Get back into the conversation is the business coach Thrive time show on your radio. I have never been on the cover of Forbes magazine but our company has been featured in Forbes twice and as of this morning with a couple of recent articles that I’ve had approved there I’ll be in there two more times and so I encourage everybody to Google thrive15.com and Forbes thrive 15. Forbes You can read. You could read about it. And that song is called billionaire. The song we came into is called billionaire and Bruno Mars wrote that song and Bruno Mars is a guy who grew up homeless on the go and you realize he grew up homeless. And when you are homeless what that means is that you’re somebody who at the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs you’re struggling for food and shelter. And as you move up then you struggle for friendships and belonging and then you look for a higher purpose. And then once you start to self actualize you need to make a copious amount of money to create the time freedom and financial freedom.
But what happens is a lot of people when they finally get to a place where they’re making the money they’ve wanted financially they can’t enjoy it because they don’t know how to deal with complaints because they they let the complaints take their joy still or joy taken it away and let them do it. And you cannot listen drivers I’m giving you a Dr. Zoellner quote He’s told me. I don’t know all time. But we’ll go with more than five. He said Shame on you for letting someone take your business coach joy. And I remember thinking what a man thought he would say something encouraging not because someone said this is it. Shame on you for letting them take your joy. You know and that’s you do your best and forget the rest. I remember him saying that. Shame on you for letting someone steal your joy. Do your best and forget the rest. And that’s very powerful powerful business coach thought.
So I want to ask you Tim I mean you grow tax and accounting software from two people in 1986 to over 450 people when you guys sold the business. And what year is 1999 is that right. We sold in 2001 till that one. OK. So how did you learn from complaints to improve the business because a lot of people get emotional they get defensive it steals their joy. How did you learn from those complaints and maybe use them to actually improve the business.
Yeah I tell you. Well first of all I was the entire support team so I got to hear all the good the bad the ugly those mostly bad the ugly what we did though early in the in the Get a bunch of people on board it was so high stress where the CPA is below on their staff for the software not being perfect. I would have a Monday morning meeting Clay and I would actually hear the complaints of the staff and I I felt so cut down and so I wanted to reach out at them.
I said listen I hired you here. I gave you this opportunity I poured in to you.
I wanted to get defensive but I learned just to say no this is a learning opportunity for me. And we made dramatic changes for the staff so that they could be just jacked up and ready to go to serve the Who in their 80s right.
So I mean like how long did it take for complaints to get there. I mean did the ponies deliver. Like every day. Yes. Before they invented.
It. Is it still me watching Miami Vice and these guys would knock on the door and he would he would have almost out of a panic he would change the station to Nightrider and he would do it. But it didn’t but he got mail.
It just came off the pony. We got another complaint we all had these shirts and we of calling unbutton them belly.
I have a guy in Tulsa that I know that still does that he wears his shirts like that and I’m like bro yeah. Come on.
Here’s the deal here’s the deal through Ivory’s only way to not go out of style to never be in style which is my method. So here we go I kinda I can verify that everyday. Well guys here’s the deal. I want to read you a notable quotable from sambil and not paraphrasing per paraphrasing I’m reading the actual quote he says. There’s only one boss to a customer and he could fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else. So Tim philosophically you know it can feel good to go yeah. We learned from complaint’s you know one of the things I like to do is learn from complaints but then like how do you. Because you guys were growing a company I mean you got complaints but how did you what’s the balance between taking a sense of urgency needed to take the complaints act on them and also not let us dress out right.
So first of all learning is really really key. Clay learning is not just gaining information but it’s making business coach adjustments. That’s what learning is so we had to make the adjustments. But there were lines that we had to draw. And so I would in these meetings I would have to draw the lines that were going to go this far and that’s all we can do because we had to focus on the majority of the people. We’re not going to spend our whole time chasing three people there.
So you can’t fix everything like media like at one time right. So it’s high business coach priority.
Right. So. So we made it we made it a priority. But we had to draw the lines of how far we could go. And I mean we would have this guy Todd Starky out sorry sorry he’s an awesome guy. Now Todd against our rules came back into the break came back into our office at midnight just to handle us.
How tall was Stuart. How tall how tall was taught. I think he was taller than I thought. I think he was like a 6 3 6 4. He’s a tall man wasn’t he. Yeah. He was 6 3 6 4 maybe 6 4 and a half. And you know he was actually the one his wife Allison hired me for a holiday part of my first holiday party than ever before. Right. For a bank over there off of Cherry Street called Stillwater National Bank. To is the first holiday part ever did. And I’m very appreciative to the Starkey’s for Forgive me at that opportunity so thank you. Starkey’s And so you saying that he went over to above though he went he went over but.
So. So we what we would have to create boundaries or lines otherwise people would crash. They would just they would fail. You know they would just they’d hit the end and then we would have a lot of people go to a wall on us they they’d quit us during the thick of them. So I wanted to be able to control that. So we have you know everybody leave it at that moment now thrive nation.
I want to I want to give you a notable Cordele from a bestselling author named Gino Wickman. And I really love what he’s saying here because if you don’t understand this if you don’t grasp it if you don’t get into it if you don’t dig this quote here’s an old school shovel. If you can’t dig it it’s going to be hard to grasp what I’m saying. So I want you to write this down or paraphrase some notes he says most people are sitting on their own on their own diamond mines their own diamond mines the surest way to lose your diamond mine is to get bored become over ambitious or to start thinking the grass is greener on the other side.
Find your core focus. Stick to it and devote your time and resources to excelling at it. So here we go. Elephant in the room men’s grooming lounge. Tim have you ever been there before. Have you read the whole thing. I love going to that place. Are you kidding me Steve. Honestly if you’re ever been in the room. Oh yeah. OK I got my haircut. 27 minutes. Can you explain what you like or don’t like about the oath and the reminders will know your experience candidly. I mean what would you do. What was your experience with the elephant in the room.
Well just like I said with the mortgage thing what we tried to do is control the experience so that there aren’t any surprises. And so for me it’s knowing what to expect. You know when you go in this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to go in I’m going to get my hair cut it’s can take exactly this long or less. I get that parafin hand treatment of things. How is that. How will I say it was kind of I mean I felt like I don’t want to tell my friends like the dudes that I got my hands waxed you know and I be like that though I had missed like a scout massage. Oh wow. That was it. They do. Bikini Wax. Wow.
I know. I asked for a back wax and. So they asked me to leave. But I mean up to that point it was great up until they said you need to leave or.
Tim Howard so how would you explain your elephant in the room. Men’s grooming lounge experience.
I love it. It is an experience play. I come in from the very beginning. I know I know the script is following here. But even though I know what it is because it you and I work together closely I still get lost in it from the beginning of how they welcome me. It’s a celebration they give me something to drink and then it’s this predictable process here. So I get this good live. So here is an example of the diamond mind. I’m obsessed with the business. And Justin is too so we decided to add up lighting to the downtown store and pinion wood outside.
We decided to add more decor we added more pageantry. We added more historic barnwood we added more. We’re always improving the menu or always we’re asking the customers what could we do to improve the process of adding an on line scheduling program that will make it very easy for men to schedule on a little app there. We have a text schedule feature we’re unrolling here soon. A lot of the things we’re doing it’s more like Southwest Airlines self-check in-style we got a lot of things we’re doing because we’re listening to you the consumers. But I will tell you that if I was an obsessed and he wasn’t obsessed with making it the best it could be do you know that just this week we’ve changed our inbound phone script twice. We’re on version I think it’s 47 right now. We’ve had our I mean we have like 60 versions of our handbook. We’re always improving we’re always upgrading it’s because we want to make the best experience for you so we can make the most money.
Now here’s what’s interesting Clay I was one of the early adopters. I was one of the early members. Yeah. And I did not stay.
Oh. It was about the learning curve. Now I didn’t want to be the I went on. I wanted Sperry and I didn’t want to I didn’t want to be the experiment. How is it better now.
Oh my gosh it’s just like everything is like clockwork. That’s what that’s what I think men like here is predictable it’s like clockwork and everything is just is is like it’s a luxury element and thrivers are listening.
Your first haircut is a dollar. So it’s kind of a dual use of clay. How could you afford to do that. Well we lose on average $23 every time that we give you a $1 haircut. So it’s a 23 dollar bet on you it’s like I’m handing you $23 is how it feels to me. And we have about eighty five.
This week we had an 81 percent conversion rate across the board but across the board but that was with you probably had a 116 percent on one of the stores we did. That makes a business coach very proud
We had one store that needs a little bit help. The South Tulsa store this week we had a a Grooming men party with bachelor party that came in to get haircuts and they were all from out of town and none of us want to sign up so it threw off the numbers with me like 17 dudes that came in as part of some big bachelor party and none of them sign up for membership. So I think all of them are from out of town except for the original member who’s the groom. And so it threw off the numbers a little bit and Katie.
Good job good job. You did a great job. We’re going to miss you when you moved to Hawaii. But if you’re listening right now I encourage you to good e. TR lounge and check it out. Book your first haircut it’s just a dollar. Now the next thing is once you have those that the feedback and it complaints the issues I need you to do this for me. Drivers and we’re going to do it tomorrow in our three coaches meeting it’s going to be awesome. I need you to take a post-it note and put it on your freakin business coach workflow put it on your workflow.
What’s a workflow. Why are you yelling at me for your business coach workflow.
I as a business coach, want you to go right now and buy a white board.
I don’t have the money for a white board that I want you to go get the white board paint her have them on that I want you to get a third in 17th job and figure it out but get a white board write your entire workflow from left to right and identify your biggest limiting factor. Because we have a limiting factor at the elephant in the room and I’ll tell you what that is. We need two more chairs at the South Tulsa location and I’ve got another limiting factor. We get our freakin FTT done so we can sell franchise. We have so many people who want to buy a franchise. We’ve got to get that done. But you have to know your biggest limiting factor and you’ve got to document your workflow from left to right from left to right like you’re reading a book. You have to do your process step one step two step three to four. And when you learn you have to put it on the workflow on the workflow because you have to see it if you don’t see it you can’t fix it if you don’t have it just an idea in your brain. If you run on some random notepad somewhere if it’s a comment you make to a coworker. If it’s a grievance you’re expressing. So you’re talking about to do with your husband or your wife. That’s not a workflow. So we come back we’re going to teach you specifically how to incrementally improve your business by just taking the complaints and putting them on the workflow and they are listen to the Karate Kid soundtrack because I love that movie.
Stay tuned for our time show on your radio. Big shout out to our main business coach man, Mr. Miyagi.
This is part 5 of the business coach transcripts. To start at the beginning and read from there, click here.