Business Podcasts | 5 Steps to Becoming a Super Successful Person + It’s the Redundancy, the Repetition & The Grind. This Is Part of Being An Entrepreneur.” – Peter Taunton (SnapFitness, Fitness On Demand, 9 Round Boxing & Nautical Bowls)

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show! Good look as the father of five, that’s what I’m about. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them how it’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one. Here we go. Well, Thrive Nation, if you’ve ever wanted to open up a successful company, that’s one thing. But if you’ve ever wanted to open up a thousand locations of that company, that’s another thing. Now, if you’ve ever wanted to open up thousands and thousands of locations of companies that you’ve created, that’s what today’s guest brings to the table. Today’s guest, Peter Taunton. I’m gonna let him tell you just a little bit about his background here, but he knows how to nail and scale business dreams and he’s on the scene. Peter Taunton, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Hey guys, I’m great. How you doing? Good to see you again. Good to be back this week. Hey, thank you for being here. And again, for everybody out there that maybe is new to your voice, tell everybody out there about the brands that you’ve built, just so people can Google you, research you, and kind of verify that you are not a hologram. Yeah. Googling me is easy, but my brand Snap Fitness is one of them. Fitness On Demand, Nine Round, and my fourth brand right now is called Nautical Bulls. But I’ve had some great success in the last 25 years. I’ve taken three of those four brands and grown them to literally over 5,000 locations in 28 countries. And it’s been a great ride. I’m on my fourth brand right now, which is Nautical Bowls. We’ve awarded 190 territories in two years. Open 58 stores. We’re well on our way, but it’s not a race. I mean, at the end of the day, you gotta be able to create businesses that can hopefully thrive during tough economic times and if the franchisees don’t make money then, you know, it’s all for nothing. So you got to really pay attention to what you’re doing. Now the brands again, Snap Fitness, Fitness On Demand, Nautical Bulls. What was the other brand there, sir? Nine Round, a boxing concept. Nine Round, the boxing concept. Okay, now so for anybody out there who doesn’t know, Sean, to my right, is a business consultant. And, Sean, what we’re going to do today is we’re going to really interrogate Peter Tonton to figure out what makes the Nautical Bowls brand franchise such a successful turnkey move, while also tapping into his wisdom about five daily routines that I believe every entrepreneur needs to have in place to be successful. So let’s talk about nauticalbowls.com. What kind of person would be a good fit to buy Nautical Bowls at this point? I mean, Peter, who’s a good fit? Who would be a not a good fit for nautical bulls? Well, you know, I mean, I think anyone that is good, we made our business very simple. Any great franchise that’s created, it’s got to be it’s got to appeal. It’s got to be an easy, simple business to operate. In my opinion, the the more technical the business becomes, the narrower your your your customer base or your franchise base can become. So for me, there’s a few things that I try to do. Number one, I try to dummy them down. And I dummy them down by systems, processes, and great training, and then great support, great team. Okay, that’s the first thing. Second thing is, I gotta make them affordable. So I try to make them affordable. So people, the more affordable the business is to get into, then the broader my audience gets to. So you can see where I’m going with this, Clay. I’ve got a business that’s affordable to get into, number one. Number two, not too technical, meaning I don’t have to be a rocket scientist to make this business thrive. So those are my first two things. The third piece is, look, I gotta have somebody that’s got a little ambition, right? Because most franchises that you get into, I don’t wanna ever sell a franchise to somebody who thinks that it’s just a turnkey, I don’t have to work, I don’t have to be, I don’t have to apply myself. For me, there’s too many people out there that are hungry, that want to chase opportunity. Those are the ones that I want. You know, everyone wants to be rich, and everybody wants to be their own boss, everybody wants to have a flexible schedule, I get it. But flexible schedule, upgraded lifestyle, financial freedom, those are the rewards of the effort and the hard work you put in early on, in my opinion. So again, I mean, you’ve built these wonderful systems. If you’re out there today, folks, and you’re looking for a vehicle to achieve time freedom and financial freedom, perhaps Nautical Bowls is a great fit for you. So now I want to get into these five principles. And Sean and I are going to begin interrogating you. Okay, so first off is everybody out there, if you buy a Nautical Bowls or you go out there and buy a Subway or whatever brand you want to buy. I would steer you towards the nautical bowls because it’s a healthy option. It’s a meal replacement option that a lot of people love. It’s on trend. It’s taking off. But regardless of what franchise you buy, you’ve got to have a to-do list of some kind. And I know this seems crazy, Peter, but, you know, Peter, you and I, we do these interviews each week, and, you know, if you’re out of town or I’m out of town, we get it. But the idea is it’s in our calendar. I don’t have to chase you around. You don’t chase me around. I’m not confused when you’re going to be here. You’re not confused about me being here. We’ve accepted kind of the boundaries for how long the interviews go. We’ve written it down. And I just think that there’s a lot of folks that aren’t taught the principles of writing stuff down. And as their life becomes more complex, they begin to really struggle with managing the complexities of that world if they haven’t learned the discipline of carrying a to-do list? Let me get your thoughts, sir. You know what, it’s okay to cheat a little bit in that area. A to-do list, I always talk about discipline and accountability. Look, part of discipline and accountability is showing up every day. How do you show up every day? How do you not miss appointments? You don’t miss appointments and disappoint people when you write things down. Because look, we’re all, those of us who are ambitious, we get up every day with 15, 20 things to do. If you’re going to leave it at your own recall to not forget things, it’s just so much easier. Create the to-do list. You and I have talked about this, Clay. I’ve been doing a to-do list since I’ve been 12 years old, honestly, seventh grade, and it just helped keep me on track. It’s just part of my lifestyle. And for me, I do it every single day, and I very seldom get through my entire list every day, and I’m okay with that. I push it over to the next day. But if it’s sitting there five days from now, so on Friday, I kind of purge my list, because some of those things I say, boy, it must not be as important as I think it is, because I haven’t made it a priority. So then I start to rethink it, because every one of those things takes my time and like all of us we only get 24 in a day You can’t buy more and you don’t get less now. Let’s look at your I’m just gonna pick on in your life for a minute You’re broadcasting from Florida. I believe Yes, okay, Miami and I don’t get to super person about your address or anything I’m just going to ask you though Did you at one point have a dream that because you grew up in Minnesota that you at some point would have a house in? Florida a house in Florida? Hey, look, you know what? I grew up poor in a small little town in Minnesota. Literally, I went to school in a two-room schoolhouse, Clay. So I’m living proof that the American dream is alive and well. I quit college. You know, I say it all the time. If I were a stock, Clay, you would have shorted me for sure. So yes, my first dream was to have a Corvette. I remember that. I mean, I used to pray, I’m a Christian, and I’m sure that God rolls his eyes at me 15, 20 times a day because I’m always striking deals. I remember asking him, please God, let me make $100,000 a year. Because at that time in my life, it was more money than I thought I could ever spend. I could check the box and do everything I need to get done with $100,000 a year. And then the things just changed. Pretty soon you get a Corvette, pretty soon the $100,000 is this. So now what I’ve reserved myself, I’ve resided to say, hey, look, my life is in his hands. I’m forever grateful. And I tell him, I ask him every day, hey, look, put me in harm’s way. Put me in places where you feel like I can be your soldier, right? Because at the end of the day, this is not for me anymore. This is for my legacy, my kids’ kids, my philanthropy. Everything that I do is in his names, and I always give thanks to him every chance I get. And you, though, and I want to go back to this, you had a dream to have a Corvette, and at a certain point you had a dream of, like, okay, I want to live, I want to buy a home in Florida. At some point that idea happened, and then did you write it down, like the idea of I’m gonna get a Corvette or I’m gonna move to Florida or whatever it Is I mean do you actually write it down? I? You know what? I didn’t write it down. But look my you know, I saw I surpassed my dreams from From jets and yachts and multiple homes I mean I surpassed it and to what at some point you got to throw your hands up in the air and say Wow What did I ever do to deserve this? I mean, that’s the place where I become and that’s kind of where I am. So the writing it down part, that was many years ago. Today, I’m just so blessed and grateful and that’s just where I’m at today. Now the calendar thing, step two, the calendar. Now, Sean, you work with a lot of wonderful clients as a consultant and you’re trying to work with a 40-year-old man or woman, and you’re trying to go, you gotta have a calendar. I do, yeah, I have this conversation often. And these are doctors and dentists that reach out to us, I mean, real business owners, and they don’t have a calendar. I would like to ask you, by default, Sean, what percentage of clients that you interact with who are in their 40s, 50s, 30s, whatever, who don’t use a calendar by default before you meet them? The majority of them don’t. If they do, they’ll put a doctor’s appointment on there, maybe a really big meeting that they have, but I’ve never seen one that actually takes their to-do list and does time blocking with their priorities before we start working with them. So if somebody goes and buys a Nautical Bowl franchise there, Peter, do you walk them through and kind of guide these new entrepreneurs into how to manage the calendar and manage the staff, work on their team? Is that the kind of stuff you coach people through? We do, and in fact, we give them a calendar. We give them a 30-day calendar, which has a number of items on it for each day. And for us, as simple as our business is, we say, look, when you get to the last day of the month, flip it over, start again. I mean, and that’s, it’s the redundancy, it’s the repetition. And we always say, look, it’s not the one thing you do, it’s the 20 things you do day in, day out. It’s, you know, some people will call it the grind. Hey, look, the grind is a mindset, okay? Instead of calling it the grind, you have to embrace it and say, this is part of being an entrepreneur. Look, I mean, being an entrepreneur, calling yourself an entrepreneur is easy, but being a successful entrepreneur takes work. Now look, we all know people out there that just got lucky. Let’s just call it what it is. They got lucky, right time, right place, I get it. But I wouldn’t want to bet the farm on luck. I would rather have a hard proof plan that I can follow that’s going to greatly enhance my chances of success. I think I’m getting this right. You’re saying it’s the redundancy, it’s the repetition, it’s the grind. This is part of being an entrepreneur. Those are the things you have to do. I think you have to, you know what, Clay, I think you have to set the table stakes. And I don’t, and you know, some people, some consultants out there, they don’t like to give it to them real because they’re selling. And for me, rather than sell, I would rather prepare you because look, I don’t want someone who’s not mentally prepared to go to battle all right I don’t want that guy that thinks I bought a franchise now. I get to skate. I get this freedom I get the skate for the rest of my life, and I’m gonna have no more wants and wishes. It’s just gonna come easy I mean those type of people look. I hope I can I hope I can over deliver on their expectations, but boy if you don’t then you end up being the guy that that sold them something that you didn’t prepare them for battle. Now this is part of the show folks I’m not trying to take the show to a blue place I’m not trying to take it to a low place I just want people to know if you have kids in the car maybe cover their ears because this is just it’s funny and it’s just stupid but it’s funny okay so I’ve got one client I work with who’s I’ve them they have a restaurant I’m just picturing them I’ll be I won’t tell you what state they’re in. They just have a restaurant and Peter They were so excited because in their particular restaurant they work in their job is to go get reviews From the happy customers that go into the restaurant. And so this employee this waitress was so excited She tells the boss boss. I am killing it I’m getting the Google reviews and the video reviews you asked for I’m getting reviews from our customers and I’m just so excited. And he says, well, phenomenal, this is phenomenal, this person’s previously not gotten any reviews and she’s a waitress, she gets paid to get reviews, it’s a big thing in his business, online reputation. So he says, could you send me a link, you know, a link to the Google Drive of the video reviews, you know, that you’re getting, because she’s filming them on the office phone and whatever, and then, you know, could you send them to me? So she says, yeah, sure. And she sends him a link to a horrible thing. And he’s like, I think you sent me the wrong Google Drive. Now I had an employee in my, I was joking with him because today he was like telling me the story, like he felt bad. He was like, oh my gosh, she sent me a photo, a link to her photos, and I think she sent the wrong folder. I don’t even know what to say. And I’m like, I think it’s best if you just delete that text and say, could you send it to me again? I don’t think I got the right folder. And just kind of, that’s what I would do. There’s no real rule book here okay and he goes has that ever happened to you and I said well actually as recently as the last couple weeks we had an employee who meant to text the team some things and he text the team a link to his girlfriend’s OnlyFans page oh and so that’s the stuff that’s not on the show it’s not on the podcast it’s not in the handbook, but I now have two really awkward moments. And so I always tell people what you need to do is you need to organize your day for at least a couple hours before you see other people. Now maybe you prefer to organize your day at night, maybe you need to organize your day in the morning, but that’s the kind of thing where like I would like to have the awkward situation happen, in this particular case for my staff, an employee of ours, one of our businesses, sent accidentally a link to the wrong thing to a lot of our staff members on a group text. And now I have to figure out how am I going to deal with that tomorrow. Right now as we’re doing this show, I’m thinking about what am I going to do? What am I going to do? I’m going to think about it, probably sleep about it, take the edge off. Then tomorrow, I’ll say, okay, here’s the deal. What are we going to do? You’re going to call the staff members and tell them, oops, my bad. Just leave it at that and just get to work early. Stay late, over deliver. And we all make personal moral fouls, but yours is now public and we’ll just keep it at that. And maybe it’ll work out. But if you don’t proactively organize your day, Peter, your whole day is a reaction like that. I mean, because when you have hundreds of employees like we have, your whole day could be a burning fire. Could you maybe speak some encouragement into the lives of the entrepreneur out there that they’re living a constant burning fire and they never do schedule the time to proactively design their day. Could you maybe talk about how you do that now because you’ve got a lot going on. For sure. But first I want to commend you on how you’re going to handle that with your employee because look we’re all flawed. We all make mistakes and you know what, I always say, you know, I golf. Everyone needs a mulligan, okay? So maybe, yeah. But for me, look, I, some people do it at the end of the day. I know, Clay, for a fact that you get up extremely early to get a jump on your day. I manage my day throughout the day. I manage my schedule throughout the day because the way that my life is, other people that I’m working with, their schedules tend to be as hectic as mine and it comes up So when people say hey Peter, I got a reschedule. I don’t freak out. I don’t look at it as a lack of respect I look at my schedule. I keep it right on my phone Okay, in fact when you talk about a calendar my to-do list is actually on my calendar So think about that I go to one place I go to my calendar and I’ve got my to-do list and my calendar right there So from my iPhone I can move things on the fly. All right. And then it’s just mentally keeping myself in the right headspace, which is, look, this is what we sign up for. We’re entrepreneurs. It’s not going to be, it’s not every day’s consistent. You know what, some days you’re a cruise director, some days you’re a firefighter. And you got to man up every time. You know what, if you feel blindsided every time, every time you get a curveball, you’re gonna have problems. So that’s for me, even with my coaching with Forbes. Part of what I’m trying to get people to understand is, look, this is what you signed up for. Don’t freak out about it. Take a deep breath. And as you get older, I mean, I’m 61. I’ve been at this for 35 years, play, there’s not a lot I haven’t seen. And with experience comes poise. Okay? So, it’s okay. Yeah. Yeah, and it’s very… I’m just… I’m taking notes here, folks. This is some great stuff here. And again, if you’re out there today and you’re… You really are looking for a turnkey proven business model, I recommend you check out nauticalbulls.com. Now, step four is you just want to be organized at all times, which I think is what you kind of alluded to Sean let me get your thoughts. You know we have a client wonderful client new client Mm-hmm people reach out to us because they need help. That’s what that’s why we help them right and if you go to thrive Time show calm we have over 2,000 client success stories there But shocker most people will come to us at the point where they are on the verge of a breakdown Yeah in need of a breakthrough right and so I always tell people a new client. I’ll say hey, Mr.. Client We’re gonna optimize your website. I just need the password to your hosting and your website. And I’d say, I said, most clients we work with, most new clients don’t have all their passwords organized yet, so don’t beat yourself up if you can’t find them. And they go, I’m so glad you said that because I have no idea where the passwords are. Yeah. And then I’ll say, okay, great. Now what we’re gonna need to do is optimize your Google Map. And again, not to beat you up, most clients don’t know where that is. They go, so glad you said that, I don’t know where that is. And we start to find that the half of their files are on Dropbox, half are on something called Google Drive, half are on something called Square or Box or half of them are on some sort of contractor website they signed up, another third maybe a fifth of their leads are on Squarespace or on Square, another third are on PeopleSoft or or some kind of a salesforce.com web page and nothing’s organized. And so it takes those first 30 days to just get them organized, which is what it takes to build an organization. Sean, how often do the clients you work with, are they struggling to be organized when you first meet them? Well, just looking at the stats of how many people are even self-employed in the United States, and then the stats of how many people are, how many businesses are failing out there. It just indicates most people are heavily disorganized, not kind of disorganized, very disorganized. The beauty of the program here is we may just make it really really simple for people. We use a system, we call it the daily steering wheel. I have it right here. It’s a to-do list and I print the calendar out. I follow what Clay does and that’s worked for me and I manage 30 different business owners who all have that same problem and I do it at 30 years old. The power is just in those first three steps for me. Now, Nautical Bowls, you’ve got, you know, at this point, hundreds of locations. You’ve had thousands of Snap Fitness locations. Could you talk to us about the level of detail you put into organizing those files, Peter, so that if I buy a franchise from you, I don’t spend my day running around looking for files? Yeah, and look, part of what we do, we give them a drive that they can access. It’s a franchisee portal and they access and it’s my job and it’s my team’s job to make sure that the data that’s on each of those drives, it’s very intuitive, so intuitive to navigate around. And then we purge them, because if you’re talking about market ideas, most franchisees, it’s very seldom do they have operational questions because they’ve been doing the same thing day in, day out. So that part of it’s pretty simple. If they’re training staff, we have training videos, that part of it’s easy too. Most of the time that we’re purging, it’s marketing because marketing, as businesses evolve, most of the evolution comes from your brand message to the consumer. Why? Because you want to stay relevant in the eyes of the consumer. Now, what’s important as the franchisor is that you go into your marketing material and you’re purging the old message. This is where a lot of franchises fail. They say, Peter, you know what? I do a lot of coaching for different brands, franchise brands even, or privately held companies, and their sales have flattened out or begun to spiral. And it’s a problem for them, but when I start looking at them, it says because your product is no longer relevant, okay? And we need to do a brand pivot. We need to purge your information. And we need to write the ship, and then we gotta make sure that everyone is singing from the same hymnal. So as a franchisor, as a CEO, you’re at the helm of the business and it’s your job to make sure that the brand message is on point and it’s easy for people to digest. Now Peter, I’m gonna be here leaving in about 24 hours and headed your direction via a white van, so don’t get jealous. I’ll be driving via a white van from Tulsa to Miami, and I’m going to be right here in this room here at Trump Doral from Thursday at noon till Saturday at 8. So should you be in the near area, I will be at Trump Doral from Thursday at noon to Saturday at about 8 or 9 p.m. there, Trump and Doral. I’m not asking for where you’re physically located, but you’re in Miami. Are you in Miami because of choice? Do you like Miami? I’m here for the tax advantages, but I’m a member of Doral. Are you really? I’m a member there. I know that building. All right. Well, Eric Trump and I, we are going to be there together, hanging out on Friday. They’re hosting a conference so should you want to swing by and take advantage of your membership. This ties into my next point here, this is so important. I want everyone to read this out loud in your own way in your car. You open up your Bible to Proverbs 13 20. It says here, he that walketh with wise men shall be destroyed.” Now what I’m saying is I’m not saying you should do this folks, I’m just saying what I do. I refuse to spend my day with nefarious, that’s the first word, nefarious, that’s people that are intentionally trying to cause harm. I refuse to spend my day with nefarious people intentionally causing harm, nefarious people that then go on to choose to be disorganized and dysfunctional. That’s me. That’s my rules. I’m not saying that has to be your rules, but I find a lot of people, Peter, they’ll buy, they would never do this with the nautical bowls, but they buy a brand that’s proven to work and then they go, you know, I think my buddy’s getting out of prison on Thursday. I’m going to hire him. And you know, I got a guy I just met at church and he’s a good guy. He just, he’s got a lot of addictions and he’s also getting out of prison. So I’m going to hire the two, and I’m going to turn my business into like sort of a prison outreach thing. And then what happens is they go, I don’t understand why the business isn’t working. Now I know no one would ever do that with any of your brands, but I find there are certain people that want to bring pirates aboard their cruise ship and they wonder why the morale is getting weird. Could you talk about your rules for that in terms of just the kind of people, not that you choose to minister to, but the kind of people you choose to bring into your business? Well, we share that. We look at hiring the talent, and hiring the right talent. And for us, our business is so simple that it’s something that’s hard to teach. It’s hard to teach personality. It’s hard to teach for people that are a little bit more introverted. We look for people that smile easily. They smile easily. They’re relatively decent communicators. Not that our message is overly technical, but if you’re shy and introverted, it’s gonna be very difficult when someone walks through the door for you to say, welcome to Nautical Bowls. Is this your first time here? I mean, for us, every person comes in, hey, welcome to Nautical Bowls. Is this your first time here? If they say, as a matter of fact, it is, then they have to say, oh, would you like some help or some suggestions from our menu? Once again, what are we trying to do? We’re trying to enhance the guest experience. And if somebody says, no, I’ve been here before, what’s my follow-up question? Or are you one of our loyalty guests? As a matter of fact, I am, my number is 8642. I type it in. I say, oh, hey Clay, welcome back. Would you like a number three again with extra protein? Once again, what’s my message to Clay? My message to Clay is, hey look Clay, I know who you are, I got you. I know what you order, I know what your favorites are. So, and then when I make the bowl for Clay and I hand it to him, I don’t just slide it across the table and hope he catches it. I hand it to him, I look at me and I say, hey Clay, thanks for coming in, hope to see you tomorrow. There it is once again. It’s the guest experience. Don’t mistake it. Now, Peter, final 60 seconds here for anybody hypothetically who’s going to be in the Miami, Florida area, who lives primarily in Oklahoma, who’s driving there via a white van. Is there a particular part of Miami Beach that you recommend you say, hey, if you’re going to go to the beach, this is where you want to go because you’re there all the time. This is your home territory. Is there a particular beach or place you’d say, go there? Well, you know what? I mean, South Beach, it’s a famous place, right? Being in the South Beach area, there’s a lot going on there. And they got some public beaches that are beautiful. I keep my boat over at the Miami Beach Marina, which is not far from there. There’s a beautiful park there called South Park. It’s great. But honestly, you know, the South Beach is great. Wynwood is an unbelievable unbelievable area of you’re gonna see some world-class graffiti of all things but it’s if you’ve never seen it you’ve got to come in and experience that so I would be I do South Beach I do Wynwood the rest of it obviously the Midtown Fashion District that’s all one you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. Where’s Wynwood in comparison to South Beach here maybe you can see the map we have here. Yeah yes if you’re gonna go let’s see here, you’re going to go over across the interstate here, keep coming, like keep going, yeah there you go. Keep going a little more, a little more. Yeah. So the Wynwood area is going to be, hang on, you’re going too far, right? Kind of right in, right in this area, like here’s where I live, right? I live right here. Okay. That’s right where I live, where my arrow is, if you can see it. Mm-hmm. And Wynwood is literally this whole area right here. Okay, I can’t see your arrow just because the internet hates me today, but are you kind of right in this area? This is the jungle island, Kenneth? Yeah, go a little bit north and a little bit east or northwest, a little north. See that little island right there? Yeah. Right there, see that little inlet right to your left? Okay, right here? Yeah, let’s see here, right, go straight north straight north Right not just look right there. Yeah, well. Yeah, that’s My penthouse is right there now. That’s my view right there. Oh And when one is straight left of that about eight blocks I think everybody out there needs to buy a nautical bowls just so they can hang out with you in your in your incredible penthouse And I get a lot of things. I love about you is you you you you keep it humble, you’re a guy who’s committed to helping people have success. And if you’re out there today and you’re going, man, I don’t have a lot of money, I would love to have success, I really don’t know where to even start. What you can do is you can go to nauticalbowls.com, nauticalbowls.com, and you can learn more about buying a franchise. And how much money do you require someone to bring to the table again, Peter? Just how much money down does someone have to bring there, sir? It’s a hundred thousand cash. They need a hundred thousand cash and it doesn’t matter if it’s theirs or if they have partners but between collectively they need to come to the table with a hundred thousand cash and be collectively they need to have a net worth of two hundred fifty thousand or more. Okay. Got it. And that’s a fairly easy criteria and I don’t I don’t take that the wrong way but that’s a fairly easy criteria. We’ve had people that have had two or three people they pool their money together and they’re getting into one business They have aspirations. They have multiple stores and I say great. You know what guys let’s pull our money. Let’s get one open Let’s make one successful with the profits. Let’s make two. This is a long-term journey Okay, you don’t have the financial means to go buy five of these But I tell you what if we sit back and we work hard five years from now You guys might have three stores if you work hard. Most people borrow some money of some kind to open their business, correct? I mean most people were. That’s right. If they come to the table with a hundred thousand cash and if they have a net worth of 250, the bank will finance the balance of their store which would be about 250. These businesses all in are about 350,000. Some are less, but let’s just say it’s $350,000. $100,000 is cash you’re going to finance $250,000 over 10 years. This is incredible stuff. Again, folks, that’s nauticalbulls.com. Peter Taunton, thank you for letting us tap into your wisdom, sir. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll talk to you next week. Thank you, Peter. Take care, you guys. Nice to meet you. Take care. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Sean Lohman on today’s edition of the Thrive Time Show. Talk to the listeners out there about the daily action steps that you need to take if you want to become super successful. And I want to contrast that to the jackassery or maybe the non-proactivity that will happen by default. Let’s do it. So I want to give people the proven path to success versus the proven path to regress. Yeah. All right. Yeah. The proactive life versus the reactive life. Mm-hmm Okay, so first off in America today if anybody goes to us debt clock org You let’s go to us debt clock org. I’m gonna pull it up folks us debt clock org I know this is an audio only segment of today’s show So you’ll have to have some faith or you’ll need to go there yourself to us debt clock org and you’re gonna see here In the United States today, there are how many self-employed people in the United States today? It’s showing 8,796,973 U.S. self-employed humans. So what that means in America today is that in America today, you have 330 million people that are in America, of which 8.7, 8.8 million are self-employed. So if you were to say, you know, okay, let’s just say there’s 330 million people, you divide that by 10. If there was 33 million self-employed people, you would say that’s 10%. But it’s not. It’s like a quarter of that. So it’s like two and a half percent of our population is self-employed Mm-hmm now according to Inc magazine 96% of those that are self-employed will fail. Mm-hmm. So the question People always ask me as well Why and I’m just gonna walk you through how to achieve massive success and then if you’re out there today Perhaps you want to join the conversation and have massive success. We have in-person workshops. We can teach you how to grow your super successful company. And you can attend those workshops by going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Perhaps your business needs help. We offer a one-on-one business growth consulting service. If you go to Thrivetimeshow.com, you can see thousands and thousands of client success stories there. Again, at Thrivetimeshow.com. But the facts remain that out of 330 million people that live in our country, only 8 million are self-employed, so roughly 2.5% of our population is self-employed. And of that 2.5% that’s self-employed, 96% of those people will fail. Yeah, it’s not as super encouraging for those wanting to start a business. However, I can say… Well, I think this is very… This shows to be very encouraging. If you’re going to be negative, Sean… What I can say, though, is that your program… I have not built many multi-million dollar businesses, but I’ve been working and teaching your program to business owners for the last seven years, and I have had my business owners that I coach grow massively by implementing the things that you do. You can see all those testimonials at thrivetimeshow.com forward slash testimonials. You’ll find my beautiful mug, which unfortunately will not be on this podcast, but you’ll find that mug in many of those videos. On part two of today’s show, we’re going to feature a client success story that you’re part of. Oh, OK, good. We’ll do that. There you go. So you’ll see my mug. So let’s talk about this, OK? So I think this show is very encouraging, because most people don’t do these action steps. So you’re able to compete with people that don’t know what they’re doing. It’s beautiful. So let’s just pick an industry for a second. I’m just going to pick one. On part two of today’s show, let me make sure I’ve got it here. I’m going to do a client success story, and it’s Doug Yarharler. Yarharler? Yarharler. That’d be Doug with the Metal Roof Contractors of Oklahoma. How do you spell that? Ooh. You know what? We’ll find it. There it is. There it is right there. Celebrating the 50% growth. Y-A-R-H-O-L-A-R. Doug Yarholer, I believe. Yarholer. And he’s been a long-time client that we’ve worked with, and so we’re going to share his success story. Okay, that’s great. But he’s a roofer. Mm-hmm. All right? So step one, if you want to become super successful, okay, step one, you must get a to-do list. You must get, you must keep a to-do list with you at all times. Yeah. Okay? And this is big because here we are today and it is 145 in the afternoon and I had a client that happened to be out of town today. So I grabbed my to-do list and used that time, that downtime where I could have been doing nothing, and I chose to proactively record today’s show. Because I wanted to do a show today with you and I’m going to forget about that idea so I put it down on my notebook. And then I come back to my, whenever I come back to those to-do list items whenever I have downtime. What percentage of people that you know, that you meet out there in the world, carry a to-do list with them at all times? Outside of this office, I’ve never met a single soul. Yeah, you just don’t see it. I never see it. Right. And it’s just logistically, think about it folks. How are you gonna remember what you’re supposed to do today if you don’t have a to-do list? So just for me today, just so we’re clear, I have to, when we wrap up today’s show, these are just things I have to do today. I’m not saying this to impress or to depress anybody, but today I have to get in agreement to a particular individual today. I have to finish reading an article about Bank of America, Wells Fargo, etc. I need to call Brett Denton, a long-time client, who, by the way, I’m going to feature him on today’s show, too, so you can see another client success story, but I got to call Brett Denton about a project we’re working on. I’ve got to talk to Lisa about the revised budget. I’ve got to set up a phone for a particular client. I’ve got to set up a phone for another client. I’ve got to talk to Dee about a mock-up of the website for a client we’re working with called The Rhodes Church. Then, after that, I need to optimize a Google map. Then I need to create a website mock-up for a client I’m working on. Then I need to talk to my daughter about a project we’re working on together. Then I need to plan my daughter’s 15th birthday party. Then I need to train up managers for one of the businesses I’m involved in. Then I need to update the uploading checklist. Then I need to… You get the idea. Yeah. A lot going on. It’s a two-page to-do list today. Yeah, about two pages. Most people are going to get anxiety when they have more than five things to do in a day. I just want to let people know out there, Clay’s been doing this for 20 solid years and he spends a good amount of time every single morning, I watch him do it, planning out what those things on his to-do list are and then he just knocks them out throughout the day. And then now step number two is you must carry a calendar. You must carry… It’s like carry slash keep a calendar. You know, so right now, just being real with everybody, you know, I’m gonna leave here tomorrow at a… I’m gonna leave tomorrow, I’d say probably at 10 p.m. tomorrow. Mm-hmm. And when I leave tomorrow, I’m gonna drive to Florida. When I’m driving to Florida, I can’t be meeting with my clients while driving to Florida, so I have already moved the client appointments to times that work better for them. I’m not going to forget to move the clients, nor am I going to try to remember. I put it on a to-do list, and I’ve already contacted all my clients so that they clearly know when we’re meeting ahead of time. Now I’ve had on this list I’m just showing you, this particular client as well as this one and this one, they’ve all reached out to me and said, when are we meeting again? Now I have 160 clients that we work with, of which I have had to move the times, and the clients that don’t keep a calendar, they’re the ones calling me asking me when the new time is. Even though we’ve clearly discussed it, and we’ve gone over it, and we’ve played schedule Tetris to get there many weeks in advance. Do you know why they called me back and said, when is my time? Well, whenever you in that decision went and put that on your calendar, they went and got something to eat. Right. Because most people do not carry a to-do list or a calendar. And these are just two things. Now, step three, this is big. Step, this is big. I do it every day. This is going to freak somebody out here. You must wake up and organize your day, so you must organize your day two hours before you see other humans. Now if you can get to one hour, that’s great. I recommend two. Why? Sean, why would I want to organize my day two hours before I see other humans? There’s drastically less potential for any obstacles or interruptions when you do that. Okay, well today, this is a real thing today. And again, I don’t know what day this is. I don’t know what day you’re gonna hear this, folks. But today, I get to work, organize my day. I’m ready to rock, I’ve got a lot of stuff going on. My first meeting with our team is at 6 a.m., so from 3.30 a.m. to 5.30, I’m just organizing my day, getting stuff done. My first staff meeting is at 6, second staff meetings at seven, at seven, then about eight o’clock, someone knocks on my door. Hey boss, I got a question for you. So what’s the question? And they go, did you want me to work today at the mall? And I said, what, what? They go, did you want me to work today at the mall? Now there’s hundreds of employees between all the things we’re involved in. How am I gonna remember when the person is supposed to work. So I pulled up the calendar and I said, it looks like you are scheduled today. And they go, Oh, I forgot. Could somebody else swap with me? True story. So I said, who did you want to swap your schedule with? They said, well, I want to swap with her. So I went to her, the young lady. I said, does this person wants to swap the schedule with you? Did you tell them you can’t or what happened? They go, oh, I said I can’t. And I said, well, the problem is you can’t. They go, why not? I said, well, I know you said you can, but you can’t because you’ll be in a van in a different state at the time that you’re supposed to be filling in for the person. And they go, oh my gosh, I forgot. And do you know why they forgot? Because they don’t carry a calendar or a no-to-do list. Right? Yeah. Then a young guy comes to me and he says, here’s the deal. I know for this particular business, I’m supposed to be gathering objective reviews from our clients. And I wanted to ask you, to make extra money, could I do some extra work for you on the weekend to help promote one of your companies?” I said, sure, sure, what do you want to do? This is all before 8 in the morning. These are the kind of things that happen. Long story short, I discovered through a process of question asking that this particular young man, his spouse is an adult content creator. Creator ooh, and he was going to see if his wife could use her quote-unquote platform to promote one of my businesses Because she thought it would be easy To get the people who are following her on the adult content website to go on to social media and promote one of my businesses Well, and I’m going no, that’s not no promotion. We do I need you, Mr…. this is a real story. I need you to go to the mall and to work in the store in the mall, because we have a kiosk at the mall. I need you to be in the mall on your particular day, and in the mall you get paid a commission if somebody buys something. And that’s what I need you to do is go to the mall. But you’re telling me, you asked, can your wife help you promote the business? And I said, what do you have in mind? Come to find out. He didn’t, he wants to find a way for his wife to promote the business, but not work in the mall, but to go online and to try to generate leads or social media activity using her adult platform. You’re being very kind about this. I mean, it’s super good language you’re using around this. This is real thing. I would not have used the same language. It’s a real thing though. This is real stuff. I know. This happens before 8 in the morning to me, hey, was this the weekend we’re going to be going out of town? I said, yes. They go, oh, I can’t do that. Can someone else fill in for me, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But the reason why I’m able to keep my sanity and to get things done, having been self-employed now for, at this point, 23 years, 24 years, is I carry a to-do list. I keep a calendar. I keep a calendar. What? I keep and maintain a calendar. And I organize my day two hours before I see other humans. Now the rest of the stuff that I teach clients how to do, all of it wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t do those basic three things. Yeah, you wouldn’t be able to show up to the meeting. Right. You wouldn’t know what to talk to them about. Yeah, it only works if you have these three things going. For all my clients who I’m going to send this to, it only works if you do these three things. Now, I have a lot of clients that have had a lot of success, but this is something that I think every human is going to find themselves drifting in and out of as they try to get this habit going. The part to force yourself on is the morning two hours, even if it’s one hour. Start out with 30 minutes if you need to, but if you’re not doing that already, it’ll change your life. It will be uncomfortable, but you’ll get a lot more done. People will start saying things to you like, hey, slow down. Why are you going so fast? You know? Right. Come on. You’re not going to spend time with your family because you’re waking up early? What is this? You want to sleep in? Proverbs 13, 20 says, he that walketh with a wise man shall be wise but a companion of fools shall be destroyed So step number four you can’t spend time with nefarious Disorganized and dysfunctional people. I just refuse to do it. I won’t and this is step four You have to refuse to spend time with disorganized dysfunctional people. You can’t do it, because they will make you crazy. So that’s why I don’t spend time with these people. I had a friend of mine, a long-time friend of mine, pulled me aside and he said, hey, you want to grab breakfast on Sunday? I said, yeah, let’s go. What do you want time to go? He said 6.30. So we met at 6.30, we went out for breakfast. It was crazy. He was there, I was there, we both showed up as nuts. But like, neither one of us thinks it’s like a difficult thing to have breakfast at 630. Right. And both of us are taking our families to church at 10, so we thought let’s have breakfast early. Mm-hmm. But if I’m around a nefarious person, they can’t wake up early because they’re still hammered. They can’t wake up early because they’re so disorganized, dysfunctional, there’s all sorts of issues. So again, I’m walking you through these basic steps that you need to have in place. And the final step I’ll give you, there’s endless of these, we teach these kinds of things that are in-person workshops and other things, is you must be organized at all times. So when people call me and say, Clay, when is my speaking time at your upcoming event? I’m not saying, I don’t know. I’m organized at all times, so I never need to get organized. I’m just always organized. And this is some big stuff here. So if you’re out there today and you’re going, okay, how do I become super successful? There are five steps to becoming a super successful person. Now there’s other steps that are involved here and we’re going to get into those and we’ll walk you through the specifics. How to optimize a website, how to launch online ads, how to do accounting, how to do marketing, how to hire, how to fire. But if you can’t master these basic five steps, you’re just going to drift from one idea to the next idea. And you’re going to think that the reason why the business didn’t work is because the idea wasn’t good. And you’re not going to recognize that it is your execution of the idea that is not good. That’s why I’ve been able to go to the men’s grooming business, men’s grooming lounge, and have success, or the dog training business and have success, or the real estate business and have success, or the photography business and have success, or the entertainment industry and have success, or the precious metals industry and have success. It’s not because of an idea. It’s because of the execution of an idea over and over and over. So on part two of today’s show, we’re going to listen to a testimonial from Doug Yarholer. And then on part three of today’s show, we’ll be joined by a long-time client by the name of Brett Denton. So you can hear his success story. And these are real clients. I mean, Brett Denton has a gym. I’ve worked with Brett, I think, for 13 years, helping him grow his company called CavellFit.com. And in the case of Doug, Doug has been in our program for a long time, working with Sean and Clay Stairs and the whole team there. And he’s a metal roofing guy. He’s a metal roofing guy. His company is called MetalRoofContractorsOK.com. Both are having massive success. Different industries, different states. But they’re implementing these proven systems. And so now, without any further ado, we move on to part two of today’s show, our client success story with Doug Yarholer. Holer? Holar. Yes, yes, yes, and yes, Thrive Nation, we are in the air everywhere in Clay Stairs. I’m excited to interview one of your long-time clients here because his first name is Doug and his last name was Yarholer, and Yarholer was the name of the girl I dated in high school. Get out. I’m just kidding. Get out. I’m just kidding. I just wanted to have some sort of false report building tie-in. Doug Yarholer, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Doing well. Doing well. How are you guys? I feel like I’m on a dating show here. I know, it feels that way. I’m just going to tell you, your hair looks great today, by the way. Thanks, thanks. I want to get into the difficult questions first. How long have you known Clinton Harris approximately? March of 2018 was when we started, he started as my business coach, saw him in a, it was more or less a class that he taught, taught a lesson, and it just, it struck me, he kinda put a vision out there of where I wanted to be, and we hired him about a month later. And how much have you grown since the time you started working with Clay Stairs, approximately five years ago? I feel like I became an adult or almost an adult. You walked into a future. Yeah, I mean, honestly just- We did do Puberty together, it was a great time. Yeah, it was great. Felt like a kid, you know, in management term, had, you know, bought a company two or three years prior. And so just over that time, years prior. Over that time, I really feel like just a lot of growth, maturity. I’m not asking for the financial number, but just so our listeners can have a little context there. As far as maybe a percentage growth in terms of the revenue of the business, is there a percentage? Did you decrease by 45%? Should you grow a little bit? Sure. I would say we were a $6 million construction company, and now we’re a nine or 10. The new math would be 50, 60 some percent. Now my final question I have for you, and I’m going to let Clay Stairs interrogate you, is you guys worked together for a long time, and I know you’re a real person, but for people out there that want to verify that you are not a hologram, what is your website? Where can people go to find your company? Sure. MetalRoofContractorsOK.com. Okay, so I’m going to pull it up here. MetalRoofContractorsOK.com. Okay. Well, he’s a real deal. He’s not a hologram. I’ve met him in person. Now, Stairs, you work with this guy every single week as a consultant, as a coach. You and Sean have worked with Doug there. I’d love to get your thoughts on just what that relationship’s been like there. Yeah. Doug has become even, I would say, a good friend as well. I really enjoyed one of the high points of the week when he and I get together. But Doug, if I remember correctly, I was going back and reading some of those early day notes from some of our coaching sessions. And as we started up, I remember you were very unhappy with all of your branding when it came to systems for managing systems, for marketing systems, for sales. It was just non-existing. Am I correct on that? Yeah, you know, just preparation for the phone call, looking back at the notes, it was kind of depressing. But yeah, you know, I think young, naive, I kind of had a vision, just didn’t know how to get there. But yeah, that’s pretty accurate. Yeah, and then I remember even though you may have been young and naive, your website was ranking really well at the time, so we didn’t even touch your current website, but we created a new website, and I think it’s been maybe about a year or so now that… Now you’re number one and number two for metal roof contractors in Oklahoma with both of your websites. How would you say getting all the reviews that you have here now, the highest and most reviewed in Oklahoma. How would you say those reviews and that website, that converting website, how would you say that’s helped you in your company to get that phone to ring? Tremendously. I think what’s important to remember too is it’s not only sales. I think part of the reason we are where we’re at now is we’ve got a great team. And the hiring system that we’ve learned from you guys is just as important for us to keep our reputation. And every interview we have, we get to kind of our last step and there’s a discussion of, hey, you know, I’ve seen you guys, I’ve looked over your website and your reviews are awesome. You know, I’d love to work here. So I think there’s also some pride here with current employees that know that these are real genuine people that appreciate the work that we do. So I think that’s another aspect that nobody ever thinks about. And I think all the steps, you know, it’s not just one piece. It’s not just the marketing, just the reviews. It’s all of it together. That, you know, once you get them going, it doesn’t take much maintenance. You guys are writing the content. So, but that’s, you know, we get leads from it, it’s great. And, you know, in our business, a lot of our business is repeat, so 60, 70%. So we’re just looking for to turn one phone call into even a little job, and then we’re hoping to get a customer for life. Now, Sean, I wanna go to you in just a second for any questions you may have for Doug, but I wanted just to tee up this idea. I’m gonna pull up the screen so people can see this. When a lot of times people look up clients that we’ve coached or we’ve helped them through success, I get a lot of questions where it’s like, what’s the one thing they did to grow? So I’m just going to hammer home what Doug said. Papa Gallo’s is a pizzeria. They’re based in Satellite Beach, Florida. And if they were to tell you, people ask them, because people do call them, they say, I would like to see what’s the one thing that Clay Clark or Clay Stairs taught you? And what they say a lot of times, they’ll say, well, we had to do the marketing to get leads, then we had to improve the branding so that way people wouldn’t reject us when they found us, then we had to fix the menu, then we had to fix the pricing, then we had to learn a hiring system, then we had to fix our accounting, then we had to fix the legal aspects of our company, then we needed to build all the checklists and processes and then we needed to scale it. So when you see a company like Papa Gallo’s that’s grown eight times larger than when we first met them. It wasn’t the conference where Clay Starr spoke, was it the website, was it the print piece, was it the marketing? It’s all of it working together. And that’s why I really love working with you and our team working with you and I hear great things is because you understand that idea. And if you’re out there today, you just gotta understand that it’s implementing an entire system that creates that success. And so Sean’s had the opportunity to work with you on that. Sean, what say you? Well, one of the best things that happened with Doug and Clay Stairs together is they were able to, ahead of me working with another client who’s in the same boat as Doug, they were able to transition out of doing so much bid work and actually get some private clients. So they weren’t completely dependent upon those government jobs or lower percentages of profit and whatnot. So, I mean, I would just say, what were the biggest challenges and kind of pushback things that you had as we were trying to help you make that transition? You know, I think it’s just kind of part of our industry, commercial construction, and I’m sure you guys see it. Everybody says that. So, you know, I think even the class that I was in, you know, kind of the guys talking around is like, well, I mean, how are you going to get out of bid work? That’s how you got to make a living. And for us, we’re in a niche market, so the bid work isn’t necessarily raised to the bottom. I mean, it’s good for us, but being in a niche market, you’re going to have good years, you’re going to have down years and for me I’m just I’m a control freak and if I can’t control that workflow then you know I just can’t be in that position and so having the private sales having a system something to rely on you know I think of it as a volume button and I that’s what clay had kind of talked about is it’s a volume you know you can see the the gap coming up or the slowdown, it’s time to turn up the volume. And just having those tools available, you don’t get to where you feel paralyzed, like you’re just waiting on the phone to ring. It gives you the tools to do it yourself. That was a huge step. I remember as you and I were talking early on, you were saying, play right now. If I’m not mistaken, it was like maybe 90%, 100% of your business was bid work. That was one of the things that you were wanting to change in the company. Where are we now with your bid work versus private work? What are the percentage? Well, it fluctuates every year. I’d say in general, we’re probably 70% bid work, 30% private, which is awesome for us. This year, for about the last six months, the bid market has been down, and we’re 50-50. And looking back here at some of our goals, we’re right on target for a $10 million a year. So, really, really rewarding. you know, in four or five years ago, it’d just be one of those things we say, well, it’s a down year. And to have the ability to, you know, really turn it up the volume and get out there and do it ourselves, it really gives us a lot of freedom. Now, Stairs, I want to bring this up here. One of the things we do with our business model, I encourage everybody out there, if you have a business, you should also employ this idea. You want to make a profit, but you also don’t want to gouge customers. So when we work with coaching clients, it’s a flat fee. So the client knows, hey, it’s going to be X amount of dollars per month. It’s going to be $1,700 a month per month or whatever the fee is, a flat rate. And there’s not all these other little fees going in there. And what I tell people all the time is for less money than it costs to hire a minimum wage employee, you’re able to have a consultant to help you and then a team behind the scenes to help you implement website edits, print pieces, help you on the accounting, the workflow, whatever. I’d love to get your thoughts on this. They’re dug in. I’ll go back to Clay Stairs. What are your thoughts on knowing that you have a set monthly fee and you have a weekly appointment where it’s not an event, it’s a weekly process, someone that every week is going to push you, hold you accountable and be there to support you. What is that experience like, sir? Yeah, $1,700, we may need to renegotiate. No, as far as every bit of it, you know, and I’ve got ambition, you know, I don’t think that’s But I think you can get into, there’s so many time suckers out there, lots of distractions. And to know that I’ve got somebody that I have to be accountable to just keeps me on task. And that’s, I say valuable. I can’t think that I would be here without that, you know, the ambition in the world, but if you’re distracted from the mission, you’re not going to get there. So to know that, man, I’m behind this week, but I’ve got to show up next week for Clay or here in two days, I got to get my life together to get back on calendar. You know, looking back, that’s been instrumental in us getting to where we’re at today. Playstairs, I think we have time for one more question from you there, sir, for Doug. And again, for anybody out there, I did not date a woman by the name of Yarholder in high school. I thought it was a great kind of tie-in there, but I’ll put it back to you, Stairs. Very good, yeah. Okay, it’s going to be a two-part question for you here, Doug. First of all, I think a lot of times people will think, I’m going to get a coach and then everything will be fine. But man, over the last five years, you have been through some big hurdles. And if you wouldn’t mind to share some of the big hurdles that you’ve had to address while running the company and not just shutting down. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I remember so vividly that February when we met, just because, you know, I think every, and I say naive entrepreneur has that vision of what that looks like. And I think you were talking about time freedom and work-life balance. And there was kind of a real realistic, you know, well, this is where you want to be, this is what you got to do, that spoke to me. And so, hired Clay, 1st of March, and it was maybe 45 days later, almost, April 12, 2018, my oldest daughter was diagnosed with leukemia. And really shut down our life. So this vision of having a team help and time freedom, I mean, we only had six weeks to start some systems and get the, you know, the scoreboards, the to-do list going. But I mean, I really think that there’s something spiritual to my story and just really thankful. And it was kind of all the proof that I needed. And so that was, you know, five years ago now. And so that’s, you know, overcoming that. I can’t imagine. And it, you know, it’s, again, I think it’s probably spiritually led that I was able to meet Clay and have these tools in place just to know, you know, because that’s at that point in time, you know, work is not really important. But to have, you know, the – I can be with my family and know that I’ve got tools to keep a business going. So – And anyway, you know, you can get past that. Yeah, and just really quickly, how is she doing now and how is your time and freedom now? How’s your golf game? How’s your time vacationing with family and stuff like that? Just talk a little bit about that. It’s great. It’s great. We just won Audra, my oldest daughter, she’s awesome. She’s just starting survivorship right now, so she was seven when she was diagnosed. She’s 12 now. She’ll start heading to the Stevenson Center in Oklahoma City. And it’s, they call it survivorship. So she’s doing awesome. Middle school golf game’s great. Just with my friend’s ass in a golf league. So, feeling pretty good. Yeah, that was a good tip too. I remember talking to her, she’s going, dude, you got to go play golf now. Once a week, you got to go play golf. And have you been doing any travel with family, your wife and stuff like that? Yeah. Well, and just in our recent meetings and conversations, I’ve got this and I kind of just wrote it down. It’s just unrealized time freedom. You know, it’s hard to remember what I did yesterday. And, you know, I kind of looked it up and I’ve been gone three weeks out of the last six. Work, vacation, golf, we did the College World Series. And so, that’s kind of where I’m at now is we built this organization and this great team that’s really kind of supported me through this. It’s kind of unrealized now. Now, I think moving forward, it’s how do I do this intentionally and kind of enjoy this time. Doug, you’re looking like you smell terrific. I appreciate you. For folks out there that don’t get a chance to experience this firsthand Zoom interview, he is looking like he smells terrific there, folks. It’s effervescent, really. And that website is metalroofcontractorsok.com. Metalroofcontractorsok.com. And again, folks, if you want to schedule a 13-point assessment with Clay Stairs, I’ll put a link on the description of today’s show so you can schedule a free consultation, and Clay Stairs can sit down with you and figure out how we can help you to scale and grow your business. Doug, have a great day, sir. We’ll talk to you soon. See you, Doug. Awesome. Appreciate it, guys. See you. All right, Thrive Nation. On today’s show, we’re joined by a real client. He’s not a hologram. I’ve known him, I believe, for almost a decade. Brett Denton, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? Yeah, man. I think it’s been, it feels like forever with YouClick, because you go a million miles an hour, so it’s more like a century. But yeah, it’s been a little over a decade now. I’m doing great. It’s awesome, and how I first started working with you, I believe, is working with your company called Cavell Fit. Can you tell everybody out there, what is Cavell Fit, and what kind of work did we do to help you grow that business? Yeah, so I actually had heard about you on the John Lee Dumas podcast, and we were in the process of looking for a coach at the time, I had a partner, and we were looking to expand and grow our fitness company. So it’s a brick and mortar fitness company. We do boutique personal training, boutique group training. And we are looking to implement systems. We’re really trying to take it one step further, start expanding, start growing. We’re one facility at a time. And so we’re just looking for somebody with a little bit more knowledge on how to help us do that, how to build the systems to be able to scale. Now, every client that I work with, what I try to do is help break down this complicated thing called success and turn it into core, repeatable, actionable processes. Things that I affectionately call CRAF, core, repeatable, actionable processes. So to grow Cavell, if we can go back to that for a second, to grow Cavell, I mean, it’s a gem. Can you tell everybody out there, what are the services that Cavell Fit did provide and currently does provide? Yeah. So, when we had come on with you, I think the only thing that we were providing was group fitness training and maybe a little bit of nutrition. This current juncture, we provide personal training, we provide group fitness training, we provide nutrition and challenges. And we actually had grown, this is pre-COVID, we had grown using your tutelage to two facilities and a third one in the works. And so, again, relying on the systems and processes and kind of the boring things. At this point, I tell people, it’s all the boring things that you taught us that really make the difference in our scalability. Now I have a visual diagram I’m gonna pull up and I use the same system with every business I’m involved in. And so it’s kind of a way to take out of my brain maybe the system and make it where everyone can see it. And I don’t hide the system, I teach it to people. Box number one, we have to figure out your revenue goals. And I know working with you with Cavell, if we go back over a decade, you had revenue goals in your mind. Box two, we have to know how many customers we need to break even. Why is it so important for the listeners out there to know how many customers they need to break even? Well, just from my experience, if you don’t know how many customers you need to break even, you don’t know how much to charge, you don’t know how to watch your expenses, you don’t really have a good hold on your business. It’s kind of like flying a plane without looking at the panel. You don’t know your elevation, you don’t know where you are in the sky, you don’t know where the ground is. If you don’t really know that break even, then how are you going to know if you’re making money or not? Now, box three, you and I have never really had to talk about this box too much, but some entrepreneurs want to have massive success without putting in massive amount of work. We’ve never had to figure out how many hours per week you’re willing to work. You’re a guy that was a walk-on football player that ended up earning a spot on the roster there in Division I football. You started the business from nothing, but a lot of people do need a little pushing on that. Now, box number four is determining your unique value proposition. And I would argue that at Cavell Fit, you weren’t the first guy to develop the idea of a group fitness class, but we had to find a way to help Cavell stand out in the cluttered marketplace. Can you talk about the importance of having a coach work with you to figure out how you could stand out in the cluttered marketplace? Yeah, I think having a coach in general helps you see the forest for the trees and the trees for the forest, depending on what issue you’re having. And this is a big issue in the fitness space. In the fitness space, like many spaces, it’s very competitive. There’s a new fitness franchise popping up, it seems like, every other month. And so if you don’t really understand what your value is and why you’re unique in the marketplace, it’s really hard to compete and just be another, you know, another gym or another personal trainer or another whatever your widget is and so I think again having a coach be able to see outside of what you can see because you’re in your business on a day-to-day basis and try to pull that out of you know what you currently offer or offer something new I think is invaluable. Now improving your branding and whether it’s a dog training or you know you’re selling logs too you’re selling logs no matter what business you’re involved in, the branding has to be great. Brett, you recently purchased a new business. Could you tell us about your new company, sir? Yeah, so I purchased Sawtooth Wood Products. We sell logs, we do fencing, we’re a contractor, we sell power equipment. Again, it gets into a little bit of the commodity business. I would argue fitness is a commodity at this point, too. You really got to, number one, define your niche, so what’s your value proposition. And number two is your branding better than your competition. And this is something that we continue to work on every single week, every single month, because everything continues to evolve. And so we continue to want to look better. And with our new business, a little bit with Covell Fitness too, but with our new business, we really cater to the high-end clientele, so the ultra-wealthy affluent. And so if our brand doesn’t look on par with what they’re used to, we’re going to lose business. And so we’ve got to make sure that that branding looks the part. Now are you going to go, did you decide to go with a website for Sawtooth Wood Products or did you decide to market primarily via fax machine? Yeah, fax machine. We’re flying the airplanes in the sky around the city. We’ve got to have a website, and the website is ultra important, not only, again, the look and the feel of it, but also, are we ranking? And again, this is something that we actually had no clue about before we started with Clay. And since we started with Clay, the search engine optimization, SEO, which I’d never heard the term before, the importance of the Google map and how to optimize that, how else do we get people to our website, because a website is great and it can look as pretty as you want it to look, but at the end of the day if nobody’s coming to the website, it’s not doing you good anyway. We need it to look the part and we need to drive people there. Now, we work with you with three brands right now. We work with Cavell Fit, we work with Tip Top Canine, you’re a franchisee, and we work with Sawtoothwoodproducts.com. Can you share with the listeners out there, we’re going to go to this next box here, why is it important that as you’re marketing that you actually ask people or that your team asks people over the phone how they heard about you? Why is that so important that it sawtooth or tip-top or that you know Cavell, why is it important that you don’t just rely on what people check on the form and that you actually ask people how they heard about you? Well the way that I’ve understood marketing to work is people have to see you multiple times. So they might see, let’s take Tip Top for example. So the Tip Top cars are wrapped, they’re bright, they’re yellow. So they might see the car, and then they might see one of our Google ads, and then their friend might say, hey, I use Tip Top, and then all of a sudden they see on Facebook, and then finally they click the link, and the one thing that they remember is maybe the Facebook. And so we want to ask them, because then we can have that conversation with them and then instead of it just being one answer, we can say, oh, there’s actually four things we need to make sure that we keep those four things going, keep continuing to spend marketing dollars on those things instead of just getting rid of all the rest. So, you know, let’s say everybody started coming in through Facebook. Now, we probably need to pay attention to that, but at the end of the day, if you’re not having those conversations, you might start to realize, oh, they’re actually searching us on Google and then everybody’s going to our Facebook page and that’s just how they come into us and that’s the last thing they remember. Now this next box here is again we have sales conversion, sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheet. You have to have that. If you’re listening today folks, you’ve got to have sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheet. Now the next box is you have to determine how much it costs you to get a customer. And I don’t care whether it’s Covell Fit or Tip Top, you have to ask the question, how much money am I spending on advertising and how many leads am I getting? So if you’re spending $350 a week on ads and you’re getting 10 leads, then you’re spending $35 per lead. Why is it important that on a weekly basis that you hop on a coaching call, whether it be for Tip Top, K9, or Sawtooth, and you take that moment to look at your numbers and go, how much am I spending per lead? Well, there’s a few reasons. Number one, if you don’t really have a coach to do that, there’s very few people, coming from the fitness space, there’s very few people who do what they know they should be doing on a weekly basis, unless they have an accountability person there, whether it be a personal trainer, a business coach, whatever it is. And so those things that we know we should do, but they aren’t that sexy, they’re not that fun, those are really the things that a coach is probably most valuable in helping hold you accountable to. And so every week we look at those numbers to make sure where am I at? You know, how is my business doing? How much money am I spending on marketing? How much do I have coming back in? Am I losing money? Am I making money, et cetera? Dan Kennedy talks a lot about the fact that if you can spend more than your competitors to win customers, you’re going to win for your industry. And so again, if you don’t look at your numbers, you don’t know how much you’re spending on leads, you got no clue what’s going on. You know, in 10 years, we’ve never talked about Dan Kennedy, but I’ll say I love Dan Kennedy because he’s a very realistic author. And he’s not telling people, you know, how to make a million dollars in seven minutes. He’s not trying to teach people that the Google algorithm is dramatically traged. He’s not a get rich quick guy. Dan Kennedy is a process guy. And I really love that. And I want to show people this. If anybody goes to Elephant in the Room, eitrlounge.com, and you were to buy an Elephant in the Room franchise, a couple things. It’s going to cost you a lot of money. And why? Because you have to build a physical location. You had to build an actual store. We cut hair. So you got to open up a location. You got to open up a shop. You got to do the build outs. You got to do the shampoo rooms, the front entry. Maybe you’re out there and you’re listening and you’re a skilled builder, but every store I’ve done costs me hundreds of thousands of dollars to build out. I was opening up the Elephant in the Room franchise, as I told you, I said, �Brett, you don’t want to buy an elephant in the room. No, no, no, you don’t, because it’s going to cost so much money to do it. Now, the systems we have are great, but I think a tip-top canine would be great for you and your sister. It’s the same systems and the processes that we’ve built for all my companies, but I think it’s a move because it’s under 60 grand to get started. All the systems are there. I’m just showing you, this is what, if you buy an elephant in the room franchise, these are all the documents you have, all the processes. And you pretty much knew, okay, if you built tip-top canine processes, they’re going to run the same as Elephant in the Room, and they’re going to run the same as Cavell, and it’s going to be a thing. Can you talk about the importance in your decision to buy a tip-top canine, how important it was knowing that we were using the same systems that we had used to build Elephant in the Room and the other companies that we coached you with? Yeah. And so, you know, we had been looking for a way to expand and to grow outside of our fitness business. I was looking for something my sister could do. And I had come to you multiple times about elephant in the room. And every time you just said, hey, why don’t you, I don’t recommend it, but why don’t you come and you visit one and you kind of work through it and figure out if that’s something you want to do. Figure out if that’s how much you want to spend, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then Tip Talk came along and yeah, it made a lot more sense. We had the processes in place just like we did with Elephant in the Room. And so I knew that I could take that, give it to my sister, and then she would then be successful just by running the systems. And I wouldn’t be so far in the hole like I would with an Elephant in the Room, and we could start it out of her house, and then eventually build a facility, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And again, it was all based on those systems, and that’s the only reason, frankly, that we decided to do it. So same thing, we went and we visited TipTop, we worked through it with them, we worked through with Clay what the systems were going to look like, how it was all going to function. And without the systems, there’s no way we would have done it. We were both jumping into… My sister was jumping from a real estate career to a dog training career. And so without the systems in place, there’s no way I would have spent the money on it. It’s not like it’s cheaper than an elephant in the room, but you’re still dropping some change. Now, when you buy a franchise, you’ve got these systems, so box 10, you’ve got to manage, you’ve got to hold people accountable. I think that’s really the value of the coaching system, and that’s why when somebody goes to TipTopK9.com and requests a franchise, I feel like they’re going to have success. I feel comfortable selling it, I feel comfortable talking about it because I know that if you buy a tip-top canine franchise, you won’t throw a gutter ball because someone’s going to hold you accountable to doing the tasks on a weekly basis. And I think if you’re not careful, Brett, and you’ve seen this in the fitness space and we’ve talked about this, if you’re not careful focusing on the things that grow your company, you get distracted on things that don’t matter. And in the fitness space, particularly, there’s always a new way to track Google leads. There’s a new way to optimize the website. The algorithms have changed. There’s a new hiring process. Zip Recruiter has found a way to find the best employees. If you’re not careful, Brett, I mean, there’s a fad of the week, a fad of the year, a fad of the month. I’d love to get your thoughts on that, of what would a franchise look like, a Tip Top Canine franchise look like in your mind if you didn’t have that weekly accountability to hold someone accountable to following the systems? Well, the problem with most business owners, as you know, Clay, is the shiny object syndrome. I had it probably worse than anything. I’m still recovering from it. I think that’s one of the things that you had taught me is with the weekly meetings, it keeps us on path and it keeps us focused on the things we need to be focused on. Because there’s all kinds of other BS that you could focus on that don’t really grow your business. And marketers are good, and the sales reps are good, and they all sound great. But at the end of the day, it’s the simple things that you do over and over again, the boring things that you do over and over again. But it’s like, again, I’ll go back to personal training, because it’s similar. If you don’t work out, if you don’t have a personal trainer to hold you accountable to work out, you’re not gonna get results. If you don’t eat the right foods with a personal trainer holding you accountable, you’re not gonna get results. And so it’s the same with coaching. It’s the same in TipTop, it’s the same in Cavell, it’s the same in Sawtooth. Without the coach helping you, the systems don’t mean anything if you don’t implement them. And so without the coach making sure that you’re implementing those systems, it doesn’t work. Now I’m gonna pull this up here, because we’ve got to wrap up this particular session here, Brett, is you want to create a sustainable and repetitive weekly schedule. I mean, in the fitness business, if you grab a new client that goes to Cavellfit.com to sign up for training, and you were like, imagine, I know you don’t do this, but imagine you did. And by the way, Tip Top K9, it’s a dollar for the first lesson. Cavellfit, it’s a dollar to start the body transformation program. A lot of analogous systems that, if you go to Elephant in the Room, it’s a dollar. You see a lot of these systems. Brett, imagine you told somebody, okay, Sarah, we’re going to work out every third Monday at 7 a.m. Now every second Tuesday at 8 p.m. and every fourth Thursday at 7 a.m. and there’s only 17 things I want you to remember. There’s 17 things to remember. And every week, the schedule changed. And every week, the workout changed. And every week, the diet plan changed. What would happen to your fitness clients? Because you’ve produced so many successful before and after clients at Cavell. What would happen if you change the workout time on somebody every week, changed the fitness program every week, and then brought in a new guest speaker to pontificate about their theories about what could be a successful fitness regimen. What would happen? Well, frankly, I think that’s what most people try to do until they determine that that doesn’t work and then they go find a coach and stick with that one coach. We always tell our people, like, hey, you got to find a plan. If it’s our plan, great. We think our plan is the best, but if it’s not our plan, then great, but whatever you do, find a plan. Stick with that plan. What is it always you say, Clay, focus? What is focus again? Focus on core tasks until success. That’s it, you know, and so it’s like, it’s the same thing. Find one plan, one nutrition plan, one workout plan, and work on it until you’ve come to the end of that plan. You know, like you’ve achieved some results there and you can’t get anything more out of that plan. Which most plans in fitness and in business, they work forever and your business just keeps getting better and better and better or your body keeps getting better and better and better. Now Brett, a final question I want to ask you this because fitness in my opinion is very similar, fitness coaching is very similar to business coaching. One of my great clients, I won’t mention his name so I don’t have permission to do so, but he tells his clients, listen, if you sign up for my fitness program, my one-on-one training program, you can eat meat, you can eat vegetables, and only drink water. And if you do that and follow my program, you’ll have success. But if you don’t do that, now this is kind of a boutique business, he says, if you don’t do that, and he wants you to track your meals, if you don’t do that, I’m gonna charge you double for your personal training. And it’s gonna be in the contract. So you’re gonna follow, you’re gonna only eat meat, only have vegetables, only have water. He says, Clay, my clients, they have dramatic results. And he said, but the thing is, they get a little frustrated with me that I’m not open to new ideas. And they almost want me to like, they bring in magazines and they go, hey, here’s a new magazine I just read. This is a new way to help people improve their metabolism. This is a new approach. And he says, even though they’re getting results, they always want a new approach. Do you see that in fitness where clients, even though they’re getting results, they want a new approach? Do you see that? Yeah, always. It’s a boredom factor and it’s, again, results aren’t sexy. The things that you need to do to get results aren’t sexy. It’s just a matter of doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and making sure that those are the right things. But yeah, almost invariably, at some point, they’re going to get bored and want to try something else. Three rapid fire questions. If people want to buy copious amounts of logs from you, what’s the website they need to go to to buy copious amounts of logs from you, sir? Yeah, it’s Sawtooth Wood Products, like a saw that you saw trees with, sawtoothwoodproducts.com. That’s our fencing and tree and log business. For everybody out there who’s, you know, thinking about buying a franchise, what do you think the importance is of having weekly coaching, I guess, specifically under the tip-top canine mindset, because you own a tip-top canine. What’s the importance of coaching, sir, weekly coaching? Yeah, I don’t think, you know, in my opinion, anybody who wants to perform at a high level in whatever it is you want to perform at, you need a coach. And it’s not always that the coach is smarter than you. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they have systems and stuff, but really it’s accountability. Are you showing up on a weekly, monthly, whatever it is the arrangement is? Without it, you’re not going to perform at your best in business, in fitness, in sports, whatever it is. And then, what are your thoughts on Andrew’s, I’ve worked with you personally for 10 years, how would you describe Andrew’s consulting or coaching? Because I’ve worked with you personally, and we only take on 160 clients, so Andrew works with your sister and with the Tip Top K9 brand. How would you describe your experience working with Andrew? Andrew is a very positive guy. I’ve never seen the guy in a bad mood, frankly. But again, he focuses on the basics, and he focuses on the basics in a way that can be annoying and irritating to the point of like, all right, I get it. I just need to do the basics. But you know, he knows the system, like the back of his hand, that he knows what works, he knows what people should be doing. And so, you know, I’ve had no complaints with Andrew. I think he’s been a great coach. Brett Dittin, I really do appreciate your carving out time to be here with us today. That wasn’t a wood-related pun, but I also encourage people to check out your Sawtooth Wood products. And what service area do you provide logs to, sir? What are the service areas? Yeah, so at the moment, you know, maybe we can scale at some points, but we’re new in the industry here. So we’re mainly in the Sun Valley area. We could ship logs everywhere, but we’re mainly in Sun Valley area, Idaho, ski resort town situation. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys, uh, that we’ve had by working with Thrive. Um, first of all, um, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. Um, I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have two to 3000 pages of content, um, attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews, and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area, and that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 111% were up with with our new customers amazing right so not only do we have more customers calling in We’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before right now our closing rate is about 85% And that’s largely due to First of all like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten people really see that our customers are happy But also we have a script that we follow and so when customers call in they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah. So here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months or I’m sorry the first We booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year It’s incredible But the reason when we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. That way everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast, like Jared had mentioned that has really really contributed to our success but that like is it the diligence and consistency and doing those and that system has really really been a big blessing in our lives and also and you know it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive we were basically stuck really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Oh, sorry. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, and they taught us those systems. They taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So, I just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. 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 and Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with 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 Lee Crocker, or Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with 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, 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 6 to 8 weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6 to 8 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. 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, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. 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, 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. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. 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. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. So, he’s impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or 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 get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. 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. 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, right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? 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. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen. 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. 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. The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops Because we teach you what you need to know to grow You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies We get into the specifics the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge. And they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same system that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t loan it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you gotta do is go to ThriveTimeShow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.