Business Coach | Need More Sales Now? One of World’s Most Effective Sales Trainers (Jerry Vass)Teaches Soft-Selling In a Hard World + Join Eric Trump At Clay Clark’s Dec. 4-5 Business Conference In Anaheim, California

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 14)
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. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U .

(Speaker 68)
S.

(Speaker 1)
Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, 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.

(Speaker 1)
He’s bringing some stump and the good looks. As the father, that’s why I’m up. So if you see my wife and kids, please, it’s the CNC up on your radio. And now, let’s go. Nation on today’s show we’re talking about sales, working through sales, how to sell, what is sales, how do we sell. On part two of today’s show I’m going to interview or I’m going to re -air an interview I did with the world’s best sales trainer ever in my opinion.

(Speaker 1)
Jerry Vass, the bestselling author of Soft Selling in a Hard World. And Ellie, we were talking off mic about sales, and you were saying that when someone shuts you down in sales, it shuts you down because when you say no, you mean no, and then therefore trying to overcome a no is a problem. Or maybe rephrase, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

(Speaker 6)
Oh, you’re good. Um, so I, when I’m stubborn, so whenever I say no, I mean no. And that’s how I perceive everyone else to be. But I know that I’m tend to be more stubborn than most. So whenever they say no, I need to push more because they’re waiting to say that. Yes, they, they want to say yes.

(Speaker 6)
They just want to know more information about what I’m selling.

(Speaker 59)
And I just get scared.

(Speaker 1)
And let me, let’s, let’s just make sure we’re taking notes. I’m gonna walk you through this and we’ll just get through it. Okay. So sales goes like this is what sales is. Sales is solving a problem for your ideal and likely buyer in exchange for a profit. That’s what it is.

(Speaker 1)
Sales is solving a problem for your ideal and likely buyer in exchange for a profit. So let me just give you an example of effective sales in my opinion, okay? Have you been on a cruise before, Ellie?

(Speaker 13)
A long time ago, yes.

(Speaker 1)
Levi, have you been on a cruise?

(Speaker 67)
Never.

(Speaker 40)
Never?

(Speaker 1)
Is your mic on down there? Have you been on a cruise?

(Speaker 14)
Mic check.

(Speaker 61)
No, I have not.

(Speaker 66)
Okay.

(Speaker 1)
So years ago, I’m at a Tulsa Bridal Association event. I was the founder of the Tulsa Bridal Association. We did the Tulsa Bridal Association wedding show. It was a big wedding show, okay? And one of the vendors at the group, picture a 20 -year -old version of myself, and I was having tons of success in the DJ business, and this lady says to me, Karen Wheelock was her name. Karen’s probably will hear the show.

(Speaker 1)
Karen Wheelock says to me, you should take your wife on a cruise. And I said, Ellie, come on, Ellie, what’d I say? yeah okay I said no Lee I said no why do you think I said no because it would cost a lot of money for a short amount of time what do you think Levi maybe you’re people are gonna try and sell you on stuff I don’t know the reason why I said no is I have motion sickness oh so like today every day, I do not like to travel because I get perpetually sick. So like if I get on an airplane and we’re flying to let’s say Washington DC, I have to, it takes me about four hours after I get off the flight to not feel sick. You know, so that’s just how it is. I don’t enjoy motion sickness, which feels like maybe somebody out there, if you can’t relate to this idea, imagine you’re on like a roller coaster, how you feel when you get off. I’m just like, Ooh, you know, so a boat that’s going up and down in the water doesn’t sound like any fun to me.

(Speaker 41)
Right?

(Speaker 1)
Yeah. So this is what you have to write down. And I want you to think about it and pray about it and form a committee and always think I tell you if it ever goes against the Bible, go with the Bible. But what I’m saying is Karen said, well, what’s your main concern?

(Speaker 22)
You should write that down.

(Speaker 1)
Okay. You know, what’s your main concern? Now, I know she makes a commission, guys. She knows that I know that she makes a commission. We know, they know that we know, we all know, everybody knows she makes a commission, right? But she says, so let me ask you what’s your main concern?

(Speaker 1)
So then I said to her, well, you know, I get motion sickness, right?

(Speaker 43)
It’s a legit, is that a legitimate objection?

(Speaker 61)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, for sure. I literally just got off the phone with one of the top podcasters in America, okay? I’ll be very vague about who this person is, but I said, dude, you need to use an SM 58.

(Speaker 66)
Mike is his micro here.

(Speaker 1)
behind me. This S this is an SM 58. Mike, you see this one here with the gray top here. So I said, dude, you got to use an SM 58 for your podcast. He’s like, why would I want to use that? This is like a couple of weeks ago.

(Speaker 1)
And I said, because dude, you’re a standup comedian. And if you use that mic, you’ll feel more comfortable at the whole thing. It’ll work. I just got off the phone with him. He’s using it.

(Speaker 51)
He’s like, it’s changing the game.

(Speaker 35)
Yeah.

(Speaker 61)
Dang.

(Speaker 1)
There you go. I’ve also, I just got off the phone and right now, and I said, listen, if you go on your comedy tour, you got to call your comedy tour, finding funny. You got to do it. And he’s like, and now he’s, he’s almost there. Cause he, cause he, he, he, again, this is a guy I’ve known for a long time.

(Speaker 32)
I’ll be vague about it, but I’m not, I’m not even making money.

(Speaker 42)
Right.

(Speaker 1)
Right. But then his, well, I don’t know. Cause we’re going over here. I’ve already got the studio, this expensive mic. And I said, well, what’s your main concern?

(Speaker 30)
You see what I just did there?

(Speaker 65)
Yes.

(Speaker 1)
Yep. So what’s your main concern?

(Speaker 61)
Are you, are we on the same page?

(Speaker 1)
Yes. So what are you, are you getting this?

(Speaker 64)
I am getting, I don’t know that you’re getting this.

(Speaker 1)
Okay.

(Speaker 22)
So let me, let me try to sell you on something I had to sell Andrew on years ago.

(Speaker 1)
Okay. When you go to college, how much does it cost to go to college? Do you have any idea what it costs? Like if I’m going to go to like oral Roberts university, the tuition at oral Roberts university. Okay. For the year 2025, I’m looking it up right now.

(Speaker 1)
The tuition. to go to Oral Roberts University in 2025. Let’s look it up here. Look at it up. What’s the term? What?

(Speaker 1)
What does it cost? What is the tuition? tuition cost? Oral Roberts? Whoa, 35 ,200 35 ,200. That’s before food

(Speaker 1)
general fees, whatever that means. So it’s 40 grand minimum to get to go to that place. Okay. So you think about what does it cost per, so you know, our, when you’re in class, what does it cost? Well, it’s, it’s 40 ,000 a year and they’re in school for what?

(Speaker 64)
Nine months.

(Speaker 1)
Is that an accurate nine months? Probably. So now you’re up to $4 ,000, $4 ,400, 4 ,400 a month. Okay. And you divide that by, there’s 20 days in a month, right? So 4 ,400 divided by 20, right?

(Speaker 1)
So we’re on the same page. So to go to ORU, it’s $222 an hour to go to college, roughly. I mean, that’s what we’re talking about, right? So Andrew years ago, he got into this, but I’m like, dude, if you want to become the best business coach in the whole world, I will not charge you to shadow me. I’m also not asking you to do anything other than just take notes. But the only way you’re going to learn that skill is to shadow.

(Speaker 61)
So I’ve always shadowed super successful people because you learn it.

(Speaker 56)
Yeah.

(Speaker 41)
I mean, if you wanted to get in the best shape ever and you shadowed someone in the weight room and you are wanting to get in great shape, it makes sense. But we’re so used to this weird, perverse way of education that we actually pay for non -effective education, but we’re unwilling to take advantage of free education unless we’re getting paid.

(Speaker 1)
Does this make sense? Yes. Yeah. Yes.

(Speaker 59)
You getting the idea?

(Speaker 61)
Yes.

(Speaker 1)
So again, I’m trying to make sure we’re getting some ideas here.

(Speaker 54)
One, I have a, Karen says to me, you should take your wife on a cruise.

(Speaker 1)
I said, nah, I don’t want to go on a cruise. And she says, what Ellie?

(Speaker 51)
She says, why not?

(Speaker 1)
What’s your main concern? What’s your main concern? That’s right.

(Speaker 59)
Levi.

(Speaker 1)
She says, what’s your main concern, right? Right. And I go, man, I just, I don’t want to get caught a sick motion sickness, the whole thing. And then she says, can you tell me more about that you should write that down she says can you tell me more is it there is a science to it she says can you tell me more about it can you tell me more about it you know could you tell me more about that there’s a science to it once you guys get this there’s a science to it and I say well I mean I just don’t want to get sick I get motion sickness she says Clay you know Woodland Hills Mall, never forget this, she said Woodland Hills Mall is like a two -story building and you know, I mean you guys have been to Woodland Hills Mall, it’s a Tulsa, our prominent mall in Tulsa. Oh yeah, for sure.

(Speaker 61)
She says Woodland Hills Mall is like a two -story but because the floors are so tall it’s like five stories.

(Speaker 1)
She said these cruise ships are 18 stories tall. They’re 22 stories tall. You’re in a, in like a moving Woodland Hills mall. It’s so big. In fact, you can’t even feel the motion of the boat to which I said, really, you see what just happened there? Yes.

(Speaker 25)
Really?

(Speaker 6)
So when Andrew and a guy named Marshall and different people over the years that have wanted to learn about business from me, they’ve come to me and they said, Hey, I’m thinking about paying.

(Speaker 9)
$2 ,500 to go to this class or this seminar or 10 ,000 to go to this class or this seminar or 20 ,000 to go get this degree or certification.

(Speaker 1)
And when I tell somebody, Hey, you can shadow me for free. Most people given that opportunity will say, how much do I get paid? Why do they say that?

(Speaker 60)
Ellie?

(Speaker 1)
Why?

(Speaker 6)
Because they’re not willing to work for what they have.

(Speaker 63)
They just, they just want to keep going.

(Speaker 1)
Keep going. Cause Andrew is great. Uh, he was great. Why? Why? Because he worked on his own time and then he came in and she

(Speaker 1)
for his own benefit. We have our own bias already. We already think a certain way and we need to be, does that make sense? I already, I just thought a cruise, I can’t go on a cruise because it’s going to make me sick.

(Speaker 51)
People are just thinking, oh yeah, you’re trying to get me to do free work.

(Speaker 1)
I’m not trying to get someone to do free work.

(Speaker 41)
If someone shadows me, they have to do no work, but we have to, that’s how you learn though.

(Speaker 1)
You know, that’s how you learn. I mean, how did you learn football?

(Speaker 62)
You like football, right, Levi?

(Speaker 61)
You like football?

(Speaker 1)
Yes. You like swing dancing, is this right? Yes. How do you learn that? Are someone paying you per hour to learn swing dancing? No.

(Speaker 1)
No. Just practice. But you get the idea, though. You get the idea. Like, if you had to get paid for every hour you were swing dancing, first off, who would pay for that? You know, when you start out, you’re not good at it, who would pay you, right?

(Speaker 60)
Who would pay you to watch football?

(Speaker 1)
It doesn’t make any sense. But people just, for some reason, it’s a mindset thing. It’s a shift that has to happen. So we go back to the cruise thing. It’s like, I’m so glad I went on that cruise. Like, yes, what a great thing it was.

(Speaker 1)
And again, she didn’t try to sell me. No, no, no. She’s solving the problem. You got to think about it that way. So she says, so what’s the main concern? What’s your concern, right?

(Speaker 1)
That’s the first question. right and then the second question I asked you to write down was what second question was first one is can you tell me more about that can you tell me more about that I tell her right and then she says well let me ask you if blank was not an issue if blank was not an issue you see that if blank was not an issue what do you you know what do you think would be the main well what do you think would be the main benefit of whatever the thing is so she said you know if clay if blank wasn’t an issue if you didn’t get sick what do you think would be the main thing you’re looking for out of a vacation? And I’m like, oh, I would have to have a very active trip. And she says, how active? And I go, I mean, just stuff to do.

(Speaker 1)
I get bored. I don’t want to sit there all day looking at the ocean. And she’s like, Clay, they have workout classes in the morning. They got basketball. They got stand -up comedians. They’ve got a massive buffet.

(Speaker 1)
They’ve got couples massages.

(Speaker 25)
They’ve got a track you can run on.

(Speaker 1)
They do port -a -calls. You stop at different islands. You can swim around. You can do snorkeling. I mean, just buh -buh -buh. And I’m going, yes!

(Speaker 59)
So then she says, so can I give you a brochure?

(Speaker 11)
Yeah.

(Speaker 1)
Why don’t we just, here’s a brochure. And then why don’t we set up a time to talk? Let’s just set up a time to talk and that we could see if there’s a good package for you. It’s the best trip I’ve ever been on. I would not have gone if it wasn’t for Karen Wheelock. Does that make sense?

(Speaker 1)
Yes. 100%. Same thing with shadowing or learning a new skill. It’s like, man, if I want to learn to play the guitar, I’m going to have to I don’t want to have to have someone pay me. Think about it. I want to learn to play the guitar.

(Speaker 1)
Okay, great. So pay me per hour to teach me the guitar.

(Speaker 57)
That doesn’t even make sense.

(Speaker 1)
Or I go to Oral Roberts University and spend $40 ,000 a year to study music. That doesn’t make sense either. Why don’t I shadow somebody who actually knows what they’re doing and observe what they do? Oh, I can’t do that. Why? Because it’s like a third option that people don’t even think of.

(Speaker 1)
Does that make sense? Yes. I just want to make sure we’re getting this idea because once you get the idea then it sells as a problem. Third principle I want to teach here and then we’ll move on to other things. If you can get to a place in your life where rejection sincerely bothers you 0%, 0 % zero percent, then it’s great.

(Speaker 1)
Like they’re rejecting the idea, but they’re not rejecting you. That’s powerful. But most people never get to that point. And I would say that’s largely because of the way the school system works. So when a baby falls down, we’ve all seen a baby, right? When a baby is learning to walk and it falls down, we don’t say, man, stupid baby can’t even walk.

(Speaker 1)
Stupid baby, right? We don’t mock babies. Think about it. But we, as adults mock ourselves. You know, it’s like you try to do something the first time and you’re like, I’m stupid. I suck at this.

(Speaker 1)
The inner dialogue is toxic. So you got to get to a place where you have like the mindset of a baby. People say, what does a baby think? I don’t think a whole lot, which is what we’re talking about. Okay. So like when I do this conference, I had this lady, she sent me this really, I was hoping to call her and let you guys kind of see the thing, but she sends me this.

(Speaker 1)
She says to me at the conference, she says, I really, really want to get this product to Eric Trump and have him endorse it. Well, guys, we have 700 people here at the conference. We got a hundred thousand people watching online and I’ve got this wonderful woman who wants me to endorse it. to get Eric Trump to stop what he’s doing and look at her product and endorse it. And I just said, hey, with the way it’s set up, the Secret Service exists. And you guys saw that.

(Speaker 1)
You didn’t get a photo with Eric. You didn’t get one. A lot of my longtime friends couldn’t get a photo with Eric. Why? Because the Secret Service kind of took over my office to keep him safe. So I tell her, hey, I could give the product to the Secret Service, but I can’t make him like your product.

(Speaker 1)
And man, you would have thought I insulted her mother. You would have thought I… And she’s super upset. But it doesn’t bother me at all. Zero percent. And you guys have got to get to that place where it just, it doesn’t matter.

(Speaker 1)
And if you get there, it’s so fun because now I’m just solving problems. So, and just a little bit here, we’re going to talk to a wonderful customer and you guys are going to see that experience and we’re going to help this customer out. And I don’t look at it as sales. I look at it as solving a problem. And if I can solve a problem, that’s called shalom. So if you study Hebrew, you want to get into that?

(Speaker 1)
Shalom, it’s a biblical concept. It’s a win -win. So the customer wins because they’re getting the solution. I win because I’m making the profit. And I call it the triple win because it creates jobs. Customer wins.

(Speaker 1)
I win. People have jobs. It’s a powerful thing. But if you kind of get to that mindset where you can reframe your mind and that’s how you proceed and perceive sales, it’s so much better. Life is so much better. But if you get to a place where you are saying, every time I get rejected, I can’t overcome the objection and, oh, it’s a dark winter for me in sales.

(Speaker 1)
Then all of a sudden it’s like this self -fulfilling prophecy of negativity. So we’re going to talk to these people in a little bit. And for anybody who is not going to be here when I’m talking to this wonderful customer and you can’t see the interaction, I get it. But I’m going to do the best thing I can, which is I’m going to introduce everybody watching today’s show to Jerry Vass. And Jerry Vass wrote the Soft Selling in a Hard World. And he breaks down the mechanics of the whole thing.

(Speaker 1)
And basically, there’s a four -step process. You have to build rapport with somebody. Build rapport, which is what I shall do here soon. It just means, you know, make sure that you like the person they like you, like and trust. Second is needs. Find their problems and how you can solve them.

(Speaker 1)
Benefits, it’s how you solve the problem, right? Rapport, needs, benefits. Benefits is how you solve the problem. And then call to action.

(Speaker 55)
You know, what is the call to action?

(Speaker 1)
What am I going to do as a result of this? And once you guys master that, it’s so fun. Like life is so much more fun when you have that solution. When you have that mindset, it is great. And I’m telling you, it makes a lot of sense. Meeting people so much easier when you understand the combination rapport needs benefits close You can go to any church service and meet anybody and you never get shut down because you understand rapport needs benefits close Like it’s just it’s more fun to go to church.

(Speaker 1)
It’s more fun to meet people It’s more fun to go to a restaurant because you understand that combination rapport needs benefits close But if you don’t life is kind of small it gets kind of closed off And so that’s what we’re learning is how to influence people. The book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie, it teaches that. So we’re done. Part two of today’s show. Stay tuned, folks. We’re gonna talk about soft selling in a hard world.

(Speaker 1)
And here we go. There are very few legal ways to get rich quick. Your chance of finding one of those opportunities is very, very slim. Or about twice the odds of getting hurt in a commercial plane crash twice. Now, the bright side is that getting rich slowly is actually fun and will yield you thousands of adventures in the process. And on today’s show, we’re interviewing a guy by the name of Jerry Vass, who wrote a book called Soft Selling in a Hard World, where he explains in great detail that there are only three ways to really make exceptional money as an entrepreneur.

(Speaker 1)
One, you got to work in a place where no one else wants to be. I had a buddy of mine years ago that was an Alaskan fisherman. Fishing in Alaska. Sounds like a lot of fun. No, it’s not. I had one of our employees years ago that worked on an oil rig out there in the Gulf of Mexico.

(Speaker 1)
Rumor has it we have a couple of podcast subscribers located in the Gulf of Mexico who listen to each and every show. And I know you guys probably don’t enjoy the time away from your family and living on a floating city that smells like oil, but you get paid well, right? The second way to get rich is you can perform work that no one else wants to do. Sales. No one seems to want to do sales. I like doing sales, but a lot of people fear sales.

(Speaker 1)
They’re scared of sales. They just don’t know how to sell. And when you can’t sell, your business will just go to hell. And the third way to get rich is to do work that no one else can do. Well, Steph Curry can do that. and you’re pretty awesome at it.

(Speaker 1)
Leonardo DiCaprio could do that, and he’s pretty great at it. I mean, Oprah, I don’t know how many people could do what Oprah does. Serena Williams, Venus Williams, I mean, there’s a lot of people out there that are LeBron James, that can do things that I frankly can’t do, and that’s why I like to pay people with that kind of skill. I like to watch them. I like to vote with my dollars and say, yeah, Brad Pitt, You’re a better actor than me, Mr. Tom Hanks. You’re better than me. I like to pay to watch your movie.

(Speaker 1)
So again, the three ways to get rich are you could work in a place where no one else wants to be, you could do work that no one else wants to do, or you could perform work nobody else can do. And it’s really the last two conditions for making extraordinary money that we’re going to explore on today’s show. You see, learning to sell softly isn’t only about money. It’s about enjoying the process of sales. This little manual called Soft Selling in a Hard World is all about reality. It’s about a survival guide for the strange mastering of persuasion.

(Speaker 1)
It’s kind of a strange road to learning how to master persuasion. It shows you the mechanics. Soft Selling in a Hard World teaches you the mechanics needed to sell well. That’s what the book is about. The book is designed to teach you the specific tactics, not the strategy, to walk you through the step -by -step process that you need to take. And the whole system, what’s great about it is you can learn the whole system and implement the system and write all the scripts and utilize the system in a way where other people can do what you can do.

(Speaker 1)
You can make yourself repeatable and duplicatable. So you can create not just a job, but you can create a thriving business that can create both time freedom and financial freedom for you. My friend, selling is the highest paid profession in the world. I mean, our leaders in politics business and research and the arts, they’re all great salespeople. It’s just a lot of times you don’t realize that they’re selling.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, you see, presidential candidates, heads of companies. I mean, Steve Jobs was legendary for his annual presentations. Warren Buffett. You don’t think of Joel Osteen as selling, but he’s trying to convince you to become a Christian. He’s trying to share with you the love of Christ. You might not think of Oprah as a salesperson, but she’s trying to convince you to tune in and watch the show again.

(Speaker 1)
You might not think about President Obama as a salesperson, but he’s trying to get you to vote for him. He was trying to get you to vote for his ideology. So if you’ve ever struggled to sell well, this show is for you. Or if you’re very good at sales, but you’ve ever struggled to teach a team of people with no experience to sell, That’s where the magic is. Can you teach an army of people to sell well? If you’ve ever struggled with learning how to personally sell or how to teach an army of people to sell, you are going to absolutely love today’s show as I interview a great man, a wonderful friend of the show, Jerry Vass.

(Speaker 1)
Jerry Vass at the age of 83 is now retired, enjoying the high life there, living in Florida, enjoying his home in Jacksonville and the fruits of his efforts. But he decided to come on to the show. My friend Jerry Vass decided to come on to the show and to share with us the answers to so many questions that I had as a result of reading his book, Soft Selling in a Hard World. If you don’t have the book, get it today. get a pen and pad, you got to get a piece of paper. This is a show where you got to take a lot of notes.

(Speaker 1)
And I would encourage you to get soft selling in a hard world today. With any further ado, my exclusive interview with Jerry Vass.

(Speaker 43)
Also, just a quick disclaimer, I apologize for

(Speaker 1)
the audio quality of this audio only interview but his phone was kind of cutting out a little bit we tried to edit it the best that we could and so without any further ado here’s Jerry Vass All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to another great conversation. And on the Thrive Time show today, Chup, I could not be more excited to have the man that I would consider the godfather of systemic sales.

(Speaker 5)
You see, back in the day, Eric, I started working in the world of commercial real estate. One of my clients wanted to go into commercial real estate. And before we exited Fears and Clark, we actually had the commercial real estate listings for one third downtown Tulsa. That’s roughly 33 percent.

(Speaker 1)
And do you know, do you know what, what sales book we use to build our scripts, our systems, our processes, the entire system that we used at Fears and Clark when representing Kanbar Properties and roughly one -third of downtown Tulsa. Do you know what system, what book we read, Chuck? What book was it, Clay? Soft Selling in a Hard World by you, Mr. Vass. How are you, sir? I’m perfect, thank you very much.

(Speaker 1)
And I want to tell you, I’m flattered by all of this. I’m not used to doing this anymore because I’ve been out of the training business for 10 years because I had a hold in my mind when I took a vacation. But we’ll do the best we can. Well, I appreciate you, and you are much sharper than I am. I aspire to be half as sharp as you think you once were. I mean, your book is amazing.

(Speaker 1)
The book, Soft Selling in a Hard World. And in that book, Jerry, you wrote, if you aren’t selling up to your potential, you probably don’t understand that selling is a game.

(Speaker 5)
Most people don’t. Those who do make 85 % of the money become executives or run their own successful businesses. This book is about fulfilling your potential without resorting to motivational and inspirational beliefs. As in sports, you find that certain mechanical moves need to be mastered before your inspiration or genius can shine. Like a dog, a dog can be inspired to chase a car, but doesn’t know what to do with the car once it’s caught it. This knowledge is about what you do when you catch the car, that thin slice of face -to -face time with the buyer when persuasion really occurs.

(Speaker 1)
Jerry, I’d love for you to expound on this. And that’s such a beautiful excerpt from your book. I’d love to get your thoughts on it. I use the word game in the sense of a professional sport. And just as any professional sport, one has to understand the game. develop and polish the skills needed, and have a plan for the big contest.

(Speaker 1)
In selling, that translates to getting your story together, getting your tools ready, and practicing your delivery, and putting it all together under pressure in front of a prospective client. You may hear someone say, you know, if my job doesn’t work out, I can always sell. You’d never hear them say, if my job doesn’t work out, I can always be an NFL quarterback. Right, right. And I think the preparation that you teach in your book is what allowed me to be successful. Because, Jerry, when I was sitting down meeting with somebody about listing their commercial real estate, they would ask me directly, how many other listings do you have?

(Speaker 1)
And I would tell them, we have this many listings. And they would say, what makes you different than the competition?

(Speaker 32)
And I had it all on a one sheet.

(Speaker 1)
I had all my sales presentations. I had all my testimonials, all my statistics. I had a system for it. I had incorporated all of it. of your selling moves, and it helped me be proactive so that I could lead the conversation, build rapport with the buyer, find their needs, deliver benefits supported by facts, and close deals. Jerry, in your book, Soft Selling in a Hard World, you wrote that sales is a profession identified with the worst of its practitioners.

(Speaker 1)
On behalf of that group, I apologize for anybody who I did a poor sales presentation on years ago. Not the best. It happens. Because they sell so well, the public doesn’t identify those that are at the top of the cultural heap. The politicians, the movie stars, the talk show hosts, the televangelists, and the business leaders, the world doesn’t view these people as salespeople, as outstanding salespeople. They’re rarely caught practicing the selling trade.

(Speaker 5)
The best of them are so good that people simply like their quote -unquote personalities because people easily confuse skill with personality. When you study the best, you find that they make many mechanical selling moves right. Is this due to practice or coincidence? Natural talent or learned response? Only they know for sure how much is talent and how much is learned. The results are the same.

(Speaker 5)
They convince, move ideas, create change, and solve problems. We love them for it, and we reward them with the best our culture offers, fame, fortune, cool clothes, and a big house. Jerry, share with us about what great selling is and what bad selling looks like. Well, great selling is problem solving, pure and simple. You find the buyer’s real problem and working with the buyer to solve it.

(Speaker 1)
You work together. To do that, you have to ask intelligent questions and listen intently. Bad selling is vomiting your stuff, talking, pitching about your stuff, and seeing the whole transaction only to your own point of view. Successful selling is explaining well what you do from the client’s point of view. As in any activity, when someone is really good at what they do, it looks easy, even effortless.

(Speaker 1)
It’s transparent. And whether it’s running a podcast, or playing tennis, or skiing, or selling, we all think, I can do that. until we try and learn how difficult it is. The one thing, Eric, that happened to us years ago is we were approached, Jerry, by the Scripps Radio Network. They produce HGTV, the travel channel. And they said, Clay, we’d like to have you produce a show that we’re going to air in various markets throughout the United States.

(Speaker 1)
Now, I had heard a lot of Rush Limbaugh in my life, a lot of Glenn Beck, a lot of Tim Ferriss. a lot of Gary Vaynerchuk, a lot of the big names. And I have been a production person. I ran an entertainment company, so I’ve done a lot of audio production.

(Speaker 56)
And I realized going into it how hard it was going to be because I’ve been up close to it.

(Speaker 1)
But I can’t tell you how many people have listened to our podcast and have told me that they tried to produce a daily podcast. for about four days in a row maybe and they ran out of things to think about or talk about right because they weren’t aware of the level of preparation needed and so i think it’s it’s it’s really hard when you don’t know and that’s what i love about your book soft selling in a hard world everybody needs to own a copy of it because you break down the science of how to sit down with the prospect and build rapport. And it’s very specific about what questions to ask. You break down how to listen intently. Then you explain how to find their problems, how to find their needs.

(Speaker 5)
Then you teach how to solve the problems, how to support it by facts. The book is so and it breaks it down where I think the world looks at people who are great at sales and says, yeah, that’s probably natural. Natural talent. But it’s not natural. It’s a system.

(Speaker 5)
And Jerry, we work with hundreds of business owners all over this great country, and we often find that many of them seem scared of making sales calls. What would you say to somebody out there listening right now who is an entrepreneur or who wants to be, who’s afraid? of picking up the phone and making sales calls. Well, I have told them often when I sit down with management, I say, look, you have a right to be scared because poor selling skills down line are a message to your market. It’s your message to the market. And it is a waste of your money.

(Speaker 1)
And you trash the market as you go. And no business and no person likes rejection.

(Speaker 21)
The real problem is that all sales people, and I stress all, I include owners and managers here can see the upside of every possible transaction. Quote, this could mean $10 ,000 to my company.

(Speaker 45)
And they also sense the downside, no sale, wasted time, expense, and they don’t have the skills they need to control the downside and weight the transaction in their favor.

(Speaker 1)
Most of the time, they don’t even know such skills exist. And they often confuse personal magnetism with selling skills and a signed contract with being liked. Neither of those is true.

(Speaker 21)
What is true is that buyers would buy from a donkey if he could solve their problem.

(Speaker 1)
Chuck, that’s why I’ve done so well. People are buying from the donkey. Yeah, we’ll use that word.

(Speaker 40)
That’s a good word to use.

(Speaker 5)
Not the other one. Chuck, come on, seriously.

(Speaker 1)
Only I can self -deprecate myself. That’s you deprecating on me. That’s just mean, isn’t it? In your mind, Jerry, why does it seem like so many business owners are scared of rejection when it comes to sales? That fear, they fear the word no so much.

(Speaker 5)
Why? Because the real process is unknown to them. They are walking into a situation thinking, I have a good product, but they don’t know one thing about the client personally and very little about the client’s business. So what would you say to a business owner? I see this all the time. They want to delegate their sales to an employee without actually using the script themselves first.

(Speaker 5)
They want to delegate the sales process to an employee when they personally have not used the system and or created a system. The owner wants to delegate their sales to an employee without them actually first creating and using the proven systems. What would you say? Well, not to be cute, but I’ve run up against this quite often. I just say, look, you’re an idiot. Because if you owned a major sports team, you wouldn’t put a player on the field just because you liked him or her.

(Speaker 5)
You’d insist on training and practice and lots of it. Managing salespeople is one of the most difficult aspects of running a business. I mean, I’ve been in business since I was 17 years old.

(Speaker 1)
I’m now 83, so you can count it up. Partly because salespeople take their cue from management, and many managers are not themselves trained. We’ve often trained salespeople where the managers would not come into the room with them, and so the salespeople ended up knowing more about sales than the managers did, which caused conflicts in sales because the people are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, and the manager’s going, no, this is what we’re going to do. The more years involved they are with their product or service, the shallower the presentation becomes. The senior salesperson is often the worst person to teach others down the line. They’re often product oriented, make a few new calls, and sell to their old connections.

(Speaker 1)
So they don’t like being told they don’t know what they’re doing. Business has changed now. And businesses that keep on selling the same way, will eventually fall behind. You know, Jerry, in Soft Selling in a Hard World, you wrote a statement that blew my mind the first time I read it. And I just kept reading it again and again. It says, there are only three ways to make exceptional money.

(Speaker 1)
To work in a place nobody wants to be, that’s one. To work in a place where nobody wants to be, that’s one. If you’re writing this down, Thrive Nation. To work in a place where nobody wants to be. Two, to perform work nobody else wants to do. Or three, to make money.

(Speaker 1)
to do work that nobody else can do. So as we’re kind of thinking about that, Chup, I DJ’d hell gigs at the Holiday Inn Select, Jerry.

(Speaker 5)
I was a disc jockey, seven days a week at the Holiday Inn Select for impersonators. So one, I was doing work in a place no one wanted to do it. Two, I was doing work that nobody else wanted to do because no one else wanted to be a DJ seven nights a week for impersonators who pretended to be Neil Diamond and Michael Jackson. And then three, I did work that nobody else could do because who knows how to host four shows in a row that are exactly the same saying exactly the same jokes and pretending like you care while bringing the heat every single every single time jerry people would pour in i’d say folks welcome to the incredible holiday and select you guys are in for a treat we’ve got neil diamond in the flesh and everyone’s going you know and i had to tee it up every time i was like is ed mcmahon i mean so there’s it’s so true.

(Speaker 1)
That is such a true statement. So I ask you, Thrive Nation, how are you going to get rich? Now, you have to perform work that no one else wants to do, to perform work no one else can do, or to work in a place nobody else wants to be. Jerry, talk to us about the importance of facing the reality that these are the only three ways to get rich, unless you’re a unicorn example. Yes, or a drug dealer or a liquor distributor or something. These are the financial conditions we all cope with daily.

(Speaker 1)
This book is about dealing with the second and third ways doing what no one else wants to do and what no one else can do. As you have said, people are scared of selling and many don’t have the skills to close deals. Learning to sell well allows you to bravely meet both of those conditions where you both want to and can do. Jerry, I love when you write in your book, you say, this book is about mechanics. I’ll preach it. It is designed from the street up tactics, not strategy.

(Speaker 1)
You won’t find any magic here. There is none.

(Speaker 5)
There’s no underlying motivation or belief. Here’s my favorite part. It says, it isn’t about something larger than yourself. You don’t have to believe in it to make it pay. You don’t even have to believe in yourself. You just have to use mechanics.

(Speaker 5)
Jerry, I want to pile on there, Chuck, because when I was selling commercial real estate, I didn’t care about commercial real estate. I would say the vast majority of the business ventures that I’m involved in right now are in industries and things that I am 100 % dispassionate about.

(Speaker 1)
My friend, why is great selling really just about mastering the mechanics of sales? Well, done well. Selling is a profession. And learning a profession isn’t something that happens naturally. in a vacuum. It takes an awareness of errors and learning from those errors and correcting the errors.

(Speaker 1)
And in doing so, you eventually learn the profession. Persuasion as a profession is no different. It requires attention, troubleshooting, and practice. Jerry, I think that it seems so simple. You almost feel like, is that it?

(Speaker 21)
Is that it?

(Speaker 1)
No, but listen, it’s not Thrive Nation. It’s not a one -time event. It’s a process. And so, Chuck, we have our sales meetings every single week at Thrive, every Tuesday, Jerry, because of you and your book, Jerry. You caused this problem. We train our team every single week.

(Speaker 5)
And in that meeting, we record the calls, and we play back the calls of actual sales presentations. We watch actual videos. Yeah, and while reading the script at the same time. And while the actual salespeople, Jerry, are in the room. So the sales people actually get to watch themselves physically presenting on video and on audio every single week. And we do it every week.

(Speaker 1)
Jerry, for somebody out there that wants to do sales training like one time, why does it require ongoing training? Could you share that?

(Speaker 5)
Why does sales require ongoing practice? for the same reason that football players have to practice uh… and every saturday or and several times during the week in order to stay sharp there are only so many responses that are available to the to the buyer he both in role plays and in reality and when you hear them enough times you go i know how to i know what to do with this so it takes a surprise out of the transaction for the seller and you just get better and better. And I have to say, having your sales meeting once a week and doing role plays, I did that with, I owned a brokerage in Telluride, Colorado for 30 years. and I role -played my people every Monday morning at 7 .30, much to everybody’s pain, and we controlled 30 % of the total market, two of us. And so it’s one of those things where you go, when this comes to this, this is what you do, this is what you do. You run down, you know, you go for the long pass or you go for the short out or whatever.

(Speaker 5)
So practice and all of that is a very serious and rewarding activity for the business owner. So Jerry, can you explain to the listeners why you believe that soft sales is a learned skill? Why do you believe that? Well, because it doesn’t come naturally to us. For 30 years, we taught a course in unnatural acts. And because the stuff is just not a natural response, it is a learned response.

(Speaker 5)
So for the soft sell, one has to put away the ego and let the buyer do the work. Well, believe it or not, it is very difficult for people to allow the buyer to do the work.

(Speaker 1)
We live in a culture that tells us we sellers are the center of the universe, and to sell well, one has to allow and encourage the buyer to be the center of his or her own universe. Salespeople should talk more than 40 % of the time. The buyer should talk 60 % of the time. Great salespeople. are all above average listeners. When we taught people to do short list presentations in front of committees and buying groups and so on, we taught them how to give a mission statement.

(Speaker 1)
open with a probe, and then sit back and watch the action, rather than talk and talk and talk, and then do slide after slide, and get into slide depth. We teach this. Basically, we did a course in civilized conversation, which is allow those people to do the work. I love it.

(Speaker 5)
I love it. I totally believe in the rule of conversational generosity. Let the prospect, let the buyer talk the majority of the time. Now, Jerry, there’s another knowledge bomb from your book that I highlighted and underlined multiple times. And it read, if you have a world -class idea and you want to give it away for the good of humanity, you will have to sell the concept. And if you can’t sell it, you’ll be stuck with your idea.

(Speaker 5)
poorer for your brilliance and generosity. It seems unfair, but even freebies must be delivered with a certain salesmanship or the receiver does not perceive the true value of the gift. Jerry, why do so many people push back on the idea of learning how to sell effectively and resort to saying dumb things like, this product is so good, it will sell itself? Well, because they love this illusion. It is a cultural thing in my estimation. And it’s maybe 2 % of the time it’s true that something will sell itself.

(Speaker 25)
But if your stuff sells itself, and that’s not really selling, it is order taking.

(Speaker 1)
We all love the idea of the financial miracle, winning the lottery or unexpected inheritance from a rich aunt. And we’re all looking for the magic bullet, whether it’s weight loss or closing deals. Those are myths, too, and they’re fun. But selling is a skill. There are no shortcuts to getting good at it. and no quick fixes.

(Speaker 1)
It may not be the fun you’re looking for but the profession is very lucrative. The highest paid people in our culture are sales people. I agree. I agree with that.

(Speaker 5)
I agree with that. And I think that there are many there’s many many people out there that want to go into the marketplace and they want to just state my product is the best. Therefore it’s going to sell itself. And Jerry in your book you write. Puffery is hot air. Webster’s dictionary defines it as flattery, publicity, exaggerated commendation, especially for promotional purposes.

(Speaker 5)
In selling, it is claims that are unproven as stated. Typically, puffery words and phrases are, we’re number one, we’re the best in our business, save big money, a lot, high profits, and the fastest, etc.

(Speaker 1)
Can you explain for our listeners the profound difference between attempting to sell using puffery versus attempting to sell using representation, benefits, and facts? downscale market. We buy puffery all the time, but I happen to be in the executive sales training business, and so we were teaching people to sell at the very highest levels, which of course also works at the lower levels. The less sophisticated the buyer, the more likely they are to buy puffery, but buyers view puffery as lies. They may not be intentional, but the buyers don’t believe them. First, they make all salespeople sound the same.

(Speaker 5)
So everybody in your business then sounds the same. And when you get killed on a price negotiation, you have no defense. And second, they set up conflicts with your buyer. I want to ask you this, Jerry.

(Speaker 1)
This is not about the sales process, but it’s about you, the sales wizard.

(Speaker 5)
How long did it take you to write that book, Self -Selling in a Hard World, which is the Bible of sales? That thing is amazing. How long did it take you to read that or to write that thing? That thing is awesome. Probably around six months. It’s a funny story.

(Speaker 1)
We don’t have time to do it here.

(Speaker 21)
Someday when we’re sitting over drinks, I’ll tell you the funny story about it.

(Speaker 1)
Coming to you tomorrow. It was one of those things. I wrote it as part of a software program I was developing at the time because I had my own bit rich software. scheme about how to build a playbook on a computer, and so we were developing that in the very early, early days, and that book was just part of a package of teaching people how to sell using computers. So it was really an ancillary program, an ancillary project, I’m sorry, to this larger idea, which the larger idea failed, but the book was residual out of that, and it’s now sold about, I don’t know, 80 ,000 or so. It’s been on the market for 32 years or something.

(Speaker 1)
It’s been on the market, so it’s been backlisted a long time.

(Speaker 5)
It’s kind of one of those books there that I run into a lot of high -level salespeople that have read the book. Oh, yeah. But it’s not a book that everybody… If you’re listening to this podcast, you should own the book. But if you’re, you know, working for a company and you’re selling burritos and you have no curiosity about how sales works, you should read the book, but you probably won’t because it would require a lot of work and thinking. But that book is awesome.

(Speaker 5)
Soft selling in a hard world. Jerry, I want to go back now to asking you some of these questions about specifically the closing move. Can you share with us what the closing move looks like to you? Actually, the closing move is the last move of the seven selling moves that is explored in depth in the book. And in fact, most of the course that we teach or used to teach had to do with covering the seven selling moves. It took three days.

(Speaker 5)
So it just encompasses this entire idea of how to do persuasion from the buyer’s point of view. And in selling, this move is called the close. This is the move that scares everybody to death. And it’s not just you. It is where people go, my God, what do I do now? In selling lore, this is the scariest move.

(Speaker 1)
However, this seventh move is the simplest move at all. But only if you have set up your whole meeting from your first words to solve the buyer’s problem. The actual words to close can be as simple as, well, how do you see us working together to solve this problem, or where do you think we should go from here, or something along those lines, and let the buyer do the work. Now, we often get a comment when we teach this, well, they never said yes. Well, they were never required to say yes. It was all assumed that they would say yes.

(Speaker 1)
And if they answered this question, where would you like to go from here? You don’t need yes, no. It just doesn’t come to that. You know, with our wedding photography company and then with real estate, people asked me, they would look up Fears and Clark online. And by the way, if you’re out there, Thrive Nation, take the challenge. Type in Fears, F -E -A -R -S, Clark.

(Speaker 1)
And then Kanbar.

(Speaker 5)
Maurice Kanbar there, Jerry, is the guy who invented Sky Vodka.

(Speaker 58)
And after selling Sky Vodka for $600 million, he purchased one -third of downtown Tulsa.

(Speaker 1)
and he asked me to list and market his properties for him. And people would ask me all the time, Clay, when you’re signing all those leases, what did you say to close the deal?

(Speaker 30)
How’d you do it?

(Speaker 1)
I said, well, one, I’m using my Jerry Vass move here. So I’m never going to say, well, do you want to go ahead and lease the space? I’d say, well, how much space do you need after you’ve looked at it? Do you want 12 ,000 square feet or 10? I’m sorry I stepped on your line, but that’s what I was looking for. I would say that.

(Speaker 1)
And then I would say now, OK, 12 or 10. OK, 12. OK. And then when would you like to move in ideally? The 1st or the 15th? OK, great.

(Speaker 1)
And we need a security deposit here. Do you want to do debit card or credit card? OK. You want to sign right here? And then I would walk in to the office every time. And Braxton was there, and Bueno was there, and Tonya was there, and our team was there.

(Speaker 1)
And every time they’d go, did you get the deal?

(Speaker 57)
And I’d say, guys, this deal was kind of tough.

(Speaker 1)
And so they could only pay with a credit card.

(Speaker 10)
And I would just get a deal every time.

(Speaker 40)
I would close every deal.

(Speaker 1)
I’m not kidding. I went, Jerry, in 2007.

(Speaker 57)
When I ran my company, DJ Connection, as a result of your book, Soft Selling in a Hard World, I went the entire year.

(Speaker 1)
We booked 4 ,000 weddings. And of all the appointments we set, I only had one person say no the entire year. Whoa. One, Shannon and Clark.

(Speaker 5)
You still remember him, don’t you? Oh, yeah. Oh, he shut me down, Jerry. He said, everyone in town’s using you, so I decided to use somebody else. Well, go ahead. That move works.

(Speaker 5)
Now, Jerry, you write in your book that trickery in closing is like trickery anywhere else. It’s short -lived. What do you mean by this? I mean, people teach, and I won’t drop names, but you know who they are. They say, well, there’s the puppy dog close, and there’s this kind of close, and there’s this reverse close. And I’m going, no, that’s bullshit.

(Speaker 1)
I’m sorry. That is that is not right, because it takes away from the buyer’s attention.

(Speaker 21)
The buyer hates that kind of stuff because they know all of these tricks.

(Speaker 51)
And so because they know the tricks, the tricks fall flat.

(Speaker 1)
And it just tries to just shuck and jive guy.

(Speaker 21)
Instead of being somebody that you would want to do business with, you go, well, if he’ll shuck and jive me here in this transaction, what’s he hold for me down line when we’re in a serious business?

(Speaker 1)
So that’s why trickery doesn’t work very well. And if you are in low street sales, Pots and pans and that sort of thing, perhaps you can get away with it. But if you’re going to be a legitimate, professional salesperson, don’t use trickery. I love the phrase shuck and jive. Chuck, I’m going to begin using shuck and jive and shenanigans as words on the show more often. I agree.

(Speaker 1)
Hold me accountable. Why have I not said shuck and jive for a long time? You’re practicing shenanigans and you need to cut it out. Jerry has a better master of the English language than I have. That’s the whole issue I have here. Now, Jerry, I want to brag on Paul Hood, who’s on the show today.

(Speaker 1)
Paul and his company, hoodcpas . com, if you’re checking it out.

(Speaker 11)
By the way, we’re number three right now on the iTunes charts. No puffery there, Jerry. In the business section of the iTunes charts, we’re number three out of 530 ,000 podcasts, according to the Wall Street Journal, in all categories. I’m talking comedy, Sports, I’m talking about comedy, sports, business. We are number 26 as of the time of the recording of today’s podcast. So Paul’s been a sponsor the entire time.

(Speaker 11)
And Paul, over there at Hood CPAs, if somebody comes in and they meet with you and they do a consultation, you have multiple packages that the customer can choose from. Can you kind of explain, not necessarily all the specifics, but about the idea of having multiple packages and just letting the customer choose the options when you go for the close? You bet, Clay.

(Speaker 1)
And one of the reasons we did that, it kind of ties in with Jerry’s book, is Law of Clarity, where he says if you can’t explain your product to a 10 -year -old, then you don’t know your product very well. You’re not a very good salesman. And so what we have is we basically try to break it down into three decisions. And also so that they, it’s not a decision between yes and no, it’s a decision between which of the three do they want.

(Speaker 56)
And they go from a very basic, comprehensive, where We’re just doing some consulting type work and meeting with them once a month to the next style.

(Speaker 1)
Maybe if it’s a business, we’re doing accounting plus all the consulting. The third one would be if we’re doing payroll and accounting and consulting.

(Speaker 55)
But it breaks it down to where, all right, Mr. Potential Client, which of these three do you want?

(Speaker 54)
Which best fits your needs?

(Speaker 1)
We’re doing textbook. the soft -selling clothes.

(Speaker 45)
Now, Chup, I want to teach Jerry a word here on this next question.

(Speaker 1)
Jerry, you’ve brought us back to shuck and jive and shenanigans. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I’m going to give you a word. I’m a huge New England Patriots fan, and the word I would like to teach you today is wicked awesome.

(Speaker 5)
Wicked. Wicked awesome. And that’s one word. And if anything is great in Boston, it’s wicked awesome. It’s not hyphenated. It’s just wicked awesome.

(Speaker 5)
So Jerry, I would like for you to break down your wicked awesome bonus move on page 119 of Soft Selling in a Hard World. You write about this wicked awesome move called cross -selling. What is cross -selling all about? And why is it so wicked awesome important? Well, it’s wicked awesome important because many, if not most salespeople have several things to sell. And after the buyer’s first agreement, because you’re going to

(Speaker 5)
closing incrementally, and after the first agreement, the salesperson now has a proven performer in the buyer and must move on to the second and third sale and so on. Some businesses can’t even survive without cross -sales, and successful cross -selling cuts across the cost of sales and increases profits. And you run into it very often when you buy something, you say you want an extended warranty with that or fries with that burger. You need to add on accessories for the car. Well, that’s where the real profit comes. And so add on sales really is the profit center for many of these businesses and a way to survival for them.

(Speaker 5)
You know, Best Buy still always starts with a probe, too, by the way, always starts with a question. And so you can just continue on. I remember I was trained early on and I was selling mutual funds in one of my many careers. And I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know a damn thing about mutual funds. I didn’t know anything about that business, but I was taught how to sell it.

(Speaker 1)
And I went out and I just kept selling until I ran out of things to sell. I finally had to shrug my shoulders and say, well, that’s it for me. I’m done. I don’t have anything else left. So cross -selling can be pretty high adventure, particularly on high -end stuff like high -end real estate. I’m talking business buildings and that sort of thing, because I taught that for 30 years.

(Speaker 21)
And these people are making $1 .5 million, $2 million, $3 million per sale.

(Speaker 1)
They practiced all the time, all the time. And when they practiced, it was serious, man, because there was serious money involved. And these were serious, bright, educated people. And they were wonderful to teach. Now, this is something I want to hammer home on here, because, Chuck, this great selling doesn’t, as Jerry has mentioned in his book and then on today’s podcast, great salespeople don’t even look like they’re selling, Paul. It’s happening.

(Speaker 1)
And I’ll never forget this, Jerry. I called to book a cruise with Karen Wheelock. And if you’re out there and you know Karen Wheelock, say that Clay Clark is bragging on her, because she was good. And if you are Karen Wheelock, Clay Clark is bragging on you. Oh, you’re the best, Karen Wheelock.

(Speaker 28)
So I went to book a cruise, you know.

(Speaker 1)
And Karen says, well, great. Yeah. And I said, how much are the cruises? And Karen said to me, this is the first cruise I went on, I insisted on being the cheapest price possible. And I had a small boat, got motion sickness the entire time. So the second time I called, and I said, Karen, How much do you charge?

(Speaker 1)
How much would it be? And she says, Clay, let me ask you, what are you looking to do here? What’s the big occasion? And I tell her, and she’s, oh, oh, so you’re going to surprise her? Oh, really? Wow.

(Speaker 1)
So let me ask you this. What are some of her favorite activities? Next thing you know, she’s got the probing questions going on. Next thing you know, Jerry, she booked an appointment. She got me to commit, not to buying something, but commit to the appointment within 72 hours, within that window of time when I’m still interested. I met with her, and she just continued asking me, well, if you’re going to be here, don’t you want to at least have like a balcony?

(Speaker 1)
Or don’t you want to get this room service? Or what about tickets to that?

(Speaker 5)
Have you thought about a catamaran tour? And Jerry, somehow that $1 ,000 cruise, I feel like that $1 ,000 per person cruise turned out to be about $5 ,000 per person. But it was wicked awesome. It was really good. So the cross sell, I mean, that is, whoo. And one thing, Jerry, that you’ve talked about is

(Speaker 21)
during your years working with thousands of salespeople, you’ve noticed that salespeople will instantly freeze up and seem to almost have kind of like a panic attack.

(Speaker 5)
I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it.

(Speaker 1)
It’s a salesperson has almost like an anxiety, immediate panic attack. It’s like their brain shuts off as soon as a buyer inserts any objections whatsoever. Why is it that most salespeople need to learn to overcome objections? Frankly, if you can figure out what the problem is in the objection, you’re about halfway to an answer just on that part without doing anything. So when you hear an objection, the first thing you have to do is figure out what the real objection is. English is a very complex language, and what you think you heard and what the buyer really is saying can be quite different.

(Speaker 1)
So the first move is to ask a question.

(Speaker 5)
Something simple as why is that or help me understand why you say that or what is going on here etc. We’re now assuming sales people have playbooks so they will have practice the answer to this objection but it takes practice and you’re on the money having people practice, particularly in front of recording devices, cameras, and so on, because people cannot simply believe how bad they are until they see themselves on camera. So true. Right. It’s just humiliating. And so, I mean, I watch myself on camera and I just hang my head and cry.

(Speaker 5)
Now, Jerry, you’ve written much about how salespeople can truly make a fortune if they understand that the profits are in solving the problems. I repeat, Chup, the prophets are in solving the problems. Chup, I’m not sure if I’m communicating, maybe my mic is cutting out, but I think the problems are in solving problems. Chup, do you get what I’m saying?

(Speaker 1)
Let me try it in Spanish. El Profito are in El Solving el Problemo. Can you talk to us about what you mean by that?

(Speaker 53)
Sure.

(Speaker 21)
When we circle back to the top of our talk today, selling is problem solving. When selling to executives, there are really seven business problems that seem to be universal, which we discovered in learning from our students. They’re outlined in detail in my other book, Soft Seller to Executives, and they pop up over and over again.

(Speaker 1)
They are to acquire and manage capital, acquire and manage people, find and fill markets, meet and exceed the competition, improve quality and lower costs of production, maintain sufficient and predictable cash flow, overhead, maintain control, and predictable overhead.

(Speaker 21)
When you’re selling into this stuff at the business level, life goes pretty well.

(Speaker 1)
People are not going to argue with me. They say, look, we’re here to help you pick one, cut your overhead, or meet or exceed the competition, or find and fill a new market, or acquire and manage your people or your finances.

(Speaker 52)
So when you hit the business level for upscale clients, That’s where the money is.

(Speaker 51)
And really selling becomes consulting at that point, where you really are genuinely bringing value, true value, to your client.

(Speaker 1)
I want to make sure that the listeners get a specific example of this, OK? So Jerry, if somebody out there listens to our podcast and they reach out to us for business coaching, Here are just some of the problems that we can solve, and I’ll just kind of list them out. And Paul, you can chime in if there’s something I’m missing out on. Hey, I got a quote here. It’s a business guru. If you’ve got a problem, you’ll all solve it.

(Speaker 1)
Check out the moves while my DJ revolves it. Thank you for quoting Vanilla Ice, the early 90s rapper. Business guru. Jerry, are you a big fan of Vanilla Ice? Were you a big fan of the early 90s rapper Vanilla Ice? Yes.

(Speaker 11)
OK. So this is the thing, though.

(Speaker 1)
People say, what do you guys do?

(Speaker 21)
Well, we do all the search engine.

(Speaker 1)
So what’s the problem we’re solving?

(Speaker 33)
How do you get to the top of Google?

(Speaker 1)
So we’re getting you to the top of Google. We help you make a workflow. What problem does that solve? It helps you create time freedom. Paul, sales scripting. What problem does it help for you when our organization helps you with sales scripting?

(Speaker 1)
How does that help you, Paul? Well, it helps by creating a duplicatable system that can be scaled. so that it’s not all dependent upon the top salesperson, me. Videography, what problem does that solve, Eric, for our listeners out there? Yeah, we’re oftentimes educating the customer on who we are, what we sell, and we’re showing them happy previous clients in testimonial videos as well. A lot of our clients can’t afford a videographer.

(Speaker 5)
Right. They can’t do it. So we do the videography, the photography, the web development, the sales scripting. But we have to think about it in terms of the buyer. What are the problems we’re solving for you? And the problem for you, the average buyer, is you have a small business.

(Speaker 5)
And you don’t have the money to hire a full -time videographer, and a full -time photographer, and a full -time web developer, and a consultant to make it all happen. And so for $1 ,700 a month, month to month, for less money than it costs to hire a $10 per hour employee, you get all that stuff. But I think, Jerry, a lot of us, we can become so experts of what we’re, we can become such an expert and a guru of our industry that we can’t explain it to anybody. And that’s why I love the chapter of your book where you talk about the importance of positive self -talk. and really sharing with yourself on an ongoing basis this positive, intentional self -talk and coaching yourself up so when you head into the presentation you’re saying, you know, I can do this, I’ve got it, I’ve prepared, I know what I’m doing.

(Speaker 5)
Jerry, can you talk to us about the importance of being intentional about what you say to yourself as a salesperson? Yes, yes. Because all of us, I mean, I have never met anybody who sold who didn’t have fear at some level.

(Speaker 1)
And I mean, I’ve walked in many, many boardrooms to… saw our services and I knew exactly what I was going to do and how to control it because I had studied it and written a couple of books about it and all of that.

(Speaker 5)
But even then, I mean, it’s pretty easy to get tense in those things when it goes out of control, when suddenly the answer to a question ends up over in left field someplace and you’re looking at it and going, what the hell do I do now? So, it’s easy for us to talk ourselves out of selling when all we can see is the stress of it. Preparation, knowing exactly where you’re going and where you’re taking the buyer can change that. There are many more problems than problem solvers. So, it’s kind of incumbent on the salesperson to keep their eye on the problem. What is the problem?

(Speaker 5)
You could continue to go, what is the problem?

(Speaker 1)
the problem? And if you know what the problems are when you walk in, I mean, I would open with those. I would go into the boardrooms of big firms and my opening shot, I just take a look around the room and say, hey there, my name is Jerry Hess.

(Speaker 5)
And when your people walk in to sell your services, they don’t know what they’re doing. And so they have one wreck right after another, often three wrecks before they get to the end of the first sentence. Right. And they go, whoa, because you can prove it. There it is. And they know it somewhere in their heart.

(Speaker 5)
They know that I am telling them the truth. And let’s let’s take the accounting business. Ninety percent of new businesses fail within three years. That would be my opening shot. 90 % of businesses fail within three years. So right away, it gets the attention of everybody in the room.

(Speaker 5)
And you can prove it. And it’s provable. And it’s researchable.

(Speaker 1)
And it’s all there. And it scales down or up, depending on your perspective. It scales up to that 10 % is remaining. But it’s like half fail within the first year. And there’s some long -term ratio that goes like that. More fail within the second year, but by the third year, there’s only 10 % left.

(Speaker 1)
Once you’re aware of it, it’s pretty easy to watch it happen in real time. Somewhere in your heart of hearts, you know it’s true. When you have a reputation as a problem solver, the opportunities just naturally flow your way. It isn’t effortless, but it’s certainly at a greatly reduced effort.

(Speaker 25)
Sales people and managers worry a lot about losing clients.

(Speaker 50)
I’ll tell you, when you solve a client’s problem, you can’t get rid of them.

(Speaker 8)
I mean, they stick to you like glue.

(Speaker 1)
This is so true. If you’re out there, there’s one gentleman that I met here about two months ago, Paul, at a conference. And he said to me, he says, I am A, this guy was in Florida, okay, in Florida, I won’t give any more details, I’ll just say he’s in Florida. And he said, what I do is I’m a social media marketer, Paul. And I said, that’s cool. So what kind of problems do you solve for your ideal and likely buyers?

(Speaker 1)
What kind of problems do you solve? And he says, well, what I do is I generate leads. And then I said, do you? That was my question. Do you? Do you?

(Speaker 1)
Is it provable? And he said, well, yeah. I said, so it’s like, how does that work? He said, well, you pay up front for the first three months. You got to pay for the first three months. And it was a huge fee, Jerry.

(Speaker 1)
It was like $6 ,000 or something. And I said, OK. And then what happens? He goes, well, then if you want to cancel, you can after like the third month. Because it’s only like $1 ,000 a month after the first three months, the big upfront fee. And the guy, I said, well, could you show me an example of maybe a client you’ve ever worked with where they get leads, maybe just one?

(Speaker 1)
And he’s like, well, Paul, there’s kind of too many to name, you know? I mean, it’s got a lot of them, really. And Jared, he’s fishing around. And I wasn’t trying to, I was trying to help the guy. And then he pulls me aside at our workshop and he goes, I got to be honest with you.

(Speaker 11)
I’ve never actually done this for people before.

(Speaker 1)
And I said, well, dude, that move doesn’t work. What you should say is, hey, I’m a social media marketer. I believe in my product. And you’d be my first client.

(Speaker 5)
And so I’m going to do your first month for free. And then if you’re happy, then I’ll charge you this much per month. But you have to be direct and honest. You’ve got to use facts. But you also have to get in front of people. maker, or you’re not going to have a conversation anyway.

(Speaker 5)
So the decision maker, Paul, if someone’s trying to go to Hood CPAs, they go to hoodcpas . com, they listen to our podcast, and they show up at your office, the chances of getting to you, unless they have an appointment, are pretty slim, probably none. Yeah, virtually none, yes. Because you are a decision maker. Therefore, you’ve set up systems in your life and processes to make yourself unreachable. So, Jerry wrote in his book here, he said, Jerry, you write, in your book, the decision maker is often as elusive as true love.

(Speaker 5)
Can you explain this, Jerry, why the decision makers like Paul are always so elusive? Because they hate salespeople. Because salespeople waste their time. And our view is that you should be able to go in, make a complicated presentation, close the deal, and be gone at the executive level in 15 minutes. That means that everything is quantified, it is provable, there it is, you have a lead, you got a story. The problem here is that salespeople spend a lot of time talking into a receptive ear, which often has no decision -making responsibility.

(Speaker 5)
It’s because salespeople often prefer to meet someone at a lower level who’s more interested in the features. of what you sell, and salespeople are often intimidated by executives who are interested only in benefits. What is in this for me, for my business? That’s all they’re interested in. And so that would then dictate that you would walk in and say, my business is to increase your bottom line, your net profits, but 2 % annually.

(Speaker 1)
That’s what we do. Well, we can discuss that. you know, and because we’re talking the executive language. So people don’t understand that executives are not interested particularly in features. That’s for the people down the line, the kind of computer or the app that they’re using or some relationship that they have with them. That’s not what they’re talking about.

(Speaker 1)
They’re talking about the wrong stuff. Once you know what your product or service does for buyers and how you impact their company, you are way less likely to be intimidated or willing to waste time with someone who can’t say yes. Here’s a question. How are decisions like this when you’re talking to anybody in the firm? I mean, you are talking to the receptionist or you’re talking to the manager. You ask some questions.

(Speaker 1)
No decisions like this made inside this firm. I had a really good person today that asked me that, Jerry, a very skilled person. And for our Christmas party, it’s going to be $55 a head this year for the party. Every year, Jerry, it always is going up. Inflation, it’s always going up there. This year, it’s $55 a head.

(Speaker 1)
We have a staff all in between Z and I. There’ll probably be 400, getting closer to 500 people there this year. There’s a lot of people. And if you take 400 or 500 times 55, that’s a large number. And so a person asked me today, they said, how are decisions made for you guys, for your holiday party within Thrive?

(Speaker 5)
How do you do that?

(Speaker 1)
And I said, well, My wife decides the budget for the party.

(Speaker 5)
That’s what my wife does. She decides that. And so you got to talk to her.

(Speaker 42)
And I think it’s so important because if you would have been pitching to me, I don’t care how good the pitch is, even if I would have loved it, Jerry, I don’t have the budget authority within our organization.

(Speaker 5)
We decided that 18 years ago. that my wife would make all final decisions on that holiday party, because I always want to swag it out and, you know, spend money on things we shouldn’t be buying.

(Speaker 1)
And Vanessa is very good with the budget.

(Speaker 31)
And so that’s such a wise question.

(Speaker 5)
Ask people, who is the decision maker? How are decisions often made? Jerry, that is so important.

(Speaker 1)
If you ask them who the decision maker is, they’re going to say, that’s me. That’s me. And so you have to come in a side door on that. How are decisions made? My view is, in asking questions and probes, you start every one of them with how. I love it.

(Speaker 1)
Everyone. And once you’ve mastered how, you can move on to some other things like maybe what and who. How is so good. It’s so good. OK. So anytime you ask somebody, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to correct you, but this is what I do.

(Speaker 1)
When you have decisions made inside the company, you’re going to get a different answer from who is the decision maker.

(Speaker 5)
Well, I’ll say this. I’m not going to argue with the sales wizard. I want to make sure we get this. The reason why we’re doing this podcast and this next question I have for you, Jerry, ties into this is once you’ve read your book, right? Three times, OK? Once I’ve read the book three times, once you’ve read your own book, Jerry, 400 times.

(Speaker 5)
You have to make a playbook then and you have to write down the specific questions because you just pointed out you would prefer to ask how which is a great question. And the thing is off the cuff is a bad way to go. The pros prepare.

(Speaker 1)
They got to have a playbook. So you and I are having a conversation here. But you’re going to after you’ve read that book and you’ve outlined and you’ve taken notes, you have to make an actual playbook because you and I both know the devil’s in the details. Can you explain what it means for salespeople to truly make a sales playbook? Right. It’s on a basic, simple theory that if you can’t write it, you can’t do it.

(Speaker 1)
Self -selling is an action plan, and writing comes first, then practice on the street. The playbook is a working document.

(Speaker 5)
It changes over time as your business, your products, your services, your competition all change right in front of your eyes. So after each call, Make notes of what didn’t work and what you would change and schedule regular reviews of your playbook for review and upgrading because life is a continuous upgrade path here. It becomes an archive of the best of what you do. It’s also an excellent teaching tool if you’re called on to train new hires. So we have found that it’s not priceless, but it is very pricey in the sense that it keeps you from making There’s many bad moves in a live presentation. Oh, it’s so good when you take the time to do this.

(Speaker 5)
It’s so good. Thrive Nation, take the time to make a sales book. Now, Jerry, why do you think that most people never do take the time to make their sales playbook? None of our listeners, but other people on other planets, other parallel universes, other countries, not our country, other planetary systems, they will listen to a podcast like this. and then they won’t actually make the sales playbook. What’s going on, Jerry?

(Speaker 5)
Why won’t people ever take the time out to make the playbooks? Well, they don’t understand, this is my assessment, they don’t understand the importance of the act of the creation and design stage. Actually, what happens is people learn a great deal about their own business in the act of putting down the words and what they think they say.

(Speaker 1)
And so what you think you say, when you write it down, it changes in front of your eyes. I mean, it’s like studying for a play where you read the words and you say the words and do the words over and over and over on the script and then one day they change right in front of your eyes because you go oh I got it so that’s what a playbook does it allows you to get it and when building it you know when you’re going to eliminate puffery and develop proof statements and quantify your benefits and find the unique benefits that you sell and design a mission statement for both your firm and the upcoming call. You’re going to develop each of the seven selling moves, which we’ve only touched on briefly here, as explained in the book. It’s really the central theme of our three -day hard selling course because we end up developing the selling book in class and then send him home to do homework. There was two or three hours of homework every night in order to work on the playbook. It’s kind of a pain to do, it is time -consuming, and it will tax your brain because you have to shift your thinking over to, how does the buyer think about this?

(Speaker 1)
We know what we think about it, how do they think about it? And you’ll eventually develop a relationship. on investment for the buyer of your services or your products delivered. So the ROI at the higher end of selling, when you’re selling larger ticket stuff, the return on investment becomes a very critical thing. We can say, look, you’re going to give me a dollar and I’m going to give you $10 back within 90 days. Well, I mean, that takes away, that takes care of a whole lot of selling problems right there.

(Speaker 49)
And you can prove, if you can prove that, which we could in our case, you say, you know, it comes.

(Speaker 1)
I want to, these final two questions, I’m very, very, very passionate, Shep, about this next question, because I falsely believed, Jerry, for a decade previous to knowing you, from age 18, to about age 20, I guess it’s age 17 to age 27, age 26, somewhere in that time frame, I believe that sales was about motivation.

(Speaker 5)
So I would send my team to sales conferences all the time. And I would go to these motivational conferences. Now let me tell you the kinds of things they would teach. And when I took notes, Jerry, I’m a note taker. These are the kinds of things they would write down. They would say, everyone stand up right now and say right now if i can conceive it i can achieve it and they bounce the beach ball the music’s playing and they’re saying everybody now and everyone’s yelling they’ll have you stand up on a chair and say i can’t sell And they would talk to you about feeling it, and they would talk about aligning your vision, Chup, with your goals, and they would talk about the power of discovering the infinite knowledge that you could find by tapping into the universal knowledge.

(Speaker 5)
They would never call it God, but it became almost like a religion, Jeremy. there’s all this motivation and I went to one conference and I met these people I thought why are all of the jackasses here and then I thought to myself why am I here And then I realized I also was a jackass and I was going to the jackass festival and I kind of liked it for the first four or five times because it was a jackass festival. But over time I realized all of those people were always looking for the new get rich quick move. Their companies weren’t working and things were going to hell because none of them could sell well. So if I’m out there saying, okay, I’ve been to all those conferences, I’ve been to all those woo -woo things, I’ve walked on hot calls, I’ve watched all the motivational, Jerry, you’ve seen it, all the videos, I’ve done trust falls with my team, I’ve gone to ropes courses. Hot calls.

(Speaker 5)
I’d like to get your thoughts on how salespeople can overcome their fears in the best way to train your team. Well, it sounds to me like you have much of this ball of wax well under control. But it reminds me of the thing, the question about the violin player, violin player asked, how do I get to Carnegie Hall? And the answer is practice, practice, practice. And in sales is the same way. And it is not a glorious, is not a glorious, motivational, driven, craft anymore.

(Speaker 5)
You can be a motivated football player, it doesn’t keep you from getting your head knocked off out there. I feel the same way. If you know how to defend yourself with knowledge, then you can defend yourself in every circumstance that you run into, except earthquake and but you’re never afraid. I was terrified for years, and I’ve been selling for, God, 150 years. It doesn’t exist well in the face of extensive preparation.

(Speaker 5)
It just doesn’t. And the way you work your people, and I think it’s the way you’re working them, which is You find a buddy and you role play every presentation. You don’t wait for a perfect presentation. You just start using the skills and perfect them as you go along because it is a lifetime skill.

(Speaker 1)
It isn’t something you’re going to do for a year and then leave. Because if you go for a year and leave and you know your business, you’re going to make yourself $100 ,000, $150 ,000, and nothing makes you feel quite as good as having a nice, fat bank account. And there’s no time like the present to begin to do that, so do it now.

(Speaker 5)
And I absolutely agree with the motivational ideas, because I think people do need motivation, and particularly people who work alone. They get bummed, they get disappointed, and they get disappointed greatly in sales because they don’t have a skill to close deals that are walking in their door every single day. And those people turn around and walk out.

(Speaker 1)
I owned a real estate brokerage in the mountains, and I trained my people. People would come in and say, well, we want to see what’s for sale. And I had to train my people to say, well, come back to my office and sit down here and talk to me about that.

(Speaker 32)
And the first question from our side was, what would you like the real estate to do for you?

(Speaker 5)
And that then began to greatly narrow

(Speaker 1)
inventory about what you were going to talk about. And you just went along that whole line and you qualified, qualified, qualified, until finally it narrowed it down to where you had, I got two or three properties that we could look at that’ll do what you want. You didn’t guess.

(Speaker 5)
You asked those questions. It’s so powerful. Yeah, well, this is out of my experience. I’ve had to have trades and some of them worked and some of them didn’t. I mean, actually, I’m a man known for his failures more than his successes. Well, I think your biggest failure is agreeing to be on our podcast.

(Speaker 5)
That just shows a lack of judgment there. But thank you so much for making one more poor decision. I agree. All right. This has been miserable. OK, well, Jerry, I have a final question here for you.

(Speaker 1)
You’ve literally worked with thousands of salespeople all over the world. Why do you believe that most people just try to make things up on the fly as opposed to implementing a proven path? I think a good part of it is laziness. I mean there’s two things, these are harsh words, but it has to do with laziness because it’s work and with a big W and it’s time consuming and People often do not even know that there is a proven path, other than whatever the senior salespeople told them, who gave the new boy everything that he knew, which really wasn’t very much on how to make the sale happen. The guy’s been doing it for 30 years, and so he is wired. He’s the number one guy in the company, and he is wired to accounts that he has been courting for twenty years and so

(Speaker 1)
confuses people when they say, let’s watch him work. And he goes out and he says, hey, Bob, I’m here to pick up our order for this month or for this year or here to move you over to that other place.

(Speaker 48)
And so when do you want to get started?

(Speaker 11)
Well, because the trust is already built, it looks really easy. It’s very deceptive. Many people do not understand there’s an underlying structure to successful human communication and persuasion. And working without a structure or a plan is a design for failure. And in this profession, there’s no magic bullet in this profession or any other one that you can think of or will run into in your lifetime. I think what you just said is so powerful.

(Speaker 11)
There’s no magic bullet. There’s a proven system. It works.

(Speaker 5)
It’s called soft selling in a hard world. Paul, I wanted to see, and Jerry, if you, if Paul no longer asks political gotcha questions, he no longer asks religious questions, he no longer paints our guests into a corner as one of our proud show sponsors, but he is a real entrepreneur with thousands of real customers. He has real employees. Paul, do you have a final question for the Wizard of Sales, Mr. Jerry Vance? Well, yeah. I apologize if this is a selfish question, but I would just like, from the sales guru out there, Jerry, do you have any advice for me?

(Speaker 5)
Because like I say, I’m in the wisdom business. And I read a long time ago, I can’t remember, look, I read it out, that if you sell somebody, you break rapport. But if you educate them, you build rapport. But then I’ve got to balance that side of things. The hard sell versus being not creating too much of a wisdom based or you know the you said vomiting my product or my wisdom or my knowledge all over them.

(Speaker 5)
What kind of advice could you give to me for that middle ground that I’ve you know I’ve got to educate them somewhat in that 40 percent that I speak. But I don’t want to vomit all of all of them like you said earlier. Well, it sounds to me like you’re doing it right. I mean, there’s always a balance that has to be achieved, and there’s a balance between advice and persuasion and knowledge and experience and wisdom. I mean, there’s some kind of a balance, and I don’t know what that balance is, but I do know that it is there because, I mean, what we just did here in this podcast is that I have worked hard to balance advice and wisdom and knowledge that I have gained doing this for most of my adult life because it takes all of it. It’s kind of the whole magilla, the whole package.

(Speaker 5)
So frankly, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you. I would do what I’m doing. If you’re successful doing it, I do not believe if You can afford to give away a new car with every sale and you want to do that, for God’s sake, do it. But if you can’t afford that, you’re going to have to figure out something else. And so it’s one of those things where you go, I don’t like to try to change people from what they’re doing now. If they’re successful now, I work with people.

(Speaker 5)
who are less successful than they should be.

(Speaker 47)
Given their talent, their education, their preparation, their time and rank, their education in the market, when they’re still losing, then they can use this

(Speaker 46)
to start cleaning up their act and getting successful again.

(Speaker 1)
Most people have been successful at least once, but they wander off, they forgot where the center of the universe was. The center of the universe is communication with buyers and potential buyers. They forgot that and they started doing other things.

(Speaker 5)
I mean, I’ve done it. I mean, I had nine man years in a software program because I lost contact with reality, actually. I lost contact with reality. I was going on this $10 million deal that I knew that it was going to be superb and I was going to be rich for life and be able to buy myself a good used car. So it was But I was wrong.

(Speaker 1)
I was wrong. And because I wandered off from the basics. So I don’t think I’m the right guy to ask about what you should do differently.

(Speaker 5)
If you’re successful doing what you’re doing, for God’s sake, don’t change it.

(Speaker 3)
Right.

(Speaker 1)
Thank you. Jerry, I appreciate you so much for taking the time to be on today’s show. Where are you physically located? What state are you in? I am on the beach in North Florida, 40 miles south of Jacksonville. I’m looking at the beach and the ocean as the…

(Speaker 1)
And then it is part of my success package, shall we say.

(Speaker 45)
That and my partner of 25 years, Iris Heron, who actually is a co -author of the second book I wrote, which is a soft -selling for executives.

(Speaker 32)
So anyway, it’s a very happy circumstance.

(Speaker 3)
the people that want to get a copy.

(Speaker 5)
I’ve been buying them off of Amazon.

(Speaker 1)
Is there a certain place you’d recommend all of our listeners to go to to get a copy of that book? No, Amazon is the place that the stuff is bought. And so that works. Well, Jerry, thank you so much for being on today’s podcast.

(Speaker 9)
If you see a pale male, the big white moose walking up and down the beach in Jacksonville, that’s me, because we’ve been to Jacksonville a few times. And I am the most pale man in the history of our planet. So just look away.

(Speaker 4)
I don’t want you to burn your corneas or anything.

(Speaker 1)
And when you see the, I like reflect light, don’t I, Chop?

(Speaker 9)
I mean, it’s truly Casper. Handsome. Right. What is the scream? Don’t look at it. Don’t look at it.

(Speaker 9)
That was Jerry Vass right here on The Thrive Time Show on your podcast, Download. And now, without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, boom. When we first started with you on a weekly basis, how many leads were you getting from Google, and how many are you getting now? I was at zero. Didn’t even have a website. And last week, we got 24.

(Speaker 9)
And yesterday alone, I booked four jobs from Google, just yesterday alone. How much has it helped you to just have a three -legged marketing stool that you know is going to work? It’s like having a salesman that’s working for me 24 -7. It’s amazing.

(Speaker 5)
Like, getting these leads in from Google because of the work that we’re putting in on the back end is But that’s just it.

(Speaker 1)
It’s like having a salesman that’s working 24 -7, getting phone calls at 8 o ‘clock at night, getting people that book with me at 3 o ‘clock in the morning. I love it. And it’s made it to where I no longer have to stress about getting my next job, because before, I was 100 % word of mouth. And before, it was like I would book a job, and then I’d be halfway through it, and I would be praying that I would have another job after that. So this is just like having a salesman working for me all the time. You hear the word coach.

(Speaker 1)
And I used to think that having a business coach was like, you know, you see on social media, the guy who rents a super car and he stands next to it and he’s talking about his business coaching service and he’s never owned a business. And I used to think that that’s how they all were. And I was so wrong. It’s literally like having someone in the backseat of my car that’s constantly clapping for me, that’s cheering me on, that’s saying, hey, did you get this? Did you get this? Did you get this?

(Speaker 1)
And I’m to a point now, like yesterday, I had this conversation with Avery, my fiance. I am so overwhelmed with the amount of work that I have coming in that I now have to get more structured with how I schedule my work. Well, folks, on part two of today’s show, we’re talking about intentionality. What am I talking about? Well, what gets scheduled gets done. What gets scheduled gets done.

(Speaker 1)
And I find that a lot of wonderful, well -intentioned people don’t schedule things to be done. As an example, I was just talking to a client recently. I’ll be very vague about this. But they’re saying, I just don’t understand Why my payroll is always bigger than it should be. I said, well, it’s because you’re not scheduling a time to meet with your team once a week to give them their schedule. And then the schedule that you give them should be the schedule they plan on working.

(Speaker 1)
Let me try that again. I just talked to a client. They said to me, hey, I don’t understand why my payroll is always out of control. I said, I’ll tell you why. Because you have to meet once a week with your team to give them their schedule. And you need to verify with them, say it to their face, say it to them.

(Speaker 1)
Just say, just to be clear, you’re on the schedule this week. And you’re going to be paid for these 40 hours. These are the hours you’re getting paid for. And that’s how you make money. And because you have an hourly business, just understand the employees are always going to turn in extra hours. They got there early.

(Speaker 1)
They stayed late, whatever they did. And you have to tell them, this is what I’m going to pay you. And you have to schedule a set time to meet with your team every week to give them the schedule. The same client, they said, hey, you know, I’m having a hard time with my staff knowing their schedule. Back to that core point. You got to meet with your staff once a week to go over the schedule.

(Speaker 2)
and to go over the payroll with these people.

(Speaker 44)
I sent the schedule to them via email.

(Speaker 8)
I said, clearly that isn’t working. Do you think the average person checks their email?

(Speaker 1)
No, they don’t. The average person has thousands of emails in their inbox.

(Speaker 8)
The average person is reactive. They’re perpetually distracted. They’re reactive. They’re behind several thousand emails. So on today’s show, If you’re saying, well, I want to become proactive. I want to become proactive about my faith, my family, my finances, my fitness, my friendship, and my fun.

(Speaker 8)
During the next 10 minutes or so, I really want to tap into the wisdom of Dr. Sherwood, who’s had success as a professional athlete, as a member of the SWAT team, as a doctor, as an entrepreneur, as an author, as a film producer, and much, much more. Dr. Sherwood, welcome on to the Thrived Time Show.

(Speaker 1)
How are you, sir? I’m doing well, Clay. I appreciate you having me on. Thank you. So let’s just kind of drill into this specific example. To the entrepreneur out there that says, I’m so busy, I don’t have time to make a schedule for my staff, you say what?

(Speaker 1)
Well, busy has got a really funny connotation to it, doesn’t it? Busy might be busy getting nothing done. It might be busy getting something done. And it might be busy getting a little bit of nothing, a little bit of something. What you need to do is you need to have full intentional schedule with face -to -face communication. Again, full intentional schedule with face -to -face communication.

(Speaker 1)
Even as I was sharing with the staff just today, no kidding, when you speak with someone, you have to learn to speak literal and clearly in a language that they understand. Because if you don’t talk a language they don’t understand and make sure of it, you’ve just made a bunch of noise that meant nothing and went nowhere. Now, back to this point, back to this specific client trying to give somebody some mentorship here. Again, this client, they said, Clay, my payroll is out of control. I said, why is it out of control?

(Speaker 1)
They said, my staff keeps turning in hours that we didn’t agree to. I said, listen, you’ve got to have that weekly meeting with your staff every week where you say, hey, Mr. Staff member, Staff member A, Staff member B, Staff member C. I’m going to pay you this week, just to be clear, for 40 hours to work. I’m not going to pay you for 41. I’m not going to pay you for 38. I’m going to pay you for 40. And your hours are this.

(Speaker 1)
And even when you do that, you have to be intentional about approving payroll before it gets submitted. Dr. Sherwood, their response was, I want to do it, but I’m so busy. What do you say to the person who says, I’m so busy, I don’t have a chance to even look at payroll before I submit it. Thus, my payroll is out of control. What do you say? Your priorities and your schedule is not set according to the ability to be able to grow, scale, and even make a profitable business.

(Speaker 1)
It’s just not going to happen. You don’t have time not to have time to speak with your employees about something that simple because like if you, and I’ve had this happen before, I got preoccupied and let that go by enough to where I had a couple of employees that were turning in hours. It was my fault. I had to own that and so I went right to them and just probably not the same exact language that you did. I said, this is what time I expect you to be at work. This is what time I expect you to quit.

(Speaker 1)
I’m not going to pay you for overtime. Now, if you come to me and there’s some extenuating circumstances and you think you’ve got to do that, you ask me and I won’t give approval because it’s not approved until and if you ask for permission. You know, again, somebody says, Hey, Dr. Sherwood, I really want to work out. Someone says, I really, I really want to go to church. I want to go to church.

(Speaker 8)
I want to go to church. Church is what I want to go to. I really want to work out. I want to go to church. You know, I think about my F7 goals, my faith. I want to, I want to, I want to go to church, uh, family.

(Speaker 8)
I want to spend time with my family, uh, finances. I want to make money. I just don’t have time.

(Speaker 1)
What do you say to someone that says, hey, I don’t have time to go to the gym, specifically honing in on that. What do you say? Someone says, I’m so busy. I don’t have time to go to the gym. What say you? Well, people look at your life, Clay, and you kind of set the benchmark, you know, in this area and beyond about how to achieve a lot.

(Speaker 1)
and make a lot of money and help other businesses, including us, make money and be more successful, too, by taking the principles that you use and put out in all your business school classes, et cetera, and even our relationship. And you have something that I have that the person here that’s asking that question has as well. It’s the same amount of minutes per day. We’ve talked about this before, 1 ,440. That’s your allotment of the salary or the wage of the time you have in which you’re supposed to be at work and you maximize those hours. I maximize those hours and I make sure because my fitness is important to me and it helps me in all aspects of my life.

(Speaker 1)
I’m going to make sure that I spend some of that time that I’m given towards that end. I budget it in there just like I would budget anything else. It requires saying no. Leads me to my next point here. Saying no. You got to say no to grow.

(Speaker 1)
We’re on this podcast today. I had somebody, I’ll be very vague not to get myself in trouble, but they said, can we talk? I said, I have to do a podcast with Dr. Sherwood. And they said, yeah, can we talk? I said, I have to do a podcast. to be just super clear with you.

(Speaker 1)
Love and respect. I think you’re a great person. But this podcast I’m doing with Dr. Sherwood is at 3 o ‘clock. I sent him the Zoom link. Got to go.

(Speaker 8)
Got to hop on it. Got to make it happen. And they just really were struggling with that idea that I had to hop off that conversation, which wasn’t scheduled, and get into a podcast that is scheduled. And I have to have those kinds of conversations in my life about every two hours. But every two hours, I have to tell somebody. I love you.

(Speaker 8)
I appreciate you. I think you’re a great person. But I can’t get on this phone call with you now because I’m on this phone call over here. I can’t be in this meeting with you because I’m in this meeting with this person over here. I can’t work with your business to help your business grow because I work with your direct competitor in your marketplace. So I have to say no to grow all the time.

(Speaker 8)
And I find that people that want to say yes to everything all the time, you cannot be your best if you always say yes to everything. Talk to us about how you decide in your life what you’re going to say no to. Well, I look at my life and I don’t really use the same seven Fs that you use, but similar. I mean, I’ll look at physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, financial health. Those are my five and my fistful of what I call it a power up my life. You know what the fistful of power is, is I’ve learned to be intentional about each one of those.

(Speaker 8)
And if it serves no purpose as a general overall view, I’m not going to do it.

(Speaker 1)
There’s no reason to. I don’t want to waste my time. Secondly, with the ability to say no, no and yes are just as powerful. Being a Christian business person, that doesn’t mean I have to say yes 80 % of the time. That doesn’t mean any of that. I’m not being less Christian to say no.

(Speaker 1)
Sometimes if you don’t don’t say no to someone, you’re not saying yes to yourself, so that you can learn to do better for other people. So I feel like no as a much of a part of it. And plus, I think the third part of it. is this, if you’re not honoring your word to someone else and you’ve changed the plans or you’re asking a person or they ask you to do something and change your plans for them, you just showed them how to not honor their word. That’s a great example not to do. And so I’m like, man, honor your word.

(Speaker 1)
And if you can honor your word to yourself, you can’t honor it to other people. And therefore, why would anybody listen to you as an expert?

(Speaker 43)
Folks, I’m telling you, if you’re watching today’s show and you want to have massive traction in your life, you’ve got to schedule time every single day.

(Speaker 8)
Every single day, block out time for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, your fun. You’ve got to block out time for those things. You just have to do it. Now, Dr. Sherwood, someone’s watching today’s show, and they say, wow, I want to optimize my health. I want to get that done. And they say, I don’t know where to turn to.

(Speaker 1)
I would argue that sherwood . tv is a wonderful resource. Again, that website is sherwood . tv. Sherwood . tv.

(Speaker 1)
Dr. Sherwood, tell us about your website. Tell us about the products and services that you offer right there, the solutions that you offer at Sherwood . tv.

(Speaker 42)
Well, to your point, we work with people, Clay, to structure in their current life and help them budget in the time to do the things you just talked about.

(Speaker 8)
You know, I talked to them about budgeting time for their family and their faith and their finances. but they can’t even enjoy those things. They don’t take care of their health. So I have to figure out how to budget time for their health in there and give them a platform to get there. So, you know, just like today, a couple of times people coming in from, you know, California or Northern Missouri just today here to our offices in Tulsa, I want to know how those very things, we spent about an hour and a half with them, sometimes two hours to work through all these things and get a plan for success with measurables and trackables on there and for us. normal is they get well with their health and also exceedingly and abundantly get blessed with everything else as far as finance and their faith.

(Speaker 8)
Now, I find that at Sherwood . tv, you’ve got three solutions that you provide that are incredible. And maybe 50, but three big ones I want to focus on. One is that you guys have supplements and products that are designed to optimize health. Two, you have an actual nutritional coaching program. You guide clients down kind of a mentorship program for health.

(Speaker 8)
And third is you guys are a medical practice for people that need a doctor they can trust. Tell us about those solutions that you provide at Sherwood . tv. Well, I’ll start reverse order as far as the medical office. My wife is an osteopathic doctor. I’m an atropathic doctor and so we understand both sides of the coin and you can’t get a good look and a good assessment of your health until you looks at both sides of the coin and probably even the third side.

(Speaker 8)
So we we give people the things that you want if you’re not going to hear us. talking about pushing vaccines or none of that. We’re going to talk about natural ways to enhance the effectiveness of the immune system, et cetera. But if people want to do the vaccines, we’re going to tell them what we know about each one of them. And based upon their questions, they can make their own decision.

(Speaker 1)
We’re going to love them either way. And I think people appreciate that. As far as you know, learning to optimize health and that we’re going to kind of coach people, mentor people.

(Speaker 41)
My wife and I do this.

(Speaker 1)
We recommend things all the time that we do ourselves to ensure that we do not have any excess fat tissue in our frame. We do not have any excess inflammation. We have at least a good amount of muscle tissue and retention of bones.

(Speaker 8)
We have good brain function. We’re able to do what we want, when we want, how we want, as much as we want and not hurt. Then I think the third one is a line of nutritional products. I mean, as you know, we built the Kingdom line. You got Kingdom Fuel right there behind you in your studio there. I see it, and you’ve used that before.

(Speaker 1)
There’s all kinds of Kingdom stuff we got. collagen, we’ve got colostrum, we’ve got bars, we’ve got cereal. You can live off the kingdom line and we did it in a way that is price conscious in a manner that people should be using for them and their families. And again, folks, that website is Sherwood . tv, Sherwood . tv.

(Speaker 1)
Dr. Sherwood, I’ll give you the final word.

(Speaker 22)
There’s somebody watching today’s show that’s really wanting to optimize this year.

(Speaker 1)
They want to become a proactive person, not a reactive person. What would be your final advice for somebody out there struggling to get or to maximize what they can get out of a 24 -hour day? Two things, don’t settle for mediocrity because mediocrity is the enemy of excellence. So don’t go there.

(Speaker 40)
The second thing is just like you and me, I’ve got 1 ,440 minutes a day.

(Speaker 1)
I don’t put off today what I’m supposed to do today until tomorrow because I have no idea if tomorrow is going to get there. I want to maximize today right now because that’s why today is a gift. It’s called the present. Dr. Sherwood, you’re a great American. I want to remind the listeners out there, Dr. Sherwood looks like he smells tremendous. And that website is sherwood .

(Speaker 1)
tv, sherwood . tv. Dr. Sherwood, thank you so much, sir. And we’ll talk to you next week. Sounds great, Clay. Thank you.

(Speaker 1)
Bye -bye. OK, Aaron Antus, guess who’s joining us for the December 4th and 5th, 2025 Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop? Whoa. Ooh. Santa Claus? No, we will not be joined by Santa Claus, but we will be joined by Eric Trump, the son of the 45th and now 47th president of these United States.

(Speaker 1)
And yes, Amanda Grace will be in the place. And yes, Dr. Stella Manuel will be there so you know it will go well. Yes, we have Mel Kaye in the house. Pastor Phil and Tammy Hotsenpiller will be hosting this event at their beautiful church right there in sunny Anaheim, California. Yes, folks, make this a December to remember. You surprised?

(Speaker 38)
Make this a December to remember moment.

(Speaker 32)
join us at the two -day interactive Business Growth Workshops.

(Speaker 5)
For over 20 years, folks, I’ve been hosting Business Growth Workshops where we’re going to teach you marketing, sales systems, human resources, accounting, social media marketing, branding, sales training, search engine optimization, accounting, workflow development, financial management, all this and more.

(Speaker 39)
How do you get tickets?

(Speaker 38)
Go to Thrivetimeshow .

(Speaker 1)
com. Again, how do you get tickets? I’m Ron Burgundy. , promoting from within, marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build. I mean, everything that you see, the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages Billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it. You are talking about one of the greatest brands on the planet from a business standpoint.

(Speaker 1)
I mean, who else has been able to create a brand like the Trump brand? I mean, look at it. And this is the man behind the business for the last, pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind it. So you’re talking, we’re into nine, going into 10 years of him running it. we get to tap into that knowledge that’s gonna be amazing.

(Speaker 1)
Now think about this for a second. Nothing is over until we decide it is. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? German? Forget it he’s rolling. And it ain’t over now.

(Speaker 1)
The lineup continues to grow, and this is how we do our tickets here at the Thrive Time Show.

(Speaker 37)
If you want to get a VIP ticket, you can absolutely do it.

(Speaker 1)
It’s $500 for a VIP ticket. We’ve always done it that way.

(Speaker 3)
Now, if you want to take a general admission ticket, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. And the reason why I do that and the reason why we do that is because we want to make our events affordable for everybody.

(Speaker 1)
I grew up without money. I totally understand what it’s like to be in a tight spot. So if you want to attend, it’s $250 or whatever price you want to pay. That’s how I do it. And it’s $500 for a VIP ticket. have limited seating here with there’s a lot of togetherness and closeness camaraderie so again if you want to get tickets for this event all you have to do is go to thrive timeshow .

(Speaker 1)
com go to thrive timeshow . com when you go to thrive timeshow . com you’ll go there you’ll request a ticket boom or if you want to text me if you want a little bit faster service you say i want you to call me right now i just texted my number it’s my cell phone number my personal cell phone number we’ll keep that private between you, between you, me, everybody. We’ll keep that private. And anybody, don’t share that with anybody except for everybody. That’s my private cell phone number.

(Speaker 1)
It’s 918 -851 -0102. 918 -851 -0102. I know we have a lot of Spanish speaking people that attend these conferences. And so to be bilingually sensitive, my cell phone number is 918 -851 -0102. That is not actually bilingual. That’s just saying Juan for a Juan.

(Speaker 1)
It’s not the same thing. I think you’re attacking me. Now, let’s talk about this. Now, what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrive Time Show workshop? So Aaron, you’ve been to many of these over the past seven, eight years. So let’s talk about it.

(Speaker 1)
I’ll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you’re going to learn here. Okay? Okay. You’re going to learn marketing, marketing. and branding. What are we going to learn about marketing and branding?

(Speaker 1)
Oh, yeah, we’re going to dive into, you know, so many people say, oh, you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand, right? You want to get that brand out there. It’s like, how do I actually make people know what my business is and make it a household name? You’re going to learn some intricacies of how you can do that. You’re going to learn sales. So many people struggle to sell something.

(Speaker 1)
This just in, your business will go to hell if you can’t sell, so we’re going to teach you sales. We’re going to teach you search engine optimization, how to come up top in the search engine results. We’re going to teach you how to manage people. Aaron, you have managed, no exaggeration, hundreds of people throughout your career and thousands of contractors, and most people struggle with managing people. Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well, because first of all, you either have great people or you have people who suck.

(Speaker 1)
be a challenge. You know, learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge. But if you have the right systems, you have the right processes, and you’re really good at selecting great ones. And we have a process we teach about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they’re teachable, they’re driven, all of those things, then you can get those people all pulling in the same direction. So we’re going to teach you branding, marketing, sales, search engine optimization.

(Speaker 1)
We’re going to teach you accounting. We’re going to teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance. We’re going to teach you time management. How do you manage your time? How do you get more done during a typical day? How do you build an organization if you’re not organized?

(Speaker 1)
How do you do organization? How do you build an org chart? Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two day interactive business workshop. Now let me tell you how the format is set up here to get books. This is a two day interactive 15 hour workshop. this folks, it’s two days.

(Speaker 1)
Each day starts at 7am and it goes until 5pm. So from 7am to 5pm, two days, it’s a two day interactive workshop.

(Speaker 36)
The way we do it is we do a 30 minute teaching session, and then we break for 15 minutes for a question and answer session.

(Speaker 1)
So Aaron, what kind of great stuff happens during that 15 minute question and answer session after every teaching session? I actually think it’s the best part about the workshops, because here’s what happens. I’ve been to lots of these things over the years, I’ve paid many thousands of dollars to go to them. And you go in there, And they talk in vague generalities and they’re constantly upselling you for something trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this membership. And you don’t you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you’re doing on your marketing. And what’s awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks.

(Speaker 1)
And it’s very specific to what your business is. And what we do is we we allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard. Yeah. And then we literally, as you mentioned, we answer every single question on the whiteboard. And then we take a 15 minute break to to stretch. And this is also your opportunity to meet some of the great speakers like Pastor Dave Scarlett.

(Speaker 1)
You could meet Mel K. You could meet Amanda Grace. You could meet Dr. Stella Emanuel. You could just grab a coffee. You could find some alone time. You could get lost in the bathroom. You could try to go and get a photo with one of the speakers.

(Speaker 1)
You could try to photobomb a photo where someone else is getting a photo with the speakers. You could go attempt to find your phone, wallet, and your keys. Now, that’s a good idea. It’s going to be great. And then you’re in the company of hundreds of entrepreneurs. So there’s not a lot of people in America today.

(Speaker 1)
In fact, there’s less than 10 million people today, according to US Debt Clock. that identifies being self -employed. So if you have a country with 350 million people, that means you have less than 3 % of our population that’s even self -employed.

(Speaker 36)
So you only have three out of every 100 people in America that are self -employed to begin with. And when Inc.

(Speaker 1)
Magazine reports that 96 % of businesses fail by default, By default, you have a one out of a thousand chance of succeeding in the game of business, but yet the average client that you and I work with, we can typically double this.

(Speaker 23)
I’m just no, no, no hyperbole, no exaggeration.

(Speaker 1)
I have thousands of testimonials to back this up. We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically double the size of the company within 24 months.

(Speaker 35)
Yeah.

(Speaker 1)
And you say double. Yeah. There’s businesses that we have tripled. There’s businesses we’ve grown eight X. There’s so many examples. see it thrive timeshow . com.

(Speaker 1)
But again, this is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet. Add to that Eric Trump, the man that runs the Trump organization. You say Clay, I still I’m not going to get a ticket unless you give me more. Okay, fine. We’re going to serve you the same meal both days.

(Speaker 1)
True story. We have we cater food. And because simple, I keep it simple. I literally bring in the same food both days for lunch. Who’s with me? Let’s go.

(Speaker 1)
Come on. Incredible. A Mexican restaurant.

(Speaker 34)
That’s going to happen.

(Speaker 32)
Someone says, I want more.

(Speaker 1)
This is not enough. Give me more.

(Speaker 33)
OK. I’m not going to mention their names right now because I’m working on it behind the scenes here.

(Speaker 32)
We just continue to add more and more success stories.

(Speaker 1)
So if you’re out there today and you want to change your life, you want to give yourself an incredible gift, You want a life -changing experience. You want to learn how to start and grow a company. Go to Thrivetimeshow . com. Go there right now. Thrivetimeshow .

(Speaker 1)
com. Request a ticket for the two -day interactive event. Again, Again, the event’s going to be on December 4th and 5th in sunny Anaheim, California.

(Speaker 24)
Great weather.

(Speaker 31)
Make this a December to remember.

(Speaker 10)
Eric Trump, the man who leads the Trump organization.

(Speaker 20)
It’s going to be a blasty blast. There’s no upsells. Uh, Aaron, I could not be more excited about this event.

(Speaker 16)
I think it is incredible. And there’s somebody out there right now you’re, you’re watching and you’re like, but I already signed up for this incredible other program called Smoke Your way to thin. I think that’s going to change your life. I promise you this will be 10 times better than that. It’s like I picked the wrong week.

(Speaker 11)
Quit smoking.

(Speaker 18)
Don’t do the smoke your way to thin conference. That is I’ve tried it.

(Speaker 11)
Don’t do it. Yeah. Chain smoking is not a viable. I mean, it is life changing. It is life -changing.

(Speaker 1)
If you become a jade smoker, it is life -changing.

(Speaker 18)
It’s not the best weight loss program though. Right, not really. So if you’re looking to have life -changing results in a way that won’t cause you to have a stoma, get your tickets at Thrivetimeshow .

(Speaker 1)
com.

(Speaker 5)
Again, that’s Aaron Antis.

(Speaker 1)
I’m Clay Clark reminding you and inviting you to come out to the two -day interactive Thrivetimeshow workshop in beautiful Anaheim, California.

(Speaker 29)
I’m Vince Suzuki, also from Sarasota, Florida.

(Speaker 1)
He dragged me here. Yep, I was here in 2018 and it changed my business and I built another business and now I’m here to do it again with this business.

(Speaker 11)
Yeah, I’m a brand strategist and it’s been really easy to go to a lot of events like this and just leave really in your head like what to do next.

(Speaker 30)
And already there’s the strategic, step -by -step, real -life implementation that we can do to our business.

(Speaker 4)
And I’m so grateful to be here and very excited that Erica is here. And that is going to be epic. My name is Erica and it has been amazing. here at the conference. I’m learning so much.

(Speaker 19)
Everything is perfect for me. Clay Clark, man, he is one character.

(Speaker 4)
That’s a good word for him, character.

(Speaker 27)
Yeah, that is it.

(Speaker 1)
Good, driven, smart, and I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time.

(Speaker 4)
He’s doing so much good.

(Speaker 12)
And then I met his mother, and she just says, She just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, so he’s endorsed by his mother and he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. His Clay Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah.

(Speaker 12)
He’s he’s like, he’s he’s a machine. He’s a machine. But his, you know, I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes. Hundreds of people showing up at five a . m.

(Speaker 15)
in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man.

(Speaker 1)
No, he is. And the greatest thing that’ll come out of all of it, aside from winning the presidency of the United States, we’ll get to that in a second, was an everlasting friendship between Clay and I, because I’m telling you, there’s not too many people in the world that have this man’s backbone and his tenaciousness and his perseverance. And so, buddy, I love you. And to General Flynn, thank you. You guys are incredible. You guys are incredible warriors.

(Speaker 1)
You guys are incredible, incredible warriors. So…

(Speaker 4)
Thank you, my friend. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. 4 ,000 % from February to February. Now I can better that.

(Speaker 4)
Okay, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself and if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February. and the last two and a half days. So and the phone’s blown up.

(Speaker 4)
Everything’s just blown up. Well you’re right. It is like a rocket ship. So we’re pinching ourselves. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York. Octa nonverba.

(Speaker 4)
Watch what a person does. not what they say. Under siege my family’s fight to save our nation.

(Speaker 1)
So you go to Amazon right now you buy a copy of the book And you just text a screenshot of your proof of purchase to my cell phone number, 918 -851 -0102. So text my number, 918 -851 -0102. So again, step one, you go here to amazon . com, you buy a copy of the book Under Siege, then you just text a screenshot of your purchase, your proof of purchase. You text my number, 918 -851 -0102. You have a chance to win a dinner at Mar -a -Lago with Eric Trump and myself, and there’s more.

(Speaker 1)
Mar -a -Lago right there just for your viewers. It’s the most exclusive private club in the world. You know, we’ve got to beat the New York Times. The New York Times is going to do everything they can, even though we’re number one on Amazon right now. We just hit number one this morning. New York Times is going to do everything they can to keep you from being number one bestseller.

(Speaker 1)
You know that. I know that. You know the games that they’re willing to play. But Clay goes, why don’t we do a couple of things? First of all, I love having dinner with Clay. He’s the greatest.

(Speaker 1)
Second of all, why don’t we bring one of the amazing people that I guarantee you I’ve been in front of at all these events. Why don’t we bring a couple to dinner at Mar -a -Lago? And I said, absolutely, consider it done.

(Speaker 4)
So I said, they have to text you, Clay. They can’t text me, because we’ll be getting 1 ,000 of these.

(Speaker 1)
But yeah, go buy a book. Text Clay. And we’ll set up a dinner. I’ll make sure you guys have the absolute time of your life. I want to pull this up again one more time here, Jackson. I think sometimes I’m a poor communicator, and I need to work on communicating more effectively.

(Speaker 1)
So you go to Amazon. That’s step one, OK? Yes. You buy a copy of the book, Pop Quiz. What book? Under Siege.

(Speaker 1)
You buy a copy of Under Siege, and then you screenshot a picture of that, and you text my phone number. It’s 918 -851 -0102. Folks, that is my cell phone number. So we’ll keep that private between you and me and everybody. And then when you text that to me, you have a chance to win a backstage pass to the actual in -person business workshop. That’s a business growth workshop, December 4th and 5th, featuring Eric Trump at Anaheim, California.

(Speaker 1)
and you have a chance to win dinner with Eric Trump and myself at Mar -a -Lago. Now, someone says, when does this contest end? Now, Eric, your birthday was hijacked. OK, so your birthday was hijacked. January 6th is this man’s birthday. He now has to switch his birthday because no one wants to talk about his birthday on January 6th anymore.

(Speaker 1)
So we’re going to run this promotion until November 5th. That’s my birthday. So we’re going to run it until October 14th. It has to be pre -sale. This just in. It has to be between October 14th.

(Speaker 4)
That’s why we’re clarifying. So between now and October 14th. Now, folks, let me just clarify this real quick here. So make sure I’m leaving you with some good clarity here. One, you buy a copy of Under Siege on Amazon. That’s the step one.

(Speaker 4)
Step two, you text a screenshot of that purchase to my cell phone number 918 -851 -0102. Three, you have to do that before October 14th. Before October 14th, this just in, it has to be before October 14th, and you have a chance to win a backstage pass to the upcoming business workshop. You have a chance to have dinner with Eric Trump at Mar -a -Lago. And I want to tell you some benefits of buying the book. One, I’ve read the book.

(Speaker 4)
It’s incredible. If you’re a father out there and you want to learn about mentoring your kids, it’s a great book. If you want to learn about American history, it’s a great book. If you want to make America great again, it is a great book. It’s a book you got to have. Now here is just a quick editor’s note.

(Speaker 4)
You do not have to buy a copy of Eric Trump’s book Under Siege to be entered into the drawing. Just text the number. All you have to do is just text the number 918 -851 -0102 and you will be entered into the drawing for a chance to win a copy of Eric Trump’s book Under Siege. and a once -in -a -lifetime opportunity to hang out with Eric Trump and Clay Clark at Mar -a -Lago, and win a backstage pass at the upcoming Thrivetimeshow . com two -day interactive business workshop. Again, you do not have to buy a copy of the book to be entered into the drawing, but it would be great if you’d buy a copy of the book, because that would make sense.

(Speaker 4)
However, that is all, and now back to the interview. Also, Eric, a final question here for you. You are donating a portion of the proceeds to support Charlie Kirk in his continued mission there. Could you tell us about that briefly there, and then we’ll let you get back to what you’re doing today, sir? Yeah, well, I was on with Benny Johnson. Benny Johnson was a great friend of Charlie Kirk’s, as you know, and you know Benny, and Benny’s very good friend.

(Speaker 4)
of mine, and you know, Cash Patel is a very good friend of mine, and was a very good friend of Charlie’s. You watch everybody that’s up on that stage every single day as they got to the bottom of exactly what happened, and they brought justice to what happened, or are trying to bring justice to what happened. It’s kind of unthinkable, but you know St. Jude, and I talk a lot about St. Jude in this book, because fighting pediatric cancer has always been a cornerstone of my life. But Charlie truly, truly, truly was the epitome of being under siege, not only in the movement that he helped create, but obviously in how his life was savagely taken. My book came out three days, two and a half days before Charlie’s assassination. You better believe he would have been the final chapter of this book as just another illustration of what these people will do at any cost.

(Speaker 4)
to try and win, because it’s who they are. It’s the not -so -tolerant left.

(Speaker 1)
And we can never let our voices be extinguished, Clay. You stood on that stage, as well as anybody I’ve ever seen stand on a stage. You did at Reawaken events all across the country, which you funded out of your back pocket, because you believed in America. You believed in a greater country. And you were on that stage every single day. You know I was on that stage with you every single day.

(Speaker 1)
And I was on the turning point stage with Charlie all the time. And I was on that stage.

(Speaker 4)
on stages across the country and three campaigns.

(Speaker 28)
I’ve stood on thousands of them.

(Speaker 14)
And honestly, they don’t want us to stand on that stage.

(Speaker 18)
That’s why they’re sending bullets from rooftops. They don’t want us to go out there with a bullhorn and have loud, independent thought.

(Speaker 11)
When they see these beautiful arenas full of kids and they’re cheering, they’re celebrating, they’re holding American flags, they don’t want that. And so they want to silence us. They want to silence our voice. That’s why they killed Charlie. That’s why they tried to kill my father.

(Speaker 1)
That’s why they sent 112 subpoenas to me.

(Speaker 18)
That’s why they wanted me in jail and my father in jail and Don in jail. That’s why they made up the hoaxes. They wanted to see us destroyed and gone with no voice, with no money, with no company, with no political aspirations, gone.

(Speaker 17)
And we can’t allow that to happen. And so we need to make sure that Turning Point continues.

(Speaker 15)
We need to make sure incredible patriots like you continue to spread you know, sensical speech, pro -American values, pro -religious, pro -constitutional values.

(Speaker 29)
And that’s why I want to donate the funds to Turning Point.

(Speaker 1)
I want to donate a portion of the funds to Turning Point because we can’t allow, we can’t allow anarchy to win and we can’t allow voices to be deleted. And we need to keep Charlie’s legacy going.

(Speaker 11)
Eric Trump, thank you so much for joining us.

(Speaker 18)
Pastor Jackson, thank you so much for joining us.

(Speaker 28)
Absolutely.

(Speaker 1)
Eric, have a great day.

(Speaker 4)
We really do appreciate you. Everybody go out there and buy that book, Undersea. Just not too early to buy your Christmas gifts. And if you have a Democrat in your family, buy them a copy as well. Eric Trump, take care.

(Speaker 26)
Thanks, guys.

(Speaker 27)
See you later.

(Speaker 1)
But Clay Clark, man, he is one character.

(Speaker 4)
That’s a good word for him, character.

(Speaker 12)
Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart, and I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother and she just says, she just, she just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, so, you know, he’s endorsed by his mother and he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with.

(Speaker 12)
His Clay Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah.

(Speaker 8)
He’s, he’s like, he’s, he’s a machine.

(Speaker 7)
He’s a machine. But his, you know, I got, I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes, that happens. of people showing up at 5 a .m. m. in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

(Speaker 7)
Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man. No, he is. Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay’s the greatest.

(Speaker 7)
I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy. I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs.

(Speaker 7)
So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. 4 ,000 % from February to February. Now I can better that. Okay, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this.

(Speaker 7)
I’m pinching myself and if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February in the last two and a half days. So, and the phone’s blowing up. Everything’s just blowing up.

(Speaker 26)
You’re right, it is like a rocket ship.

(Speaker 7)
So, we’re pinching ourselves, actually. not what they say. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating, the walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool, the people are nice.

(Speaker 7)
it’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Hilarious. I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday.

(Speaker 13)
And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, and so the humor definitely helps, it breaks it up. But the content is awesome, off the charts, and it’s very interactive, you can raise your hand, it’s not like you’re just listening to the professor speak, you know?

(Speaker 25)
The wizard teaches, but the wizard interacts and he takes questions, so that’s awesome.

(Speaker 7)
If you’re not attending the conference, you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely, it’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the thought process of someone that’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information, but just getting in the thought process of Clay Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches, getting in their thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here.

(Speaker 7)
My wife and I have attended conferences where it was great information, and then they upsold us half the conference. And I don’t want to bang my head into a wall. And she’s banging her head into the chair in front of her. It’s good information, but we’re like, oh my gosh, I want to strangle you. Shut up and go with the presentation that we paid for.

(Speaker 24)
And that’s not here.

(Speaker 13)
There’s no upsells or anything. So that’s awesome. I hate that. It makes me angry. So glad that’s not happening.

(Speaker 7)
So the cost. of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear work at all. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school.

(Speaker 13)
And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school.

(Speaker 23)
I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15 conference.

(Speaker 2)
It’s The information that you’re going to get is just very, very beneficial. And the mindset that you’re going to get, that you’re going to leave with, is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9. And we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9.

(Speaker 2)
Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live years ago.

(Speaker 2)
This is our old neighborhood. See? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood.

(Speaker 2)
This is our new van with our new marketing, and this is our new team. We went from four to 14, and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month.

(Speaker 2)
Right now, it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with.

(Speaker 2)
We love you guys. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise.

(Speaker 2)
And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40 ,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10 ,000 or more people show up to some of these tours on the day -to -day.

(Speaker 2)
He does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing reawaken America tours.

(Speaker 2)
Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 -step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi -millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy.

(Speaker 2)
He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time.

(Speaker 2)
A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach.

(Speaker 22)
Through the course of that, we became friends.

(Speaker 3)
I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal. And they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it.

(Speaker 3)
I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, he doesn’t, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know.

(Speaker 3)
Navigating competition and an economy that’s like I remember we got closed down for three months he helped us navigate on how to stay open how to how to get back open how to Just survive through all the kovat shutdowns lockdowns because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350 ,000 of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. It was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing. And I encourage you, if you haven’t worked with Clay, work with Clay.

(Speaker 3)
He’s going to help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day. And literally the rest of the time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day. And he loves it. So anyways, this is Charles Kolaw with Kolaw Fitness.

(Speaker 3)
Thank you, Clay. And anybody out there that’s wanting to with Clay. It’s a great, great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys.

(Speaker 3)
Bye bye. 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 in real estate.

(Speaker 3)
So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15 -year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without clay.

(Speaker 3)
So when I came to know clay,

(Speaker 6)
I really thought, man, there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually, in a four -month period of time, has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month, just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. And it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening.

(Speaker 6)
One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing. And Clay really brings that perspective for me.

(Speaker 6)
It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything.

(Speaker 6)
I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town. And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs.

(Speaker 10)
I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with clay, I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 -year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1800 % increase in our Internet leads going from 10 a month to 180 a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot.

(Speaker 10)
I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure did. 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 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.

(Speaker 10)
My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people. I love building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things.

(Speaker 10)
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 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. 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. 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 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, 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 able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in. because they found us on the way. 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. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

Transcribed with Cockatoo