in contact with our team here?

How did you first hear about the Thrive Time Show team? That’s kind of a funny story. I first heard about you when Mark said, oh, by the way, I set us up with an interview with Clay Clark and I was like, what? I don’t who is that? And so I hadn’t heard of thrive time. Mark, he’s on the road a lot with meeting clients.

And so he listens to your show. I am not a podcast listener. And so he. It’s like, you’ve got to you’ve got to hear what this guy has to say. And I was like, oh, okay. And from my background, I did marketing for another business.

And so I was like, well, I can do all of that stuff. And it’s like, but if you don’t have to, when you are have so much on your plate, wouldn’t it be awesome to have someone else take that? Now, I have a homework assignment for you, April, and you can please feel free to rebuke me. But this is a fun family homework project, OK? I just put out a show, and I think you’ll like this show.

I can’t say you’ll like other shows, but I think you’ll like this show. This is when I just interviewed a guy named Randy, who he and his wife, they bought a former abandoned amusement park on, so they bought what was once a former amusement park on a lake. and they renovated it into the most successful, one of the most successful Colorado -style mountain wedding venues in America. It’s awesome. It’s in Oklahoma. And I interview him about it.

So if you are going to watch one show, April, that’s the one that I would encourage you to watch. So you can feel free to reject me there. Now, as far as growing your company, I wanted to just unpack the things that we’re doing that are producing results. First thing, Mark, it appears as though we’re now generating some website leads for you, whereas in the past, you were not getting internet leads or maybe that’s wrong. Could you maybe describe the impact that having a proven search engine system and team working for you has made on your business? Fantastic.

Now I just have to find out a way to get more time out of the day, because it’s a good problem. Carter was telling us that, but I never had a website. I did everything word of mouth. And we were doing well, by all means, but I’m getting older, and I hear all the results that you guys produce, and I’m like, why not me? And it’s fantastic is what it is. There’s lots and lots of leads.

My phone goes nuts. Uh, how would you describe April, uh, your perspective to the leads that you’re now receiving? I would say, um, you know, like Mark said, mostly we were a referral business before. And so, um, the leads are great. It’s a little bit of a different beast in that, um, they’re not. that we know.

So it’s a completely cold market that we’re dealing with with sales. So that produces its own challenges. But at the same time it gives us the opportunity to then spread the news about what we do and how well we do it. So it’s been really great. Now, this might just be my perception, but you’re so freaking likable, you guys. You’re so nice.

You’re so kind that I feel like the cold leads will turn into word of mouth. Maybe I’m wrong. Mark, have you seen that yet where you’ve had a cold lead and then it’s turned into a referral of a warm lead? For sure, I do have that. I mean, I don’t have nothing where I set it in, but I do get referrals. I’m thinking of this one client.

It was all off of a sign. Then I got this person, then this person. And to this day, I’ve done a couple hundred thousand with them, with this client, all off referrals and leads. It just, it definitely grows. Now let’s get into how we do that. What I try to do for wonderful clients like you, because I know you’re homeschooling.

By the way, we have five kids and my wife homeschooled too. So I get that energy. I understand the urgency of making sure your kids grow up to love the Lord and know how to read and do math. And so I get the urgency of that. So I try to build a system that is turnkey that’s duplicatable, that’s repeatable, that requires minimal thought and maximum results. Mark, I want to get your thoughts on this because I see a lot of people that have successful internet marketing programs in place, but it requires them to take a lot of steps and to do a lot of the work.

Could you talk about the turnkey nature or the lack thereof of the turnkey nature of the system that we’ve been teaching you guys? I definitely like, and I was even telling April, like, a lot of this stuff here, like, it’s all in my head. I couldn’t just have someone just do this year because I have to make it systematic and already with April’s help and yourself, like, like, let’s say I go to Cleveland for the day. That’s I try to do it. just a day instead of every day, one appointment, book it all in one day, be more time efficient. And it definitely helps out a lot to be more systematic.

And that’s just the start of where I want it to be. I want it to be like you guys have in place. I can give this to someone in here, follow this. And that’s the end result. Same as a blueprint. All your answers should be on the blueprint.

You shouldn’t be having to ask any questions. And that’s that’s what I’m striving for. And that’s what I want, because I can’t. I can’t do everything. If you had to describe the amount of leads you’re getting now versus the number of leads you used to get off the website there, Mark, how would you describe that? I don’t even know how you’re putting percentage.

We would have on average one to two a week and I mean we’re getting Yeah, I mean, it’s just astronomical how many more there are. Now, they are a little bit harder to close in that the people don’t know us, but sending them the testimonials and all of those things have really made a difference. How old’s your oldest kid there, April? You’d probably know this more than Mark. I’m just kidding. How old’s your oldest kid?

No, you’re not. So my oldest son is 21. Okay, well, okay, so I want you to see if you can connect with me on this. We have five great kids and my son is graduating from high school next week, you know, and so you know, the mom emotion where you’re excited, but you’re also kind of sad or whatever that is, you know, and so I my wife is like just seconds away from crying at all times any moment. She’s like, That’s so good. You know, his last band performance, tears.

Last day of school, normal school, tears. And so we’re having his graduation event tomorrow. And my wife doesn’t know this, but hopefully she won’t hear the show until later. But I called her best friend from college, and she lives in Florida. And I said, Sharita, you got to fly out. You got to be here.

You got to be here. You got to assist my wife with this graduation party thing, because it’s starting to wear me out a little bit. And I knew that my wife was going to be there. yet. She doesn’t know, but her best friend’s flying in here in like an hour. But I know my wife’s best friend, and I know the relationship they’ve had since college.

And I already know that those two are going to click. And Sharita is going to help my wife with all of the graduation details. And all of a sudden, it’ll be a breath of fresh air. She’ll be relieved. And I know that. And people that know Sharita know that.

But you guys are hearing this name for the first time. And I think a lot of customers feel the same way. It’s like, I have massive confidence in a woman named Sharita being my wife’s best friend. It’s going to be great. But if I were to tell you, Sharita is the best thing ever, you’d be like, who is Sharita? Do we have some references?

Why are we? And I think people forget. we’re dealing with other people that have the same concerns that we have before buying something. Could you talk about the social proof, April, and the impact that you’ve seen it make in your husband’s ability to sell, having testimonials, video reviews, video testimonials, Google reviews? Could you talk about the impact you’ve seen it make in his sales? Yeah, so kind of like what Mark was saying with that particular client, one of the reasons why they want to go with us is they like what they see on the Google reviews.

We’ve got all five -star reviews. We really strive to do everything possible to get those, you know, when we get a review, to make sure that it is five -star by showing up on time, making sure that we’re communicating with the clients effectively. doing exactly what we say we’re going to do on their invoice. And, you know, that’s how you get a good review by doing what you promise. And so having that as our, you know, a source of integrity for people to look at and say, you know what, these guys seem like they really back up what they’re saying. It’s not just a pie -in -the -sky promise.

And I think that that really has led to a lot of our Our web leads, they look at our Google page, and then they find our website from that and then they contact us. to do a job. Now, Mark, eventually someone has to buy something. So once we generate leads, I always tell people, I say, what do you do as a business coach? Well, step one is we got to do marketing. Or you might call it offense.

We have to generate leads. And branding, marketing, logos, photography, video, web, all that stuff can be called offense. It’s generating leads. However, the second phase of this is you’re going to have to eventually sell something. Somebody has to buy something. Can you talk about any of the sales systems?

I know we now have reviews we can show people. We have testimonials we can show people. people. We’re gathering more and more examples of our work to show people. Could you talk about any of these sales systems that you’re now using that has helped you, Mark, close more deals? I’m hearing that from a lot of clients because I ask them, like, well, how’d you hear from me or whatever?

They Google search Garage Builder because it’s a market out there for it. So we’re coming up now top of the search results. People find you. That’s step one. We’ve got to get in front of people. Step two, they’ve got to check you out, research you, ultimately buy something.

And I want to talk about this idea here of just consolidating your time or time management. As you know, as your wife knows here, because April, as a mom who homeschools, you’re officially the hardest working woman in America. Folks, if you want the hardest job ever, do the whole mom thing, plus homeschool. I’m just telling you. So you understand the importance of time management. Could you talk about some of the time management or calendar consolidation that you’ve seen Mark implement over these past few months?

So when Mark, you know, when we first started this year, pretty much if he got a lead, he’s a little bit Hyper hyper and so as soon as he’d get a lead, he would be like, okay, I’m coming to see you and realizing that when you have so many leads, you really do have to narrow it down. If you’re going to have any family time. So, like he said, we, we pick a day. a Cleveland day, and he goes and he meets anywhere from five to 10 clients in that one day and looks at all of their jobs. So that way we’re not constantly running up to Cleveland. And then the other thing that we’ve done is he has to have time in the office where he used to run the crews and he would be out on the job site.

Now he’s subcontracting out and so he has to have office time. this time. So he takes the time in the morning from 5 to 7 in the morning. So that’s really helped with managing all of the permits and everything that has to be done, you know, kind of behind the door as far as all of the estimates, the drawings, the calculations for materials, going ahead and having a designated time for that has made a huge difference. Final two questions I have here for you, Mark. For anybody out there that’s on the fence, the whole joy of what I love doing is I love helping people like April.

I love helping people like you, because I know you’ve got a great family. So I look at what we do as a real shalom. It’s a win -win, where the customer, our client wins. And then theoretically, we win. So I don’t hide it. We charge people $1 ,700 a month, which is a little bit less than the typical personal trainer, but a little bit more than it is an investment.

And we make a 20 % margin. So we make $340 a month. hours a month profit, and we do photography and video and web and search engine and all that. We also do conferences to help really educate and inspire. But how would you describe the impact that one -on -one coaching has made, Mark, in your business and in your family? For sure, it holds you accountable.

I mean, and I think of like, you know, what’s Carter’s first words going to be? My coach is like, you know, what are your wins? And I’m like, well, I better get some wins. And it causes me to think and push myself a little bit more, like, Not that I wouldn’t before, but yeah, I’ll get that, but I’d be procrastinating, you know. I’ll get to that, you know, no big deal. And it really isn’t, but it also is a big deal because it holds me accountable to do what’s needed.

And I like it. As much as it may be some new stuff that I’m uncomfortable with, I still, it’s a good thing for growth. Now, April, I’m not putting words in your mouth, so feel free to rebuke me again. Again, my only video I recommend you watch is that Five Oaks video. I think you’ll like it. I have one of my clients, his wife does not watch our show.

She said, that video was so encouraging. So it’s a really, hopefully you’ll like it. But I hear a lot from our clients and their spouses. So if I’m working primarily with the female, I’ll hear from the husband from time to time. They’ll go, man, my wife is great. My wife’s schedule is much more productive.

Or I’ll hear from the wives. They’ll say, my husband’s schedule is more productive. Have you seen an impact? What kind of impact have you seen the coaching make in your husband’s life? It could be bad. It could be good.

It could be neutral. I don’t know. I would say that the biggest thing is that it’s caused him to kind of think outside of his normal role and just, you know, where he’s very focused on getting the job started. It’s kind of made him have to stop and look at well, if I, if I hire someone to do this, what do I need to do? They would need to have certain systems set in place. And so it’s, it’s kind of.

forced him into more of an administrative mindset of how do I make this repeatable? How do I make it a program that can be repeatable by someone else versus him just being a Lone Ranger and doing it all on his own? This is powerful. I’m taking notes. Because the repeatable thing is a big thing. Building your business to be repeatable.

Mark, final question for you, and then I’ll let you go. So I’ll stop interrogating you. What do you say to anybody who’s kind of on the fence of scheduling a 13 -point assessment or was thinking about taking action? Why wait? I mean, that was me for the longest time. And finally, I’m like, I’m just done with this.

I pulled over to the side of the room. I didn’t know exactly where I was. And I’m like, it was winter. And I’m like, I want to thrive. I see all these people thriving. Why can’t it be me?

And I’m like, well, I’m going to call them once. And so I did. And I encourage anyone that’s looking. And not just do I want financial freedom, which we’re doing OK, but I also want time freedom. And if this is ability to produce time and money, then Why not? Or at least just call and try it.

Thank you, one, for homeschooling your kids. I mean, because when we do job interviews, I don’t ask people, hey, were you homeschooled? I don’t ask people that. But I’ll tell you this. They’ll tell me. They’ll go, yeah.

I mean, when they shadow and when they come to work here, they’ll eventually tell me. And we had an interesting moment. It was about a year ago. And our staff was talking. I was listening. And the vast majority of our employees at that time were homeschooled.

And I never had that. I didn’t ask that question. But it was that the critical thinking skills were so high, the ability to connect with other adults, the ability to get things done, time management. So again, thank you guys for what you’re doing with your kids. Thank you for what you’re doing with your business. And thank you for carving out time for us today.

I really do appreciate you both. Thank you. Thanks for having us. 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 US Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark. and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women.

13 multi -million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom out here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom out here. We started from the bottom out here. We started from the bottom.

Now we’re at the top, teaching you the systems to get what we got. Colton Dixon’s on the hoops. I break down the books. Seeds bringing some wisdom and the good roots. As the father of, so if you see my wife and kids. Yes, yes, and yes, Thrive Nation.

I got to tell you a story. The other day, my son is headed into graduating from Metro Christian and Metro Christian Academy. He’s in the band. And they host their annual event at this beautiful venue, this incredible venue, this Colorado escape right in the middle of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Picture a log cabin experience meets Tulsa. And it’s called Five Oaks.

And I talk to my kids all the time about Five Oaks because back when I built DJConnection . com, which I no longer own, I used to DJ often at this venue. And I used to harass this man, the founder of the company, and ask him, how did you build it? When did you start it? What was going through your mind at the time? And seeing him in the flesh, seeing him in person at this high school graduation event for my son, It really just excited me and brought me a renewed enthusiasm for how incredible Five Oaks Lodge is.

So now without any further ado, we have the co -founder of Five Oaks Lodge, Randy, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Clay, I am blown away by this. You’re, you know, I’ve got a lot of energy, but I tell you what, I’m nothing compared to you, I tell you. But that’s the whole reason that I’m here. I look at all this stuff.

You and I are so different in so many ways. But the commonality that we have is this, like, Well, you were bringing it up the other day. It’s like this William Wallace Braveheart passion every day to get up, not only get up, have the passion, but then put the effort in to what you want to achieve. And so I normally wouldn’t even do anything like this. But when you asked me, I thought, Man, I just like being around this guy. I mean, it’s so infectious, you know, his enthusiasm.

And I don’t meet a lot of people like that. And I’m kind of like that, but I’m a junior version of him. But anyway, I’m thrilled to be here. Your place, it’s too bad your radio audience can’t see this, because it’ll knock your soft saw. But anyway. Now, I have a stack of 10 questions I’d like to ask you over the span of about 45 minutes to kind of pace ourselves there.

OK. And I really want to get out of your way to share the story. So first off, I just remember I showed up at this beautiful venue. The year was like 1999 -ish. Adam Spuler was hosting his graduation. He was an Oral Roberts University graduate.

And he says, I’m having my graduation at Five Oaks Lodge. And I thought I’d been to every venue that Tulsa has, every venue that Oklahoma has, maybe every venue that Texas has. I thought I’d been to these venues as a DJ. And I pulled into this place, which still wasn’t done yet. It was like the Death Star from the second Star Wars. It was under construction.

Wow. Fisk, there’s a story behind this. So could you share with us, when did you and your beautiful wife decide to buy the land? And what was that process like? Well, actually, the purchase of the land, there’s major events in our life. And really, the first one was the land purchase.

And we lived out at Lake Keystone, and when you live on a lake, and we lived right on the water, when you live on a lake, you share it with all humanity. And I’m okay with other people, but I like woods, I like privacy, I wanted my own lake. So after two or three years of living out there, I got all the, I think they’re called geological survey maps or something. I had all of them from like 50 mile radius of Tulsa. And I was like, I’m looking for a lake. I want my own lake.

I want it to be big enough to water ski on. And I mean a whopper. And so anyway, they’re few and far between. And of all things, it’s weird how all these moons have lined up for me. But what happened is one of my wife’s sister was dating a guy, and he was over for dinner one night, and I was talking to him about, you know, I want to get a lake. He says, oh, gosh, my partners and I have a lake.

We’re going to build the Golf Club of Oklahoma. And I said, holy smokes, really? Where is it? And he said, oh, it’s on such and such. I said, well, I got the maps. Let’s look at it.

He showed me, and it was like this giant, like 30 -acre lake just close in, in Tulsa County. I was like, holy smoke, I want to just see that. So he took us over there. They were marketing it because they wanted to build the Golf Club of Oklahoma. Well, that ended up falling through for a number of reasons. But anyway, I just wanted to have one acre and get inside the gate.

Because when I drove into this place, even as I say this to you now, I got goosebumps on my arms. Like, oh, good gosh. There’s something like this in this city? I mean, talk about a hidden treasure. That’s not even close to describing it. And, you know, Wynn ain’t done anything with it yet.

It was an old amusement park that its heyday was in the 60s. And this guy built an amusement park, made the dam for the lake. The dam’s 80 foot tall. The lake is like 30 acres. And we literally did our kids water skied on it when they were growing up. So anyway, here I am.

And I saw this property, OK? So I kind of have to forget about it because it’s like, this is out of Randy’s league. But anyway, a year or so passed. And I think it was probably around the late 80s when those savings and loans started going under. And there was all this unusual economic stuff. Yeah.

One thing led to another. And one of the partners of this Grand Lake and this property was like a big player. And his company ended up going bankrupt because of it. somehow got out of it. One guy was left. He was paying on the note.

Well, when these oil guys back then, they’d go down to the bank and sign their name and get two or three million bucks. Well, so he didn’t have any equity in it. And he was watching the value of this property go down and down. And he thought, you know what? I’m just going to give this back to the bank. The guy that gave it back to the bank was the guy that was dating my wife’s sister.

So I knew about the property the moment, the moment that happened. I dedicated my life to getting it. Now, what were you doing at this point? Did you own your own business? Were you working for somebody? What were you doing before you purchased this property?

I didn’t own my own business, but I managed a business like I owned it. It was a manufacturing company. And we made sofas and chairs and it was in Tulsa. And I enjoyed the work because it was special stuff. It was high -end.

It was really interesting to do, but I knew it wasn’t going to be my life’s work. So I was always looking, you know, where am I going to go? What am I going to do? And I knew that wasn’t it, but the idea of getting that property The potential of that was so overwhelming, I couldn’t even figure it out. Now, where did you, because I remember when I was setting up my DJ gear, I was setting up my equipment for Adam Spuler’s graduation, and it was still under construction. I mean, there were aspects of it that were being put together.

And I just remember, I marveled at the front door. I’m going, this front door is epic. And I’ll put footage of this on the screen so our listeners can see it. I could see the pine trees going in. It was epic. The view was epic.

I could see it. And I remember asking one of the members of the catering staff, like, who built this thing? And they go, the guy who owns it built it, or something like that. Could you tell us, I mean, where did you get the logs? Where did you get the materials? Because this is an incredible, incredible, the way you put it together, I mean, it feels like the kind of cabin you would find tucked away in the mountains in Colorado that’s 200 years old, but yet it was brand new.

Where did you find the logs? Where did you find the materials? Walk us through how you built the actual cabin. Okay, because this actually is a really good story. We, when we were out there where we were living, we were, when we finally got the property and that, you know, sometime that would be a fun story to tell, but it’s about a two or three cocktail conversation. So, but anyway, when we finally got the property, we lived there for two or three years or yes, maybe a little bit more than that.

And it was like, We lived in, because it was an amusement park, we lived in an old arcade. And quite honestly, to this day, live in the old arcade. Arcade, old arcade. Yeah, yeah, the old arcade. Skyline Amusement Park was what it was called. So anyway, we lived in the old arcade and we thought, you know, this property’s too neat to not have a really cool log cabin on it.

So we built a log cabin at the south end of the lake. And we really built it for our family to just enjoy and come out and for us to enjoy. And so we built it. And while we were there, We were enjoying it. People would hear about it, and our friends would tell people about it, and then would get some calls and go, gosh, you know, I would love to come out there and do this or do that. I’d like to bring my wife out there, maybe spend the night, or I’d like to have a little dinner.

And we didn’t want any part of that, because we didn’t know anything about that world. It was just like, well, no, this is our house. We don’t want to share it. But then we thought, you know what? You get so many requests. Well, let’s try it.

So one night, this couple came. And I think it was their anniversary. They had two or three other couples there. So we didn’t know anything about that world. And so we thought, well, we probably ought to go down there. We go down there.

They’re having this really wonderful dinner. They’re having drinks. Hey, why don’t you all sit down? We sit down. We had dinner with them. We had drinks.

with them. And they just raved about how great we were and how great this place was. And at the end of the night, they wrote us a check and we thought, OK, there’s something to this. So we ended up starting renting out that small little cabin. Well, the more we rented out that cabin, the more people would find out about it. And there was a guy that was a big HR guy with a major company in Tulsa.

I don’t know if we mentioned the names or not. It doesn’t matter. But it was a big company in Tulsa. Man, Randy, I’d love to bring our stuff. You just don’t have a bigger place. Well, We thought, you know, maybe we ought to think about something like that.

Because quite honestly, when you run a bed and breakfast, which is what it was, you’re not sitting around drinking wine with people and just having a blast and making a bunch of money. Basically, what you are is you’re cleaning, you’re washing the dishes. you’re making sure they get all the stuff. My wife’s going down there at 6 .30 in the morning. So anyway, you work all week. And back then, you didn’t make really anything, but it was fun.

But my veterinarian, because we had animals, he said, hey, Randy, I’ve got a group that would like We’re gonna have a picnic and we wanna come out there. Could we have a picnic? And I said, well, I don’t know, I guess so. He nodded the cap and he said, we just wanna have it by the lake. Well, there was an old, where they used to have bath houses and stuff and there’s some concrete there by the lake. And so he said, yeah, you can have it here.

Well, I remember Claudia and I, my wife, were in our car and watched these people. He said, well, what do you wanna charge? I said, I don’t know, let’s say $4 a person. Well, that was in 19, Oh, when was that? Mid -90s. And so we had like about 150 people.

Well, there was like $600. And it was like we watched them in a car and did nothing. And we didn’t make that all week at the bed and breakfast. So we thought, OK, we got to build something. Now, the next step was east of Tulsa. There was a big log lodge being built to be a restaurant.

And the guy that was building it might have had another restaurant, or I can’t remember what it was. Maybe it was the second one. That really doesn’t matter. But it kind of sat there for a while. And the guy that was building it was the guy that built our cabin. And so I asked him, I said, Ron, what’s going on with this?

Oh, well, he’s kind of having some financial trouble. And I said, well, you know, and the building wasn’t even all the way built. It was just built about six foot tall all the way around. But they sat there, and it sat there for over a year. And I said, well, you know what? guy ever flakes out on you, I’m interested in it.

OK, here’s a really cool thing that happened. So anyway, I had a new truck, which was kind of a big deal for me at the time. It was a new Dodge truck. One of my employees wrecked it. And it was like, OK, I get the insurance money. And it was for $10 ,300.

I had the check in my pocket. I’d had it in my pocket for no more than two days. I get a phone call. Randy, yeah, I say, hey, this Ron, you know, with the guy with the big building. I said, oh, wow. Hey, how are you?

And he said, well, this guy’s not going to do it. Are you still interested in the building? I said, you bet. I said, what do you want for it? He said, $10 ,000. I said, well, I got that in my hip pocket.

And that’s how it got started. So for $10 ,000, you bought the start of a building. What all did you get for the $10 ,000? For the $10 ,000, we got the first six feet of the building and then because we didn’t want to do it like the way they were going to do it. And so the rest of it we kind of made a deal with him on how we would want to finish it out. And so and quite honestly I’m trying to remember I can’t even remember what the total was.

to finish it all, but it was a whole lot more than $10 ,000. But that’s what got us started. And the fireplace is gorgeous. The fixtures are gorgeous. Did you build the fireplace? Or how did that fireplace and the fixtures come together?

No, the fireplace, I wanted something, you know, because I’m like a fire guy. I was making fires when I was like five. Right. So I was like, oh, I’m going to have a fireplace. I’m going to have a whopper. And actually, kind of a fun story, the first event we had Of course, I want to use this fireplace.

And I mean, it was a high end event. I mean, ladies in long gowns and stuff. gloves. logs left over from the building. I had five and six foot logs of these big pine logs that were a foot in diameter. I loaded that thing.

I mean, I had a fire in there that, like, frightened people. I mean, they were thinking about it. They were like, you know, should we stick around? I mean, it was. I didn’t ever do it afterwards. But anyway, the fireplace was a fun thing to build because we wanted it to be substantial.

You know, and I’d seen photographs of some of the old stuff that were in the national parks and stuff. And that was kind of part of the inspiration of that. Now, I’m going to put footage on the screen so our listeners can see drone footage, aerial footage of your venue. Because I’d really, there’s not an adjective that I have that quite describes it. Well, I just remember I was at a wedding. This is probably, you’ve been open for a couple of years now.

And a little context, our company would often provide entertainment at your venue. You know, 50 events a year, 100 events a year. I was there all the time. It’s like I lived there almost. And the couple says, we’re going to have a helicopter pick us up. after we say our vows, after we have the reception, a helicopter is going to pick us up and take us off.

And I’m going, really? And they were able to land there. And I thought, and there’s been multiple times when I would get there and the parking lot’s full. And I’m thinking, there’s no way that all these cars are going to fit. And you’ve enumerated all the parking spots. And there’s a circular turnaround.

And you’ve really thought through a lot of nuances that make it possible to, by my estimation, provide accommodations for, what, 250 people inside, outside, no matter what the weather is. Can you talk about just some of the nuances and changes you’ve made over the years? Because a helicopter can land there. You can be dropped off in a torrential downpour and not get wet. You’ve really thought about a lot of details here. It’s awesome.

Well, it was all It was just basic. I mean, really, when I walked around your place, same thing. It was like a working process. You know, you start out and you, okay, you want to do this and then you and then you realize gosh we need more parking our parking lot was half the size of what it is now and so we know when you when you realize you know what we really do have a business here We need to expand, so we expanded the parking lot. And then it was like, well, let’s make it a little nicer.

So we planted pine trees all along in the parking lot. Then we planted pine trees all along our border. And we did make a way people could drop off and turn around. And talking about, you know, you’ve thought all this stuff out. That’s a wonderful thing to say, but quite honestly, the reality of so much of this is They go, oh man, you’ve had this vision. Not really.

I just want to do something cool. I love the building. I love the idea of logs. And it was cool. And then just one thing led to another. I don’t have the foresight to figure it all out ahead of time, like normal people that would do something like that, that lays it all out and plots it and all that stuff.

We kind of go by the seat of our pants. And when we see something, we shift gears and make it happen. Now, it was two years ago, I was at an event Five Oaks Lodge, your place, for something. And I had one of my kids with me. And I said, guys, listen, as much as we had to pay to be at this thing, OK, we got to crush the cappuccino bar, OK? So we’re going to get all hopped up on cappuccinos and espressos.

And you were the first venue that I know of that offered complimentary espresso, cappuccino, coffee bar. And you have cups. You didn’t go with the styrofoam cups. You have nice coffee cups that have the Five Oaks name on it there. Could you walk us through? I mean, in full context, I was going to every wedding venue.

I mean, the Renaissance Hotel, Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Gaylord texan in texas you name the venue. I was there often because we were doing 4 ,000 events a year. So I was everywhere. But you were the first guy to bring the cappuccino machine. All right.

Let me tell you how all that happened. And I’m glad you brought it up, because I surely wouldn’t want to forget this. When Claudia and I started that business, it was like, gosh, I hope this works. We’ve got some money on the table here. And so, I mean, we would take, like, I mean, I like to tell people, you know, we were like hookers. It didn’t matter what it was, we’d take it.

Well, that was in the early days. I mean, we had parties where guys had just a white table and they’d put one of those orange worker bee water jugs on the table. But when our daughter, when our daughter came to our business, that’s what, Clay, that’s what changed everything. She has elevated that business to what it should have been all along from the start. And that, quite honestly, another little aspect of that, when I started that, I was like, OK, I want to do this. I hope this is one of the nicest and most wonderful things.

I wish she was standing right here beside me. So I’ve told her this. I never really knew my daughter. The one that runs Five Oaks. I never really knew her that well, even though I was her father. But when she started running our business, it has been the most pleasant thing for me to watch her grow and watch her be so much better than what we were.

She’s the one that did the cups. She’s the one that had the nice this. He’s the one that… Claudia and I, we probably would have made it. We would have never made it. And when she has an event now, it’s first class.

It’s well done. There’s orchids. There’s, you know, dog and pony shows. So… my daughter, Nicole, and she’s the one doing it now. And she’s the one that’s really made it what it is.

Now, again, Nicole, I lived through the Nicole experience. When Nicole showed up, she took it to the next level. I noticed that the bride preparation room went to the next level. The bathrooms went to the next level. The beverages went to the next level. The catering service went to the next level.

The whole business went to the next level. But I have kind of a rapid fire questions for you, more just facts and figures real quick so people can kind of get a little context here. I believe that Five Oaks Lodge is approximately 185 acres. Am I wrong? How large is the property? It used to be.

It was 185 acres originally. I ended up selling 22 acres of it in the back that we never went on or did anything with. And so now we’re like 185 minus 22. So that’s the full acreage. OK, and then the next question is, people look you up online all the time. We see Randy and Claudia.

Is the last name pronounced Emel? Is that how we say it? It’s pronounced Emil, I -M -E -L. Emil, OK. And what was Claudia doing before you guys bought Five Oaks Lodge? What was she?

Because I guess the furniture in there, the decor in there, indicates that both of you were doing something Something related to decor, furniture, something. What was she doing before you guys opened Five Oaks? I’m glad you brought her up, because I would have not been in trouble, but it would have been so wrong to have this conversation without putting her maybe in the first paragraph. She is so creative. And the two of us together, quite honestly, are dangerous. And actually, my daughter, too, when I get with her.

Because we all have ideas. We’re not afraid to spout them off. And a lot of times, they’re dumb. But a lot of times, they’re home runs. But my wife is the more designer, creative type. that kind of detail where I’m wanting to build a log and make the corner of a building notch work well.

You know, she’s wanting to make sure the window treatment is really nice and the bar looks cool, you know, when it opens up. So, you know, one thing I do want to also, when you’re talking about how it changed in 2008, when all that stuff was going on with Oh, Fannie Mae and all that stuff? OK. Well, it was like, boy, a lot of these businesses were having trouble. And we thought, you know what? Gosh, maybe our business was going to suffer of all of this.

We were letting caterers cater every event at our place. That’s OK, because we really didn’t want to do the food. We wanted to make sure the building looked right, get the floor swept, welcome everybody when they’re there, and then tell them how glad we were they came. But what happens in that kind of situation is they would come to the party, and I would even, I’ve overheard at least twice people say, oh, And this venue was, like, so good. It’s so wonderful. But boy, the food they do is just really, it’s just kind of mediocre.

And it was like, you know what? We’re not doing the food. But they didn’t know that. And we didn’t want to have a sign at the front of the door that said, by the way, the food you eat, it’s not us. So we thought, you know, we’re leaving a lot of money on the table on this food. And in 2008, we thought, maybe we better do this, just if nothing else, to keep us afloat.

That was one of the best thing, maybe the best decision we ever made in our business because my wife is so good at that. She is such a great cook. And I always, I mean, if you give me a raw piece of meat, a fire and a metal stick, I can poke it with, I can grill it. And so the two of us together, really do nice meals. And the meals that happen at Five Oaks, it’s not like catered food.

Catered food is you make it on Wednesday, and you serve it on Friday. When Claudia and I do it, it’s a big puzzle to finish it up right before 7 o ‘clock. Everything comes together, and it’s out like a restaurant. And it’s fun. And the staff that we work with, that my daughter, hires are like fun people. So all that stuff, we get it ready right on time, and it’s so enjoyable doing it.

Now, I have more questions getting into the logistics here. Can people stay there? Like if somebody wants to, say someone’s getting married, they have a wedding, can they stay overnight there? Or if somebody’s planning an anniversary, or someone just wants a weekend getaway, do you have accommodations for people to stay there? We do. We have one place that kind of fits that parameter, and it’s called Curly’s Cabin.

It’s called Curly’s Cabin because I used to run Highland Cattle out of there. The first calf that was born at Five Oaks, Scottish Highland calf, was named Curly. Now he’s kind of an internet star, and they sell his pictures. We sold him. But anyway, Curly’s Cabin is a cabin we built for that very thing. And people can spend the night there.

Now we also have other places. places on the property, but it’s where people live year -round. Like the cabin that’s in the back that started us all out, that is rented year -round. And we’ve got other things on the property. But you can do an overnight stay there, and it’s called Curly’s Cabin on Airbnb, I’m pretty sure. So there’s a cabin on the property where people live year -round?

Who lives there? And in generic terms, I mean, is that a house? Well, yeah. Yeah. It’s like, like, say, the cabin that’s in the back where we started and did the first little work. There’s a person that lives there.

full time. We have what we call a carriage house that’s built over our garage. Somebody lives there. There was an old ticket booth that was really cool because it had like about 20 windows in it. And we drove into our property. You’d see it.

It’s the first thing you saw on the left. Well, we ended up kind of fixing that, the ticket booth up. And so that’s a place where people rent year round. It feels like you’re going to a town from the Wild West. And I’ll tell you this, I was already – I’m into the Wild West. I’m just saying, I was already completely sold on everything about it.

But when I sold DJ Connection, there was a window of time, we’ll call it seven years, six years, where I was traveling around a lot, speaking in Las Vegas often, San Antonio often. And when I came back, I noticed, wow, they’re building a lot of stuff. And then when I came back this year, I noticed what appears to be a place where people can have their horses trained or something, maybe a board and train. What are you doing now with this large facility that you’ve now constructed? Excuse me. Well, this building was the most fun thing I’ve done since I’ve been on that property.

We had a place on the property that was a concrete for lack of a better term, swimming pool that was circular. It wasn’t a swimming pool. It was a boat ride for the amusement park. It was 130 feet in diameter and two feet deep concrete. You could fill water in it, and they’d put bumper boats in it. I looked at that space for 25 years thinking, what are we going to do with that thing?

When the coronavirus came, we had all sorts of time to do stuff because the government came in and said, you know what? You can’t. do any business. You’re out of business. And it’s fortunate that, you know, we were stable enough, because that raked a lot of people.

I mean, it put a lot of people under. But I spent the three years of the coronavirus building this custom, hand -hewn, timbered log building. And I thought, you know, if I’m going to build a barn, I’m going to build a cool barn, because it’s what people are going to see when they first drive in. So I went all over the country. I didn’t win. I didn’t go.

I called people all over the country, because I wanted it to be a certain thing. To be a hexagon, number one, I wanted it to have logs with live edges on the top and the bottom. I didn’t want it to look like Lincoln Logs where it had gone through a saw. And to find somebody to do that, It looked like it was going to be impossible. But I finally found this one guy. It’s too bad I don’t have a picture of him.

This guy’s like a modern -day Paul Bunyan. He’s like about 350. He had worked in a machine shop for 25 years. He had just stopped and was building timber frame homes. But he just got started. And so when I called him, I don’t know.

I mean, I found him. I was like, you know, I was calling everybody. He kind of sounded interested. I said, look, I’ll pay you $1 ,000. I’ll send you up some money. See if you can figure it out, because these other people, they don’t want to try to figure it out.

He ended up getting it, and it was just the right time for him. But he got it, and he kind of figured out how to do it. And so we decided, he agreed, and he built the barn at his place in northern Pennsylvania. He got the logs. I had to have the logs custom cut from Forrest. He built it at his place, and then he sent it down here, and we reconstructed it.

And as I’m telling this story, I remember when it was time to come down, and he said, oh, Randy, I can’t come down. I said, the heck you can’t come down. He said, no, I got hurt. I said, I don’t care if you’re hurt. I want you down here.

I’m not going to try to build this thing. What if we have a problem? He said, you won’t have a problem. I said, OK, I can’t come up there and get you, but send it down. He sent it down. That thing went together like a glove.

It went together so perfect, and we got it built. Is it a guest house on top of the barn? Yeah, actually on top of the barn, Clay, I wanted to build like a luxury residence, because that’s where I wanted to live. But I started it. a couple of years too late because, well, two things. Because my wife and I are building a house now, and that’s where we’re going to live.

Because we’re still in the arcade. We’re moving out of the arcade. But anyway, I wanted to live upstairs in the barn because it looks out over a lake. It looks out over a lodge. It looks all over my horses, all the animals. I can see the cattle from there.

But when I decided to build that, my wife and I have a fabulous marriage. We’ve had three major arguments in 40 years. And I mean that. That’s it. But I told her, on this, I don’t want any strings attached. I don’t want you telling me no to anything.

I want to do every single bit of this myself. No matter what, even if it’s stupid, I want to have free reign over all this. So she said, OK, fine. Did it. Well, now, on her home, she wants to do it. is the same thing.

And that’s fine, because she’s so much better at it than me. So I got to build the barn, and she’s building the house. That’s how my wife and I did this office. I did the office, and I got to do the pool, and then she did the house. That’s how we did it. Now, so is it used?

Can people stay there on top of the barn? Actually, what we do now is because my wife decided she didn’t want to live in Randy’s barn, we rent that out year round. So that’s like a residence. But it’s super nice. I mean, it’s 2 ,500 feet. It’s fabulous.

Is it one person that stays there perpetually? Or can someone rent it right now? Well, actually, right now, the people that were living there moved out and so we’re in between, but we’ve got somebody living there now. Claudia thought, well, we’ll put that on a, you know, and I’m not involved in all this. She puts it on some website and it’s rented out for like for the week. So there’s actually some people there that are coming to Tulsa to do a building project and they’re going to live there for like a week or two or something.

But after that, it’ll be available. And I’m telling you, it’s well, you walk in that thing, you would, You personally, knowing you like it, you would love it. It’s gorgeous. Now, a couple other questions I have here for you, and I appreciate every second of your time here, is you had a vision. Did you have every answer? No.

Did you have every detail? No. Did you know about the cups? No. But you knew that Action was the real measure of intelligence. You know, Napoleon Hill says, action is the real measure of intelligence.

Whether you knew that quote or not, you know, you talk about Thomas Edison. He said, vision without execution is hallucination. Whether you knew that quote or not, that’s just, you know, Thomas Edison said that knowledge without application is meaningless. The point is, you weren’t going to just have the vision, doodle on it, put it in a notebook, and move on. You weren’t just going to go buy a moleskin, write down your goal, and move on. You and I, where we connected, our intersection of our two brains, is you’re going to get it done.

And I wanted to see if you could speak into the life of someone watching this who is going, you know, I’ve been thinking about getting it done, but they’ve been on the fence. What do you say to someone about just getting it done, just going forward, making the changes as you learn, you know, you’re learning as you go, you’re finding the tools, making the changes as you go. But what do you say to someone who’s been putting their dreams on hold for a decade or two? Well, here, there’s a couple of things. The first thing I like to say about it, and it’s what I told my kids, there’s no substitute, period, in America or probably anywhere for effort. And I mean effort.

And I learned that just somehow when I was young. And I was like in junior high and high school. And I thought, you know, this really isn’t that hard. It probably wouldn’t be that hard to make all A’s. But nobody else that much, would you? B’s, C’s, whatever.

I thought, well, I can make all A’s. I just got to work hard on the other guy. And I was never really as smart as the other guy as far as like, You know, if you took a standardized test or something, but there was nobody that was going to outwork me, nobody. And the effort, I think that that’s actually. I don’t know if I just told you at the first of this conversation. One of the reasons I wanted to come here is because you and I are so different.

You’ve got this high -tech stuff, a modern -day wizard with all this stuff, and I’m just like an old cowboy. But the thing that we both share is we have a passion and then the willing to do it and the effort. You can’t be real successful, and there’s no substitute for it. But that’s the fun of it. That’s the thing. I think a lot of people, well, I got to do that.

I got to work hard. No, no, no. That’s the fun of the deal is putting out the effort. Before I do something like the next day, I go to bed at night, and I think exactly what I’m going to do. I’ll map it out in my mind. And if it’s a building thing, I’ll even figure out the tools I’m going to use and what the sequence is going to be.

And I go to bed, and I’m like, oh, Like when I wake up, man, I’m like every morning I wake up, I’m excited to be able to get up and put forth what I’ve thought about all night. And I’m telling you, people don’t… I really don’t think there’s enough importance put on that in when they teach things in schools and stuff, because, you know, the X’s and O’s are one thing, but you’ve got to get out there and get your hands dirty and get after it. of the inheritance for ye serve the Lord Christ. What does that mean? It means work is under the Lord.

It’s book of Genesis and Exodus. They talk about working six days a week and resting on the seventh. The word work in Hebrew means worship. The actual word work in Hebrew means worship and the actual word worship means work. So work is not something that should be, we should hide from, something we should escape from. Effort is the fun part.

Work is the fun part. I got two final questions for you. Five Oaks Lodge. There’s a lot of urban legend about the name. Where did the name Five Oaks Lodge come from? OK, you know the movie Gone with the Wind?

OK, so in the movie Gone with the Wind, they would go over to, gosh, I can’t think of the name of the guy. It wasn’t Clark Gable, but it was the other guy that Vivian Lee liked. But anyway, he had a property, and it was Ashley Wilkes, had a property. It was called Twelve Oaks. And even as a young person, when I’d heard that name, I don’t know why, but it just resonated almost lyrically with me. It was like, 12 O’s.

Gosh, that’s so beautiful. And also, in that movie, one of the themes of that is those people, they love land. They loved it. It meant everything to them. And when we got that property, I was the same way. I felt so blessed, so blessed to have it.

And I thought, gosh. I’d like to name that something like that. Whoa. So I thought, oh, you know, there’s five people in our family. We’ll name it Five Oaks, because we’ve got a lot of oak trees. Well, so that’s how the name got going.

But what happened after I decided, OK, we’re going to name it Five Oaks, back then, Clyde and I, we had no money left. We’d bought that property. You know, we’re getting by, but it wasn’t anything extra. But because it was five oaks, I wanted to buy five oak trees, nice ones. I wanted to plant them. All our kids were a little bitty.

It would have these trees grow up, and it would be kind of our big thing that you’d see when we drove in the property. I bought the five oak tree. They were $200 a piece. That was $1 ,000. That’d be like me spending $100 ,000 now, believe me. I set them on our lake right on the edge where they can have water and wouldn’t dry out. The next day, when I got up, I was walking down to the lake.

Beavers came and cut every one of those five oaks trees. So I never got to plant the five oaks trees, but the name stayed. But I want to say something else, because you brought up a biblical thing. We have felt, my wife and I have felt so blessed to have this property. And we honestly do, together. feel like it was a total godsend because there’s too many things that had to happen for us to be able, we were regular people, to have a shot at getting something this grand.

And so we look at that land like stewards, and I hope my daughter I know we’ll keep it. I’ll tell you why she’ll keep it. There was somebody that wanted to buy an acre of our property, good friends of ours, borderists. I said, hey, Nicole, I’m thinking about selling an acre of our property. We could have made like $150 ,000. And, you know, and she said, Papa, I would sell my organs before I’d sell one acre of this property.

And when she sold it, said that, I thought, OK, she’s the next generation. So I’m hoping after her, her children or my other children’s children will do the same thing and keep it going, because it’s too special to be cut up. You know, I want to leave people with a notable quotable that comes to mind when I think about you. Inspiration is the reward. Inspiration is the reward.

So think about this, folks. Inspiration is the reward, and inaction is the giant, but action is the sword. What am I saying? Inspiration is the reward you’re gonna have if you take action. Inspiration is the reward. Inaction, not doing something, that is the real giant facing most people.

It’s inaction is the giant. Inaction is your sword to slay that giant. And if you’re looking for a place to inspire your family, a place to celebrate a big event, a big upcoming event in your life, maybe a birthday, graduation, something, Or you’re just looking to go visit something that’s inspiring, that’ll inspire your senses and cause you to want to do more, to be more, to achieve more. Check out fiveoakslodge . com. Randy, I’ll give you the final word.

What do you want to say to our listeners out there that are probably taking notes there, sir? I just want to thank you for having me on. I never hardly do anything like this because I’d be busy doing something else. I’ve got so many projects. And like I said earlier, the only reason I took it is because it’s fun being around you. It’s fun listening to you talk.

It’s fun seeing somebody that’s more enthusiastic than me. And anyway, it was a real treat to get to come here, see your operation. And I just want to thank you for the time. Thank you so much, Randy. And again, folks, that website, 5oakslodge . com, 5oakslodge .

com. Thanks again, sir. And we’ll end this thing with a boom. Here we go. 3, 2, 1, boom. But Clay Clark, man, he is one.

character that’s a good word for him character yeah that is it good driven smart and i’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time he’s doing so much good and then i met his mother and she just says she just lets him be clay clark i mean so you know he’s endorsed by his mother And he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. His client Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah, he’s he’s like, he’s he’s a machine. He’s a machine.

But his you know, I could I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes. Hundreds of people showing up at 5am in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s fantastic young man. No, he is.

He is. And it’s, so it’s, it’s, um, you know, for, for the folks that aren’t familiar with you and by a few and far between, I first came across you, gosh, probably 15 years ago, or maybe even 20. Clay Clarke is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay is the greatest. I met his goats today.

I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right?

His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. going to have an amazing business conference here at Tulsa, Russia. Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters, June 5th and 6th. He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman Award winner. But he’s also a very successful entrepreneur.

Now, when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies, do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? every day. How often is is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s almost it’s like maybe 90 % of the issues as people are trying to grow their company. Well Tim Tebow is going to come join us here at the in -person Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshop and he’s going to teach us Time management and his approach to personal self -discipline and getting things done.

Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here. Also at the two -day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? getting leads? Is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops?

Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners and being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control, then generally the numbers You know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. And we teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay. You love to hammer on time management. It’s my favorite part of the conference. Now, I’m going to pull this up real quick here, because we’re going to go through it.

If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here. The two -day interactive workshop. This is my 20th year hosting workshops. So I’m telling you folks, we’re in rare form here. So one is the idea of establishing your revenue goals. I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals.

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

Yeah. perception that people have of you, your business, your brand. Box number six. Marketing, your three -legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed? Because if you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed.

If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads. Sean, how often do business owners by default tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. And many times, they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth.

So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems, and then they need to create more. more leads, but they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Create a sales conversion system. Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system.

Sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre -written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business, whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you got to have sales systems in place. We help you with that. Box number eight. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized.

We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization. Box number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people, on the planet Earth. This just in. We’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people.

Box number 13, accounting. This just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know. And step 14, finally, What is the point of even achieving success? We’re going to go over what is the point of even achieving success, how to design a life that you’re excited about, how to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re going to spend your focused time.

We’re going to go through that, all this and more. Now, the workshop, Sean, it’s June 5th and 6th. It’s a two -day interactive workshop. And tickets, we always do it. It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford. Sean, why do we let people name their price?

Why do we have scholarship tickets available? if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission tickets? Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You know, you could be at a startup phase, or you could be, you know, way along in your business. But we want to make it accessible for everybody. I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad.

And, like, it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that, you know, you’re just, your average people out there have access to the things that work. Now 7 a . m. to 5 p . m. Sean why don’t we go from 7 to 5 both days I mean it’s 10 hours a day.

20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back -to -back workshops? We do a 30 -minute teaching session. We do a 15 -minute question -and -answer session. And then we take a break. 30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question -and -answer.

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

It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoy it a lot. Sean, final 60 seconds, pop quiz here. What date is the conference? June 5th and 6th, 2025, this year. Question number two, who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean?

Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in -person two -day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I think it’s, uh, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford. Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards? P -U -M -U -R -T C -U -M -U -R -T.

I -R -E. Ooh, that took a long time. I’ll have to listen to this. All right, again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, and inviting you to come join us at the in -person Thrive Time show, two -day interactive workshop, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Russia, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sean, I really am excited to have this event.

I’m excited to see you at the event, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tim Tebow, baby. It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Russia. Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show.

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

People are so excited to be here for day two. Here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too technical. for me.

Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable. It’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break. And what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them.

And also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. Ice represents our life, right? We’re here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to make the most of the time that we have. I own an insurance and financial services agency, and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big on systems and processes and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none.

It’s a high energy, really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious, I would say. something every entrepreneur I think would appreciate and love. I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance, which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars maybe are high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of substance that you can take back and implement the following Monday, where his does. Man, that’s a lot of valuable things.

I’m gonna say, like, I came to, this is my second workshop. The first workshop, I took back, really, the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that, saving my time on that part, is valuable. It was that, and then the sales scripting, that have been two major things, just so far. Man, I think, you know, it’s, you know, I think they’re missing out on expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons. That’s what I’m always looking for, is somebody that I can learn from, that’s ahead of where I am.

And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business. he had been doing for them and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden so I was willing to listen. In my career I’ve sold a little over 800 million dollars in real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes and And then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15 -year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes.

And, I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without clay. So when I came to know clay, I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know. I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own.

So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. And it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry.

I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time

are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic, and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town.

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

I know for me the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800 % increase in our Internet leads going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it, because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years, and my three kids started school, and they were in school full time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide, what do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people.

I love the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago.

And in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing.

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

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

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

He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development. and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects. You know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you. So congratulations.

We can move from expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000. Hi, I’m Kelsey with K &D’s Woodruff Finishing. I’m a business owner at 23. So, I’ve been working this K &E’s company for about five years now, and we started working with Thrive not too long ago. Expecting maybe this year to, we’re at full seat. So we’re pretty excited about that.

Just listening to what they have to say, their hiring process, has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help, and the, just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly, and such good insight, the resources they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience. So I’d recommend it to anybody. What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system and it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones that people can work with on a day to day basis.

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

about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So I’m going to check my notes here. So in four months, my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week. Now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees.

I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. Hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month, if that, and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews and interviewing every single week.

It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time on… low -quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Luke’s like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be when I’m being lazy and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them. So that’s just great. Worth every penny.

I mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. do what they say even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous just do what they say because it’ll work um you know people when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes.

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

So it’s the best thing ever. And I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long -winded reply, but I just had so much to say, and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me, and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. My saying is, if it’s important to you, hire a coach.

And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean? And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, you know, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches. So I’ve always had coaches for whatever is important. My rich dad was one of those persons. You’re on it, man.

You’re on it. You’re on it. Everybody listen to this guy. He knows what he’s talking about. You have the macro picture. Very few people have that point of view.

Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur.

Transcribed with Cockatoo