Business Coach | Questions for The Gurus
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Learn Great Information From The Business Coach : Podcast Transcript
In this episode, Business Coach, Clay Clark, and Dr. Z have Owner and CEO of Oklahoma Joes, Joe Davidson, on to talk shop! They are going through their mailbag and answering questions for the gurus.
Announcer: And now, broadcasting from the center of the universe and the thrive15.com world headquarters, presenting the world’s only business school without the BS, with optometrist and entrepeneur Dr. Robert Zoellner and of course world business administration entrepeneur of the year and your ear Clay Clark, it’s The Thrive Time Show. On talk radio 1170. Three, two, one. Boom.
Clay Clark: What is going on, Tusla? Oklahoma is in green country. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is the place that you go for that daily audio dojo of mojo, where you could learn how to start and grow a business. If you’re looking for a political show, or you’re looking for a show about politics, news just in, this is not that show. This is that political alternative. Today, as always, I am joined here with a co-host with the mo-ost, it’s the doctor Robert Zoellner. Doctor Z, how are you sir?
Robert Zoellner: I am fantastic, happy Thursday everybody. We’re going to do a throwback today. We’ve got mail bag questions. I’m so excited and more than that, we are going to offer you today visual and audio candy.
Clay: Visual and audio candy. Now, where could they find the visual or candies in?
Robert: You go to Facebook Live.
Clay: Don’t look at me.
Robert: We’ve got a beautiful man on here.
Clay: Yes.
Robert: Who just brought us some meat candy, because he is the owner, proprietor, chef, head cook, probably janitor too, I don’t know. Joe Davidson, of Oklahoma Joe’s. Welcome Joe.
Joe Davidson: It’s so good to be here with you guys.
Clay: You’re kind of a living legend, you’ve literally sold two million grills during your life. Two million smokers during your lifetime. Two million smokers, sir. Does that ever, the profundity, the size of that number, ever just blow you away? That you’ve sold two million smokers?
Joe: I categorically deny that I’m responsible for global warming.
[laughter]
It wasn’t me.
Clay: Today, we are talking about a little bit of global warming. But we are talking today about the mail bag questions that you’re asking the business coach. We have hundreds of people every day, that will call in, they’ll email and they have questions, they’ll email [email protected], and so today, we’re going to be getting into five mail bag questions. Question number one, comes to us from a guy by the name of Colton. He asks a question.
He says, “I am currently a 19 year old who’s not attending college, considering I find no need to throw myself into an excruciating amount of debt for the rest of my life. I work in the hospitality industry, currently at low wages, but with plenty of opportunity. I bring in about $1,200 a month, though this may increase soon. Since I’m so young, I haven’t yet had the ability to build up any credit, and I’m looking to rent in an apartment with my significant other as well as continuing to advance my career in opportunities and hospitality. I currently hold two credit cards, I’ve been told that keeping a balance on these cards but continuing making payments that are more than a minimum amount and always making said payments early is crucial to building my credit. Any guidance?”
Z, he wants to know, do we have any guidance to help this man build his credit? I’m going to start with you, I’ve got some steps. I’m going to start with you. What advice would you have for Mr. Colton as it relates to building his credit there?
Robert: Well, I think he’s on the right, he’s starting off. I think the fact that he’s asking this question is good. I think a lot of people out there, credit, credit management, raising capital, getting the money to start a business. Because that’s what we’re about. We’re about the steps of starting and growing a business. That’s why it’s so fun to have Joe Davidson on here, who’s done those things. What we do is we do a surgical insertion to his brain and we just pull out the good stuff, and then we share it on the radio, so that his success can now mentor you into your success. But with Colton, what you do is just keep doing what you’re doing. We’ve got some more steps coming up.
Clay: Yes.
Robert: You know what? Credit card debt is not necessarily the best way to build credit but it is a way to build credit, all right? Obviously the interest rates are so high. I know a lot of people do that and they go, “Well, I’ll pay that” and then they end up, “I’ll skip it, I’ll skip it.” You’ve got to be real purposeful in that, and just be really on top of that, because the interest rate is so high, it’s not the best way to do it, but I applaud you for at least taking those steps.
Clay: I want to ask you here, Joe, because when you were growing your business and you were starting to grow your chain, your line, your product line of smokers, how quickly did you start to sell enough smokers that you realized, “Hey, if I’m going to scale this business, I’m going to need some kind of credit.”? Or did you ever involve credit? Did you ever have to get credit or borrow money to grow the smoker manufacturing facility to the next level?
Joe: That’s a great question, because I didn’t even know I should go out and borrow money. I looked at it from the perspective that we needed to be a pay as you go company.
Clay: Wow.
Joe: We went literally to our dealers, and my first dealer was Jack Wills Casual Furniture.
Clay: Really?
Joe: Jack Wills, the singer, right here in Tusla, Oklahoma. I went to Jack and he said, “You built a great smoker”, and he gave me a lot of great life lessons, regarding to product quality and et cetera. But he also said, “I’m going to help you up. How much is it going to cost you to build these smokers?” I said, “Well, it’s going to cost me US$50 to build that smoker.”
Robert: Okay.
Joe: He said, “Well, then you are going to sell it to me at how much?” and I said, “I’d like to sell it to you for a hundred dollars”, and that way I’d get some money for my labor, because I was building myself. He says, “Well, I’m going to front you US$50, so you can go get all the money to build them. You bring them to me and then I’ll pay you the rest of the money”, and literally my dealers helped finance my company as we grew, and we did that for the first few years, but within the first five years, we never borrowed a dime of money.
Clay: Now, I followed your path, I never really borrowed money at all while growing my businesses. But Z, I want to ask you, when did you first need credit? Or did you have a spot where you needed credit?
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Robert: Absolutely. You build a building, if I had a save to build that building, it would’ve never probably gotten bought.
Clay: You’re talking about the building off of Memorial Day.
Robert: That’s one of them. At some point, there’s the extreme. There’s the extreme that says, “I’m never going to borrow money. I’m never going to get credit.”
Clay: I’m never going to do it, I cut my credit cards.
Robert: I’m going to be physically responsible, I’m never going to do it. And then you grow at the pace that you can, which is okay. It’s okay. Nothing wrong with that. You know what I’m saying?
Clay: Right.
Robert: And Joe, just to, not to pick a fight on our first segment of this show, but you did borrow money. Those guys probably gave it to you, Mr. Wills gave you US$50. You didn’t realize but that was a loan.
Joe: True, true.
Robert: He probably didn’t charge you interest because you built up a rapport with him because you had convinced him that you were good ground to sow that seed into. But it really was it. It really was it. People go like, “I’ve never borrowed money.” You’re like, “Well, didn’t your mom give you some money? Didn’t your dad give you?”
Clay: Well Z, I’m going to tell you –
Robert: But just because it’s not a financial institution, Clay, does not mean that you didn’t have to borrow money.
Clay: I’ll say about year four with the DJ company, I realized, “I could sell more weddings”. The company was called DJ Connections. The company was called DJ connections and we did entertainment for weddings.
Robert: Yes.
Clay: I found that I could book. I remember one summer I go, “At my current pace, I’m going to book forty weddings every Saturday.” Forty. 4-0. That’s the DJ, the sound, the lights going out to the wedding.
Robert: Cool.
Clay: I said, “I only have six systems.” My wife looks at me and I look at her and she’s like, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I went ahead and I raised the deposit required, so you book a DJ, the DJ is US$600 to come and entertain for your wedding.
Robert: Okay.
Clay: I raised the deposit from US$100 up to about US$250. They would pay the deposit. I had enough money down to start buying equipment and I started realizing, “I’m going to run out of runway here. I’m not going to have enough money available to buy all these systems cash”. While they wanted those discover cards, 18 months, no interest, you know?
Joe: Yes.
Clay: I had a 20 thousand dollar limit, and I bought all the gear that I could possibly buy and then I paid it back at the end of the summer with the cash that I had earned from those events. That was my first time using credit line.
Robert: And here again, you said, “Why? I did the same, I never borrowed money.” That’s borrowing money.
Clay: Yes.
Robert: It’s from a financial institution called discovery.com, whoever owns them, probably a big bank owns them, I’m sure. But the thing about it, it’s okay. You have the extreme, that person says, “I don’t want to borrow any money. I just want to do it. I want to let it be just viral and let it grow on its own.” That’s okay. But you know what? Banks and financial institutions, they’re not evil. And they’re out there to help you, because you can scale faster, you can grow faster, you can get where you need to get faster. Because, I tell you what, you got a great idea, and you’re first into the space, that’s awesome.
Clay: Yes.
Robert: But if you don’t grow it quick enough, someone is going to take that idea from you and out-scale you, and out-build you, and be able to beat you. Because businesses are a little bit like war.
Clay: Little bit like war, kind of little bit like war.
Robert: I don’t want to be mean, I don’t want to be mean.
Clay: Now, I’m going to walk you through specific steps right now called [unintelligible 00:09:08] the thrivers who want to get your credit to the next level. You want to understand how credit works. First up there’s a free tool. If you go to discover.com/free-credit-score. That’s discover.com/free-credit-score. You can discover what your credit score is and it’s free. It’s a good starting point, to know where you stand.
But here are the factors that affect your overall credit ranking. One is your open credit card utilization, meaning that if you have a credit limit for US$10,000, what percentage of the money available are you using? If you’re using US$9,999 of your US$10,000 of available credit, that’s going to affect your score in a negative way. The second is the percent of on time payments. If you consistently make all your payments late, over time that will affect your credit.
Negatively. The third is the number of derogatory remarks. If you basically just not paid stuff and they’ve decided to report you to a credit bureau, that’s not a good thing. Point number four is the average age of your open credit lines. If all of your credit lines were open the last Thursday, that’s not good. It shows that you’re sort of in a rush to get a lot of money real fast. Point number five the total number of accounts. If you have a credit card at target and dullards and MasterCard and discover and Amax and every possible credit line you can get your hands on and then you apply again for another place, it shows maybe you’re erratic financially. The final is the total hard credit inquiries. If you to a bank and you apply for a loan they’re going to pull your credit. They’re going to pull your credit enough, then it’s going to hurt your credit score.
I would say for you Colton specifically, I would have a credit card but I would pay it off every month. That with to be my tip to you, I would pay off every month because if not your credit utilization, it will show you’re not being honestly a good steward of your of your credit and you’re using too much of your credit, of your available credit. It’s better to show that you pay it off and you pay it off on time each month and that will help you build your credit.
Also having a cellphone that’s actually a loan, and when you have a cell-phone people don’t realize that when you have a cell phone, you actually have a loan with the credit card with the cell phone company and you’re basically leasing that or you’re making payments on that phone you got. But the phone you got for free, is either you’re making payments month after month on that phone.
Robert: Month after month because you signed a contract and you’re on the hook for that amount of money. You may not realize it but you may be a two-year commitment or a one-year commitment whatever that commitment is.
Clay: Now we come back Thrivers, we have nailed by question number two and this is going to be for Joe Davidson. We’re going to really ask him a tough question here from a Thriver. He wants to know about how did you build your schedule when you were first starting your business. Back before you’d sold two million smokers, how did you build your schedule? You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show during your midday here on Talk Radio 1170. Stay tuned.
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Live, local, now, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.
Clay: All right Thrive nation. Welcome back to the inspiration station. This is your audio Dojo of Mojo in the place that you go to learn how to start or grow a business fosho. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA entrepreneur of the year in your ear. I’m also the father of five human kids. I raised a lot of chickens and I’m joined here with the co-host with the most, Dr. Robert Zoellner. Sir how are you?
Robert: Hello Thrive nation out there. Welcome to the show. We were a little sneaky. We were 5:00 to 7:00 everyday drive time and now we’re 12:00 to 2:00.
Clay: You know what a great thing to do is during 12:00 to 2:00?
Robert: Eat chicken salad sandwiches?
Clay: No, it is to go to Oklahoma Joe’s.
Robert: And will you know my favorite thing there to eat is? Take a guess, come on.
Clay: Baked beans?
Robert: That’s one ho-ho. Yes that’s one. The other one is? I’ll tell you what folks, if you just now getting your card and you are thinking, “I’m hungry, when I was Thursday. What I want to do anyway.” I’m telling you what, drive directly. If you’re broken arrow go by the Bass Pro Shop. Oklahoma Joe is right there going clean beautiful store get in the line and do this move. Burnt ends and baked beans and you know what? You’ll thank me later. You’re welcome. You other stages, you’re welcome. If you’re in South Tulsa or in Tulsa at all, you could 60-person shared him, and right there you can find Oklahoma Joe. Just slide in there, tell them that the Thrive Time Show sent you and I don’t know if they’ll give it to you free.
Clay: I have a special gift for anybody who does that today.
Robert: What is that?
Clay: If you go to Oklahoma Joe’s today and you go and you take the challenge that calls the baked beans challenge. If you go in there and those are not the best baked beans you’ve ever had in your life, then you just drive up here to the Thrive 15.com world headquarters. We are off the left coast of the James River. You come up here off the Arkansas River. You come here and sing Beautiful Jinx America, I’m going to give you a copy of my newest book called Thrive. I’m going to give you a copy of that book. Okay, I’ll give you a copy of my book. Take the challenge, if it’s not the best baked beans you’ve ever had you get a copy of my book.
Now if it is, if they are in fact the world’s best beans, this is it. This is the offered that works great both, now you come here I give you a high five and I give you a book. This is an offer. This is a one-time offer just for today. You get your card today. I’ll give you a high five and I’ll give you a book if you go just take the challenge. Are they the world’s best baked beans?
Robert: Lunchtime Thrive time, Oklahoma Joe time and we have matter of fact the guy that we have Joe. I mean we got the dude.
Clay: He’s here. Joe how are you doing?
Joe: I’m doing great. That’s a lot great offer.
Clay: It’s a huge big offer. We now run it through corporate. This is an offer. We just came up with.
Robert: Wait. We are the corporate, we are in charge.
Clay: You are the man. All right so here is the deal, we are talking today, we have mailbag questions. Today is a mailbag edition of the Thrive time show. We have a mailbag question number two. This comes in from a sensational Thriver by the name of Sarah. This question goes to you Mr. Joe. She says, “How did you schedule your day when you first started your business and how did you find it?”
Joe: I’ll tell you, I scheduled my day by how many hours could I stay up and work. I started as early as I could. Typically now I had kids so I had to get them off to school and help them get ready. It’s a thing. That’s what you do when you’ve got your own businesses. My wife was a teacher. She taught schools. She was an elementary school teacher. I’d help get them off to the babysitter when they were really young and then I’d go to work but I would work literally until 2:00 in the morning. My schedule –
Clay: 2:00 in the morning?
Joe: 2:00 in the morning. There were not set hours. I don’t think that’s something that when you’re really wanting to grow your business and do the right thing that you literally have the luxury of saying my hours are from 8:00 to 5:00. Work long as you need to work.
Clay: Z, if anybody who is listening out there, who says I thought Bernie Sanders had said you cannot work more than 35 hours a week, 36 actually. Z, what advice would you have for the entrepreneurs who are listening to the show who want to make sure they never work more than 36 hours to keep Mr. Bernie Sanders happy.
Robert: Well, you know what? We’re changing paradigm right now because unfortunately out there and the statue can Google and say this is a thing. Eight out of 10 businesses don’t make it. They fail. [Laugh] I like that noise. One of the reasons why they fail is because the people get started in them and I’ve seen this time and time again, people are like, “Hey doctor Z. Would you, can I do lunch? Could give me — I want to mentor you and your band.” You are like, “Okay, I can fit you in. Yes.”
They say they are talking to you and all they can talk about is starting this business and then how quick they get their time off. How quick they can get other people hired to do it. How quick they can just I me [cross-talk]
Clay: It’s going to be a burger truck and what I’m going to do is once I sell enough burgers, I’ll be on the beach sipping on my ties and hanging out with the ladies. I just need you to fund my truck. It’s the world’s best burgers I’m going to call it and they’re going to sell every on this beach having my time. I just need your money. That’s all I need is money, no education, no tips, no management skills, no sales training, no search engine, no diligence. I just need your money and I’ll be on the beach. No discipline.
Robert: No discipline and you know everybody is going to want to make your burgers for you right off that. You are going to be able to pay them because –
Clay: People know me.
Robert: Yes. But the thing about Joe just said when a magical. Just that he impact something magical there and that is, is that if you want your business to be successful, it’s up to you to get in there and do the work.
Clay: Oh what? That’s sounds so mean. It’s so aggressive.
Joe: I never really thought of that.
Clay: If someone is listening right now though Joe and I want you to be able to speak into their lives because you’re the founder of Oklahoma Joes. You’ve sold two million smokers. You have a great chain of restaurants. You’ve had a lot of success but somebody’s listening right now and particular Sarah. And she’s going okay well, how did you fund it? How did you fund it? Did you have a bunch of money? Did you have a rich uncle? How did you specifically fund your business?
Joe: I’m from Okemah Oklahoma, grew up on a ranch down there. That was a state farmer in FFA. I really love ranch and I love farming but I got my degree in agri education. Then as I was going along, I thought you know what I’ve paid my way through college as a welder. My grandmother and my grandpa gave me $2,000 worth of US savings bonds.
Robert: God bless her.
Joe: One hundred dollar increments.
Clay: That’s awesome.
Joe: I took those in 1987 and I cashed them in. I built 12 cookers took those to the state fair of Oklahoma and when the fair was over, I nearly sold those 12 hookers, but I had orders for 108 more. That’s how I funded and started my business.
Clay: If you’re listening to this right now, I’m going to give you the magical three ways to start and fund your business. I’m going to give you the three ways. There’s a lot of ways to do it and at thriive15.com, we literally teach you the specifics on dozens of ways to start and fund your business. I’m going to go ahead and give you the three ways that I hear more often than not.
Robert: And they are magical.
Clay: They’re magical because they work over it over and over.
Robert: Wow.
Clay: One is this thing called saving.
Robert: Stop it.
Clay: Yes. You have another job. You have two two jobs and you’re working and you’re saving. You’re spending less than you’re earning. I know that’s so offensive, but you’re spending less than you’re earning. You have two jobs, okay? That’s move number one. Move number two is family and friends who see that you’ve put some sweat equity in it and they see you’ve contributed your own money, you’ve put in your own time and money, and they believe in the effort and the diligence that you put in because you’ve been saving. You have some scheme in the game, and family and friends are willing to get behind you Z.
Robert: But what happens if I’m a guy and I did that and I failed? I failed and then I say I wasted their money, but yet I had this other great passion, this other great idea, this other great business I want to do. How on earth can I — Do I go back to them?
Clay: Yes, and I’m telling you this; Henry Ford lost all of his money five times. He lost it all five times. Walt Disney lost it twice, but I’m telling you what, you have to be committed to success. You ought to be committed and you just got to go back to those people and say, “Hey, I’m sorry I lost the money. I’m going to do my best to -“
Robert: Sam Walden did it.
Clay: Sam Walden had to go to his father-in-law and go, “Hey, we’re not doing so well. Can I borrow a little bit more to fund this crazy Wal-Mart idea. Now move number three, move number three Thrivers is called delayed gratification. Maybe you have to put off starting the business for a while until the timing is right later. Delayed gratification, that’s a thing.
Thrivers, when we come back we’re going to be getting in to mailbag question number three here with the founder of Oklahoma Joe’s Barbeque. We’re getting into the mailbag question number three. You do not want to miss out on this question.
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You’re listening to the Thrive-Time show on Talk Radio 1170.
Clay: All right Thrive Nation. Welcome back to the Thrive-Time show during your afternoon. For many people who are just discovering this show for the first time, you’re kind of going cognitively. You’re saying, “What is this? Is this a [unintelligible 00:23:35] show? I haven’t heard any references to building walls.”
Robert: “I thought this was a Home and Garden show.”
Clay: “There’s no recounting of votes, There’s no Home and Gardening Group references. What is this show. This show must be something different. It must be about business without the BS, and Z, it is Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time show. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the year, and I’m joined here with the co-host with the most, Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir how are you?
Robert: I am fantastic and I’m an entrepreneur trapped in an optometrist body. An optometrist is an eye-doctor. I’m not really a doctor but sort of almost I’m. Almost a doctor.
Clay: You love the weather.
Robert: Almost, almost, almost a doctor and people all the time say to me, they go, “You’re an optometrist. Why do you have an auto auction?” Or “You’re an optometrist. Why do you fill in the blank.” I’m kind of like, “There is no — You get to paint people into corners.” If you’re whatever, you can do whatever. We’re here to encourage you to follow that passion and turn it into profit to scale and to make some muller muller, just like the success story of the man one left to me. If you’re looking on Facebook live,
Clay: It’s a beautiful thing.
Robert: It’s a beautiful thing. We have Joe Davidson, the founder and head chef of Oklahoma Joe’s Barbecue.
Joe: Man, it’s so good to be here with you guys. Talking about handsome.
Clay: Why are you asking questions? Hold on.
Joe: You heard me, I’m talking about –
Robert: Clay, you know what the best part of having Joe on the show?
Clay: Other than his hysteric beauty and the flavor of the food, I don’t know.
Robert: We’re here at lunchtime and I’ve got to be honest, last time we had Joe on I kind of fussed a little bit because he didn’t bring us the goodies.
Joe: I’d call it crying a little bit.
Robert: I was crying just a little bit.
Clay: He sent an anonymous hate e-mail.
[laughter]
Clay: Some of the people on the Thrive Time show are fast crying with the lack of food.
Robert: One of the hosts, I’m not going to name which one, is very upset because — Today, he brought in a sack, a little sack of little treasures, little goodies, little goodies and one of our production guys, I think when we ate the — What was it? The dessert.
Clay: Putt Inns?
Robert: No. Not the Putt Inns.
Joe: The Preda Pudding.
Robert: Preda Pudding. I think Brad Marshall, I think he passed out. I think he literally– It was so good, he just –
Clay: For people who are watching on Facebook live, we’re actually broadcasting here live from the box that rocks. You can kind of see some members of our team who are out working on some things. Mel, did you like the barbecue? Did you like the barbecue? Mel likes them. News just in, Mel loves the barbecue.
Robert: Fabulous.
Clay: We’re going to get into the next question. Question number three. This comes from a Thriver, and this is what they said. This is from Amy Johnson. She says, “How do you stay focused on getting the day-to-day tasks done in your business with all of the ridiculous people and drama that happens every day? Z, I’m going to start with you. How do you do it?
Clay: Two ways, I’m going to give you two little nuggets. You want two little magical nuggets?
Clay: Yes.
Robert: That’s the thing.
Clay: Two magical nuggets.
Robert: There’s a word you have to get in your repertoire.
Clay: Here we go.
Robert: We have to get into your dictionary, in your vocabulary, and that is ‘no’.
Clay: What?
Robert: Yes. You’ve got to learn to say, “No.” This is that thing is going to sound really mean. We’re going to impact this a little bit, but the second one, which is going to sound mean and don’t –
Clay: Don’t lead me into a bad thought.
Robert: Just give me a chance to explain what I’m going to say. You’ve got to limit the number of people that have access to you. I know that sounds — I know, I know. You’re sitting there, you’re at Oklahoma Joe’s and you’ve got the Bunny, it’s the baked beans, you’re welcome by the way, and you sit there eating, you’ve got your soda product and you’re going, “That just seems mean.”
Clay: I want to plough one real quick because I have a notable quotable from Lee Cockerell. This is the guy who, by the way, used to manage 40,000 people. He says, “One way to get your priorities accomplished is to schedule them in your calendar.” See, if you’re scheduled to be somewhere that’s going to require you to say no. Z, I have a story I want to share about this.
Robert: Is this story time?
Clay: Do you know that my last speaking event is this weekend?
Robert: Wait a second.Give me a story.
[music]
Story time.
Clay: All right.
Robert: I want story time.
Clay: Here’s the deal. I started a company called dj-connection and if you’re a deejay you’re basically like one level above the carnival guy. If you’re the carnival guy, you run in the Himalaya or you’re taunting people to throw baseballs at you in a chance to dunk you in a dunk tank, then you power up and now you’re a disc jockey. I was a disc jockey, built the company djconnection.com to the point where we did 4,000 events the last year that I owned that business.
Robert: It’s awesome.
Clay: I’m growing the business. The mix of what you sell the business and people start to say, “Could you come entertain?” I say, “Sure. What’s the name your company.”
“Oh, Southwest Airlines, “Oh UPS”, “Oh, Maytag”, “Oh–“
And then pretty soon they go, “Could you also do maybe a motivational talk because motivational speaking is one level above deejay.
Robert: Oh yes.
Clay: And then you move up; carnival to deejay to motivational speaker. The next level is politician by the way. I’m not there yet, but anyways, the thing is , I start saying “Yes.” I’m not exaggerating. My wife looks at me. I had 18 paid speaking events on one month, and my average was 15 a month that I had back before we started Thrive. It was just like 15 speaking events a month in a plane, in aluminum tube, sitting next to some guy named Craig or Trevor or somebody wants to tell you of their life story, and they’re bigger than the seat and you’re stuck in the middle somewhere, it’s a weird deal.
I decided, “I have to change that. I have one more speaking event that I’m committed to. It’s for the food and drug administration. It’s in Las Vegas. It’s my final event and I’m droppind the mic boom. You know what, I had to say no. Z, it was so hard to say no. Could you speculate as to why it was so hard for me to say no Z?
Robert: Because deep down inside almost every single one of us wants to be like Ted, loved by everybody around us. We want to be the guy that brings the great barbecue to the Christmas party and everybody says, “Oh, we love you.” So you think you want affirmation; you want people to like you and you don’t want to upset people. We don’t wake up in the morning, go and was up and get to upset some people today. I’m just looking forward to the first version I can take off. I hope it does before lunch because that would always make my barbecue taste better.
Clay: Z, when we come back, we are going to be asking Joe. We’re getting into a very deep story here. What they were selling, they sold two million smokers and we’re going to ask him about how he dealt with fan mail, e-mails, phone calls, how you were able to limit the number of people who had access to you, — What’s the — I can’t even imagine what that would be like to sell two million of something. We’re going to get into the specifics how he was able to set priorities and get stuff done with that much commerce going on around you. It had to be exciting but it also had to be a little bit draining. We’re going to have Joe Davidson, the founder of Oklahoma Joe’s, teach us his secrets. Coming up next.
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You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170.
Clay: All right thrive nation welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your afternoon. Many of you right now are contemplating. You’re saying to yourself, what is this show and what am I going to eat for lunch? Z can you help them out?
Robert: Well this show is the number one business talk show in Northeast Oklahoma, we call it Green Country. Of course people are listening to it around the world because on the thrivetimeshow.com we have archived every one of our shows. You can binge watch all night long.
Clay: I talked to a Canadian the other day, true story, I talked to a Canadian who told us he found the show because a friend of his went to thrivetimeshow.com shared the link with him and he said he’s been basically binge listening and he said was through about 12 of them. He goes, “This is like the specific stuff that no one talks about.” I said, “Hey, we pride ourselves on providing business school without the BS.”
For those of you who are tuning in today this is a mailbag edition so people like you are emailing into [email protected]. You can ask the gurus anything. You can ask us anything. The question was asked by Ms. Amy she says, “How do you stay focused on getting the day-to-day tasks done in your business with all the ridiculous people drama that happens every day?”
One of the tips that Z said was you have to learn to say no to things and you also have to be able to limit the number of people that have access to you. Joe Davidson, the founder of Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue is here and he actually sold two million smokers at the peak of that business. Joe, I want to ask you, how did you limit the number of people that had access to you and how did you start to say no to things my friend?
Joe: In the early years I said no to no one and I literally talked to anyone that was willing to listen to me. We were a young business. As time went by we started to understand, these are the common questions that everyone has about our smokers.
Clay: Hey man, can I grill steak with this or chicken on it?
Joe: How long does it burn?
Clay: How long does it burn?
Joe: Exactly. All those great questions you know. We stepped back and said, “How can we get to all these people and give them the right answers and literally get to be a friend of theirs?
Clay: Holograms, using the internet and the holograms or something.
Joe: You know in these days, they were called VHS tapes.
Clay: Really?
Joe: We gave a VHS tape with every smoker that we sell.
Clay: You did?
Joe: Every one of them.
Clay: Was that you on the video?
Joe: Me on the video.
Clay: Oh wow.
Joe: Absolutely. I wanted to make certain that they knew how to put it together, how to use it and then how to be a great chef in their own backyard and a hero.
Clay: Was your style kind of like Bob Vila? Were you over the top like Billy Mays? What was your style of delivery on those VHS tapes?
Joe: I don’t think it was. I was more laid back. I’m an Okay from heart. I was born in Okay in Oklahoma so I really laid it back. We were easy going and I think that’s another thing people really liked. If you’re from Maine or New York or California, you don’t get to hear people that talk like me very often.
Clay: You scaled the common questions over and over by making a VHS tape. If you’re listening right now Thrivers and you’re going, “Men, I just I’m running out of time.” Think about what is your biggest limiting membrane as he calls it. What is your biggest limiting factor, what is the thing that you keep the question you keep answering over and over or the things that are limiting your ability to focus on other things because you keep getting into the same question loop? You keep getting into the same question the same situation.
Z, talk to me about how you have been able to limit — What do you practically do right now to limit people who have access to you? What are your rules? How do you do it?
Robert: Well here is my rule is that you have a hierarchy of command in each of your businesses. If narrowly a person catches me in a hallway and says, “Hey man I got a problem. I got a question. I got something I got to talk to you about.” I go, “Okay great it’s about the business? Well my door is always open. I’m always accessible but have you talked to your supervisor about it?” “No.” I say, “Well, that’s where you need to start buddy.” Then I walk on.
Clay: See, I got this rash and I don’t know what it is. Let me show it to you. Can I show it to you?
Robert: There is a 24/7 thing around the corner there. But you do it. The top people, each one of my businesses have full access to me 24/7 if they need it. They have people that they have that have that full access to them and so on down the line and in that way there’s only — no more —
Clay: Okay. Wait a second. There is a pirate. If somebody is listening and they’re a pirate of knowledge and they want to pick your brain. They work at one of your businesses and they go, “Hey Z, I want to know what are the three steps? Just three. I got a quick question Z. I just need to grab you for a quick minute. I just need to grab you for a quick minute. Just a minute.” What do you say?
Robert: I say, “Hey, you know what, that’s a great idea. I want you to schedule some time with my personal assistant or you can email me that.” That’s how you give people access to you. You say, “Oh okay. Here is 30 minutes of my day that I’ll do nothing other than sit there and listen to you ramble about your coffee shop idea.” I’m not going to do it.
Clay: There is a time pirate number two. The meeting is clearly over. Everything has been established. Whatever needs to be talked about has been talked about but the time pirate he says, “I’ve got one more thing to say.” How do you tell them no?
Robert: You just say, “Take that parrot off your shoulder and get the heck out of here. The meeting is over.” You know what? Oh gosh. How do you say this and don’t sound like that dude that’s rude? Listen, it’s your time. It’s your day. You get to decide what you do with it. If somebody else is trying to pirate your time and pirate your day, and you know what? We lay in bed and you put your little head on the pillow and you pull the covers up to your head and you say to yourself as you’re going off to sleep, “I didn’t get anything done today.” Then you think back at all the pirates with the parrots and the patch and the –
Clay: Time pirate number three here. Time pirate number three I got two more for you. One is, before the page email or the long social media post at social media I’m upset about something on social media. I write you a long post. I tag you in it.
Robert: What I do is I send it to whatever business it is whatever manager. I send it to him and say to him handle this and go on. Every now and then they’ll come back to me and say, okay this is what happened and you need to do XYZ and I’ll do XYZ because nobody cares as much about my businesses as I do. Same thing about Oklahoma Joe’s, I mean I love their Burnt Ends and Baked Beans.
Clay: You do.
Robert: I do.
Clay: It’s not healthy.
Joe: It is.
Robert: I love eating Joe Davidson & Barbeque but I promise you this, he cares more about Oklahoma Joe’s than I do. I’ll just tell you that right now.
Clay: I got a question for Oklahoma Joe.
Robert: Oh gosh. Oh no.
Clay: Final time pirate waste of pirate feed question here for you. You’re at the office, you’re trying to get things done and you keep having interruptions. Somebody just keeps going, “Open the door. Excuse me. Excuse me.” How do you stop the interruptions Oklahoma Joe?
Joe: The number one thing that I do is that I don’t keep an office in my stores.
Clay: Really?
Joe: I don’t keep an office in my stores.
Clay: Come on now.
Joe: I keep a separate corporate office. The greatest pirate of my time from time to time is that I’ll go out and I love to walk the floors. Love to walk the floors.
Clay: Walking the floors, my peg leg.
Joe: I think that it’s important to do that. I love to visit. I understand what do my customers want, what they need, what they think but occasionally I’ll have one that is a lot of extra time. They want to talk about that smoker they bought about four years ago.
Clay: Oklahoma Joe.
Joe: I love to do that but occasionally I have to have someone or my assistant is going to always come back and say, “Joe you’ve got an appointment in 10 minutes. Can you come do that?” I have to get them to pull me back occasionally. It’s always good to have that assistant that helps be your pirate patrol as well.
Robert: You saw the movie Casino? I love that part when he’s in there and he’s going to do that — meeting with the congressman or the local politician, and he tells his assistant, he goes, “After watching the door, page me three minutes.” It’s like he’s purposeful, he knows, it’s like my sister, she lives up in New York, she’s one of seven, there’s six boys one girl. Back in the day when she started dating a dude, she already knew the way she was going to break up with him, she was purposeful for their time management.
Clay: I’m going to tell you this right now if you’re listening to this right now Thrivers, as an actionable item for you, I want you to go ahead –I call this the 24-hour audit, and I do this as a business coach when coaching clients all the time, I say, “Look at your last day, and write down where you spent all your time,” go ahead and do it. Once they do what I say, go ahead and look at this week and think about what did this week, and the secret that this is have–I’m paraphrasing a John Maxwell quote, but John Maxwell the best-selling author of 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, he says that your success or failure is found in your daily calendar, and so you’ve got to look at that and ask yourself, where did my time go? Because, even though Dr. Z has had huge success in business, and Oklahoma Joe’s had huge success in business, you guys did it by focusing on the things that matter, because you could have spent all your time Dr. Z, going out there by the way. We all ever see the river-walk here in James, you could have spend all your time going out there, pulling weeds, you could be out there fishing on the river, you could have done that, Joe you could have been out there –
Robert: Catching sand.
Clay: Yes, Joe, you could have been out there doing every weld yourself, but at a certain point ,you had to focus on scaling the business. Now Thrivers, when we come back, we’ll be talking about mailbag question number four. Now, this question is something that a lot of people want to know and Z, it’s kind of humbling question. We’ve had a couple of Thrivers ask this question, and they’re wanting to know — well, I don’t want to give away that, I don’t want to give away the question, but it’s a question –
Robert: Hold on a second, I’m going to go back to the floor, and can you imagine how many times Joe’s walking in his floor, and some older couple says,” Oh my God, that’s the guy on the VHS tape.”
Clay: I remember when I was watching him , I saw him.
Robert: “I remember him, remember that tape you’ve watched over and over, my wife watching an absurd amount of times.”
Clay: “I watch that tape 37 times on a Tuesday”-
Robert: Because he’s eye candy, just makes me candy,” and they just watched, they’ve worn out that VHS tape out, so they stopped you on the floor, they were like,”Oh my gosh, you’re that guy,”-
Clay: “I watched that movie several times. Joe I watched it, the plot what was amazing, were you making the beans, I didn’t know, could he do it, is he going to be able to make the beans.”
Robert: Let’s cut this, let’s get in time for the countdown.
Clay: All right, all Thrivers, stay tuned, we’re going to talking about mailbag question number four, when we get back.
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Broadcasting from the center of the universe, featuring optometrist turned entrepreneur, Dr. Robert Zoellner, and US SBA entrepreneur of the year, Clay Clark. This is the Thrivetime Show on Talk Radio 1170.
Clay: Not only are we broadcasting from the center of the universe, we are broadcasting from the left coast of the Arkansas river, within the beautiful thrive15.com world headquarters in beautiful jinx America. Within that particular building, we are inside the box that rocks, and I’m talking on the magical microphone, my name is Clay Clark, I’m the former SBA entrepreneur of the year. I’m glad to be here with you today, and as always, I’m joined with the co-host with the most, this guy, let me just walk you through his travel itinerary. He’s been to Guatemala, and he’s been to Minnesota, he’s been to Vegas, all in the past week. How does he do it, and he’s still here with us, it’s Dr. Robert Zoellner.
Robert: It’s called airplanes, airlines, it’s the aluminum tube that takes you there, because that’d be a lot of walking, I couldn’t have done if I had to walk.
Clay: Your life wouldn’t have been possible those 70 years ago.
Robert: [laughs] Well, true yes.
Clay: It’s amazing
Robert: That’s just math, but you know it’s throwbackthursday, it’s the second half of our show. If you drew the short straw and you had the late lunch today, it’s not too late to get in your car, or walk, or ride your bicycle or however mode of transportation you like to do, it could be a helicopter, I don’t know.
Clay: Should you have been a former mall cop and you own a Segway?
Robert: Oh, that’s the best.
Clay: If you’re one of those, if you can figure out how to do it safely.
Robert: And you are sitting there thinking, what do I do for lunch, I’m in a late lunch, I’m listening to Thrive Time show, I tell you, we got the play, we got the move. If you’re a broken arrow, you go by the bass pro shop, a little blue place called Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ –
Clay: It will blow your mind.
Robert: If you’re in Tulsa over at 61st and Sherrodon, Oklahoma Joe’s, and you walk in there, you get in the line, you look up at the board, but you don’t even look at the board, don’t even, I’m going to just give you the move, you go in and say, “I want the banions, I want some baked beans, ” and if you’re a little bit of sweet tooth, you ask for the bread pudding.
Clay: You know what the problems Joe’s had over the years, and Joe, I don’t if you can confirm this, or if you would deny this. Joe how are you doing by the way?
Joe: I’m great, it’s so good to be here with you guys.
Clay: Some people, they go on a religious trip, they go, “I’m going to go to Israel and I’m going to see the birthplace of my religion, and I’m going to go to the different places.” People have started to plan vacations around going there, to your business, to try the world’s best baked beans. It’s become kind of a problem, because what time do you close?
Joe: We close every night at nine o’clock.
Clay: It’s like 9:15, it’s 9:20, it’s 9:30, there’s a line of people just starting to camp out there, and you’re going,”Bro, I know you traveled here from Wisconsin for these baked beans, but you have to go home. Okay, we love you, we love the cheeseheads, but you got to go home,” he’s said to me, “Joe be read, just shut it down,” he said. “Listen, I love you guys, but we’ve got to shut the door, you can come back tomorrow for some more.”
Robert: “Come back at 11:00 AM, we start again then.”
Clay: Listen, if you’re listening right now, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com, and you hear the podcasts, so many people, thousands of people go to thrivetimeshow.com. They listen to the podcast and they share it with friends. I’m going to tell you what, if you travel here from another state,– can we give them a tour at Joe’s, is that something we could do?
Joe: I’ll give you a personal kitchen tour.
Clay: Personal kitchen tour, if you come here to Tulsa, Oklahoma and today Z we’re doing the challenge. We’re calling this the baked beans challenge.
Robert: Challenge, just throw it down, just throw that down.
Clay: You go to the two locations, you go over there, and you go ahead and try some baked beans, and if they are in fact the world’s best, then you come here to the Thrive15.com world headquarters in beautiful jinx America. At the riverwalk, I give you a high five and a copy of my newest book Thrive.
Robert: That’s fair. Here’s the other thing too, he has another store here, it’s at the Cannes. What are it’s hours and when does it open?
Joe: It’s at the Cannes’ ballroom. It’s a Tulsa icon. It’s very famous and its aired from Monday through Friday, 11:00 till 2:00 but then on concert nights, selling great barbecue and comfort night state.
Robert: Yes, if you’re downtown you can grab some lunch down there, so you working in the tower, your anything, you’re doing the thing about the thing.
Clay: You’re walking in the tower power.
Robert: To the tower, you could go down there today, Cannes ballrooms and get some Oklahoma Joe’s.
Clay: You got to get in there and pump yourself up. Now, Thrivers we’re talking about the mailbag question number four, this is a question from Lorenzo, and he asked this question, he says, basically Z there’s a question that he says, what makes Clay so successful, when you guys aren’t on the air, what does Z do on a daily basis, that allows him to get so much done, seems like he’s everywhere. Z, what would be — I can’t speak about myself ,but for this guy Lorenzo who’s going, ‘Okay, when he’s not on the air, when he’s not pontificating or being ridiculous, what is it like?” You can explain the Clay Clark experience, good or bad.
Robert: Well, I’ll tell you one thing he’s not doing Lorenzo, and that’s sleeping, he’s day done, he’s not a big sleep sleep sleep her upper, sleep in late, you don’t catch him in his pjs. The guy is up early, he’s working hard all day long, he’s purposeful and you know why he’s purposeful Lorenzo? Because, he has his calendar. That calendar allows him to stay on schedule, that calendar allows him to get stuff done, that calendar allows him to say no. He’s kind of robotic, we have a charging station, but it’s a mobile one, so as he’s going because he’s got a lot of Bionic robotic parts to him.
But he’s purposeful in his day, he gets a plan of what he’s going to do, he knows what he’s going to do, he’s got his calendar, he’s got his plan. Who sets that he does, he sets that. If someone says, “Hey man, can you come at 2:30 man? I sure could. Can I come back and swing by and visit with you?” “No, I’m in a meeting from 2:00 to 3:00, I can’t, no, bye bye.” click boop. Well, that was mean. I thought you’re a business coach, aren’t you here to help coach me up, aren’t you here to like — dude I’m hurting here, I need help.”
Clay: I will say this, one thing that I struggled with, and Joe you talked about it earlier, and I want to get your feedback on this. I struggled with — I was so flattered and so excited and so joyful, and almost moved to tears the first time I went to office depot, and ran into a guy who’s wedding I DJ’ed.
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Clay: I had to practically beg people to book me for their weddings when I was a wedding entertainer and the first guy, this is years after the wedding like two years after the wedding he’s like, “You’re the DJ.”
Robert: “You’re the dude, you’re the dude”.
Clay: “You’re the guy” and then I was like yes. I’m out there with my wife and remarkably you’re a business owner, you’re always trying to find a reel of ways to sneak away time with the wife. My wife and I go on hot dates at office depot, if things went well we would usually buy CDs and book, bring in those rebates, those stuff on sale and then we would just make out in that parking lot, when things went well.
But the thing was this guy wants to talk and I’m there for probably 45 minutes talking about the wedding and what happened, this is only a 45 — a four hour performance and we’re talking for 45 minutes reminiscing about this wedding. But eventually I realized gosh, because I did so many weddings and so many parties I eventually had to cut it off and you almost feel mean Joe. For everyone listening right now who’s built a local business or maybe they’re building one and customers are coming in, they really want to talk to them and marinate, we’re not talking about just conversing, I’m talking about marinating where you just slow-cook that conversation.
Robert: [laughs].
Clay: What advice would you have my friend?
Joe: Number one, I love talking to customers, I absolutely love it. That’s how we get to know what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong but it’s like personal space.
Clay: Personal space.
Joe: Time space, right? The way I look at that is that my wife is the same way, we work together. My kids work with me as well. I always will say my wife is my greatest partner because she consents when I get fidgety with visiting someone. After a while and maybe 10 minutes it’s an appropriate amount of time to spend with someone where they really get to know you but there is a time that you have to go on to complete your events of the day to be productive. Having this assistant, having a wife, having someone that’s there to come to your shoulder and say, “Hey you’re going to be late for your next appointment” it’s so important.
Clay: I’m going to read you a notable quotable. This comes from Ryan Tedder, a local Tulsa musician who went to Oral Roberts University and now he writes songs for Beyonce and Adelle and One Republic. He says this, he says “When you’re around enormously successful people, you realize their success isn’t an accident it’s about work”. Z, what advice would you have for somebody right now who’s listening who feels like I just can’t find enough time in my day to get stuff done. I just feel like I never have enough time. What advice would you have for him?
Robert: If you didn’t catch our earlier segment on today’s show, the good thing about it is we archive all the shows on thrivetimeshow.com. Clay mentioned something magical earlier in the show and that is that whenever you — as you’re going through your day and as you’re planning out your day and as you’re doing that, you need to also reverse-engineer it. In other words, write down — right now get a piece of paper. If you’re listening a piece of paper or the sack that you just bought your lunch in, get out a pen or pencil and write this down, “What did you do yesterday” What did you do yesterday? Let’s reverse-engineer this thing a little bit. What did you do, what did you spend your time in? Get specific.
Clay: I was on Facebook for about four hours. I was getting my profile updated.
Robert: Okay, you watched TV for three hours, see there’s three hours of production I can give you on social media but it’s beyond. If you think about it, if you’re not being honest then just throw away the paper, turn off the radio and just drive until your car runs out of gas, get out and just walk.
Clay: The statistics are scary about how much time the average person, I encourage you to look it up right now, how much time the average person spends a day on social media and watching TV and Google it, it’s a lot.
Robert: It’s a lot and so you reverse-engineer you go I don’t have to plan out my day. Well, let’s work with what we’re not going to do. Let’s start being purposeful on and being honest with what we’re really spending our time on because if you’re not getting stuff done, you’re letting time pirates steal it, you’re letting poor management of your day steal it, you’re letting the inactivity of your planning if you will, steal it from you.
You can’t just go from being unproductive to this whole day of meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after thing after thing after thing after thing and there’s this magical no no no in limiting people to get to you. You’ve got to be honest and say, “Well, what do you spend your time on now.”
Clay: Does he have a very offensive thought?
Joe: No.
Clay: I want to have you and Joe.
Robert: Are we going to fight?
Clay: No, this is intense though because here’s the deal, your network determines your net worth. Who you’re around starts to basically dictate what you think is possible. For anyone listening right now if you’ve read Napoleon Hills book, Think and Grow Rich or you’ve read 21 Laws of Leadership or you’ve been in the planet for a while. You’re going to notice that successful people tend to hang out together and the thing is if you’re listening to this show and you haven’t had a lot of success in your career yet, the chances are that if you add up the net worth of the 10 people you spend your time with and you divide it you go that’s me.
You’ve got to do is you’ve got to figure out, “Gosh, do I need to change my social circle? Do I need to change who I’m around? Do I need to start to surround myself with people who are where I want to be? And if you do that, kind of separating yourself and moving yourself into a different social circle, or a different group of people, it can be hard, it can be tough, it can be offensive. We’re going to talk about how to really upgrade the social circle, how to surround yourself with people that can pour into your life and people who seem to have the capacity to lift you up.
Robert: Right and you have to be realistic. I’ve said on the show before if you’re in a dinghy, you can’t go fishing for a whale. We’ll impact at it more when we come back to the Thrive Time Show happy Thursday.
Clay: Boom.
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You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on talk radio 1170.
Clay: All right green country and Ocklahomese, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. Tulsa’s only local business radio show, the place that you go to get that business school without the BS and yes. My name is Clay Tiberius Clark and I am the former SBA entrepreneur of the year. I’m a guy who has started a lot of local Tulsa businesses, perhaps you’ve heard of DJ connection or elephant in the room or perhaps you’ve seen me in such feature films as — anyway Doctor Zoellner back to you.
Robert: [laughs].
Clay: How are you?
Robert: Fantastic. Robert Zoellner here and I’m just a little entrepreneur trapped in an optometrist body and you know what’s so fun about this show Clay is that we both have a heart to mentor and to business coach people out because we’ve learned in life folks. If you’re out there listening and you think, “I want to start a business” or “I just started a business” you’re going to learn in one or two ways. You’re going to learn either by mentorship or mistakes, right?
Clay: Yes.
Robert: We have with us a gentleman here who probably made no mistakes.
Clay: Probably not.
Robert: He’s got a great mentoring story that I’m going to pull out of him right now but this is Joe Davidson, owner, proprietor, head cook, head bottle-washer, chief janitor. I think he does everything there in Oklahoma Joe’s barbecue.
Joe: It’s so good to be here. I’ve appreciate [sic] the break from actually the bottle washing. [laughs]
Robert: I have to say it’s beautiful looking at him right now at Facebook laugh. You’re looking at America and if you’re listening on your radio, you’re smelling barbecue. This guy you smell success.
Joe: It’s just so good, my hair.
Robert: Earlier on you had a guy– a dude and he mentored you, that’s a touching and lovely story. Tell the radio audience they want to hear and the Thrive Time Show audience they want to hear about your mentoring story.
Joe: It’s so important to my life. When I first started my business, I lived in Perry Oklahoma my wife was a teacher. She really supported our family with her income of $16,500 a year at that time.
Robert: Come on.
Joe: And then I was in a little shop in downtown Perry Oklahoma.
Clay: Downtown Perry.
Joe: And a guy would come down there every day almost and drink coffee with me and his name was Ed.
Robert: Ed.
Joe: He says, “This reminds me of my shop” and I’d say Ed– and he was an elderly gentleman. I’d say, “Ed, where’s your shop?” And he’d say, “Just across town.” I just thought that it must be closed down? We’d visit with Ed and I’d say, “Ed, I’ve got to get back to work in building some smokers. I’ve got a lot to deliver this week.” He’d leave and he’d take off and he’d come down there and it had been a few months that he’d been doing this and then a guy came down there and said, “I’m Mr. Roth and I’m the Executive VP of Ditch Witch” and Mr. Malzahn asked me to come down here and see if you’d interested in the Oriole Fraley [unintelligible 00:59:33]
Robert: The Executive VP of –
Joe: Ditch Witch.
Robert: Ditch Witch.
Clay: Ditch Witch. That’s kind of a big deal.
Robert: You’re connected with this guy?
Joe: I didn’t know it at the time. I had no idea. I said Mr. Malzahn had sent you down here and I said who is that? And he said yes Ed Malzahn and I said Ed?
Robert: Ed.
Joe: Ed owns Ditch Witch? He’d never told me that.
Robert: You’re like the Ditch Witch whisperer.
Joe: And I’m just a kid. Literally I’m 25 years old. I said I can’t afford that. There’s no way I can afford the [unintelligible 01:00:00], it’s a plant.
Clay: Yes.
Joe: And he said, “Well, how much could you afford? And I said well maybe –
Clay: 600?
Joe: 600 bucks a month. And he said okay and I said, “Oh my gosh, you’re joking.” He says, “No, I’m not joking.” I said, “If I’d offer you $400, would you have taken it?” He said, “Yes, I would have taken it.” But he not only helped me grow into a plant to be a big manufacturer, he would lend me his CFO. He would lend me his engineers, he’d lend me equipment, he’d lend me knowledge.
Clay: When you moved into that group and you started getting mentored from these top level people, did they give you different advice or higher quality level of advice and mentorship that maybe just some of the dudes that you knew who were your age?
Joe: Oh my gosh, there was no comparison. I had no idea. I got my bachelor’s degree in agri education. My masters in engineering so I really didn’t have a business degree.
Clay: Now I’m going to walk you through these Thrivers. There’s a reason why everybody listening right now you need to get out of sheet of paper and you need to write down 10 people that you need to know.
Announcer: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170
Clay: I want you to dream. I want you to dream big. Think about 10 connections that you need to have in your life that can do the three Cs. Here are the three C’s that you’re looking for out of your big 10. One, people that have more capital than you.
Robert: Good choice.
Clay: You really want to surround yourself with people who have more money than time. They go, “Hey, I have a bunch of money and you as a young entrepreneur you have a lot of time and maybe I want to invest in you.” Because that’s how they’re going to make money, more capital than you. The second is more connections. Maybe they know the guy who can get tickets to the game. Z, you just went to a Minnesota Vikings Game, is this correct?
Robert: Yes, up in the new stadium at the Minneapolis. It was awesome.
Clay: You have a friend of yours who owns a jet?
Robert: Yes. We flew up there then you got a suite and we did that and that stadium looks like Darth Vader’s mask from the outside. It’s black and angular and it’s just like –
Clay: Is it awesome?
Robert: It was awesome yes and of course even the Cowboys won.
Clay: But the capital and the connections, if this guy didn’t have the connections to all these different, to the actual plane, to the luxury suite, all that. Those things are possible if you’re not in a different group of people.
Robert: If you have a friend like that, I’d highly recommend putting a friend like that on your 10 want list because that’s pretty cool. That’s a pretty cool day when you get that call, “Hey Z, you want to do this thing?” You’re like, “Yes.”
Clay: I say cash, we said connections and the final one is counsel. Somebody who can coach you or counsel you. Someone who has the wisdom that maybe you don’t have and this is the thing, I’m not asking you to look at all your friends and go, “That’s it friends. We’ve been together for a long time and now I’ve decided I’m moving on, leaving you guys. I’m upgrading.”
Robert: “Your business coach and I’m going to business first class.”
Clay: “That’s right you guys to the back of the plane I’m going to the front class. Let’s go.” You don’t do that. What you do is you reach out and you’re intentional about it. I’ll give you an example. In my life, it’s kind of fun but it’s kind of fun to pick up the phone and if I need to we can call David Robertson. Z, you and I can pick up the phone and call David Robertson.
Robert: Great guy.
Clay: He’s a partner with us at Thrive15.com. He’s an NBA Hall of Fame player and he’s awesome. We can pick the phone and call Michael Levine and he’s one of our mentors at Thrive15.com and by the way if you’re on Facebook live his book is right there on Z’s desk. He is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson’s family, for Prince, for Nike, for Pizza, it’s the blue covered book right over there. We can pick up the phone and call Lee Cockroll. He is one of our investors and [unintelligible 01:03:47]
Robert: He is a great guy.
Clay: He used to manage Walt Disney World. He stayed in your house.
Robert: Yes. Great guy and very purposeful in his day and you talk about a man that is the king of time manager. He does a lot of our time management for coaching on Thrive15.com. The good thing about Thrive15.com is as you say, “Well, I can’t get to Lee Cockroll.” But you know what? You can listen to Lee Cockroll as much as you want for only $19 month to Thrive15.com. We went around and gathered up all these great mentors, we filmed them, we made it fun, we made it edutainment. I love that word by the way entertainment.
Clay: Edutainment.
Robert: Yes. It’s a thing.
Clay: I want to ask you this Joe, how much are some baked beans? I go there maybe a pint of bake beans. How much are those roughly?
Joe: $2.79 for a sack of beans.
Clay: It’s not going there for $2.79. Now I don’t have 19 bucks a month, I can spend on Thrive15. I only have $16 after-tax, because I bought the beans?
Joe: It’s a choice though. Good choice.
Clay: We have a scholarship programs Z and we have an affordable fee by the way. You can actually set your price if your price if you’re on a tight budget. I’m telling you, we made it affordable for everybody. That’s at Thrive15.com. Thrivers, when we come back, we have a mailbag question that I get asked all the time and this is a great question. We have a Thriver who’s wanting to know how do you manage people? How do you manage — you’ve got this great business idea and you’re starting to get some traction but you just can’t get the team to do their job. You don’t feel like you own the business anymore because the people who work there act like they own the business.
And they’re telling you what to do it’s almost like you’re held hostage in your own business and Z, we’ve got some mentorship. We’ve got some specific tips and we’re going to answer this next mailbag question. If you’ve ever struggled to manage your team and to get the people on your team to do what they’re supposed to do, this next segment is for you, Z.
Robert: I’m looking forward to it and don’t go away because this is just — this is Radio magic.
Clay: Thrive-Time-Show.
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Live, local, now, you’re listening to the Thrive-Time-Show on Talk Radio 1170.
Clay: All right Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive-Time-Show. This is the place that you go consistently to learn how to start and grow a business. You see, a lot of times there’s people who are listening right now today and you’re listening and you go gosh you know I went to Business College, I checked the Box. I got my degree, I started a business or maybe I want to start a business and I just don’t know. I’m stuck and I just can’t seem to go to the next level. But then I drive around town and I see Dr. Z and I see his optometry clinic and I see it growing.
I see Oklahoma Joe’s BBQ, I see it growing. I see the Elephant in the Room, the men’s grooming lounge is growing. I see these guys growing their businesses and I just I want to grow like those guys and so you want to grow a successful company and you have really to kind of a fork in the road you can do here Z. You can decide are these guys successful because they’re geniuses and we are not? Are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they’re following some proven systems that I can learn and apply to my own life?
Or are we successful because of luck or just because of genius genetics or are we successful because we’re applying proven principles. I will tell you this, I was having no success and was struggling until I learned these proven systems and when I began applying them in my own life, it changed the trajectory of my life financially and in every area of my life. I’m telling you right now and encouragement for you if you’re listening right now and you feel stuck, we can absolutely help you get unstuck. The first step is you have to be curious Dr. Z. Z, why do you have to be curious? If you’re stuck, why does it start with you being curious about how successful people do it?
Robert: Well, because here’s the deal. You’ve got to learn by mistakes or mentors and mistakes are either painful, they’re costly, you learn. You learn to you do some mistakes and you learn. I have Joe here to my left. He’s like I should put it I’ll never put that grid back in into a bucket of chilli or whatever I do with that. I learned from the mistakes or you could have that you’re the world’s best chili cook-off points I’d say hey Joe here’s how we’re going to make chilli. And earlier I didn’t really get to impact us too much but you said something in an earlier segment if you missed it Thrive-Time-show.com you can go and listen to the show over and over and over again as much as you want to for free. Thrive-Time-Show.
But you said make a list of the 10 people who you want to go after. Earlier on I had said something kind of funny but I wanted us to un-package it a little bit because someone may have heard it and thought, “What does that mean?” That means going well hunting in a dingy. In other words if you’re not very high up the food chain you probably shouldn’t put Bill Gates down on your top 10 list to go your friend.
Clay: My step one for success, I’m going to be a partner with Bill Gates.
Robert: Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, my top two. I’m going after those guys. They’re going to be in my inner circle. They’re going to be what I’m going to be a billionaire and it’s going to be wonderful.
Clay: I’m going to call my company Bill and Mark and Clay.
Robert: Bill, Mark and Clay? It’s going to be a billionaires club because we can do it. Listen, if you’ve got some angle into somebody and they’re higher up the food chain i.e. they own a successful business in town and somebody who knows someone who could maybe make the introduction, maybe you can get to them, you don’t want to be too much of a creeper but you want to be persistent. You know I’m saying? So just like Clay first came around his wife was working for him, so there was Zen that got him access to the place, he could hang out like, what does this do? And someone said, I think that’s Vanessa’s husband like that’s Vanessa’s husband? He looks like a poor version of Eminem, the rapper, this white dude with clothes that are like six sizes too big and loop earrings and this edge and hard attitude and trying to pick fights with people in this group on stuff.
But the word is around he softened and figured things out and made him a few times, though he is not use a complete idiot. And then he just kept asking me to spend time with him and finally I was like, Okay. We’ll go to lunch and we did it and now we had– that gave him access to my life. And so a couple years ago in Shark Tanked me about thrive15.com, you had access into my — you had access because of the things you had done before and it was because your wife worked for me and there’s a connection of people.
Clay: And there’s a specific move I encourage everyone to do if you want access to somebody who is more successful than you. This is the move.
Robert: This is the move.
Clay: Call them up and do something for them for free and don’t ask for anything in return, you do that three times. So as an example Clifton Talbert he helped introduce the Stairmaster into the marketplace, very busy his life was made into a major motion picture called Once upon a time when we were colored. He helped open up OMB Bank, he had no reason to spend time with me.
Robert: None
Clay: I called him and I getting up to think about it, it gets creative. So it’s like, can I come in and do paperwork for you? No, you don’t work here. Can I volunteer it? I’m serious because if you don’t have a whole lot of skills you got to –
Robert: You got your internship.
Clay: Yes. Can I come work for free for 10 hours a week? Can I? And I’m just telling you, you have to start that way. And Steven Spielberg, if you look into his life, he started by working for free at an internship. Ryan tedder, the best-selling recording artist, he started working for free for Timberland, the music artist. I can go on and on with all the different stories. But Napoleon Hill best-selling author, he went to work for free for Andrew Carnegie. Joe what advice would you have for an entrepreneur right now if they want to upscale and upgrade their social group and they want to kind of meet some of the mentors, what advice would you have for them? What is the best way for them to get connected to somebody who is much more successful than they are?
Joe: I would first of all say, how do you reach any of those people? Maybe join a social group that meets at least once a month if not once a week.
Clay: Oh well, like a networking group?
Joe: A networking group, absolutely because they’re all there to network, they’re there to grow. Join your local Chamber, do things to be– surround yourself with other local small business people that are very successful.
Clay: A great place to meet with your local group is at Oklahoma Joe’s and this month you have a great special at Oklahoma Joe’s. Tell us about the specials you have this month in December.
Joe: I’m telling you, we’ve got two great specials, it’s a gift-giving time obviously for family, friends, corporate gifts or for yourself. $50 gift card you get a ten dollar bonus card to use for free.
Clay: You could buy a fifty dollar gift card for yourself and save $10?
Joe: Yes. Get a ten-dollar one for free or buy two fifties for only 80 bucks so you’re saving 20%.
Clay: You’re saving twenty bucks for yourself.
Joe: So even if you’re a regular that’s a great deal.
Clay: It’s a great deal and it’s only available over the Oklahoma Joe’s.
Joe: Only at Oklahoma Joe’s and through Christmas.
Clay: Two locations to serve you. Now Thrivers coming up next we’re going to get into mailbag question number five and this is about how to manage those difficult people. You have difficult people? I’m sure you do. Learn how to manage them, coming up next.
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You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on talk radio 1170.
Clay: Al lright Thrive nation Oklahomies in Tulsa Oklahoma, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. This is the place that you go to learn how to start or grow a successful business and when I say you, I’m talking to you, you’re listening right now. This isn’t a show about other people, this is a show about you because according to Forbes 57% of the people listening right now, that’s you, you want to start or grow a successful business at some point. You want to start a business, 57%.
Robert: And I think you’re intelligent might even be higher. I’ll be honest with you, we’ve been rated as one of the best places for entrepreneurship in the country and actually at number one when wall street journal’s came out and Google but you can say it. And women or it was actually the number one place for women entrepreneurs, the third growing business.
Clay: This is a greatest city to start or grow a business–
Robert: It’s in the water, that’s where the water is because it’s not in Arkansas River, the water is somewhere else.
Clay: Oh look at that little sag wag. Our next question, our mail bag. We have a mailbag question, a mailbag theme here as we have our special guest Oklahoma Joe. Mr. Joe Davidson on the show, how are you sir?
Joe: I’m great it’s so good to be here with you guys.
Clay: This question is for you here we go, this comes from an anonymous doctor within Tulsa[background talk]. It says my nurse is a disaster and never shows up on time and my front desk guy talks back to me constantly, how do you guys do it? You make it sound so easy but my staff acts like the own my office. So let’s start with you Joe, Joe what advice would you have for this person?
Joe: Well number one is that set clear expectations of what you expect of them.
Clay: I’m writing this down, so when is that to set clear expectations?
Joe: Clear expectations, I expect you to show up on time.
Clay: Let me say this, let’s pretend that they have done that. I’m not saying that they haven’t but let’s say they have done it maybe in one situation or let’s say they’re listening to go, okay I haven’t done that, how do I go about doing it? What does that sound like?
Joe: To me, it would be Sandra you’re my nurse I really appreciate what you do for me but when we started eight o’clock and you arrive at 8:30, it’s not very convenient for our customers, our patients there. And it’s creating a problem for me and I really think that if you want to get here at 8.30, maybe you just need to be a customer, a patient and not a nurse at that point in time.
Robert: Joe that’s mean.
Clay: I want to go to you Z, how do you set the expectation Z? What do you say?
Robert: Well you write it down number one. You don’t sit there and go, okay I’m going to partially tell you what I expect of you because you’re smart and you can read my mind. So am just going to sit here and think it and thinking what I want you to do and–
Clay: Well it’s basically common sense.
Robert: My brain is easily read so therefore you should be able to read it and do the right– you got write it down.
Clay: Put it on the tablet.
Robert: You’ve got to have your checklist for them of things that you expect from them. I just assume they need to clean the bathroom, I just assume, who doesn’t like a clean bathroom. You go to McDonalds it’s a clean bathroom, you stopped there because they got a clean bathroom. How do they not know how to clean the bathroom Clay?
Clay: You have the curse of knowledge but you’ve forgotten what you used to not know. So I’m going to get into a few things you just said there because it was powerful what you just said.
Robert: Powerful. So you write it down and then you hold them accountable.
Clay: Okay. Real quick, you said those expectations, you said checklists. I can tell you I have been guilty of back in the day of trying to run my business without checklists. You have to have a checklist and by the way, Thrivers if you want an example of the checklist debt [background conversation],if you want a secret copy of the checklists, we have those available for you. If you want checklists, if you want an operations manual, you mentioned operations manual. If you want a handbook, an employee manual, we have those for you. We have those all available exclusively for thrive15.com subscribers and by the way it’s typically $19 a month.
However, if you’re in a financial crunch we have a scholarship available. So if you have $1 a month, you can have access to that at thrive15.com. Now the second thing Joe, let’s say I have set the expectations what’s the second move to get my team accountable, to hold them accountable? What’s my move?
Joe: Well just as Dr. Z has said, you’ve got to hold them accountable for their actions and so if we start at Oklahoma Joe’s, number one with a verbal warning that we note in their file. Number two is another verbal, number three is a written and number four is a termination.
Clay: You’d go for that, you’d go to fourth?
Joe: Yes. The fourth one is a termination.
Clay: You better clean up is when you do.
Robert: Yes, I’ll back you up, when he scores he shoots and he scores on that.
Announcer: You’re listening to the Thrive Time Show on talk radio 1170.
Clay: Now Z an elephant in the room, we have a point system and so if you’re late there’s 70 points you get, if you’re late again there’s many points, you get 12 points and you’re fired and so it’s same kind of thing with the point system, and one thing you lose all your points for, boop boop ba doo. This is where you lose all your points at one time, lying to your boss.
Robert: Wow. One of my automatic terminators today is turning down a walk in.
Clay: Really? Turning down a walk in. You’re going.
Robert: Dun dun dun day. Immediate point.
Clay: That’s a big thing for you.
Robert: It’s that big of a thing for me. That’s the thing about is I once had a entrepreneur, a business owner starting off and they were just really, really just torn with how to handle an employee that was doing jackass-ery, doing the stuff they shouldn’t have been doing. They looked at me and said, “What do I do?” I sad, “You know what you’re going to do? You’re going to put up with that as long as you want to put up with it.”
Clay: What?
Robert: Yes.
Clay: I feel like I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Robert: No, no, no. You have a threshold, and whenever you hit that threshold, let that person go.
Clay: Oh Billy.
Robert: Yes Billy. You know, it’s one of those things where it’s your life, you’re miserable because of it, you don’t have to be, you’re choosing to be.
Clay: This is a very special place in my heart, this discussion here. I’m going to help you guys. If you’re listening right now and you need an example, you go, “I need some agricultural examples here, I don’t really get it,” work with me.
If you have a business plan that says, Z, we’re going to sow seeds and we’re going to sow the seeds and then what we’re going to do is we’re going to harvest some corn, right? It’s in the manual. It’s in the system. It’s on the checklist, and you say, “Alright Clay, go out there and sow that seed.” Then the guy next to me you say, “Go sow the seed.” The guy next to me sows the seed all day and I don’t sow any seed. Is there any miracle, is there any profundity, is there any cosmic epiphany that occurs when I don’t have any corn and the other person does? No. It’s whoever sows the seeds. If you don’t sow the seeds, things won’t grow.
I think in business what happens is, is we want to shield people that aren’t sowing seeds and we expect our company to grow. Work with me. If you have a bunch of people on your team who aren’t sowing seeds, the company itself isn’t going to grow. I have two notable quotables that are given to us by people that you would know. The first one is Elon Musk. This is the guy who helped found Pay Pal or and helped found Tesla Motors, and he helped co-found Space X. He says, “The longer you wait to fire someone, the longer it has been since you should have fired them.”
Robert: Ooh, I love that.
Clay: That’s the thing. It’s a statement he made. It seems pretty brutal, it seems pretty tough, but that is a thing he talks about.
Now, the other thing he says is, this is another notable quotable coming at you. This is from Warren Buffet though, for those of you business owners out there who are struggling to hold your team accountable. Check it out, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation, and five minutes to ruin it.
Robert: Oof, so right.
Clay: “If you think about that, you’ll do things differently” Warren Buffet. As an example, a great company called British Petroleum, they had an oil rig in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. They were drilling down, miles down into the earths crust, which by the way I’m very thankful they do that, it’s very hard to do it. They’re procuring fossil fuels out of the center of the planet so that I can drive my Hummer and get eight miles a gallon. They’re drilling way down there and then what happens is, they have a blowout. People blamed people, they said it was poor maintenance, they said it was “poor this” “poor that” but the point is, at the end of the day, who had to take the blame when the massive leak happened?
Robert: CEO
Clay: The CEO.
Robert: The boss, the buck stops with the boss.
Clay: They were sued for billions of dollars. They destroyed large portions of the Gulf of Mexico, and it was a national story for months. They couldn’t even get it to stop leaking for days and days.
Robert: I think a lot longer than that actually.
Clay: Yes, it was bad. You know what? If you put up with something to your point, you just have to put up with it for as long as you’re going to put up with it. I guarantee you somebody on that rig, because the hearings came out and you can read the depositions and things, somebody said, “Hey, there’s a maintenance problem,” but people kept putting up with it.
Robert: Yes, they kept putting up with it and it ended up costing the business billions of dollars. It’s a shame.
Clay: The CEO ended up losing his job over it.
Robert: Yes, and the worst part of it is the environmental throwback, kickback from it. There’s probably still oil washing up.
Clay: So if you’re listening to this show today, Thrivers, we want you to be successful. Today you’re at this fork in the road and you have three things you can do today. One, you can do nothing, and accept life as it is. You can just do nothing.
Robert: I’ll tell you what, I bought a lottery ticket, I’m doing something.
Clay: Point number two, you can go to thrive15.com Z. If you go to thrive15.com, what are you going to find there?
Robert: You’re going to find copious amounts of information that is outlined in fun fashion. What we did is we found these great mentors, coaches, and we filmed them and we made it entertaining, and we only charged you 19 dollars a month for that. You also have downloadables, yes. You have templates you can look at, like you talked about. Examples for employee –
Clay: Handbooks.
Robert: Operations manuals.
Clay: Proformas.
Robert: Checklists.
Clay: Search engine systems.
Robert: Things like that you say, “I don’t know” it’s a starting point. It’s practical steps and you can watch it by topic, you can watch it by mentors, it’s up to you. It’s the Netflix of business coaching.
Clay: It’s thrive15.com
Also, option number three, you can sign up for one on one business coaching or a Thrive 15 business conference. You want to know more about it, and I know you do, you go to thrive15.com but I don’t care what option you do. Option one, two, or three you’ve got to go to Oklahoma Joe’s, and you’ve got to get those worlds best baked beans.
Robert: [unintelligible 1:25:39]
Clay: NZ as always, 3, 2, 1, boom!
[01:25:47] [END OF AUDIO]
