Clay: Okay. Now, I’m going to go over here. I’m going to do this one instead, here we go, business coach magic. I’m scrolling down here. So here we go. If you will Google that, you will find that the company that comes up top in Google is Oxi Fresh, O-X-I, fresh. They’re a client. Full disclosure, John is also an investor in the Elephant in the Room Men’s Grooming Lounge, and last week, we hit 100,000 Google reviews, 101,541 as of this morning. And that is because … “You’re lucky?” Nope. “Because you came from a rich family?” Nope. “Because is that luck again?” Nope. “Because of political connections?” Nope. “Because of Russia and Putin?” No. The reason why we’re top in Google in the world, and the reason why John has a 10,000 square-foot house, and the reason why his business is booming with hundreds of franchisees is because of this thing called diligence.
Look up the word diligence. Diligence means the steady application of effort, and nobody sees diligence. No one understands diligence. No one’s been around diligence, so when you see diligence, you’re going to call that person an enigma, something you can’t understand. You’re going to say they’re eccentric. You’re going to say they’re weird. Not you, other people. The people who are listening to the political talk right now, those are the people who would say you’re weird. I would say that you are becoming a master. So, Coach Calvert, I’m going to start with you. Basketball. Have you had a player show up at Score Basketball over the years, who you realize this person has a disproportionate interest in the game, a love for the game? And you know, “Hey, this person’s definitely going to play at college or the pros?” Have you ever seen it happen when you met a 12-year-old or 14-year-old and you go, “They’re going to play at the next level?”
Coach Calvert: It’s interesting, you can tell pretty early by that diligence. Usually, a kid is what he is by the time he’s 9 or 10 years old, and you can tell whether he’s going to be a star or not a star mainly by their work ethic much like you need a work ethic as a business coach.
Clay: Who was the guy, what was the name? Sam something, Sam something who went on to play at the college level?
Coach Calvert: Sam Belt and then he played at the pro level.
Clay: Now, did you coach Sam Belt? Is that right?
Coach Calvert: Uh-huh.
Clay: Now, Sam, my understanding is that dude could shoot a million different ways. It seemed like he had every move much like Thrive15 has a ton of business coach moves. What were his core skills?
Coach Calvert: Well, he was a short, fat guy when he started with me, but I saw something special in him. In fact, I give him a hard time about it all the time. But you could see
Clay: His shortness or his fatness? Both of which are not things you want to rip people about, right? Coach, are you politically correct over there, Coach?
Coach Calvert: It’s not that I don’t like short, fat people. He just happened to be one. It’s not great for basketball players. What we saw, though, is he had a great work ethic. He loved to play the game. He loved to be out on the court. You could tell he was already intelligent. He loved picking things up. Everything I’d teach him, he would pick up.
Clay: What were some of his offensive moves that he used to be effective at the high school and then the college level?
Coach Calvert: Well, he was a 6-8 guy that was really strong, and he could post up. He could shoot threes. He was a great passer, and so his skill sets were just way high. If he had to go just on his ability, he couldn’t jump two inches off the floor, but he had great skill sets.
Clay: And so when you met with him, how did he improve from the time you met the guy until he went to the pros?
Coach Calvert: Wasn’t very tough. We had to get him a lot tougher. He wasn’t quick. We had to get his feet a lot quicker.
Clay: How’d you get him tougher?
Coach Calvert: Tougher. One thing is you make them do things they don’t want to do. You make them do sprint drills. You make them do rebounding drills. You make them do things where it’s like it hurts kind of.
Clay: So you run through the pain like you do as a business owner?
Coach Calvert: Yeah.
Clay: You push through the pain. If you’re going through hell, you might as well not stop, right?
Coach Calvert: Yeah, and that’s what we do with our kids now is we give them things that are harder than what they think they can handle.
Clay: So I’m going to tell you some things that I do, Thrivers, to my kid that you’re going to say, “You are not a good person.” That’s fine. My son, he says, “I want to get some ice cream.” I said, “Cool. You know, you got to go in there and pay with cash at Braum’s.” He goes, “What do you mean?” I said, “Here’s $2. You go in. You get it. You figure it out.” And people are going, “Your son’s five. Why are you making him go into this store by himself.” Some people say, “Is that ethical?” I don’t even care, okay? I’m not going to make my son wear a helmet so that I can get the approval of some bureaucrat somewhere.
So the thing is, he goes into Braum’s, and he comes back in, and he’s like, “Dad, I don’t want to ask.” I’m like, “Cool. Then, let’s go home. No big deal. In fact, I’m going to go in and get some ice cream myself. And I’ll just eat it on the way home while you watch.” That’s my plan. Well, then he’s like, “I’m going to go do it.” And then, you know what? Now, my son is a nine-year-old, and the crazy kid is buying himself leaf blowers, paying cash for hundreds of dollars of leaf blowers. He now is the greeter at our in-person workshops. He wouldn’t make eye contact four months ago.
Coach Calvert: Oh, no. He wouldn’t look at me. He would stand at the back of the line behind his sister when he did basketball lessons.
Clay: So what advice would you give to the parent out there or to the business coach or owner out there who keeps running away from their weakness and keeps trying to hide behind it and calling it …? “I’m a victim. I’ve got a certain series of problems,” kind of making an excuse. So what advice would you give them?
Coach Calvert: Couple of things. One of the things that we tell kids is the thing that you don’t want to do most, that’s the thing you need to do most. That’s the number one thing. Second thing is there’s a great book called Do Hard Things out, and if you don’t get your kids to do hard things at a young age, they won’t do them when they get older. So you got to not punish them, but you got to give them things that they really would prefer not to do.
Clay: So as an example asking your customers to write a sincere review about your business might feel uncomfortable because they say “no” more often than not. But when you do it consistently, next thing you know, you’re top in Google in the world. This guy went to Victory Christian Center. He was at Oral Roberts University. He went on a couple dates with my wife, and then, I won the game of life. I won the game of life, but the thing is that it’s diligence. It’s the steady application of effort. When we come back, I want Marshall to share with us, kind of brag on some of his clients, that are the most diligent, the people that are out there applying that consistent effort when no one’s looking. It’s the same thing day after day, day after day. Stay tuned. Thrive Time Show.
Clay: All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back into the business coach conversation. Today, we’re teaching you. We’re showing you how to become a master. It’s so easy to become an amateur. It’s so easy to become adequate. And here’s the crap that we have to fight through right now as a culture. This is the crap that’s in your head that you have to fight through. I remember when I DJed my first show, and the guidance counselor told me, “You did such a good job for your first show,” justification, “and you have so much potential.” Anybody with a pulse has potential. So I went out there and I thought to myself, “Oh, my gosh. I did so good given it was my first show, and I have so much potential.” Then, when I saw the video footage of my show, I realized my first DJ show was awful.
I remember one time, the father of the bride came up to me and said, “How long have you been DJing?” That’s not a good question to ask. And I said, “Oh, only a couple months.” He’s like, “Well, I’ll tell you what, given that you’re just starting out, I mean, you’re doing really good.” The bride sent me a two-page complaint letter.
I’m just saying you don’t want justification. You’re either in the pursuit of excellence or you’re in the pursuit of mediocrity. And Andrew Carnegie, the guy who was the world’s wealthiest man during his time, who would have made an awesome business coach, he jockeyed back and forth John D. Rockefeller to be the best. He said that people who can not motivate themselves beyond mediocrity must be content with mediocrity. That does not feel very good. So, Marshall, Marshall, let’s brag on some clients. You have some clients you’re working with from all over the planet, all over the globe, specifically from coast to coast, people in New Orleans, people out there in Arizona. You’ve got people in New York. All different clients you’re coaching. And you’re coaching these people, by the way, for less money than most people would spend on hiring a barista.
If you were going to go hire a barista, let me walk you through the math. If you hire a barista, you’re going to pay this person, like what, ten bucks and hour, nine bucks and hour. “No, I’ll pay them minimum wage.” Okay, you’re going to get a crappy barista, right? And then what you do is you pay their health insurance, you pay the rent, you pay the lease, whatever. The point is you’re going to spend about 11 bucks an hour, and you hire them to work 4.3 per weeks, not that I track that. Not 4 weeks, but 4.3 weeks per month. You’re going to spend roughly two grand a month. And for about that or less, you’re coaching business coach clients and helping them radically increase their sales with no contract. That means if they decide not to work with you, there’s no unemployment. It’s unbelievable. You’ve got a wizard and a team of ninjas, SEO people, marketing people, graphic designers, videographers, but they have to do something. They can’t just hire you and say, “Go do something, wizard.” They have to do something. You teach them the way, but they have to go the way. Brag on those clients. Tell me those clients who are really getting it done?
Marshall: Yeah, there’s no contract, so if you disagree with the fact that I’m a Cleveland Browns fan, that’s okay. We can end the contract. But there’s three clients that I want to brag on the specific things that they’re doing, and they’re falling in love with the process, with the system of application. And number one is Delricht Clinical Research down in New Orleans. They’re doing great, and the super move that they implemented-
Clay: Gumbo?
Marshall: Not gumbo, more a business coach type businesses, but they actually do clinical research trials for pharmaceutical companies. And they implemented the carrot and stick merit-based pay system approach to managing their employees.
Clay: I’m writing this down. So you’re saying the carrot.
Marshall: Carrot.
Clay: And stick.
Marshall: And stick. So the way that you implement that into your business is you want to reward, provide a carrot, for your employees for the behavior that you want. So whether it’s completing a checklist or earning a bonus, closing a sale, you want to incentivize them for doing a good job.
Clay: I want to treat all my employees equally, pay them all the same, man. Some people just struggle with certain things, Marshall.
Marshall: Well, if you are of that business coach mindset, you want to pay everybody the same, you’re going to get equal results from everybody, and nobody has any incentive to outperform what they’re held accountable to do.
Clay: Well, communism is going over well in a lot of countries like North Korea. Well, okay. They’re not doing very well, but if you think about Cuba, they’ve done really poorly. But if you think about the USSR, they also aren’t doing very well. So communism, apparently, doesn’t work.
Marshall: Okay.
Clay: Okay, back to you.
Marshall: So you’ve got the carrot. You incentivize them for doing a good job. And a stick, an equal magnitude stick. You got to have some kind of penalty for not actually doing your job.
Clay: Why would you hit me with a stick?
Marshall: So you got the carrot and stick, Delricht Clinical Research, bragging on them. Then you got Fine Folk Pizza-
Clay: What is Delricht doing? What are they doing diligently? They’re holding people accountable for the system?
Marshall: They’re holding people accountable, so they have the key performance indicators.
Clay: What kind of results are they getting?
Marshall: They’re getting incredible business coach results. So for example, last week, real talk, they made $18,000 of profit, not bad for a business coach client.
Clay: Profit?
Marshall: Profit.
Clay: I’m having a hard time saying that. Profit. Profit of $18,000?
Marshall: Yeah, and they have their customer acquisition costs dialed in, so they’re spending about $750 on advertising every week, and they’re bringing in $18,000 of profit. Business coach wins are the best!
Clay: Profit. Now, Jeff, you’re a clinical psychologist. You know, you’re a psychotherapist. Mathematically speaking, is that ethical? Is that something that …?
Jeff: Is it ethical to make money? Is that what you’re saying?
Clay: I mean, to spend 750 to bring in 18,000? Emotionally is that okay?
Jeff: Yes. Yes. It’s even better. Look, in the end, it’s not even about the money. It’s about who you are, and you’ll never thrive unless you’re able to do that sort of thing. And then, it makes you into a better person. The idea that making money or doing well makes you suspect because you’re cheating the system of something, that’s a ridiculous idea.