Business Coach | 7 Principles You Need to Know to Grow a Successful Business With the Best-Selling Author, Jeff Hoffman + Join Tebow At Clay Clark’s June 5-6 Business Conference (Get Tickets At ThrivetimeShow.com)

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 33)
You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here.

(Speaker 10)
Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you and they have a lot of time on their hands.

(Speaker 10)
This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former US Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s bunny, Dr. Robert Zilner. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses.

(Speaker 14)
We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here.

(Speaker 32)
Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here.

(Speaker 14)
Started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, now we here.

(Speaker 4)
We started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Colton Dixon’s on the hooks. I break down the books. Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s why I’m alive. Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation on today’s show, we are interviewing the man, the myth, and the legend, Mr. Jeff Hoffman.

(Speaker 4)
Welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

(Speaker 3)
I am excellent, and thank you very much for having me on the show.

(Speaker 4)
Jeff, for the listeners out there that are familiar with your career now, but are not as familiar with your background,

(Speaker 1)
I’d love for you to share about your childhood and what kind of environment you actually grew up in.

(Speaker 3)
Sure. So I actually grew up in the Arizona desert, very small town feel single mother with four kids. And I grew up in an environment where nobody really wanted to do anything, people were happy where they were and doing what they were. And you know, I wasn’t surrounded by people with big ambitions. Most of the people I grew up with never left

(Speaker 3)
literally the area we grew up in, which is fine. That we’re not judging anybody here. It just wasn’t fine for me. I had these big dreams and big plans and I was gonna go off and see the world. I just had literally no means to do that and no idea how.

(Speaker 3)
So when I would talk about those dreams, I didn’t get support, I got laughter.

(Speaker 1)
You’ve worked with many huge companies today. I mean, you’ve had so much success with your career. Could you share with the listeners out there who maybe can identify with how you grew up, growing up where you don’t have access to a lot of capital or a lot of opportunities, when did you feel like you first started to gain traction with your

(Speaker 25)
career?

(Speaker 3)
Well, it wasn’t I’ll separate that. Because the first time I gained traction in life wasn’t my career. It’s when I decided my way up and out with education. And I set this absurd goal from where I was coming from, from a big giant public high school where, you know, percentage wise percentage-wise, not a lot of people even went to college. And I decided I was gonna go to an Ivy League school

(Speaker 3)
and I wanted to go to Yale, which even my guidance counselor laughed at me instead of encouraging me and said, let’s all not waste our time. My mom had to call the school and order her to fill out the school side of the application.

(Speaker 3)
And when I got to Yale, because we were broke, I basically got sent home. They said, hey, you know, you didn’t pay enough. We applied the scholarships you got, but it’s not enough. And you can’t afford to go here and you should go home. And that’s how it started.

(Speaker 3)
And I wasn’t about to go home. And that’s how it started, and I wasn’t about to go home. So the first traction I ever had in my life was I decided I wasn’t quitting, and I sat there on day one of my freshman year, couldn’t go to class, and I said, you know what? I’m just gonna start a business and find my own way to make money.

(Speaker 3)
So I started a little software company, literally the beginning of college, and I wound up graduating in four years and funding my whole Yale degree by running a little business. That was my first feeling of traction. I set a goal and I found a way to accomplish it by myself, and that led me to believe that

(Speaker 3)
maybe other goals were able to be accomplished. Big dreams could be realized if your work ethic was as big as your dream was.

(Speaker 1)
What kind of a service or problem did this software solve?

(Speaker 4)
What kind of problem did the software solve?

(Speaker 3)
Well ironically, one of my biggest customers was Yale, rewriting their whole sort of tuition, billing and reporting system. But the software that I made a living on was at that point in time, reporting and quote business intelligence didn’t exist. So lots of small businesses were running a business without a top-down meta kind of overview of how things were going.

(Speaker 3)
And so I was developing kind of a first level of level of intelligent reporting that would look for trends in data and say, ìThese type of customers youíre putting too much work into and theyíre not worth the money. These type of customers never stay with you so stop selling to them.î Data that gave you intelligence about the way you ran your business. I developed software that could read through all your company’s data and give you business intelligence. And that field didn’t exist then, which is

(Speaker 3)
why I was successful with it. Because most of the time I’d show it to a small business and they’d say, we’d love that. Sign us up.

(Speaker 1)
Did you teach yourself how to code?

(Speaker 3)
I did at the beginning. And so now I’ve got gotta be really honest, I sucked at it. My self-teaching made me at best an average coder. So I switched my major in college and that’s the degree I got, software engineering. But again, be honest with you, when I got out of college and when I started my first company,

(Speaker 3)
I was informed quickly by my own employees that I was probably the worst coder in my own company. What they told me was, Jeff, this is not your expertise. I said, guys, I got the same degree as you. They said, and yet somehow we’re all good at this and you’re not. I said, what is it you want me to do?

(Speaker 3)
They said, you’re going to have to move away from coding. I said, such as they said, when we finish building this product, someone’s going to have to figure out how to market it. No one in this building knows what marketing is. Go do that. So I became a technical marketer, which it turned out, I actually was good at. And despite my degree,

(Speaker 3)
I was on a good day and average coder.

(Speaker 1)
Now throughout your career, I mean, you’ve worked with so many well-known companies, Priceline.com, UBid, ColorJar, and others. I’d love for you to share about your role with Priceline and the story behind how the team started that company.

(Speaker 3)
Sure. So the company was started by a guy named Jay Walker. Jay had an intellectual property company where they patented business processes to improve industries. That’s still what he does. So Jay had this idea of really reducing, well actually let me rephrase that, increasing revenue in the travel business by selling, auctioning off, reverse auction, auctioning off empty hotel rooms

(Speaker 3)
and empty seats. So Jay had the idea and Jay assembled teams of people, contacted a bunch of people and that’s it, this is the beginning, that’s where I came in and we all went to work for Jay to try to build companies out of his intellectual property ideas and that’s where Priceline came from. We had a team of people that started assembling a new buying service that used a reverse auction

(Speaker 3)
to sell excess inventory. And we tried a bunch of things in the early days. We tried, we had a consumer company that I was the CEO of. Jay was the CEO of the travel company. We had a wholesale company trying to wholesale other products we had a different CEO of the travel company. We had a wholesale company trying to wholesale other products we had a different CEO of. And so we spent time with the consumer

(Speaker 3)
markets, trying to find what things people were comfortable buying. And the one that rose to the top, which is the one that’s the big one today is the travel product.

(Speaker 4)
What, how big of a role did William Shatner’s personality have in the success of Priceline from your perspective?

(Speaker 3)
I think it actually had a lot. And the reason that I think that it had a lot was it was hard to when everybody was launching an internet company, it was hard to break through the noise. And it was hard to be remembered. And the Shatner campaign, which people may not remember now, the Shatner campaign originally came from the fact that Shatner won an award when some people in the music industry asked

(Speaker 3)
people to vote on the single worst album in music history, and it was William Shatner’s Christmas album.

(Speaker 31)
Oh, come on.

(Speaker 3)
Yep. So the idea of the Priceline marketing team at the time was let’s have William Shatner sing on television since he got labeled the worst album and that would be funny. So he intentionally, the original commercials were William Shatner singing in a fake nightclub and people yelling, get out of here, get out of town, right? Because he was a bad singer and Shatner finally saying, okay, saying okay fine I will I will get out of town

(Speaker 3)
But I’ll do it at 40% of what you would have spent and the people in the nightclub saying well Wait a minute. Don’t leave tell us how you can get travel for 40% less So the thing that resonated is his intentionally bad singing was viral people said oh my god Did you see William Shatner on TV last night? So I think that those commercials with Shatner’s sense of humor played a large role in Priceline’s immediate memorability. People remembered it and talked about it. There’s so much internet mythology out there about the Priceline deal with William Shatner,

(Speaker 3)
and I’m not asking you to divulge the secrets of the contractual deal there, but did he

(Speaker 1)
earn some equity in Priceline, or was he paid as a traditional sponsor?

(Speaker 3)
No, that part of the folklore was true, that he did an equity deal and not a cash deal. And that equity wound up being, obviously, at the time Priceline IPO’d, we were the third largest IPO in stock market history. So his equity turned into millions of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands, which he would have been paid, which is why you saw him for so many years still as the Priceline spokesman.

(Speaker 3)
And then every celebrity in Hollywood after that news got out wanted to go work for an Internet company. Let me ask you this. When did it occur to you that you were wealthy? Well before that, we had another travel company. I did other products like we created the first, when you go to the airport now and you check in at a kiosk, print your own boarding pass, that was one of our first products many, many

(Speaker 3)
years before there was a price line or anything. And so that was a tech company that I started. And the company did well, we were able to sell the company and sell the company to where the little group of founders, everybody made millions of dollars.

(Speaker 3)
And that didn’t, I was never money driven or material driven. It was the freedom day is what I related to that. After we sold the company and everyone said, ìNow what are you going to do?î and I sat there and thought, ìMan, I have a wide open, I have a clean slate.î I was so excited by the fact that for once in my life, I didn’t have to be driven

(Speaker 3)
by what I have to do right now. I could be driven by what appeals to me to do. I still have to make it work but I got to ask myself, well, what do you want to do? What are your interests and what are your passions? That was the day I made the relationship between working hard enough to accumulate wealth equals freedom to not have to do things you really hate doing just to pay

(Speaker 3)
your bills. That was the day I said, Okay, this making money thing ain’t so bad, because now I’m free to focus on things that actually mean something to me. How old were you at that time? Still in my 20s. I, again, I’m not a material person. But we sold the company to a fortune 500 company. And so I made my first millions while I was still in

(Speaker 1)
my 20s. So you in the late late 20s you know started to realize hey I you know I don’t need to necessarily work for the dollar I want to work for something that inspires me you know something that you care about and I I heard one and I’m paraphrasing so if you can correct me if I’m getting the spirit of this wrong but you’ve talked in some of your YouTube videos I’ve seen, some of your speeches about the importance of chasing excellence versus the importance of planning an exiting strategy when starting a company. Can you explain what you mean by this?

(Speaker 3)
Sure. It is amazing now when I go to these various startup and entrepreneurship things and it’s a startup entrepreneur and everybody’s asking about their exit strategy. And I’m sitting there thinking, exit strategy, what is your entrance strategy? What are you exiting? Your PowerPoint?

(Speaker 3)
People are so focused on selling their business that I literally saw a startup entrepreneur, he doesn’t even have a company yet but he was looking online at new BMWs to see which one he was going to buy when he got wealthy. And so people get so focused on the pursuit of money that it distracts them from the only thing that’s ever going to make you rich which is excellence. You have to go out in the world and create something amazing.

(Speaker 3)
If you are heads down focused on being amazing in your industry, you’ll never worry about money because it shows up. People say, wow, you built that. That’s what happened when we created those ticket kiosks. Every airline in the world said, wait, wait, wait, you built these, we want those. So we focused on making the product deliver the promise. If you’re focused on excellence and you achieve it, the money always shows up. We were blessed that I’ve built other companies that were

(Speaker 3)
acquired because we had excellent products. But I never sat and thought about the exit strategy because it doesn’t matter. If you don’t create excellence, you’re not going to get rich anyway. If you do, you probably won’t have to worry about the money because it always shows up. People say, ìWow, you created this. We want it.î That’s why I tell people, ìStop counting your dollars and start focusing on

(Speaker 1)
doing something amazing so that everybody in your industry is talking about you. You were talking in one of your speeches about these entrepreneurs who have no net worth, no traction, no customers, nothing really going on now, but they are worried that somebody is going to steal their idea, Jeff. You know what I mean? People are just so worried. They’re going to steal my idea.

(Speaker 1)
Can you explain how we get over that if you’re an entrepreneur out there with no traction, no customers, no revenue, why you have to ultimately get over that fear

(Speaker 4)
of people stealing your ideas?

(Speaker 3)
Yes. So here’s a couple of things. First of all, choose who you’re talking to. So if you’re talking to reputable investors, right, and I’ve had this. I’ve had somebody pitching me as an investor and I said, tell me your idea and they said, well, we can’t really talk much about it. And I said, well, I’ll be happy to write you a check right now. And they said, really? I said, not in a million years.

(Speaker 3)
You’re not even sharing the idea with me and you think I’m going to fund this thing? The concept is ridiculous. So if you did any homework on me and discovered that not once in the history of my life have I ever stolen anyone’s idea or been accused of it or been sued for it, you should rest assured that reputable firms and reputable investors don’t remain reputable by being sued for stealing ideas. So do your homework. If these are reputable people, they don’t steal ideas for a living, they fund them and

(Speaker 3)
they funded many and you can’t find a lawsuit against them. If you can, then talk to someone else. So that’s my first thing, is don’t talk to people that you don’t know enough about to trust. The second thing though, is I always tell people this, that in life, you only have a limited amount of time. So you should pursue things

(Speaker 3)
that you have an unfair advantage in, anytime you can. You don’t always have that, but let me explain what that means. After we did the, for us to build those ticket printers that printed your boarding pass, we had the airline backend systems are written in a proprietary programming language that is intentionally not taught, not documented.

(Speaker 3)
Why? Because the airlines don’t want you breaking into the backend of their systems. So it’s a really difficult language. It took us the better part of two years to reverse engineer it. It’s like learning Chinese with no teacher and no course and no book by just wandering around the streets of China and saying, okay, by the time I get home, I’m going to speak

(Speaker 3)
Chinese. Good luck with that. We did that. It took two years. But they worked and every airline bought my product. So years later when we’re talking about a price line or something and people say don’t tell me

(Speaker 3)
your idea, they’ll steal it. What I was saying is okay, good luck with that because if you want to steal my idea, first of all, you’re two years behind already because I already know how to write this mysterious airline language. We spent a long time learning it. And second, when I pick up the phone and call the CEO of an airline, they actually answer my call because I took good care of them last time.

(Speaker 3)
If you pick up the phone…

(Speaker 1)
On today’s show, we are interviewing a man. That’s so impressive. I think I’ll pop myself a beer. I wasn’t done with the read yet, but I’ll give it another try. On today’s show, we are interviewing a man who has had the prolific success during his entrepreneurial career

(Speaker 1)
that most only dream about. How many 9-volt batteries could he have possibly purchased? Hey, I realize that you have a huge head, but is it possible that it’s hollow?

(Speaker 3)
Hey, it’s only 11 and 3 quarters.

(Speaker 4)
Look at the size of that boy’s head. Could you guys tell Jeff that I once knew a guy named Jeff? It’s crazy. What are the chances? Probably 1 out of 100.

(Speaker 28)
Wow.

(Speaker 4)
I’m not kidding. It’s like an orange on a toothpick. Hey, quit picking on the man with the massive melon. Well, that’s a huge noggin.

(Speaker 28)
It’s a virtual planetary. Has its own weather system.

(Speaker 4)
Throughout Jeff’s career, he’s helped to create the self-check-in software and technology used by airlines all around the world. And he’s the best-selling co-author of the book, Scale, Seven Proven Principles to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back.

(Speaker 4)
Throughout Jeff’s career, he’s been featured on Fox, CNN, Bloomberg News, CNBC, Forbes, Inc, Time, Fast Company, and many other leading media outlets. Unlike most entrepreneurs, Jeff has actually spent personal one-on-one time with many of the most iconic entrepreneurs on the planet including the founder of Walmart, Sam Walton. Do you think he knows Colonel Sanders?

(Speaker 4)
Colonel Sanders is dead.

(Speaker 16)
So you won’t even try. I mean, what if they have a spiritual connection?

(Speaker 4)
If you could leave the studio right now, that would be awesome. I can’t leave the studio. I know. I can’t do it. I can do it. I dare you. I’m picturing myself as a quiet, great board. Board. Grand. And boards don’t make any noise at all. Tremendous. Probably a board that breathes.

(Speaker 4)
Here we go.

(Speaker 16)
Let’s find the Card Hall.

(Speaker 27)
Heed!

(Speaker 4)
Move! Is it really necessary to give him the nickname Head?

(Speaker 1)
I know it’s a massive cranium, but don’t be so harsh.

(Speaker 30)
Heed!

(Speaker 29)
Move!

(Speaker 28)
Move that melon of yours away.

(Speaker 17)
Hey! If you can.

(Speaker 1)
Hey! cranium about. Stop talking about the size of his cranium. I got to finish this read, man. Jeff Hoffman has also spent time with the co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak. I also know a Steve. In addition to being a top entrepreneur, Jeff has also produced movies and musical events with such artists as Elton John, Britney Spears, NSYNC, and others. Jeff Hoffman has been the founder of multiple successful startups and has played critical roles with the company made famous by William Shatner, Priceline.com. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you Mr. Jeff Hoffman.

(Speaker 3)
Don’t forget to ask him about Colonel Sanders.

(Speaker 17)
I hated the colonel with his wee beady eyes and that smug look on his face.

(Speaker 28)
Oh, you’re going gonna buy my chicken.

(Speaker 14)
Oh.

(Speaker 10)
Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show, but this show does. Two men, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thrive Time Show.

(Speaker 4)
Now, three, two, one, here we go!

(Speaker 14)
We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here.

(Speaker 4)
Yes, yes, yes, and yes! Thrive Nation on today’s show, we are interviewing the man, the myth, and the legend, Mr. Jeff Hoffman. Welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir?

(Speaker 3)
I am excellent, and thank you very much for having me on the show.

(Speaker 4)
Jeff, for the listeners out there that are familiar with your career now, but are not as familiar with your background, I’d are not as familiar with your your background

(Speaker 1)
I’d love for you to share about your childhood and what kind of environment you actually grew up in

(Speaker 3)
Sure, so I actually grew up in the Arizona desert very small town feel single mother with four kids and I grew up in an environment where nobody really wanted to do anything. People were happy where they were and doing what they were and I wasn’t surrounded by people with big ambitions.

(Speaker 3)
Most of the people I grew up with never left literally the area we grew up in, which is fine. We’re not judging anybody here. It just wasn’t fine for me. I had these big dreams and big plans and I was going to go off and see the world I just had literally no means to do that and no idea how So when I would talk about those dreams, I didn’t get support. I got laughter

(Speaker 1)
You know, you’ve worked with Many huge companies today. I mean you you’ve had so much success with your career Could you share with the listeners out there who maybe can identify with how you grew up, you know, growing up where you don’t have access to a lot of capital or a lot of opportunities, when did you feel like you first started to gain traction with your career?

(Speaker 3)
Well, it wasn’t—I’ll separate that. Because the first time I gained traction in life wasn’t my career. It’s when I decided my way up and out was education. And I set this absurd goal from where I was coming from, from a big, giant public high school where percentage-wise, not a lot of people

(Speaker 3)
even went to college. And I decided I was gonna go to an Ivy League school and I wanted to go to Yale, which even my guidance counselor laughed at me instead of encouraging me and said, let’s all not waste our time.

(Speaker 3)
My mom had to call the school and order her to fill out the school side of the application. And when I got to Yale, because we were broke, I basically got sent home. They said, hey, you know, you didn’t pay enough. We applied the scholarships you got, but it’s not enough.

(Speaker 3)
And you can’t afford to go here and you should go home. And that’s how it started. And I wasn’t about to go home. So the first traction I ever had in my life was I decided I wasn’t quitting. And I sat there on day one of my freshman year,

(Speaker 3)
couldn’t go to class. And I said, you know what, I’m just going to start a business and find my own way to make money. So I started a little software company literally at the beginning of college and I wound up graduating in four years and funding my whole Yale degree by running a little business. That was my first feeling of traction. I set a goal and I found a way to accomplish it by myself

(Speaker 3)
and that led me to believe that maybe other goals were able to be accomplished. Big dreams could be realized if your work ethic was as big as your dream was.

(Speaker 1)
What kind of a service or problem did this software solve? What kind of what

(Speaker 4)
kind of problem did the software solve?

(Speaker 3)
Well, ironically, one of my biggest customers was Yale, rewriting their whole sort of tuition, billing, and reporting system. But the software that I made a living on was at that point in time, reporting and quote, business intelligence didn’t exist. So lots of small businesses were running a business

(Speaker 3)
without a top-down meta kind of overview of how things were going. And so I was developing kind of a first level of sort of intelligent reporting that would look for trends in data and say, you know, these type of customers

(Speaker 3)
you’re putting too much work into and they’re not worth the money. These type of customers never stay with you so stop selling to them. Data that gave you intelligence about the way you ran your business, I developed software that could read through all your company’s data and give you business intelligence.

(Speaker 3)
That field didn’t exist then, which is why I was successful with it because most of the time I’d show it to a small business and they’d say, ìWe’d love that.

(Speaker 27)
Sign us up.î

(Speaker 1)
Did you teach yourself how to code?

(Speaker 3)
I did at the beginning. And so now I gotta be really honest, I sucked at it. My self-teaching made me at best an average coder. So I switched my major in college and that’s the degree I got, software engineering. But again, be honest with you, when I got out of college and when I started my first company,

(Speaker 3)
I was informed quickly by my own employees that I was probably the worst coder in my own company. And so what they told me was, Jeff, this is not your expertise. I said, guys, I got the same degree as you. And they said, and yet somehow we’re all good at this

(Speaker 3)
and you’re not. And I said, what is it you want me to do? And they said, you’re going to have to move away from coding. And I said, such as, and they said, when we finish building this product, someone’s going to have to figure out how to market it. No one in this building knows what marketing is.

(Speaker 3)
Go do that. So I became a technical marketer, which it turned out I actually was good at and despite my degree I was on a good day in average coder. Now throughout your career I mean you’ve worked with so many well-known companies Priceline.com, UBid, Color Jar and others. I’d love for you to share about your role with with Priceline and the story behind how the team started that company? Sure. So the company was started by a guy named Jay Walker, Jay had an

(Speaker 3)
intellectual property company, where they patented business processes to improve industries. That’s still what he does. So Jay had this idea of really reducing, well, actually, let mephrase that, increasing revenue in the travel business by selling, auctioning off, reverse auction, auctioning off empty hotel rooms and empty seats. So Jay had the idea and Jay assembled teams of people,

(Speaker 3)
contacted a bunch of people, and this is the beginning, that’s where I came in. And we all went to work for Jay to try to build companies out of his intellectual property ideas and that’s where Priceline came from. We had a team of people that started assembling a new buying service that used a reverse auction to sell excess inventory and we tried a bunch of things in the early days.

(Speaker 3)
We had a consumer company that I was the CEO of. Jay was the CEO of the travel company. We had a wholesale company trying to wholesale other products we had a different CEO of. And so we spent time with the consumer markets, trying to find what things people were comfortable buying. And the one that rose to the top, which is the one that’s the big one today is the

(Speaker 3)
travel product.

(Speaker 4)
What, how big of a role did William Shatner’s personality

(Speaker 1)
have in the success of Priceline from your perspective?

(Speaker 3)
I think it actually had a lot. And the reason that I think that it had a lot was, it was hard to when everybody was launching internet company, it was hard to break through the noise. And it was hard to be remembered. The Shatner campaign, which people may not remember now, the Shatner campaign originally came from the fact that Shatner won an award when some people in the music industry asked

(Speaker 3)
people to vote on the single worst album in music history, and it was William Shatner’s Christmas album. Oh, come on. Yep. So the idea of the Priceline marketing team at the time was, let’s have William Shatner sing on television since he got labeled the worst album, and that would be funny. So he intentionally, the original commercials were William Shatner singing in a fake nightclub

(Speaker 3)
and people yelling, get out of here, get out of town. Right, because he was a bad singer. Shatner finally saying, OK, fine, I will. I will get out of town, but I’ll do it at 40% of what you would have spent. And the people in the nightclub saying, well, wait a minute.

(Speaker 3)
Don’t leave. Tell us how you can get travel for 40% less. So the thing that resonated is his intentionally bad singing was viral. People said, oh my God, did you see William Shatner on TV last night? So I think that those commercials with Shatner’s sense of humor played a large role in Priceline’s immediate memorability. People remembered it and talked about it.

(Speaker 3)
There’s so much internet mythology out there about the Priceline deal with William Shatner, and I’m not asking you to divulge the secrets of the contractual deal there, but did he

(Speaker 1)
earn some equity in Priceline, or was he paid as a traditional sponsor?

(Speaker 3)
No, that part of the folklore was true, that he did an equity deal and not a cash deal, and that equity wound up being obviously at the time Priceline IPO’d, we were the third largest IPO in stock market history. So his equity turned into millions of dollars instead of hundreds of thousands which he would have been paid which is why you saw him for so many years still as the Priceline spokesman and then every celebrity in Hollywood,

(Speaker 3)
after that news got out, wanted to go work for an internet company.

(Speaker 1)
Let me ask you this. When did it occur to you that you were wealthy?

(Speaker 3)
You know, well before that, we had another travel company. I did other products, like we created the first, when you go to the airport now and you check in at a kiosk to print your own boarding pass, that was one of our first products many, many years before there was a price line or anything.

(Speaker 3)
And so that was a tech company that I started. And the company did well, we were able to sell the company and sell the company to where the little group of founders, everybody made millions of dollars. And that didn’t, I was never money-driven or material-driven.

(Speaker 3)
Yeah, I get that. It was the freedom day is what I related to that. After we sold the company and everyone said, now what are you gonna do? And I sat there and thought, man, I have a wide open, I have a clean slate and I was so excited by the fact that for once in my life I didnít have to be driven by what I have to do right now.

(Speaker 3)
I could be driven by what appeals to me to do. I still have to make it work, but I got to ask myself, ìWell, what do you want to do? And what are your passions and that was the day I made the relationship between working hard enough to accumulate wealth Equals freedom to not have to do things you really hate doing just to pay your bills. That was the day I said, okay This making money thing ain’t so bad because now I’m free to focus on things that actually mean something to me How old were you at that time at that time? Still in my 20s. I

(Speaker 3)
Again, I’m not a material person, but we sold the company to a Fortune 500 company, so I made my first millions while I was still in my 20s.

(Speaker 1)
So you, in the late 20s, started to realize, hey, I don’t need to necessarily work for the dollar. I want to work for something that inspires me, something that you care about. I heard one, and I’m paraphrasing, if you can correct me if I’m getting the spirit of this wrong, but you’ve talked in some of your YouTube videos I’ve seen and some of your speeches about the importance of chasing excellence versus the importance of planning and exiting strategy when starting a company.

(Speaker 1)
Can you explain what you mean by this?

(Speaker 3)
Sure. It is amazing now when I go to these various startup and entrepreneurship things and it’s a startup entrepreneur and everybody is asking about their exit strategy and I’m sitting there thinking exit strategy, what is your entrance strategy? What are you exiting? Your PowerPoint?

(Speaker 3)
People are so focused on selling their business that I literally saw a startup entrepreneur, he doesn’t even have a company yet but he was looking online at new BMWs to see which one he was going to buy when he got wealthy. And so people get so focused on the pursuit of money that it distracts them from the only thing that’s ever going to make you rich which is excellence. You have to go out in the world and create something amazing. If you are heads down focused on being amazing in your industry, you’ll never worry about

(Speaker 3)
money because it shows up. People say, ìWow, you built that. Thatís what happened when we created those ticket kiosks. Every airline in the world said, ìWait, wait, wait. You built these. We want those.î So we focused on making the product deliver the promise.

(Speaker 3)
If youíre focused on excellence and you achieve it, the money always shows up and we were blessed that Iíve built other companies that were acquired because we had excellent products but I never sat and thought about the exit strategy because it doesnít matter. If you donít create excellence, youíre not going to get rich anyway and if you do, you probably wonít have to worry about the money because it always shows up. People say, ìWow, you created this. We want it.î So thatís why I tell people stop counting your dollars and start focusing on doing something

(Speaker 3)
amazing so that everybody in your industry is talking about you.

(Speaker 1)
You were talking in one of your speeches about these entrepreneurs who have no net worth, no traction, no customers, nothing really going on now, but they are worried that somebody is going to steal their idea, Jeff.

(Speaker 4)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 26)
People are just so worried. They’re going to steal my idea, Jeff. People are just so worried.

(Speaker 1)
They’re going to steal my idea. Can you explain how we get over that if you’re an entrepreneur out there with no traction, no customers, no revenue, why you have to ultimately get over that fear of people stealing

(Speaker 4)
your ideas?

(Speaker 3)
Yes. Here’s a couple of things. First of all, choose who you’re talking to. If you’re talking to reputable investors, and I’ve had this, I’ve had somebody pitching me as an investor and I said, tell me your idea and they said, well, we can’t really talk much about it and I said, well, I’d be happy to write you a check right now and they

(Speaker 3)
said, really? I said, not in a million years. You’re not even sharing the idea with me and you think I’m going to fund this thing? The concept is ridiculous. So if you did any homework on me and discovered that not once in the history of my life have I ever stolen anyone’s idea or been accused of it or been sued for it,

(Speaker 3)
you should rest assured that reputable firms and reputable investors don’t remain reputable by being sued for stealing ideas. So do your homework. If these are reputable people, they don’t steal ideas for a living, they fund them and they funded many and you canít find a lawsuit against them. If you can, then talk

(Speaker 3)
to someone else. So thatís my first thing is donít talk to people that you donít know enough about to trust. The second thing though is I always tell people this, that in life, you have a lot, you know, you only have a limited amount of time. So you should pursue things that you have an unfair advantage in anytime you can. You don’t always have that, but let me explain what that means. For us to build those ticket printers that printed your boarding pass, the airline back-end

(Speaker 3)
systems are written in a proprietary programming language that is intentionally not taught, not documented. Why? Because the airlines don’t want you breaking into the back end of their systems. So it’s a really difficult language.

(Speaker 3)
It took us the better part of two years to reverse engineer it. It’s like learning Chinese with no teacher, no course and no book, by just wandering around the streets of China. And saying, okay, by the time I get home,

(Speaker 3)
I’m gonna speak Chinese. Good luck with that. We did that. It took two years. But they worked and every airline bought my product. So years later, when we’re talking about a price line or something and people say, don’t tell me your idea, they’ll steal it.

(Speaker 3)
What I was saying is, okay, good luck with that because if you want to steal my idea, first of all, you’re two years behind already because I already know how to write this mysterious airline language. We spent a long time learning it and second, when I pick up the phone and call the CEO of an airline, they actually answer my call because I took good care of them last time. If you pick up the phone and say I want to talk to them, you’ll never even get a meeting.

(Speaker 3)
So I have two unfair advantages. I know the proprietary language and I have great relationships in the industry. So I’m likely to be more interested in pursuing business ideas that I already have an advantage in than saying I’m going to launch a healthcare thing even though I know nothing about healthcare, I’ve never worked in a hospital. I don’t know any doctors. Someone that’s in the business is probably going to kick my butt. If you have an unfair advantage, who cares if someone even did try to steal your idea,

(Speaker 3)
they’ll never catch you.

(Speaker 1)
Throughout your career, you have been intentional about networking or masterminding, mining, or investing time with people that are very, very successful. And one of your friends, the founder of Amazon, Mr. Jeff Bezos, you’ve talked about how he had to become the world’s best book salesman before he could become the world’s best everything

(Speaker 25)
store.

(Speaker 4)
What do you mean by that?

(Speaker 3)
Absolutely. So the lesson I’ve learned from studying so many people, as many success stories as I could was I noticed a common element and that’s that those people want a gold medal in one thing before they try to do everything. So let’s use that Amazon story from talking to Jeff way back in the early internet days when Amazon was just being built.

(Speaker 3)
His focus was to be the best bookseller on the planet. In the same way Tony Hsieh early on, Zappos, they were going to be the best darned shoe seller. And the companies that scaled, remember I’m not talking about someday, I’m talking about from small to big. The scale happened when these companies became the best darned something in the world and

(Speaker 3)
they picked something they could win a gold medal in. And what happened was by staying focused on only selling books, you know, just like the other Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidar, they stayed with collectibles for quite a while on eBay. By picking something you could be the best at,

(Speaker 3)
so Bezos sold us books and nothing but books for a while. But he became the best darn way to buy a book anywhere. And he was so good at it that you and I as a consumer said, wow, it’s just a book, but I love doing business with them so much, sell me something else.

(Speaker 3)
So instead of a push strategy, where you as a seller have to push the next product on me, it’s a pull strategy where the consumer says, please sell me something else. So the woman buying shoes from Zappos said, I love Zappos, can I buy a handbag? Can I get some earrings? What else you got?

(Speaker 3)
So when you win a gold medal at something, people you get a reputation for being able to deliver excellence and people want to do more business with you for more things. That is the lesson I learned from studying those people. Pick one thing. If you look at price line today, I think 93% or something of price lines, multi billion dollar revenue comes

(Speaker 3)
from one thing hotel rooms. The company became the gold medalist in hotel rooms. They don’t sell luggage. They don’t sell travel insurance. They don’t sell maps. They sell hotel rooms,

(Speaker 1)
but they’re such a good gold medalist at it that they didn’t really need to ever do anything else. You know, you have had personal conversations with people like Sam Walton throughout your career. I’d love for you to share about the time you spent with Sam Walton, the man famous for wearing the John Deere hat and a pair of jeans and driving the beat up truck while running the world’s largest company or one of the world’s largest companies. What did you learn from your time spent with Sam Walton?

(Speaker 3)
So Sam taught me one of the most valuable business lessons that I’ve ever learned. And we were spending a day together and I was asking Sam that his business concept, which was big box retail in small town America, farmers and little towns, was a death sentence, suicidal, according to Wall Street and everybody in retail. You canít build big box retail in small town America so no one did it.

(Speaker 3)
Sam did it anyway and it worked. I said, ìSam, how did you know it would work when everyone said it wouldnít?î He said, ìEasy Jeff because I didnít listen to Wall Street. I listened to farmers.î I said, ìWhat do you mean? And Sam said, I wasn’t building a store for people that work on Wall Street. And I wasn’t building the store for analysts in the in the retail industry. I was building the store for small town farmers.

(Speaker 3)
And he said, so I got my little truck in my in my jeans in my work boots, you know, and put on a John Deere hat. And I drove over to their side of town. And I hung out in cafes where these people spent their day eating apple pie and I bought people apple pie and I listened to him and he said instead of listening to the experts or even people that work for me that are not the demographic customer.

(Speaker 3)
Yeah. If you hang out with farmers, they’ll tell you how to build something for farmers to shop at. And so the.

(Speaker 12)
Play my honor, my honor to be on your show. And thank you for all you do.

(Speaker 10)
I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

(Speaker 18)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 12)
People rave about what they learned from you. So congratulations.

(Speaker 1)
Sean, guess what’s happening on June 5th and 6th

(Speaker 4)
right here in Tulsa, Russia. We are probably gonna have an amazing business conference

(Speaker 9)
here at Tulsa, Russia.

(Speaker 4)
Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show, World Headquarters, June 5th and 6th. He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman Award winner, but he’s also a very successful entrepreneur. Now, when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with,

(Speaker 4)
help them grow their companies. Do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? Every day. How often is is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s almost it’s like maybe 90% of the issues as people are trying to grow their company. Well Tim Tebow is going to come join us here at the in-person Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop. He’s going to teach us time management and his approach to personal self-discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here, also at the two-day

(Speaker 4)
interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most?

(Speaker 4)
Is it generating leads? Is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops?

(Speaker 9)
Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners. And being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control, then generally the numbers, being able to track their business and be

(Speaker 9)
able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. And we teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay, you love to hammer on time management. It’s my favorite part of the conference.

(Speaker 4)
Now I’m going to pull this up real quick here, cause we’re going to go through, if you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here. Okay.

(Speaker 4)
The two day hosting workshop. So I’m telling you folks, we’re in rare form here. So one is the idea of establishing your revenue goals. I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals.

(Speaker 1)
Would you agree or am I off my rocker?

(Speaker 4)
No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board is we have to establish the revenue goals. And generally speaking, we have a vague idea, but not an exact idea that can be engineered down into the daily goals for sales.

(Speaker 9)
And so that’s a really big one.

(Speaker 4)
Now next is the break-even numbers. What kind of sales do you have to do to even break even? Third is how many hours per week do you want to work? What is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur? Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your company unique from all the different businesses in a world of

(Speaker 4)
brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows. How can you be the purple cow that stands out? How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil? Box number five branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand? Box number six, marketing, your three-legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed?

(Speaker 4)
If you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed. If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads. Sean, how often do business owners by default tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. And many times, they may be creating leads,

(Speaker 4)
but just through word of mouth. So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems, and then they need to create more leads. But they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Box number seven, box number seven, create a sales conversion system.

(Speaker 4)
Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system, sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre-written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business, whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you’ve got to have sales systems in place.

(Speaker 4)
We help you with that. Box number eight, what does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization

(Speaker 4)
if you’re not organized. We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization. Box number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people on the planet Earth. This just in, we’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people.

(Speaker 4)
Box number 13, accounting. This just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know. And step 14, finally, what is the point of even achieving success? We’re going to go over the, what is the point of even achieving success?

(Speaker 4)
How to design a life that you’re excited about, how to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re gonna spend your focused time. We’re gonna go through that, all this and more. Now the workshop, Sean, it’s June 5th and 6th. It’s a two-day interactive workshop.

(Speaker 4)
And tickets, we always do it, it’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford. Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket?

(Speaker 9)
Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You could be at a startup phase, or you could be way along in your business. But we want to make it accessible for everybody. I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad. And it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that your average people out there

(Speaker 9)
have access to the things that work.

(Speaker 4)
Now 7 AM to 5, Sean, why do we go from 7 to 5 both days? I mean, it’s 10 hours a day, 20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back-to-back workshops? We do a 30 minute teaching session. We do a 15 minute question and answer session and then we take a break. 30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of

(Speaker 4)
question and answer, then we take a break. Why do we do that format, Sean? That format is so that we can keep people engaged and not just sitting there listening but also getting involved. We really encourage people to ask questions and that’s really where the the juiciness of the conference comes out is you can put your personal situation and your questions on the board and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program you can get direct

(Speaker 4)
coaching from Clay. It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoyed a lot. Sean, final 60 seconds pop quiz here. What date is the conference? June 5th and 6th, 2025. This year. Question number two. Who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in-person,

(Speaker 4)
two-day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford. Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards? P-U-R-T-C-I-R-E. That took a long time. I’ll have to listen to this. All right, again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, inviting you to come join us at the in-person Thrive Time Show two two-day interactive workshop, June 5th and 6th,

(Speaker 4)
right here in Tulsa, Russia, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sean, I really am, I’m excited to have this event. I’m excited to see you at the event, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tim Tebow, baby!

(Speaker 1)
It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Russia.

(Speaker 23)
You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, things but you chose to be here. Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay is the greatest. I met his goats today, I met his dogs, I met his chickens, I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy.

(Speaker 24)
I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs.

(Speaker 23)
So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing.

(Speaker 15)
Oh my God!

(Speaker 11)
Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrivetime Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here.

(Speaker 11)
We’ve got people playing the drums. We’ve got a fire breather. And man, people are so excited as they come in.

(Speaker 15)
Woo! Woo! Woo!

(Speaker 11)
Woo! We’ve got Donovan, this house is packed. We’ve got Aaron Andis with Shotguns up there. We’ve got Steve Ehrington with Total Ending Concepts up there. Talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the process. It’s so exciting. People are going crazy. Guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up.

(Speaker 11)
The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two.

(Speaker 15)
Follow me. Come on, come on. Woo! Woo!

(Speaker 22)
Woo!

(Speaker 1)
I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two.

(Speaker 11)
It is going to be incredible. I cannot wait to see what today has in store. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!

(Speaker 15)
Yeah!

(Speaker 21)
Yeah!

(Speaker 15)
Yeah!

(Speaker 11)
Yeah! Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable

(Speaker 20)
It’s possible

(Speaker 11)
Now we’re in the middle of a break and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them, bathroom break, and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time.

(Speaker 11)
Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his grill gun melting an ice sculpture, it is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have.

(Speaker 5)
I heard about it on the podcast. Started listening to the podcast, became a fan, and then figured out about the workshop. I own an insurance and financial services agency and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big on systems and processes and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none. It’s a high energy, really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious, I would say. Just something every entrepreneur I think would appreciate and love. I’d say humorous, high energy and full of substance, which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars

(Speaker 5)
maybe are high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of business coaches or seminars, maybe are high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of substance that you could take back and implement the following Monday, where his does. Man, there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say, I came to, this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really

(Speaker 5)
the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that saving my time on that part is valuable. It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far.

(Speaker 5)
Man, I think they’re missing out on expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons. That’s what I’m always looking for, is somebody that I can learn from, that’s ahead of where I am.

(Speaker 5)
And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business.

(Speaker 1)
Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden so I was willing to listen. In my career I’ve sold a little over 800 million dollars in real estate. So honestly I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes and then I met Clay and my

(Speaker 1)
perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing 800 million in sales over a 15 year, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And, I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years.

(Speaker 1)
We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay I really thought man there’s not much more I need to know but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month.

(Speaker 1)
Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening.

(Speaker 1)
One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry.

(Speaker 1)
But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him.

(Speaker 1)
From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone

(Speaker 1)
through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town,

(Speaker 1)
and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you

(Speaker 1)
if you’re thinking about working with clay. I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us and I know if you give them a shot I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have

(Speaker 1)
missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend ClayClark to anybody

(Speaker 1)
who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because

(Speaker 19)
we sure haven’t.

(Speaker 8)
My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay at home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we love working with people. I love the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the

(Speaker 8)
business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand help market our business our agents the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage our real estate brokerage eight months ago. And in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week. We signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today building a business having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his

(Speaker 8)
team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge, it’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen.

(Speaker 6)
I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way, I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies, I don’t answer to large corporate organizations, I answer to my patient and that’s it.

(Speaker 6)
My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 investment. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience,

(Speaker 6)
especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been

(Speaker 6)
able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business.

(Speaker 6)
I am Dr. Chad Edwards, and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

(Speaker 12)
Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do.

(Speaker 4)
I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

(Speaker 18)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 12)
People rave about what they learn from you, so congratulations.

(Speaker 7)
And we went from expecting maybe 250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. Hi, I’m Kelsey with K&D’s Wood Refinishing. I’m a business owner at 23. So, I’ve been working at this K&D’s company for about 5 years now. And we started working with Thrive not too long ago.

(Speaker 7)
And we went from expecting maybe $250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that. It’s been pretty much just listening to what they have to say. Their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help. And just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly

(Speaker 7)
and such good insight, the resources that they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience. So I’d recommend it to anybody.

(Speaker 13)
What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system and it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones that people can work with on a day-to-day basis.

(Speaker 2)
Hi there, my name is Stephanie Pipkin. I am 24 years old and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid-June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time.

(Speaker 2)
It has been insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid-February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet. So I’m gonna check my notes here. So in four months my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week, now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees.

(Speaker 2)
I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. And in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. And hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month if that and everybody shows up to

(Speaker 2)
work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews and higher interviewing every single week. It’s just been great and such a lot, I don’t waste as much

(Speaker 2)
time on low quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Looks like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be when I’m being lazy and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them.

(Speaker 2)
So that’s just great. Worth every penny. I mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to. But I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. Things just happen for me. Maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and perseverance and working until

(Speaker 2)
you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that. But it’s having these systems in place of, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute, because I have all this stuff in the background happening, and I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited every single week when I’m having all these wins and things

(Speaker 2)
like that. They’re so excited for me. So it’s the best thing ever and I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long-winded reply, but I just had so much to say and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are.

(Speaker 2)
But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come.

(Speaker 12)
Thanks so much for watching. My saying is if it’s important to you, hire a coach. And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they, you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean? And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches.

(Speaker 12)
So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. You’re on it, man. You’re on it, you’re on it.

(Speaker 17)
Everybody, listen to this guy. He knows what he’s talking about. was one of those persons. You’re on it, man. You’re on it. You’re on it.

(Speaker 12)
Everybody, listen to this guy. He knows what he’s talking about. You have the macro-mactual picture. Very few people have that point of view. Clay, you’re an entrepreneur. I’m an entrepreneur.

(Speaker 12)
And as they say in Stoic, the obstacle is the way. And so if you let these pinheads get in your way, And so if you let these pinheads get in your way, you’re in trouble.

 

Transcribed with Cockatoo