How to Grow a Successful Optometry Clinic + Seeing Is Believing: The 2X Growth of Tupelo, Mississippi-Based Optometry Clinic EyesFirstMS.com w/ Clay Clark & Doctor Steve Beaty + Testimonials At ThrivetimeShow.com

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

HOOOOO – Who’s ready to rock today, Fire Nation? JLD here, and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all -in -one sales and marketing platform. Today, we’ll be breaking down how seeing is believing, the 2X growth of Tupelo, Mississippi -based optometry clinic, eyesfirstms . com. And to drop these value bombs, I brought Clay Clark with special guest, Dr. Steve Batey in the EO Fire Studios. Clay is a co -founder of 5Kids, host of the six times iTunes chart -topping Thrive time show .

com podcast, the 2007 Oklahoma SBA of the year and an Amazon bestselling author, singer, songwriter, and founder of several multimillion dollar businesses. And today we talk about how Legion can equal leverage systems at scale, the wow factor, measuring what matters and oh so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today’s episode goes to Clay and our sponsors. Stop duct taping your business together. High Level runs your website, your funnels, email, automation, scheduling, payments, and memberships all in one place. And when you sign up at highlevelfire .

com, you get a 30 -day free trial plus my exclusive bonus stack that includes weekly office hours with me and much more. Visit highlevelfire . com, highlevelfire . com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something, short and strategic step -by -step videos by me, JLD.

On day 50, you’ll have a valuable asset, and the best part is it’s completely free. Visit eofire . com slash YouTube and start day one today. Seeing is believing a fire nation. We are here to have a great episode as always with clay Clark. I mean, when clay car comes, we have the energy, we have the passion, we have the absolute fire and nothing’s going to change here.

And we’re gonna be talking about how lead gen actually equals leverage. And of course we have a very special guest. today that Clay is going to introduce. And so Clay, let’s just start by talking about how you believe that creating turnkey lead generation, it directly, not indirectly, directly increases compensation. And we all want those dollar dollar bills. So how does that work and where exactly should entrepreneurs start?

In terms of lead generation, there’s two areas I want to focus on. One is you want to generate leads for new potential customers that pay you. So if you’re listening to today’s show and you have a business, you need to generate new leads, new people that could potentially pay you, new potential customers. And I think that’s what people think of when they think of lead generation. However, a second kind of lead generation is you need to be able to also recruit high quality talent, right? So you need to generate leads for new employees as well, right?

If you own a business, you need to have great staff, great employees. You don’t want to be held hostage. by people that don’t want to work for you. So really, at the end of the day, the more leads you have, it will increase your probability of success. So I want everyone to go to Google real quick, and I want you to pull up a website called eyesfirstms . com.

Eyes, E -Y -E -S, first, F -I -R -S -T -M -S . com. Eyes First Mississippi. That’s eyesfirstms . com. And you’re going to see our featured guest today.

You’re going to see his website. He’s an optometrist. And the question I would ask you is, is his company growing because he got better as an optometrist in the last 12 months? I mean, did I hop on a call with him at a JLD and teach this man how to treat the human eyeball with better clarity? Did I talk to this guy about pupils and retinas? Have we had in -depth conversations about glaucoma or have we simply helped him to generate more leads as it relates to potential customers and more leads as it relates to potential employees?

And I think if you do your research and you look into it, you’ll see This wonderful, diligent doctor and client is growing because he’s implementing JLD, a turnkey system. find great employees and great potential customers. Fire Nation, this is exactly why somebody like Dr. Steve Beatty brings somebody like Clay Clark into his world. Because I pulled up that website, and by the way, right away it just says, home of the $99 deal, new patient eye exam, experienced one of the highest rated optometrists, two below Mississippi teams today, and there’s two simple actions, book online today, or read our reviews. I guarantee you, and I mean I guarantee you, if I go to any website of any other optometrist, not even in Mississippi, the entire southeastern part of this country, and it’s going to be miserable, terrible, ugly, gross, and just a disaster. And this one’s super clean, and and I only have two possible options, booking online today or reading the reviews, which of course is what Clay specializes in and why he absolutely crushes it.

So Clay, bring in our special guest and let’s start having some great conversations. All right, so Dr. Steve, I’ve got three quick rapid fire questions for you. First off, how did you initially hear about the business coaching that we provide here at thrivetimeshow . com? Oh, hey, Clay. Well, initially, I heard about you about, you know, through the reawakening tours that you were doing a few years back.

And I was just so excited about what you were doing, you know, as far as like freedom in the nation. That’s just what we were founded on. And then I found I was Googling It was kind of a happenstance thing. I was Googling for business coaches or business seminars or something along those lines related to optometry and I stumbled upon you again. And so it’s one of those things. Hey, maybe God’s telling you something here.

You should follow this guy. And we came out. We came out to one of your two day workshops. And we’ve been with you ever since. That was about a year ago, I believe. Now question number two is have you grown or how could you quantify how much a growth you’ve had since we met?

So one thing that you’ve really taught us really well is to track our numbers and I’m not I am a numbers guy I mean I do numbers I don’t have that memorized but I can pull up like at any minute I can pull up my tracking sheet and so I’m gonna do that right now actually. Pulling up, feeling the flow, looking at the track. Yes, sir. But I will tell you as far as leads goes now, our leads are up tremendously. But one of the things that we’ve really done well, you know, through your program is we’re capturing revenue better than we used to. So our accounts receivable was just kind of getting haywire.

We deal with insurance companies. We deal with, you know, patients that, you know, thought that this was all like a free clinic or something like that for whatever reason and so we’re just get a whole lot better about collecting revenue from the the patients. You think your leads are up two times? Our leads are up because we were doing pretty well actually before we had a lot of patients but our leads are up about 40 % 40 percent and then as far as so again for anybody out there again i’m just trying to give you this is a real optometrist on a real broadcast clearly unscripted question number three i have for then we’ll go back to jld is you you are mastering all of the systems i mean you’re not just doing marketing you’re not just again with our business coaching we help you with your marketing we help you with the tracking of the numbers we help you with the hiring how could you explain the impact it’s made focusing on hiring good people focusing on acquiring new customers and focusing on your numbers on your numbers simultaneously. What kind of impact has it made on your company eyesfirstms . com?

Well, you know, you implement one thing and you’re going to some traction. You implement two things. You’re going to get a little bit more traction, but you implement three things and you have compounding traction. So I think that’s one of the beauties of, of what you do, Clay, is that you help businesses to know how to implement multiple things simultaneously. And honestly, for us, one of the biggest, um, you know, gains that we’ve had is knowing how to interview potential employees and to bring those employees on and get them all pulling in the same direction.

That’s really been the key for us. JLD, I’ll go back to you. But again, this is a real optometrist who’s growing his real company. And JLD, when people go to Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash EO fire Thrivetimeshow . com forward slash EO fire, we have over 2000 documented client success stories over a span of 21 years.

Doctors, lawyers, dentists, online product, people that sell online products, people that invent products, people that build buildings, people that build houses. JLD, it’s not industry specific. These are super moves that all your listeners can use. Wildfire Nation, you can feel the heat coming off of Clay’s microphone right now, and we have more coming up as soon as we get back from thinking our sponsors. Fire Nation, ideas are exciting, but systems will allow you to create freedom. That is where high level comes in.

High level allows you to build and run your entire business from one platform. Website builder and hosting, funnel and landing pages, email marketing, automation and workflows, calendar booking, payments and subscriptions, even course and membership hosting. Everything works together. seamlessly plus award -winning 24 seven support. So you are never stuck. And when you go through my link at high level fire .

com, you will lock my full bonus stack, a 30 day free trial of high level with full access. a private 50 -minute coaching call with me, weekly live office hours with me, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 Days to Something Execution Roadmap, and more. Stop piecing tools together, start building momentum. Visit highlevelfire . com and start building your something today. Fire Nation, are you ready to create something special in just 50 days?

If you just thought, yes, then check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something. Every video is short, clear, and built to move you forward one intentional step at a time. Clarity, offer, validation, systems, momentum. By day 50, you are not working on something, you have built something, something special. to be proud of. And this is completely free on my YouTube channel right now.

If you’re done letting weeks just drift on by, visit eofire . com slash YouTube. That’s eofire . com slash YouTube and press play on day one. 50 days will pass in the blink of an eye. The only question is whether you’ll still be thinking or finally building something special.

Fire Nation, I can tell you that Clay’s been a partner of the show for over five years. I’ve personally been to two of his events in Tulsa in person, and I’ve seen, you know, the Steves of the world have their businesses and lives change as a result over and over and over again. And one thing that I’ve always loved, Clay, that you do so well, and I’d love to talk about maybe how Steve has experienced this, is the wow factor. I mean, The wow factor is something so few businesses deliver. It’s just sad because why would you not want to? And I want to talk about how you can build systems that are consistently creating a customer wow experience.

And what does that do? That turns referrals into predictable growth. How do we do this? Okay. So Jim Rohn, the bestselling author who in the life of Tony Robbins.

So if you picture kind of the lineage of self -help, you started with Napoleon Hill, the best -selling author of Think and Grow Rich, a man who I named my son after. My son’s name is Aubrey Napoleon Hill. When Napoleon Hill passed away, Jim Rohn kind of carried that torch. And now Tony Robbins has carried that torch and other people have as well. But Jim Rohn writes, if your behavior is dictated by something that is unpredictable, your results will be unreliable. Let me try that again.

If your behavior is dictated by something that is unpredictable, your results will be unreliable. So there’s four super moves we’re implementing all at the same time that create that wow. Move number one, we have a turnkey lead generation system. It’s a turn -key system. Someone says, what’s the secret sauce? I’m telling you the secret sauce.

People say, Clay, if you’re giving the secret sauce, why would anybody pay $1 ,700 a month to hire you? If you’re just giving away the secret sauce, why would people pay you for the secret sauce? Let me tell you this, folks. It’s not about education. It’s about implementation. So if you’re wanting to have a conversation about implementation, that’s what we do.

So on the marketing side of things, and Steve, I want to get your thoughts on this, VISM. Every single day, VISM, before we go to bed. V -I -S -M. When we wake up, V -I -S -M. The day before Christmas, V -I -S -M. What am I saying?

Thanksgiving, V -I -S -M. What are we talking about? VISM. And the entire marketing system is VISM. What does that mean? We gotta get video testimonials from real clients.

We got to get images of real clients. We got to write search engine content. And we’ve got to gather those more Google reviews. So videos, images, search engine, more Google reviews. And that makes you come up top in the Google search, and the Grok search, and the chat GPT search, and the open AI search. Steve, why do we have to do it every single week?

I guess maybe a better question is, from your perspective as an optometrist, what kind of impact has it made knowing that your entire marketing system consists of VISM? Well, one, it simplifies it. We know what we’ve got to do. And what makes somebody successful, I feel like, is not like doing some miraculous one thing. What makes people successful is they’re doing the little things consistently, day after day after day.

And you mentioned Grok, and this was this was just so exciting to me this past week. I just got on chat GPT and I said, okay, tell me what’s the top, I can’t remember exactly what I said, but the top eye doctor or eye clinic or something like that in North Mississippi or the Tupelo area. I can’t remember exactly how I termed it, but it came back and he said, oh, hands down, you know, it’s going to be eyes first. And we’ve been in business for here for like four years. And there’s places that have been established, you know, they’ve been decades and and they’re saying, you know, consistently high rated reviews, this, that and the other. And so that right there, that just shows, you know, the success that you guys bring.

And to quote the modern philosopher, JLD, you know, the Ric Flair, the modern philosopher, world wrestler Ric Flair. Okay, now we move on to move number two. Okay, implementing scalable systems and proven processes. So number one, we got nailed on the marketing system. Number two, we got to implement scalable processes and systems for everything. So we’re talking about pre -written scripts, pre -written emails, a pre -written predetermined way that we will greet customers, having a lobby that makes sense, having an atmosphere that makes sense, hiring people that are enthusiastically greeting first -time patients and repeat patients.

Dr. Steve, how has it impacted your company having scripts, systems, and checklists for everything related to the customer interaction? Honestly, Clay, right now, that’s what we’re focusing on. I’m not going to sit here and say we’re perfect at what we’re doing right now because we’re growing and we’re trying to implement those systems right now. But it makes a huge, huge difference because we can take a employee day one, and we can tell them, this is what you do. You follow this.

This is your script. This is how you treat people. This is how you greet people. This is how you work up a patient. And beforehand, I had so much information in my brain. that that information was not being conveyed to my team and they didn’t know what to do.

There was confusion and we were just dropping lots of balls. So now that we’re getting those systems in place, it’s making a huge improvement in our business. So again, JLD, I mean, you’re seeing it. To wow the customer, it’s all four of these systems working together. JLD, before we go to this next step here, I want to go back to you to get your thoughts on this. Because EO Fire, when people go to eofire .

com for the first time, you’ve thought about, what does the home page look like? What do the interior pages look like? What happens when they fill out the form? What happens when the person requests the information? What happens when they download the book? What happens?

You’ve thought about that, and that’s what’s called a linear workflow. That’s a specific linear workflow, a system, kind of like a preordained timeline that you have created to wow the customer. And JLD, I think a lot of entrepreneurs are so busy, they don’t take the time to work on the business because they’re working in the business. And maybe you have a different reaction to that, JLD. But again, you’ve met a lot of entrepreneurs and so have I. But I think a lot of people are just so busy that they’re not working on the business. I think that’s a big value of having a coach.

It’s the biggest value, to be honest. I mean, you need somebody to have like the outside eyes looking in and being like, OK, you’re in this every day. There’s a lot of assumptions that you’re making as the owner of this business. But here’s a set of eyes from somebody who is not in the business, who doesn’t have his sleeves rolled up and is like kneading the dough of this pizza brand that we have going on right here. And that’s so powerful.

I mean, that’s why I’ve always had coaches starting back in 2012. So now for 14 years, because it’s so important and so powerful to be cutting edge, to be learning, to be, bringing in experts from other areas that you maybe just don’t have time, energy, or the current knowledge to implement in your own business. And so for me though, it always comes back to like, am I measuring what matters? Because, you know, we can measure a lot of things in this world, but if you’re not measuring what matters, then it’s all for not. And Clay, this is something that you talk about a lot, you know, measuring what you treasure. So what metrics specifically should entrepreneurs be tracking to hit their financial goals?

And how did you do this with Dr. Steve? Well, I’ll say this with Dr. Steve, he’s a math guy. He’s a numbers guy. So before I met him, he’s a numbers guy. But I’ll say this, probably 90 % of my clients I meet are not math and numbers people when I meet them. So Dr. Steve already had kind of that bias to knowing the numbers.

And Dr. Steve, without getting into your specific numbers, I want to know how many new leads did Dr. Steve generate this week? How many new patients are coming in? And I’d like to know, what was our gross sales? It’s very important to me to know. What are our gross sales, our total sales? I don’t want to lose people with accounting nomenclature, accounting words, and jargon.

How much total sales came in? I want to know that, number one. How many total sales came in? Number two, I want to know, how much profit is left? right? How much profit is left?

And then number three, how many leads came in? At the very minimum, I want to know those three, because there are these three, I call it the three P’s. And these three P’s, JLD, they hate each other. These three P’s, they won’t stop fighting. They’re always fighting with each other. The three P’s.

Someone says, what’s the three P’s? P number one, okay? This is important. Every employee wants to get more pay. Okay? So on behalf of all the employees,

Every customer wants to get lower prices. This just in, on behalf of every customer, excuse me, can we talk? I’d like to pay lower prices. Again, the employee just came in and said, excuse me, boss, can we talk? I’d like to get paid more. Meanwhile.

Excuse me, boss, can we talk for a second? How can I help you? Yeah, I’d like to pay less for my prices. I’d like to lower the prices. Every customer wants to lower the prices, right? And the third P is nobody cares about the profitability of an entrepreneur other than the entrepreneur and perhaps their coach.

It’s just no one else cares about it. So Dr. Steve, why is it important for you to know your gross income, your total sales, your actual profit, and then how many new patients are coming in? Well, then you know where you’ve been, you know where you’re at, and you know where you’re going. I think you’ve got to have those three points to have a line, right? So, where you’ve been, where you’re at, and where you’re going. I’ve got those numbers pulled up here, Clay, and so we did in Q1, I like to look kind of, yeah, we look week to week for sure, but I like to look Q1 because you know, you can have fluctuations throughout the week and or throughout the, you know, each week.

But Q1, our revenue was up 67 percent from versus last Q1. And then I’ve got this little thing I kind of watch, you know, just trends and optometry and things like that, which everybody knows, excited about trends and optometry. But anyway, I watch that and national average, they were up three percent. So that means what’s sixty six divided by three. Twenty two X, that’s twenty over the industry average.

Come on, JLD, that’s what I’m talking about. Now, again, we move on to the super move number three with the limited time we have. I’m trying to I’m trying to take people through their entire business college in 40 minutes and 30 minutes. OK, so move number three. Come on, folks. Dial in everybody.

Take notes. Get out an etch a sketch. Get out a ketchup packet. Whatever you need to take notes. Get out a pencil. Get out a crayon.

Whatever you need to do. Take notes. Remember, folks, taking notes is better than not taking notes. Remember, folks, taking notes is better than not taking notes. Not taking notes. Okay.

So readers are leaders. Okay. Game changes are note takers. So here we go. Move number three, move number three. You have to aim to wow.

What am I saying? JLD. I’ve been married 25 consecutive years, 25. It’s incredible. I didn’t take a year off 25 years in a row. I’m still married.

And so what I, what I, what I have to JLD is I have a product, AKA me. That’s not that awesome. So JLD, I have to sell this product every week. So I’m telling the listeners out there my secret sauce, which you can use for your spouse or for your business. Every single week, I get my wife flowers. Why do I do that?

Because she doesn’t ask for it, and I surprise her with it, JLD. She doesn’t know when it’s coming, you know? She likes these expensive, bougie, organic beverages that have some sort of ginger thing added to it. I don’t even know what that means. But you know what I do? I buy them, I surprise her.

JLD, if I tell my wife I’ll be home at 6, I come home at 5 .30. You know why? Because I’ve got five great kids, and I want to stay in a positive flow with my wife. If I say I’ll be home at 6, I get home at 5 .30. I am constantly aiming to wow my wife. Any time that I can wow my wife, I’m doing it.

Why? Because I want to wow her, because I’m building up this thing called the love bank. Because you know what’s going to happen, JLD, about once every month? I’m going to do something, and I don’t even know what I did, but it’s going to cause a withdrawal from the love bank, right? And I’m going to do something that is not awesome, something that married men can relate to. We make a mistake, or we misspoke, or I don’t know what we did, but we did something.

And I’ve got to have that love bank built up so that way when I have to make a withdrawal, I’m not bouncing a check. Now back to your business. You’ve got to wow your customer. Dr. Zellner, a very successful optometrist, a mentor in my life, he said, Clay, If you will focus on the wow, if you’ll focus on the wow, you’re going to get new customers now. Let’s try that again. If you’ll focus on the wow, you’re going to get new customers now.

So for my wife’s birthday, why did I rent a limo for my wife? Because I want to surprise her and take her someplace that’s more than what she expected. When I was dating my wife, I would say, hey, let’s go to the Olive Garden. And I’m not attacking the Olive Garden, a great place, love the breadsticks, love the salad, the whole thing. But then I would always take her to a restaurant that was nicer than what I had said I would take her to. Hopefully this makes sense.

So JLD, in the system, in the business, you’ve got to focus on wowing the customer. So how do you do it? I’m trying to get a lot of meat on the bone. One, you want to have the fastest greeting possible. When people walk into eyesfirstms . com, Dr. Steve’s great teams, that they greet people as quickly as possible.

Quick people perceive speed with quality. Greet people quickly. Return calls quickly. Offer a fast turnaround. You’ve got to wow. The second thing is, Be so clean.

Make your optometry clinic, your business, your restaurant so clean. Be intentional about the decor so it makes people want to come back and bring more customers to your business. Just go out of your way to exceed the expectations of the customer. To quote Stephen Covey, who couldn’t be here today because he’s dead, start with the end in mind. You want to start with the end in mind. And GLD, you have to aim to wow, my friend.

I mean, Fire Nation, the amount of value bombs that are dropped in the timeframe of these episodes is absolutely incredible. So I hope you realize the value of working with a coach of working with somebody specifically in this case, like clay Clark, who comes in who identifies what you can do right now to just make your business so clearly the best of all your competitors that it’s not even a question of where am I going to go. It’s not even a question of who am I going to refer to my friends and family. So Clay, take us home, bring in Dr. Steve in any way, shape or form that you want. We’ve had a great conversation. Let’s end with a bang.

Yeah. Well, the final step, step number four is you have to manage people. All right. Now, if you’re out there today and you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you’re a home cleaning service, you’re a auto detailing service, you’re building metal buildings. I think about all the clients I work with. You’ve got to manage people.

All right. So Chet Holmes, the bestselling author of The Ultimate Sales Machine, may he rest in peace. Chet Holmes once said, he said, the missing ingredient for nearly all of the 1000 plus clients that he worked with directly to improve their business is pig headed discipline and determination. You’re talking about a PhD. You need pigheaded discipline and determination. That’s what a PhD is.

And Dr. Steve, you and your team, you guys have really become effective managers. Could you talk just for a second about some of the management processes? Because if you learn all this stuff and your team doesn’t execute it, it’s all meaningless. Knowledge without application is meaningless, to quote Thomas Edison. Knowledge without application is meaningless, to quote Thomas Edison. Vision without execution is hallucination, to quote Thomas Edison.

Octa non verba in Latin means deeds not words. To quote the founder of Marriott, go see, go see, don’t hear, go see, don’t hear. So trust but verify, Ronald Reagan. Let’s talk about management for a second there. Dr. Steve, what kind of management systems have you now put in place? Yes, sir.

people are, you know, messing up left and right, we got to figure out how to fix that. And it was just like, so chaotic. And so now we’re proactive. And so what we do, we do have a daily huddle, those huddles, it’s going to be, you know, a quick, you know, five minute, but we’re touching base with everybody. Okay, this is what we’re doing. This is this is what we got to get done today.

Those kind of things. We also have a weekly team meeting and those are kind of non -negotiables for everybody. I’ve had a son that’s had some medical issues the last couple of years and we’ll be on our way up to the doctor, you know, or to the clinic, whatever with him. And I’m like, and the staff’s like, hey, are we having a team meeting today? I’m like, oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we’re having team meetings.

So those are non -negotiables. Those team meetings last for us right at about 45 minutes. And so we’ve implemented that, and that’s just making it so much easier. We’re not having to put out these fires all the time. And of course, any entrepreneur, any business owner, you know there’s going to be fires. There’s going to be all kind of things going on.

But this way, we’re prepared, and everybody kind of knows what’s going on. It doesn’t catch us off guard quite as often. So if you’re out there today, I’ve got three calls to action for you. First off, go to thrivetimeshow . com forward slash EO fire. So if you have a desire to be successful, Go to thrivetimeshow .

com forward slash EO fire. That’s the website thrivetimeshow . com forward slash EO fire. And you can schedule a free 13 point assessment with myself, with me, and I will figure out where you’re stuck and how to get you unstuck. And if you’re looking for business coaching, the first step is to do a free 13 point assessment. The business coaching, we charge $1 ,700 a month, one seven zero zero per month.

And you say, well, if I pay $1 ,700 a month, how does it work? Well, first off, it’s month to month. It’s month to month. It costs you less money than if you were going to hire even a minimum wage employee. to join your team, and you say, what do you do? Well, we help you reduce your working hours, decrease your costs, and increase your time freedom.

How do we do that? We do graphic design, search engine optimization, branding, marketing, print pieces, videography, photography, online ads, system creation, accounting, workflow mapping, all of it. There’s no contract. Our average client is with us for six years or longer. You can learn about that by going to thrivetimeshow . com forward slash EO fire.

Second thing, go to thrivetimeshow . com and click on the testimonials button. And you can learn about the 2000 plus client success stories we’ve helped to create since 2005. And if you want to come to one of our in -person workshops, I do an in -person, very interactive workshop that I do at least three to four times every single year. I’ve been doing that for 21 years. You can learn about our interactive two -day interactive business workshops.

Those tickets are $250 and we have scholarships to help people in need. And then finally, check out the website of eyesfirstms . com. It’s a great way for you to learn and verify that Dr. Steve Beatty and his wife, they’re real people. They have a real optometry clinic. And I I don’t mean this as a backhanded compliment, but when a kind and diligent person like Dr. Steve is doing it and you do your research and you look into him, you go, wow, if he can do it, then I can do it because he’s a very normal guy.

He’s a diligent guy. He and his wife are normal people. If they can do it, then I can do it too. JLD, it’s a lot of information, but again, I appreciate the conversation. Hopefully we’ve inspired somebody out there to believe that we don’t want it to be just hearers of this great podcast. We want to be doers.

We don’t want to be just learners. We want to be people who are earners. We can turn our dreams into reality and dr steve is a shining example of what is possible a lot of stuff but fire nation i know you can keep up with a fire hose for sure and as a great jim rohan said you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with and today you’ve been hanging out with three pretty awesome people so keep up the heat and links to everything we talked about, visit EOFire .com, com, type Clay in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up. So Clay, Dr. Steve, thank you for sharing your truth, knowledge, value with Fire Nation today.

For that, we salute you both and we’ll catch you on the flip side. Boom. My name is Steve Beatty. I’m with Eyes First, which is an optometry clinic in Tupelo, Mississippi. This is the brains behind it all. This is Dr. Samantha Beatty.

We see a variety of ages and patients. We take care of medical issues, everything from glasses to glaucoma. It’s eyesfirstms . com or eyesfirst . com. OK, I’m pulling up on the screen so people can verify it’s a real website.

Here it is. So eyesfirstms . com, eyesfirstms . com. How has the weekly tracking sheet, Dr. Samantha, tracking those numbers on a weekly basis impacted your practice? Well, it’s been eye -opening for sure.

And it’s given us motivation. It’s given us direction. We’ve loved it so much that we’ve implemented it into our family as well. I have seen an increase in new patients. I don’t have that number right here with me, but I do know this past year we saw 24 % more patients than the previous year. And I know our revenue was up 26%, which was awesome.

It just means it’s alive and growing. That’s why we’re here. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. So we love to see the new patients and it’s overwhelming how many we see daily. How has it impacted you, Dr. Steve, to have a plan that is simple enough to repeat to somebody who just started working for you yesterday.

Yeah, that’s a great question because we have brought in some new team members this year since we’ve been working with you. And just to be, you know, a lot of times I would have like all this stuff in my head that has to happen for the business to run correctly. But now I actually have a plan in paper and they know what they have to do to be successful as an employee here. And we have like a big, huge win for today. And I don’t know what your question was exactly, but we are now the number one reviewed eye doctor in North Mississippi. Mississippi as of today.

And our staff was like high -fiving each other and all that because they made that happen. They’re getting Google reviews. They’re getting images. They’re getting all this stuff going on. So it’s been really cool to watch. Can you tell us about how business coaching has helped you learn how to manage a team of wonderful people?

You have wonderful people on your team. And how has it impacted your ability to learn how to manage people, I guess? Right. It’s been, it’s very significant. We had a practice that we started in 1999. We sold it 15 years ago.

The reason we sold it was the staffing and the management of our staff was overwhelming to us and it was just hard. It was very stressful and that was one of the primary reasons we sold it. This, at this point, we’ve been open three and a half years and Um, since we’ve been working with you guys, um, it has, it is simplified the whole staff management, um, quandary that often happens, uh, at this point, and especially as you’re growing and, um, you know, sometimes it’s easier to manage 1 or 2 staff, but then as you grow, we currently have, um, 6 full -time, 4 part -time. So we have 10 staff at this point. And, um, it can be very stressful.

We had one team member that was probably not in the best position for her. And we had actually considered letting her go. But I’m very loyal to a fault almost to my team. And talking with you guys, we found a spot for her. And like you said, we’re putting systems in place so she knows what to do. She knows how to do it.

The other new people we brought in, when we had systems for them, they knew what to do from day two, basically getting here. And that was not the case back in the past. So it just makes a huge, huge improvement and impact on our team. I’m not really sure which one’s the steering wheel and which one’s the gas pedal, but you really have to have a to -do list and a calendar. Dr. Samantha, why do you have to have a to -do list and a calendar? And maybe what has our coaching program taught you about those tools?

Well, it gets everyone on the same page because our to -do list is accessible to our whole team. They can, at any time they have downtime, they can look at it and they can see where they can help us with our list. Our whole office has a to -do list and each individual person has one as well. So, it just keeps us on the same page. It keeps us focused. You cannot keep everything in your head.

So, it’s written down there in black and white. So, whenever there’s a downtime, it gives us somewhere to go. In business, a lot of times people feel like going to a coach is a sign of weakness. What do you say to somebody, Dr. Samantha, who’s like, you know, I feel like if I go to a coach, it’s maybe a sign of weakness or inadequacy, or it shows that I don’t have my stuff together. What would you say has been the value overall of having a business coach and coaching team, like our team, guiding you down the path and meeting with you on a weekly basis? I’d say the number one thing for us is probably the accountability and the ideas, the expertise.

Also, I’d say the expertise and the accountability hand in hand is very powerful. So, you know, there’s a verse that says that God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. And I think that’s super important. Like, When you say, hey, I don’t need anybody. I don’t need a coach. I can do this all myself.

That’s pride. And that’s, you know, God literally will oppose that. And I think, you know, we love to humbly ask, hey, we don’t know what we’re doing. We need help. We know how to check eyes, I think, a lot better than you do. But you know how to build a business better than we do.

And, you know, you got that picture of the Tower of Power. Did I mention that already? No. The tower of power, right? And so the tower of power is like, you have all the little structures for a skyrocket, you know, high rise building, and it’s got the foundation at the bottom, and it might take I don’t know how long it takes but maybe a year, two years to build that foundation on a on a high rise building and then that thing starts going up. And that’s what we’re doing right now is we’re putting the foundation in and we’re starting to see you know results in our business and one day it’ll be that high rise building, but before.

when we weren’t, you know, humble and using your coaching, it was more like a jumble of junk because I had all this stuff in my head that had to get done. Nobody knew. Nobody was on the same page. Nobody knew what we were doing. And it’s just made all the difference. So that’s what I would say.

And Dr. Samantha, what do you say to somebody who’s on the fence right now? They’re like, OK, I’m going to go to Thrivetimeshow . com and I’m thinking about scheduling a free 13 point assessment. What would you say? Well, you have nothing to lose. It’s a free assessment.

You have nothing to lose. And it’s a great starting point. I love that you’re month to month too. I don’t know if we’ve mentioned that, but you’re month to month. So like she says, worst case scenario, you got one, you got nothing to lose on the free assessment. And then after that, if it’s not working out, it’s not working out.

And I think that’s from both sides. If we’re not doing what you want us to do, I think you’re going to fire us, honestly. It was a gradual thing. But when I was a child, I had really horrible vision. And I was in the second grade and not doing well in school. And they finally thought, hey, maybe we should take him to the eye doctor.

And I got glasses. It changed my life. And so now I love doing that for other people. I think vision is super important. It’s a great, important part of our lives. And so that’s what we do.

Folks, the purpose of today’s show is to encourage you that you have the mental capacity and the tenacity to grow a super successful company. Yes, it is true the co -host of The Thrive Time Show, Dr. Robert Zellner, is a very successful optometrist. And it is true that today’s guests happen to also be optometrists. But you don’t have to be an optometrist to become super successful. You just have to be willing to diligently implement a proven plan and to wow your customers, or in their case, wow their patients. So that being said, Dr. Steve, welcome on to the show.

How are you, sir? I’m doing great. How are you doing, Clay? I’m doing great. Now, what I’m going to do, just because of how we put together the show, could you share with us your first name and your last name and the name of your company, sir? Yes, sir.

My name is Steve Beatty. I’m with Eyes First, which is an optometry clinic in Tupelo, Mississippi. And who is that wonderful woman next to you there, sir? This is the brains behind it all. This is Dr. Samantha Beatty. So Dr. Samantha Beatty, how would you describe your optometry practice?

It’s full scope. We see a variety of ages and patients. We take care of medical issues. everything from glasses to glaucoma. And when did you get excited there about becoming an optometrist, Dr. Steve? At what point did you think to yourself, yes, I want to become an optometrist?

It was a gradual thing. But when I was a child, I had really horrible vision. And I was in the second grade and not doing well in school. And they finally thought, hey, maybe we should take him to the eye doctor. And I got glasses. It changed my life.

And so now I love doing that for other people. I think vision is super important. It’s a great, important part of our lives. And so that’s what we do. Now, Dr. Samantha, how did you meet Dr. Steve? Did you guys both share a passion for the human eyeball, or how did you guys meet?

We were in the same class in optometry school. We had a small class of 40 students, and we were two of them. And so you decided to open your own clinic. Dr. Samantha, do you remember when you opened your own clinic, when you guys got started? This clinic we opened three and a half years ago, July of 2022. And if people want to look up your website to verify you are, in fact, real people and not just models or holograms, what is your web address there?

It’s eyesfirstms . com or eyesfirst . com. OK, I’m pulling up on the screen so people can verify it’s a real website. Here it is. So eyesfirstms .

com, eyesfirstms . com. And Natalie, who has the opportunity to work with you guys and help you grow your practice, she’s been bragging on you guys. And she refers to you internally. We call you guys diligent doers. And a diligent doer is somebody who is willing to consistently put in the effort day after day to make their business grow.

Could you tell us, Dr. Samantha, how did you first hear about our business coaching program? Steve heard about it, so I’ll let him answer. Well, I was familiar with you from the reawakening tours, but I never got to attend one of those. And then I was actually googling business coaches or whatever for eye doctors, and I stumbled upon you because of the Dr. Zellner connection. So that was kind of cool, but I was already familiar with Clay Clark.

Well, what I’m going to do now is I’m going to see if we can teach people how to grow a business in 15 minutes. Now, doing it, implementing it, takes a little longer than that. But I want to walk people through how to grow a business. So for anybody who goes to thrivetimeshow . com, you’re going to see thousands of success stories. But I’m going to tell everybody the secret of how we do it.

Step number one, Dr. Samantha, you have to know your numbers. And I’m not going to ask you on today’s show your numbers. But why do you have to know your numbers as a business owner? Why do you have to know fundamentally, OK, this is how much we’re selling. This is how many patients we’re seeing. why do you have to know the numbers?

Well, for one, you don’t want to, we don’t want to, we love what we do, but honestly, I don’t think we want to do it for nothing. And so if you don’t know what your numbers are, you don’t know how to set a goal. You don’t know if you’re growing, you don’t know which way you’re headed. So you just, you just have to know that for a basis for, for direction. Now, Dr. Samantha, most entrepreneurs that we first start working with, They are a little bit concerned or skeptical or paranoid or not happy about the idea of checking or tracking their numbers on a weekly basis. But I’m very insistent upon it.

And over time, clients we’ve worked with for 10 years, one of my clients who was just in the office today, most of our clients are out of town, but one of our clients was in town today. I’ve worked with the man for over 10 years. And he said, Clay, that weekly tracking sheet has helped me so much to keep me from drifting. How has the weekly tracking sheet Dr. Samantha, tracking those numbers on a weekly basis impacted your practice? Well, it’s been eye -opening for sure.

And it’s given us motivation. It’s given us direction. We’ve loved it so much that we’ve implemented it into our family as well. Now, Dr. Steve, when you start tracking numbers, one of the things you can find out is, uh -oh, or, wow, or there’s a lot of those feelings that, uh -oh, or, wow. And we track the things that are going to grow your practice. We want to track how many new patients you’re seeing.

We want to track what kind of feedback you’re getting from the online community, your online reputation. How’s that going? Have you seen an increase in the number of new patients since we’ve started working with you guys? I have seen an increase in new patients. I don’t have that number right here with me, but I do know Last year, this past year, we saw 24 % more patients than the previous year. And I know our revenue was up 26%, which was awesome.

Dr. Samantha, as far as seeing new patients, what does that mean to your business when you’re seeing new patients? When you see a new person walk through the door, someone you can help them to improve their vision, what does that mean for your business when you’re seeing new people? It just means it’s alive and growing. That’s why we’re here. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. So we love to see the new patients and it’s overwhelming how many we see daily.

And I think you said, I’m taking notes here, Dr. Steve, I think you said you’re up 27 percent. Is that right? Revenue up 26%. Revenue’s up 26%. I’m taking notes here. Revenue’s up 26%.

So, with your business, so step one, you have to track. And folks, we have written entire books about this. You can go to thrivetimeshow . com, click on the test link. You You can get all the resources right there.

We also have to know what our break -even point is. We have to know, Dr. Samantha, how many patients do we need just to break even? Not even to make a profit, but you have to know how many patients need to break even. Why is that important for you and your husband to have an idea of how many patients you need to at least keep the lights on? Well, it’s important because it totally determines our whole family’s income. Like I said, we don’t want to necessarily do this for free, so we have to know what our goal is for daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.

Now, Dr. Steve, one of the things I try to do, and maybe I don’t do a good job at it. We’ll see. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I always try to get better. But every time I work with a business, whether it’s an optometrist, a dentist, doctor, lawyer, online, shopping business, home builder, I try to make their marketing plan very specific. very repeatable, and very simple.

And for each industry, it’s a little different. So when I work with online retailers, their marketing plan is different. When I work with a home builder like Shaw Homes, we help those guys to grow from $14 million to $151 million. Their plan was very different than your plan. But let’s talk about your plan, the plan specifically to grow an optometry clinic. We got to do V -I -S -M -D.

So videos, Images search engine content more Google reviews and we got a market to that dream 100 center of influence So again video reviews images search engine content more Google reviews and marking to that center of influence that dream 100 How has it impacted you? Dr. Steve to have a plan that is simple enough to repeat to somebody who just Started working for you yesterday Yeah, that’s a great question, because we have brought in some new team members this year since we’ve been working with you. And just to be, you know, a lot of times I would have like all this stuff. stuff in my head that has to happen for the business to run correctly. But now I actually have a plan in paper and they know what they have to do to be successful as an employee here. And we have like a big, huge win for today.

And I don’t know if this is what your question was exactly, but we are now the number one reviewed eye doctor in North Mississippi as of today. And our staff was like high -fiving each other and all that because they made that happen. They’re getting Google reviews. They’re getting images. They’re getting all this stuff going on. So it’s been really cool to watch.

Amen to that. Now, Andrew Carnegie wrote this book called The Gospel of Wealth. It’s a small book with a lot of big ideas. And in the book, he talks about the three Ps. I’m paraphrasing, but it’s a great book called The Gospel of Wealth. And in that book, he talks about the three Ps.

And he basically says the conflict that is inherent within every business is Every single customer wants to pay less. That’s P number one. Every customer wants to have lower prices. That’s P number one. Every customer wants lower prices. Two, every employee wants more pay.

And I’m not attacking customers. I am a customer for wanting lower prices. I’m not attacking employees for wanting higher pay. And the third P is profits. Nobody cares about the profits of the business owner, except for the owners. So you have those three Ps, because if all the customers got lower prices, there would be no money to pay the employees.

And if all the employees got the, pay they wanted, then there would be no customers. And if we lowered the prices low enough and raised the wages high enough, then there would be no profits for the owner. I want to talk about managing employees. Dr. Samantha, as we go through the system, we start off on box number one. We know the numbers. Box number two, we get into marketing.

How do we generate leads? But kind of step three for a lot of business owners is managing people. Can you tell us about how business coaching has helped you learn how to manage a team of wonderful people? You have wonderful people on on your team and how has it impacted your ability to learning how to manage people, I guess. Right. It’s been it’s very.

We had a practice that we started in 1999. We sold it 15 years ago. The reason we sold it was the staffing and the management of our staff was overwhelming to us. And it was just hard. It was very stressful. And that was one of the primary reasons we sold it.

At this point, we’ve been open three and a half years. Um, since we’ve been working with you guys, um, it has, it is simplified the whole staff management. Quandary that often happens at this point, and especially as you’re growing and, um, you know, sometimes it’s easier to manage 1 or 2 staff, but then, as you grow, we currently have, um. six full -time, four part -time. So we have 10 staff at this point. And yeah, it can be very stressful.

Now, I mean this sincerely. I’m not just saying this because it’s on video. I love my staff. We have some awesome people. And you know what? One of my longtime employees, true story.

God bless her. This just happened. Her father passed away. And because we have systems in place, she came to me, tears in her eyes, and said, hey, he passed. And I was, we were able to, you know, my wife was able to pray with her. We were able to encourage her and tell her, We care about you.

Go do what you need to do. Take care of your dad. Once you do that, once you take care of the family, once you do what you do, you can come back. Your job’s safe here. You’re all good. But I couldn’t do that if I didn’t have systems.

And so a lot of employers hold their employees hostage. I repeat, a lot of business owners hold their employees hostage because they don’t have systems and redundancies. And I also repeat in reverse, a lot of employees hold their employers hostage because the employer doesn’t know how to do anything. Nothing is systemized. Could you talk about that? win -win relationship you’re starting to develop, Steve, with this great team you have there as you systemize things and things become more redundant and more systemized?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I don’t know if this is exactly relevant to what you’re asking, but we had one team member that was probably not in the best position for her, and we had actually considered letting her go, but I’m very loyal to a fault, almost, to my team. And talking with you guys, we found a spot for her. And like you said, we’re putting systems in place so she knows what to do. She knows how to do it. The other new people we brought in, when we had systems for them, they knew what to do, you know, like from day two, you know, basically getting here.

And that was not the case back in the past. So it just makes a huge, huge improvement and, you know, impact on our team. Now, the next area, again, we would say, What are the areas? Number one, you have to know the numbers. I might call that defense. You’ve got to know the numbers.

If you have a football team, it’s defense, right? Offense is marketing. So what’s defense? Defense is accounting, knowing the numbers. It’s that defensive side of the ball. You need that to win.

Offense is marketing, getting new customers. That middle part is that messy middle, special teams. It requires a special team to make the dream work. And that’s kind of how that all works on a football team and in business. But then you’ve got to worry about logistics. If you’re the head coach, you’ve How do you organize your day?

To -do lists. I know it seems simple. I know you’d say, why would an optometrist need to -do lists? On part two of today’s show, I’m going to introduce everybody watching to a man who has 371 employees. When I first met him, he said, man, if I could ever have five employees, that’d be huge. Now he has 370 employees.

And so why would a guy with 370 employees need a to -do list? Well, to -do lists and calendars are kind of like the steering wheel and the gas pedal for a car. I’m not really sure which one’s the steering wheel and which one’s the gas pedal, but you really have to have a to -do list and a calendar. Dr. Samantha, why do you have to have a to -do list and a calendar, and maybe what has our coaching program taught you about those tools? Well, it gets everyone on the same page because our to -do list is accessible to our whole team.

They can, at any time they have downtime, they can look at it and they can see where they can help us with our list. Our whole office has a to -do list and each individual person has one as well. So, it just keeps us on the same page. It keeps us focused. You cannot keep everything in your head. So, it’s written down there in black and white.

So whenever there’s a downtime, it gives us somewhere to go. Now, my wonderful kids, we all have different vision. I’ve got the worst vision ever. I mean, and my glasses are so thick. It’s like some kind of device they would use to look into space to see other planets. It’s pretty thick.

I’ve got, some of my kids have great vision, but whenever we need an optometrist, we go to Dr. Robert Zellner, and I’ve worked with him for years, and I’m happy to do so. When I need to get my car fixed, I take my vehicle to the garage. It’s an automotive repair shop, and I’ve had the honor of coaching his business for a long time. When I needed to teach my kids piano lessons, I took them to Rene Pride. I’m just telling people, I believe in hiring experts to do what experts do. I believe professionals have coaches.

I believe amateurs do not. And I think it’s very important that if you’re watching this and you’re in the area and you’re within the service area of your business, I think it makes sense to go to an optometrist as opposed to going to your wife and saying, what do you think is wrong with my vision? Or going to your husband and saying, what do you think is wrong with my vision? You want to go to someone who knows what they’re talking about. But in business, a lot of times people feel like going to a coach is a sign of weakness. What do you say to somebody that

Samantha, who’s like, you know, I don’t know. I feel like if I go to a coach, it’s maybe a sign of weakness or inadequacy, or it shows that I don’t have my stuff together. What would you say has been the value overall of having a business coach and coaching team, like our team, guiding you down the path and meeting with you on a weekly basis? I’d say the number one thing for us is probably the accountability. And the ideas, the expertise, also, I’d say the expertise and the accountability, hand in hand, is very powerful. And I would just say, I’m sorry, I was going to say, so, you know, there’s a verse that says that God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

And I think that’s super important, like, When you say, hey, I don’t need anybody. I don’t need a coach. I can do this all myself. That’s pride. And that’s, you know, God literally will oppose that. And I think, you know, we love to humbly ask, hey, we don’t know what we’re doing.

We need help. We know how to check guys, I think a lot better than you do. But you know how to build a business better than we do. And, you know, you got that picture of the Tower of Power. Do I mention that already? No.

The tower of power, right? And so the tower of power is like, you have all the little structures for a skyrocket, you know, high rise building, and it’s got the foundation at the bottom, and it might take I don’t know how long it takes, but maybe a year or two years to build that foundation on a on a high rise building. And then that thing starts going up. And that’s what we’re doing right now is we’re putting the foundation in and we’re starting to see results in our business. And one day it’ll be that high rise building. But before, when we weren’t humble and using your coaching, it was more like a jumble of junk because I had all this stuff in my head that had to get done.

Nobody knew. Nobody was on the same page. Nobody knew what we were doing. And it’s just made all the difference. So that’s what I would say. I want to pull this up real quick, because we have this wonderful visual that we’ve made that we use to teach clients called thrivetimeshow .

com forward slash tower of power. And from the bottom, All the way up to the top, Dr. Zellner and I teach Google Map Optimization, and online reputation management, and how to make a pro forma, and website optimization, and marketing, and branding, and workflow design, and system creation, and Dream 100 marketing, and call scripts. And we teach all of this in a multi -hour series. You can go bite by bite, step by step, floor by floor in this diagram to learn how to start and grow a successful company. But I want to ask you this with the limited time we have. Dr. Samantha, we’ve also worked with you on scripts.

So at a certain point, if your marketing’s working, now you got inbound calls. Can you talk about the importance of implementing scripts or scripted phone calls or how we answer the phone in a way that’s designed to wow? How has that impacted your company? It keeps everyone on the same page. We’ve got the language that we want to get across to our patients and we don’t answer the phone. They answer the phone.

The staff answers the phone. So they say the things we want to say to the patient every time. That’s the goal. Folks, I’m telling you, if I could just bottle up what I’m telling you and make it something you could just sip on every day. What I love about working with the doctor or the married couple team here is, one, is that they’re sincerely great people. So it’s a win -win -win.

What am I saying? It’s a win for my coaches, my team. We love serving you guys. It’s a win for your business. You’re growing. And it’s a win for your patients.

And I just, if you’re out there today and you feel even remotely stuck, I want you to head on over there. This is not a backhanded compliment. Go to eyesfirstms . com. One, it helps them rank. hire in Google, but two, you’re going to discover they’re very real, normal people.

You’re going to go, oh, look, she’s a normal person. Look, this is a great lady. This is the kind of person I want to meet at church. This seems like a normal person. This is not a bizarre person. person who’s thrown their marriage out the window to make their business successful.

This is not a person who’s, these are a committed couple who’s committed to their business and their family, and I just couldn’t be more honored to serve you guys. Final question I have for you, Dr. Steve, what’s it meant for you knowing that you’re paying a flat monthly fee, but yet you have photography, video, web, search engine, all of those things included at a flat monthly fee in addition to the weekly coaching and guidance? Right. He just takes the stress out because, you know, I’m sure there’s other programs that, you know, the rates go up depending on what services you’re providing or blah, blah, blah. And then at the end of the month, you’re like, oh, my goodness, I racked up this huge bill. Well, I know I’ve got a flat rate and we’re just we know what it is.

We’ve got to budget it in. We take care of it. We don’t even miss it, honestly, because you guys are helping us to grow. So it’s just been a great, great situation. And Dr. Samantha, what do you say to somebody who’s on the fence right now? They’re like, OK, I’m going to go to Thrivetimeshow .

com, and I’m thinking about scheduling a free 13 -point assessment. What would you say? Well, you have nothing to lose. It’s a free assessment. You have nothing to lose. And it’s a great starting point.

Dr. Steve, what do you say to somebody out there who’s like, you know, I’ve been scammed by a charlatan before. I booked a free consultation. Next thing you know, I’m doing a timeshare tour. I got signed up for a $5 ,000 a month contract after I was conned. I got stuck on a weird track. What do you say to somebody who’s on the fence about scheduling a free 13 point?

Because maybe they’ve been scammed in the past. I love that you’re month to month too. I don’t know if we’ve mentioned that, but you’re month to month. So like she says, worst case scenario, you got one, you got two. to lose on the free assessment. And then after that, if it’s not working out, it’s not working out.

And I think that’s from both sides. If it’s not, if we’re not doing what you want us to do, I think you’re going to fire us, honestly. Is that probably, is that not true? Well, that’s how we had room for you. I’m kind of laughing because that’s how we had room for you. We talked to a wonderful person.

It was a funny story. The father hired us to help his son. So the very successful entrepreneur wanted to hire us to help his son. That’s kind of like hiring a personal trainer for a friend of yours. And it just wasn’t going to work. And so in order to make room for you, we had to offboard somebody.

And so that’s how it works. I want to ask you one final question there. I’m going to your website. Somebody’s going to your website. If I am in the area, tell us where are the markets that you serve in Mississippi there, Dr. Steve, for anybody who’s maybe looking for an optometrist who’s in Mississippi. What are the areas that you serve there in Mississippi, sir?

We’re located in Tupelo, which is the northeast part of the state, and most famous for the birthplace of Elvis Presley. But we serve the entire area, so over into North Alabama, all the way to maybe Oxford, Mississippi, all that neck of the woods, so northeastern Mississippi. Now, we may expand and have other locations at some point down the road, but right now we’re nailing it before we scale it, I guess is what I’m trying to say. I am so excited to see you guys in person in Tulsa. It’s an honor to talk to you via Zoom. Thank you, Dr. Samantha.

Thank you, Dr. Steve, for being a great example of how success is possible if you’re willing to put in the work. Thank you for wowing your patients. It makes it easy to optimize a website, by the way, when your customers like you and leave great feedback. So thank you guys very much, and I hope you have a great night. Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you for everything. Take care. Bye. And you chose to go somewhere you said, man, I can go and I can get better. I can go and I can learn. I can go and I can maybe go from where I am.

to where I want to go. But one of the most important things that you will ever do or not do in your life is to value and seek wise counsel. To be coached hard means you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. But Clay Clark, man, he is one character. It’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, 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 Clay 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 have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. He has hundreds of people showing up at five a . m. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man.

No, he is. He is. My name is Kevin Thomas, and the name of our company is MultiClean. We are a commercial janitorial service, and we serve the entire state of Oklahoma and Kansas and soon to be Arkansas. We have probably grown probably five times. We’ve added, I think when we first started with you, we had 60 to 65 employees, and now we have a little over 300 employees.

Before we got involved with Thrive Time, we didn’t really have any systems or processes in place. I’ve probably been to, oh, in six, seven years, I’ve probably been to 12 to 13 business conferences. And amazingly, each time I go, I learn something new and I’m so excited to bring it back and show the team about marketing and how to help you guys implement the SEO. And the coaching is just great because there’s accountability. And it’s just a fantastic way to grow your company. Having a relationship with Thrive Time, it’s just been amazing for multi -claim.

Oh my goodness, it frees me up because then I don’t have to take a class on search engine optimization or learn marketing or shoot video. That’s not what we do. What we do is commercial janitorial service. And you guys were the experts on marketing. And you teach me and hold my hand and show me how to do it right. And therefore, now my company is much, much larger.

Folks, on today’s show, we’re joined by a real client. He may look like a male model. He may look like a hologram, but he’s a real person. He’s a longtime client. He’s a man that we consider to be a friend of The Thrive Time Show and a friend of mine. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show Kevin.

Welcome on to The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Clay, I’m doing great. Had a great Christmas holiday, and I’m glad to be here. OK, so first question, can you tell us what is your name, first and last name, and what’s the name of your company, sir? My name is Kevin Thomas, and the name of our company is MultiClean.

We are a commercial janitorial service, and we serve the entire state of Oklahoma and Kansas, and soon to be Arkansas. And how long have we worked with you approximately at this point, sir? It’s been about six, seven years. And so many people reach out to me. I mean, literally every day. I just talked to a woman this morning. We get 10 to 20 people a day that reach out wanting to see if we can help them grow their companies.

And we only work with 160 clients. And I do that because I want to only work with people that are super coachable. And so this woman on the call today was asking me, she said, well, What’s the most important thing that you do, that you have to do to grow your company? And I was telling her, I said, that’s kind of like asking a skilled chef, what’s the most important ingredient to make great cookies? Is it flour? Is it eggs?

Is it butter? It’s like asking a home builder, what’s the most important component to building a house? Is it the footings? Is it the frame? Is it the concrete? That’s like asking, maybe it’s a great question, but really, it’s all of it.

And so I really wanted to talk to you today about all of it, implementing all of it, growing MultiClean, how we’ve been able to do it. So first off, could you share what it’s like to have a coach that works with you every week who’s committed to helping you improve your business by 1 % or 2 % every week? Well, Andrew is my coach. And the great thing about having him as the coach is he keeps me accountable. Because sometimes when you’re the owner, there’s no one to be accountable to. And he keeps me on track.

He keeps me tracking sales, tracking wins. If we have a loss, he helps me figure out what happened. He just keeps me being consistent with our processes, with our systems, which before we got involved with Thrive Time, we didn’t really have any systems or processes in place. And in terms of growth over these past six or seven years, I’m not looking for you to share the actual sales totals because you’re a larger company at this point. but could you share how much growth have you had over the past six or seven years? We have probably grown probably five times.

We’ve added, I think when we first started with you, we had 60 to 65 employees, and now we have a little over 300 employees. So just to be clear, I’m making sure I’m taking notes here. You’ve grown five times. And you’ve grown from how many employees to how many employees? About 60, 65 to well over 300. What do you say to somebody who’s thinking about coming to our next workshop with Eric Trump, or Robert Kiyosaki, or Tim Tebow, or whatever workshop we have coming up?

What do you say to somebody who’s on the fence right now? They’re going, I’m thinking about scheduling a 13 -point assessment. I’m thinking about buying a ticket for an in -person workshop. Kevin, what do you say to them? I would say do both. In six, seven years, I’ve probably been to 12 to 13 business conferences.

Amazingly, each time I go, I learn something new and I’m so excited to bring it back and show the team about marketing and how to help you guys implement the SEO. The coaching is just great because there’s accountability. It’s just a fantastic way to grow your company. Having a relationship with Thrive Time, it’s just been amazing for multi -claim. I don’t know that we talked about it, but we do the photography, video, web, search engine, online ads. From a peace of mind perspective, what does that do for you as an owner knowing that, hey, it’s a flat rate I’m paying and I have a team that handles all of that for me, the graphic design, the photography, the search engine, the web development, the strategy?

What does that do for you? Oh, my goodness. It frees me up because then I don’t have to take a class on search engine optimization or learn marketing or shoot video. That’s not what we do. What we do is commercial janitorial service.

And you guys are the experts on marketing and you teach me and hold my hand and show me how to do it right. And therefore, now my company is much, much larger. Kevin, I really do appreciate your time. For anybody in the Oklahoma area, anybody in Kansas, I believe you said. You said Kansas, Oklahoma. What other states are you in now, Kevin?

We’re in Oklahoma and southern Kansas. And this in 2025, we are looking to open an office in northwest Arkansas. I encourage everybody out there, check out the website right now. I’ll pull it up one more time, folks. That website is multicleanok . com.

That’s multicleanok . com. If you’re looking for a commercial cleaning service that you can trust, go to multicleanok . com. Kevin, thank you so much for your time, sir. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Thank you, Clay. Bye -bye. A really great idea is 90 % of the work. And then if you just tell all these other people, here’s this great idea, then of course they can go off and make it happen. And the problem with that is that there’s just a tremendous amount of craftsmanship in between a great idea and a great product. 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. Hi, I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate.

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

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

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

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

I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens.

I think in the 35 -year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel 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. Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur. And as they say in Stoic, the obstacle is the way. And so if you let you let these pinheads get in your way, you’re in trouble. Robert, one of the things that you said on multiple interviews, multiple times, and every time you said it, I thought to myself, have I not been paying attention?

Because it felt like new information to me. The first time I heard it, which is probably the 50th time I’d heard it, you said, octa nonverba. And maybe the first time you said it, I was driving while I’m listening to the podcast while driving. And maybe I was half paying attention, but I octa nonverba. And then it was almost like an angelic moment for me. and I octa non verba. Once I finally understood what it meant and what you were saying and how it could be used, I think it was life -changing for me and how I approach business.

Could you explain octa non -verba, what it means and how our listeners can apply it? Clay, you gave me goosebumps, man. I’m glad it hit you as hard as it did. Octononverba is the motto of the U . S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kingspoint, New York. I had appointments with Naval Academy and Kingspoint Merchant Marine Academy, and Merchant Marine Academy’s motto was Octononverba.

In other words, don’t listen to what a person says. Watch what they do. 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.

Transcribed with Cockatoo