Business Podcasts | Excellence | How to Become a Person & An Organization of Excellence | “Seest Thou a Man Diligent In His Business? He Shall Stand Before Kings.” – Proverbs 22:29 | Special Interview with Ritz-Carlton Co-Founder

Audio Transcription

On today’s show, we’re interviewing the former president and the co-founder of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. In August of 1983, Gerald W. Blakely, who owned and managed the hotel, sold the Ritz-Carlton Boston and the U.S. trademark for $75.5 million dollars to William B. Johnson, who was once the largest owner of the Waffle House franchises. Oh, yeah. William Johnson also owned Holiday Inns and Marriotts. Yeah, but why did the hotel, hotel, hotel get here? Penn William decided to assemble a four-person dream team in Atlanta to lead the company headed by none other than today’s guest, Horst Schultz, to create the Ritz-Carlton Hotel brand and to establish the Ritz-Carlton chain of hotels. Schultz dramatically revolutionized the hotel industry while turning the Ritz-Carlton into one of the most remarkable and recognized international brands on the planet. Horst’s obsession with providing world-class customer service has set the standard for excellence in the hotel industry for over 30 years. Under his leadership, Ritz-Carlton won the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1992. Only one other company has ever won the award more than once and the Ritz-Carlton is the only company in the hotel industry To actually win this award today Horst is the best-selling author of the book excellence wins a no-nonsense Guide to becoming the best in a world of compromise Chubb we don’t have any more time to horse around And this intro is making me horse So let’s hear it straight from the horse’s mouth. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. Thrive Nation, I could not be more excited to interview today’s guest. His name is Horst Schultz I’m excited to interview today’s guest. His name is Horst Schultz, and I’m sure you’re familiar with the company that he co-founded and the company that he was once the former president of. The company is called Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. Horst Schultz, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m great and delighted to be here. Sir, the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company has set so many benchmarks for excellence in customer service. Your name has been publicized and people know you for the success you achieved, but could you start off at the bottom and share with us where you’re from and your background before becoming the king of hotels? King is good. Well, I’m actually not a king at all. I come from a very small background, a small village in Germany. I lived in the village until I was 14 and then I left and worked in a hotel. I had begged my parents to work in a hotel, which was very unpopular at the time, but they found the best job they could find, the finest hotel, which unfortunately was about 100 kilometers away from home. But so I left there, lived there in a dorm room with other kids, starting to work as a busboy. That meant everything at the time, cleaning, washing dishes, et cetera, et cetera, helping for three and a half years. Worked in the kitchen, worked in the restaurant, worked in the housekeeping and so on. And after that, I left and worked in the finest hotels in Europe, in Paris, in Switzerland, all the American line, Germany, England. After that, I came to the US in 1964, San Francisco, working in the Hilton and Hilton, private club and so on. ended up with Hyatt and worked for 10 years in Hyatt. I started as a director of food and beverage operations, director of rooms, general manager, vice president, regional vice president, corporate vice president, and then I was offered to start a job to start a new hotel company. Two hotels were in construction, both in Atlanta. And so the headquarters was in Atlanta. They were developers and financial people and needed somebody to run this new company and hotel business. They wanted to create their own brand. With the promise, they made me the promise that we could go top end. And so I left SAIT at the time, my great company hired, and moved to Atlanta and started a new hotel company. A year later we opened our first hotel and that became Ritz-Carlton. And that’s the story. Wow! That is a lot. You just flew through an incredible career. Let me re-spin here. Age 14, you just said that at age 14 you started working, is that correct? That’s correct, yeah. Correct. Well, it’s not an untypical German way of getting into a profession. You work in that profession and once a week you go to a school relative to that profession. That’s what I did. That’s a typical trade career in Germany. I saw a talk that you gave on YouTube. By the way, I’ve been watching way too many of your videos, so I apologize for cyber-stalking you so much. But I watched you deliver a talk, and my kids had a cheerleading event in Kansas City. And so the way cheerleading events go is your kids perform for about three minutes, and then the rest of the weekend you’re kind of hanging out at this arena. And so I went back to the hotel while I was waiting for them to perform, and I watched your videos. And one of the things that you said, and I had to play it back over and over and over, is you were comparing your commitment to having excellence in work with your commitment to staying married, if I’m getting that correct. Could you please explain the parallels between committing to bring excellence and committing to stay married? Well, I believe that everything we do is a decision that we make, not a pipe dream, a clear decision. In marriage, I made a clear decision when I got married, I will be in love with that woman for the rest of my life. Not just love her, but be in love. And I can tell you unequivocally, I’m married 40 years and I’m totally in love with that woman, but it takes work. It’s not different than when you take a job, you make a decision to be excellent in that job or whatever is in life. Those are decisions. I can either just go to work or go to work to create excellence. I always say I go to work for two reasons. One is to create excellence in what I’m doing. Two is to be with my friends. If they like it or not, they’re my friends. If I have that attitude, I enjoy going there and I create something. Why waste the eight hours, whatever we are at work now? You know in a leadership position, it’s much more than eight hours. But if it is the eight hours, Why waste it and just do function rather than whatever the function is, create excellence. Be it dish washing or whatever it is, create excellence in that. But how does it come about? Well, it’s a decision. A decision on which you work, on which you remind yourself of all the time. And so it is not different with anything else. Horst, I don’t want you to throw anything at me over the phone here. Not that Satan needs an advocate, but I’m going to be the devil’s advocate because I grew up really poor. I didn’t start working until I was 14, but really 16 is when I started my first thing. I am not a stranger of the 60-hour or the 70-hour work week. I’m not afraid to get to work at 4 or 5 or whatever. I’m also going to take care of my body and get sleep. And also, I have five kids and I’ve been married 18 years. So many people I see, they say, well, the reason why I didn’t get to work on time is I just didn’t feel like it. And so they have… So talk to me about your mindset of committing to excellence versus other people saying, I just don’t feel like it. Yeah, but it’s not different. I have a friend, a couple of years ago, a few years ago, good friends, and they’re getting divorced. I mean, of course, when people, when friends get divorced, it is a total, you know, friends and everybody gets divorced. It’s very impactful. And when I had to sit down, I didn’t understand. They were beautiful, two beautiful people, good-looking people, friendly people, warm people, honorable people. So I had to sit down with them and ask them for knowledge and said, why, why, why we don’t feel like it? What? You’re waiting for feeling. I’d rather make a decision what my feeling is, rather than make a feeling make my decisions. Well, that’s good. Can you repeat that again, sir? That was great. Yeah, well, I’m saying I’d rather make the decision what I feel, rather than have the feeling decide what I do, who I am, etc. This is so unreasonable to even allow that to happen. You make a decision and then you have to fight the decision. You have to fight against the feelings that try to interfere with your decision. But it has to be still your decision, and not that your decision is driven by your feelings. That right there is a knowledge nugget that somebody needs to write down. We need to put that on a t-shirt. Many people today should consider getting a tattoo. If you’re gonna get a tattoo, get that as a tattoo. Now, I wanna ask you this, because you worked very hard from age 14. You worked your way up at Hyatt. And then, my understanding is that Gerald W. Blakely, he owned the one individual Ritz-Carlton in Boston. And he sold the trademark and the brand to William B. Johnson, who I believe was the largest owner of the Waffle House franchises. Am I correct? Yeah, he owned about 150 Waffle Houses and office buildings and incidentally also owned married hotels and managed by married and holiday inns. When he built two hotels which were supposed to become holiday inns, he could not come to agreement at the time with holiday inns as to the fees, etc., etc. When somebody recommended him to start his own hotel company, his own brand. That put him on the search where I came in and was hired. We then said when we were here, we acquired a name. I forgot what name. We had a couple of names that we acquired. But we said it would be great to have an existing name that already makes sense, where people know it is a hotel. And we pursued two hotels, one hotel in San Francisco, the Mark Hopkins Hotel, and another one and he came back and said, well, it’s also the Ritz in Boston. We didn’t like that because it was a terrible hotel. It was terribly dilapidated. It was only for weekly, for monthly rentals. All people lived there, no air conditioning and so on. But the Mark Hoppings fell through, so he purchased because it was a great location. And frankly, the name was, everybody knew that it’s called Mint Hotel, even though it was not a good name anymore in the luxury area. We purchased that, we closed it for renovation. In the meantime, we adopted the name now. In the meantime, we opened our first hotel, which was the Ritz-Carlton here in Buckhead in Atlanta. And then a year later, we reopened Boston. But that’s how we acquired the name. Frankly, against the wishes of the operators, of the people around me, because it was so dilapidated, that hotel, and of course the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco at the time probably had a better name at that time. But the rest is history. Why did they choose you? Why did they choose you to do the… Somebody recommended me, and they kept on calling me. Who recommended you? Was it your mother? Was it your wife? Who recommended you? No, no. They hired a headhunter who inquired, and there was a guy that worked with Johnson. Johnson was the guy who was running the overall, who I had worked for before. So he got a few recommendations. The guy that I worked for before is Cogut Holmes, who was a hotelier. I had worked for him in Chicago for a while, so an outstanding man. He recommended me that I run this company, etc. So several other recommendations came out and they pursued me. I have a theory and I’d like to see if you could disprove or prove my theory here. As I’ve interviewed, we’ve interviewed Lee Cockrell, who used to manage Walt Disney World Resort, said 40,000 employees working in Orlando, a million customers a week. At your peak, how many people, how many hotels were you managing at the peak of Ritz-Carlton before you decided to move on? Just over 50. Okay. So you’re managing a large staff of people, and I’ve noticed that when you’re around these top people, Michael Levine, the top PR guy for Michael Jackson or Prince or Nike, you all, when you walk by a piece of trash, pick it up. Yes. But, but, but, but nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, I have three things I’ve observed. You pick up trash, even if it’s not your building, even if it’s not your trash, you pick it up. Second observation, I want to put this on the show notes, Andrew, because I’m going to grill horse on all these. Second is that you don’t want to be late. You hate being late. Top performers hate to be late. And third, you are working as unto the Lord and not as unto men. Therefore, headhunters are always pursuing you guys, because whatever standard that your boss sets is always the minimum standard in your minds. So let’s get into the trash thing. What’s going on with the trash thing? That is funny that you observe that. It’s so true. I do this. I clean bathrooms. In a plane, I mean, and I notice it myself and I stop it. I can’t help it. When things are not right, they have to be corrected. That’s that symbol. That sometimes is very negative. In fact, my wife, Nelly, doesn’t like to go out with me because I always have to correct something. But in my opinion, it should be corrected in order to be right. I can’t help that. And I guess that is part of the motivation where that comes from. And not wanting to be right in discussion is simply, that’s not how you learn. You learn only by input. And if you just think you’re right, you’re not learning anymore. That’s the thing, how do you improve? By eliminating your defect, by keep on learning. And if you don’t continuously improve, you’re going to lose. Somebody’s gonna bypass you. Somebody’s gonna be much better. You have to continuously learn. I won’t throw this guy under the bus, but it was a very funny situation. He came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we have a 20,000 square foot facility where we host our in-person workshops, which, by the way, if you ever want to come present, I know the Thrive audience would love you. We have about a half million folks that download the podcast every month, and we have a lot of our guests who attend. But I picked them up at the airport, and it was in Tulsa when it snows Paul You know how it gets when it snows in Tulsa it immediately melts so it’s a weird slushiness So the inside of my car. I had just had it detailed. I’m picking him up in my Hummer horse I’m picking him up. I’m driving him back from the airport, and he looks at me with this weird look And he says hey, what are you are we gonna get this thing washed, and I said well yeah, we get it What I mean it just snowed he was serious. He was we need to get it washed. Because it was a white Hummer. I hadn’t auto-wrapped it yet. He goes, we need to pull over. Like it was an emergency. Almost like I had to go to the bathroom really bad. He goes, can we please pull over? And I thought at first he was kidding. So we go out for sushi with my partner, Dr. Zellner. And this guy turns to Dr. Zellner and says, have you seen? I went up to the bathroom, but I could overhear him talking. And he’s like, have you seen how dirty the outside of that guy’s Hummer is? And so it was just, it bothers top performers. I want to tap into this next question. Being late. I’ve never talked to you before, but I know you hate it when people are late. Why do you hate it when you or anybody else is late? Oh, somebody must have talked to you about me. That’s right. I mean, it is so insulting to be late. But think, you go into a meeting, there’s 30 people, and you’re a minute late. What does that mean? It’s a half an hour. You just wasted a half an hour, people. Which is totally outrageous. What right do you have to take that away from the people that you’re dealing with? If it is one minute or 30, it doesn’t make a difference. It is just wrong. By the way, if I had a meeting at 3 o’clock, I would lock the door a minute after 3. If I would have meant a minute after 3, I would have said it. I’m not lying. I meant 3 o’clock. Would you lock the door? Would you literally do this? Would you actually lock the door? You better believe it, yes. Yes! Listen! I love it. There’s one listener out there I want to send this to. I can’t do it. I had a former partner back in the day and I had majority stock in the business and I said, if you are late, I’m locking the door. And when I started locking the door, he could not handle it. And that’s what broke up the partnership. I took over and things went well. So that is a… that right there, being late, you can’t… Horst, I don’t believe it’s possible to become the head of anything if you don’t pick up trash when you walk by it, if you’re chronically late. Do you disagree with that? Listen, if you would… you’re not lying if you agreed 3 o’clock or 2 or whatever time it is, why would you say that if you don’t mean it? I’m not lying. If I would have meant three minutes after three, I would have said so. I meant three o’clock. That is powerful. Now this next idea, I’m not sure, were you raised in a Christian background or was it more of a secular? What’s your religious background? Well, institutional Christians, if you will. We were Lutherans, we were pretty, but today I don’t want to scare people, I don’t want people to get scared with the earth, I call myself a born-again Christian. That means I have accepted that Christ is higher than I am, and accepting Him to be my leader, and anything else for me is arrogant. Well I want to ask you this because there is a Bible verse that speaks about this concept called work as unto the Lord. And I didn’t figure this out until I was about 19 years old. I was working at Target and my boss Horst told me, Clay, somebody is eating all of the pretzels. And of course I was eating all the pretzels. I’m like, I don’t know who it is. Well it has to be you or someone on the shift because someone’s eating all the pretzels. Well, long story short, you know, I was always late. I was always eating all the pretzels. I was always getting all the criticism. I was always being quote-unquote micromanaged. Then someone introduced me to the book Think and Grow Rich, which is not in the Bible, but it’s written by Napoleon Hill. And I decided to name my son, by the way, after Napoleon Hill. His name is Aubrey Napoleon Hill Clark. And after reading that book, I started getting into this crazy book called the Bible, and there’s a verse, Colossians 3, 23, where it reads, “…whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for Ritz-Carlton customers.” Ah, work as unto the Lord, not as for shareholders. Work as unto the Lord, not as unto your manager. “…since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward, it is the Lord Christ you are serving. I want to ask you, where did you get that idea to take customer service to the next level and to revolutionize the hospitality industry? Well, in my story I will tell about that maître d’ who impacted me, who said, don’t come to work for accident, but then go on being a Christian, I look, Jesus said, love your neighbor as yourself. Why would you not think that your guests or your employees are your neighbors? My goodness, what a, what a, and what an amazing thing, love your neighbor as yourself. What an amazing, who can say something about Christ, in my And so that had very much impact on me. But if you read my book, you will also see I tell a story about that by another Christian believer that is St. Benedict in the year 500, wrote to his monasteries and said, when a customer, when a guest arrived, at that time travelers stopped in monasteries for shelter, when a guest arrived, receive him, and women did not travel alone, receive him as if it was Christ himself. And not only that, if you’re on a fast, break your fast and have dinner with them so that they’re not alone, but first wash their feet. Now if that is hospitality, I cannot come close to that, but that’s the goal, to be as close as possible, to care that much. It’s caring. I mean, everything Christ did was the greatest thing of all is love. My goodness, you mean only for some people? No. Love is the greatest thing. Why wouldn’t you love your guest? Why wouldn’t you love your employees? In your book, which by the way, Excellence Wins, is a great read. It’s a no-nonsense guide to becoming the best in a world of compromise. You talk about these four you write about. I felt like you were talking to me because I’ve watched your YouTube videos and I’m reading it. It feels like you’re talking to me. I apologize for that, by the way. But in your book, you talk about these four supreme objectives. Objective number one, you write, is to keep the customer. What does that mean? Well, if it creates… I’m looking at what is a great company. The great company makes every effort to keep the customers that they have. That means they have to say, what is it that I have to do to keep this customers? What is it? Well, what you have to do is give that customer what the customer wants. That means they have to get in their head and understand what they want. What they really want, not what your mother-in-law told you or somebody set beside in a plane or your neighbor. No, what your market tells you they want, that’s what you give them. Number one, that’s what a company does. Number two, you find new ones. Number three, you get as much money from the customer as you can. But wait a minute, not at the cost of losing the customer, that means you have to give them value. You have to give them value for everything you charge. And the fact is, a guest that is loyal, that means you don’t lose your customer. That’s a loyal The guest wants to deal with you and buy other things that you produce because loyalty means nothing else but they have developed trust in you. So they trust you to become loyal and so every effort has to be sure you make sure that they don’t lose them so that they’re loyal. Number two, you find new ones. Number three, you get them. As I say, you charge and you sell. Number four, you work efficiently. That’s a great company. But the key element here, and nothing can interfere in it, is make sure the customer wants to come back and is loyal. Again, loyalty is nothing else but to develop trust in what you’re doing. I want to tap into your brain on this because you said something there that I don’t think the listeners quite understand what you’re saying You are talking about keep the customer and there is a guest we’re gonna have on the show here He’s the best-selling author John Rulon and he stayed in one of your hotels The written one of the Ritz-Carlton’s and he was having a guest of honor Stay in the hotel and he was gonna meet him and he found out that his favorite Guest was a this is a guy. He’s really trying to impress. He found out that his friend and his guest of honor Was a fan of a certain clothing line And then he was this is kind of when he had a startup, you know, a very just a baby business called gift ology so what he did was he went into a department store and bought all of the clothes in that guy’s size, the entire line, the entire season’s line. He said he spent $10,000 on clothes for this guy to impress this guy when he didn’t have a whole lot of money. And he goes to the Ritz and he said, “‘Could you guys help me display it like a retail store, “‘you know, like a department store?’ And he said, the Ritz Bellman said, sure. Can you talk to me about the limits to which you would allow your team to go and how’s too far to go to keep the customer? Well, it’s a very clear limit we set. Every employee, every single employee, it doesn’t matter who that is, has the right to spend up to $2,000 to make sure the guest becomes loyal. Up to two thousand dollars? That’s correct. You know, some people and some business people out there will be shocked, but believe me, it was a business decision. And the decision very simply happened. We made an analysis with word analysis study, what the guest really wants from us and what they mean when they say they feel at home. And as it turns out, they didn’t want to feel at home. They wanted to feel like they’re in a subconscious memory, they remember their mother’s home where everything was done for them. And here’s the big piece that came to it. And when something went wrong, for example, in that moment, they went to their mom and said, mom, I don’t feel good, this is it. Something terrible happened. Mom would take them in the arm and said, I’m here for you. What can I do? Mom never said, I call the manager. What we do, what you do, when you hear a complaint. When we learned that, we realized, oh my goodness, we don’t make a decision. That customer that has a problem, for example, or in this case, he did need just help, that guest, all they want is to be respected, to be heard, to be taken care of, not waiting for a manager. They want to get rid of their frustration. So we taught everybody to be empowered, everybody truly empowered to move heaven and earth. Everyone is responsible to keep the guest. That’s everybody’s responsibility. Not just checking somebody in, but by the way they check somebody in, convince the guest to want to come back. Everybody is responsible. Everybody. And for that, you have to empower people. Because sometimes decisions have to be made, like in this case, that costs some money. But it’s worth it because we also know, as a business person, what’s the value of a lifetime customer? I knew that, I knew how old our customers average was, I know how much they ever spend, I know how much they could spend in their life. And believe you me, it was worth spending $2,000 potentially. By the way, no employee ever spent that much. They bought breakfast or did some things like that. Bellman did spend some extra time, got some clothing racks and so on. But it created the image that we had and it created loyalty. Now the second objective you write about is get new customers. Talk to me about the dangers of running a business and not always being focused on also getting new customers? Well, they have to, well, otherwise, your customers sooner or later will be all dead, otherwise you have to. No, you have to keep on, you have to keep on, besides that, an organization has to keep on growing. And that means you have to find new customers ongoing. That is an absolute, absolute must. Now, I rely, I rely, we relied, and then now I have been now a new hotel company, Capella, we rely, we don’t advertise. We rely totally on word of mouth by our customers. Meaning word of mouth that they take back to their travel agencies, et cetera, et cetera. And the PR that they’re making. And it is totally successful. We don’t advertise. It’s totally successful. And we rely totally there, but the other, we of course, we rely on other selling means. We go to conventions with travel agents, et cetera, et cetera. But so we constantly are very busy, and we measure if our customer base is growing or not. And we expect our customer base to grow in each hotel consistently. So we make sure that happens. Now, objective number three you write about is you want to encourage the customers to spend as much as possible, but without sabotaging rule number one. That’s correct. Now, what we meant with that, I said before, flippantly, to make sure the customer spends as much as possible. That is misunderstood, of course, when somebody hears that. We were saying, we should be so good that a customer is willing to pay more for our hotels than for another hotel room. That’s how good we should be. And we know that if we accomplish point one, loyalty, in that moment, the guest will buy more from us. In that moment, the guest says, they feel so trusting the organization that if we don’t have to go out for dinner somewhere else, I’m sure food in this hotel is good. And this is good for any business. Once they trust you, they will buy other products from you. That’s why this point number one is so important. It impacts the, I tried to make a statement there that number one impacts the financial. Now you wrote here objective number four. You said in all of the above, keep working towards more and more efficiency. I’d like for you to talk more about that. Yeah, well, there is, particularly in my business, and I believe that’s true in every business, everybody talks about saving money, of course, and that is rightly so, but unfortunately it’s often done by taking away value from the customer. I have seen enough hotels that all of a sudden the soap in the bathroom becomes a little smaller and of course the manager gets applauded because he makes more money suddenly. The flowers are gone from the table, the piano is not playing in the afternoon anymore. That is cost cutting. That is not efficiency. Taking away from the guest or from the customer in order to make more money is cost cutting and it sooner or later will destroy you because it will hurt your name and your organization. Efficiency is something else. Efficiency is finding how you can save money from yourself. Meaning, if I can improve my work process to give you a given service without taking away from you, that means I find time, I find how to do it more efficiently, I eliminate mistakes. That’s the key piece, to find the mistakes in the organization and eliminate them permanently, one by one. Because every time, think about this, this is beautiful. Every time you eliminate a mistake, you really improve your product and you lower your cost. Now that is efficiency. And a great organization is constantly trying to find the smallest mistake, find the root cause, eliminate it so that mistake will never ever happen again. And in that moment, you have a better organization for everybody and you save money Horse, I don’t know what to get a guy who’s been the founder of a hotel chain So I’m gonna give you one make a point and one knowledge bomb Okay. Now we move on so you talk in your book you write in your book you write Repetition is a good thing now you write in your book repetition is a good thing Proverbs 10 for and the Bible says that God blesses the diligent. Diligence means the steady application of effort, aka consistency. Repetition freaks a lot of people out, my friend. Why is repetition a good thing? Well, in my book I’m talking about mainly for the teaching of your organization. Because in a way it is a typical thing of management. We tell employees in the beginning when they come what should be done and then we believe that they know that forever which is of course ludicrous. They don’t know it forever. I don’t remember everything was told in the beginning when I worked somewhere. So how you cannot do that but we identify and that’s what I’m explaining that we identify really the most important things in our organization. And we teach that the first day an employee starts. And then we repeat them. We repeat them. There are 24 points, and every day, today, maybe point 11, every day we teach one point in every hotel, in every department. Every day. One of the points, one of the points, it’s being taught today, maybe point 11. If you get a complaint, you own it. If you’re a waiter and they complain about the washroom, you own the washroom. And you accept it, you forgive, and you make amends. Now, point 11 will come up again in 24 days. And so we repeat these points that are important and differentiate us from the competition. When do you do this? Every day, one point is repeated. Repetition is very good. But when some people who rejected it in our company, beginning, well, everybody knows that that’s kind of silly. So I asked the question of all general managers assembled, because they are the one who rejected it, does everybody in the room know what Coca-Cola is? Raise your hand if you don’t know it. Nobody raised their hand, so you all know it. So the question is, why do they still advertise? Because you have to keep it alive, you have to repeat it. That if it is important, you repeat it, and you repeat it, make it simple, and repeat it, and repeat it, and repeat it. When do you do the repeating? Is it you give a set time every day where you have to have your shift? You cannot go to work today, point 11, nobody in any hotel of ours, that’s Capella in this case, Ritz-Carlton was the same, before every shift, mind you, we’re a 24-hour business, before every shift, you cannot go on any shift without going to a three, four-minute session where that point is repeated and re-explained. Okay, so I’m starting to get a feel for your commitment to excellence. It’s getting very practical. I think a lot of listeners, we’re taking tons of notes. You can get this. Thrivers, we’re just giving you like a 5% dose of the book Excellence Wins. By the way, your book is endorsed by Ken Blanchard, who we just had on the Thrive Time Show, the best-selling author of The One-Minute Manager. So this book is quality reading. Paul Hood with Hood CPAs, you had a question here for Mr. Horst. I do. Horst, hey, this is Paul Hood, HoodCPAs.com. It’s a pleasure to talk to you. You don’t know this, but you revolutionized my business as a CPA. Back in the day for years, I was always taught the traditional client service, customer service, guest service, whatever you do, that is one aspect of business. A separate, completely separate part of business is marketing and advertising. And so I rocked along with traditional business, traditional CPA, and then read multiple books and the way Ritz-Carlton did it kept coming up that basically that they are one and in the same. That people, the way they’re treated and how they feel when they leave a Ritz-Carlton, that’s marketing. So it’s not only customer service, guest service, but it’s also marketing. So was that an intentional thing? Did you start with that? Or is that just kind of a byproduct? Absolutely. Absolutely. We clearly established when a guest leaves, we must, if we ask the guest, what did you like in the hotel? And they said, gee, the food or the room, then we failed. They have to feel good. They have to say, it was just overall great. This way, we want that guest to become an advocate. We want that guest to want to come back and recommend us. And in the case of ours, mind you, you’re talking a higher market segment. just gets the influences and some of them control other people so that so we made we said that it’s up for sure that every guy that that we Committed that that to us is a truly marketing to every single Marketing to every single individual horse. I got a follow-up to that. It’s not really a question, but just a confirmation of what you’re doing. My wife and I were on a cruise one time and the cruise was okay, they’re vetted as being just the high end luxury, everything you want there. And we got in the middle of this cruise and my wife said, you get me off this boat and you find me a Ritz Carlton. We literally walked off the boat in American Virgin Islands with our suitcases and they said, you can’t do that. And I said, yeah, we are and spent the rest of our trip at a Ritz Carlton. So bravo. Another mega point for you. Now, sir, I have I’m going to go this is going to be kind of our lightning round where I’m going to fire through questions at kind of a faster pace here. And there are questions, Horst, that some people could say could be a little bit offensive. So let’s go with the first scenario. You wouldn’t accomplish that with me. Well, let’s say this. Let’s say that you’re coaching a leader, a business leader’s hired you to consult his business. You know, you came in to speak and… I do that quite often. Well, and then you said this line. You said the line, leaders have forfeited the right to make excuses. And they say internally, internal dialogue, they say, but my back hurts. And then you say again, I repeat, leaders have forfeited the right to make excuses. And again, they’re going, but I have a headache. Can you talk to me about why leaders have forfeited the right to make excuses? Leaders have accepted. In the moment when they accept a leadership role, I accepted to work on accomplishing the objective of an organization. If it is a good organization, first of all, a great organization has objectives which are good for all concerned. That means the investor, the employee, the customer and society. If you work for such an organization, you have no right or now comes an excuse right here that people say, well, my organization is not. That’s not your decision to make when you’re a leader. You have nevertheless accepted that organization’s objectives. And in that moment, you have no, that you are responsible for finding solutions to the situations that exist. That’s the work a leader does. And of course, help other people to help other people, their employees, to reach that the objectives. I don’t hire a leader to explain me what is wrong. And it goes in every, if it is the back egg or every excuse. I can never forget calling, having a budget of 68% occupancy in a hotel in Boston at the time and we met 55% and I called the leader and I said, what happened? Wow, the weather in Boston, the weather. You see, he had a great excuse, but he would call it purpose, a reason, he had a good reason. No, I asked him, wait a second, what about the Copley Plaza? What business did they have? They were very slow too. So tell me, did the guest arrive at the airport and said, because it’s snow and Boston and cold I’m not going to the Ritz Carlton? It’s not so. We have no right to move immediately to the next school. We have to find solutions. We have to say, here’s what happened. Here’s what I’m going to do next January. That’s what has been. And you know, there is no beauty, there is no reward, there is no pleasure in the excuse. All the rewards lie in the objective. If you’re managing a team, let’s say you are managing a team in one of your companies, and you have a manager that oversleeps for a meeting, shows up late, you know, has an excuse, has a reason, ah, traffic, there’s a lot of weather, traffic and weather, you know. How many times do you put up with that before you fire the person? Well, clearly, if that happens once, it’s absolutely no problem, of course. Find a solution, how you make sure that it doesn’t happen to you. Maybe leave a little earlier, but I understand that can happen, and it runs in a great while, but if the grandmother dies every few months, that doesn’t work. Got it. Okay. So if it’s like, you know, every once, like once a year, maybe once every year and a half, but if it’s like once a month, that’s a day you’re going to, you’re going to move on. Well, I think somebody, any employee, a manager or a regular employee should, if they’re good employees, they’re earning more in my opinion than a, than a, than a, than a salary, than a paycheck. They’re earning all to the right to make a mistake. You wrote, managers push, leaders inspire. What do you mean? Sure. Well, if that discussion comes up, I always want to make clear, managers also sometimes run a great business, but then doing it by controlling and forcing and just control mostly in hierarchy. Now a leader makes sure that his employees want to do the job. That means they are aligned, they want to do the job. They also understand the value to them if the job is done well. That has to be all communicated. A leader knows the objectives are good for all concerned as I touched on earlier and but the manager doesn’t really care about that and by the way it’s the managers that make you usually excuses not the leaders. The managers also protecting themselves by saying even if you ask how will the year be, yeah it probably will be great except that there always comes this excuse that hangs around there with managers, but clearly managers don’t really care how it turns out for the employees as long as the bottom line is forced. That makes sense. That makes sense. You know, you have said in one of your talks, you said that early on at Ritz-Carlton, you knew that if somebody walked up to the front desk and as long as you greeted them, helped them, checked them in within four minutes, they were okay. The check-in time, as long as it took about four minutes, it was okay. But now with the millennials, it’s about 20 seconds. And if they’re not greeted in 20 seconds, they’re upset, they’re afraid of gluten, they’re sharing cars, and they’re upset if it takes 20 seconds. Talk to me about how you are dealing with that increased demand for Efficiency with time with your newest ventures. Well, we have it all I mean it I can tell you it is traumatic to change in in time that a great company today does also understands what the customer wants as we said very early. The customer really wants three things. Every customer wants the same three things no matter what you buy. If it is a bottle of water or hotel stay or CPA work, it doesn’t matter. The three fundamental subconscious expectations by the customer and that’s number one that the product is defect free. It doesn’t matter what it is, they want defect free. Number two is timeliness. If you buy a bottle of water, you don’t want to leak, you want it when you want it. And number three, you want the people who give it to you to be nice to you, which is called service then, which I give the special name of service. But the timeliness has become so important with everything, you can destroy yourself as an organization if you’re not timely. It doesn’t matter what it is, is that if that is calling Comcast and hang on a telephone for two hours, you don’t like that company anymore afterwards. It doesn’t matter what. But this timeliness demand in people has changed dramatically. And we know, we don’t only guess, we know if we can check the people in in rush hour below four minutes, it was okay. Now we know they’re getting annoyed after 20 seconds. We know that. So we have to change our processes. We have to change processes and of course equipment, technology and so on helps a lot. But I assure you, every business person has to know, mind you, I don’t get those things, we started those things. We have to know that timeliness, if you don’t work timeliness, if you deliver, if you cannot, that’s why Amazon is so successful, because they deliver in time. That’s their real success. And you don’t read that. They’re talking about all other reasons. That’s their success. Timeliness. Bang, you get it. You know it. It’s timely. And that is true. And every business person has to say, how can I deliver my product more timely? I’m not sure. I know you’re doing speaking events and you’re writing articles. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. I’m not sure. more timely. I’m not sure, I know you’re doing speaking events and you’re writing this new book, you wrote this new book, Excellence Wins, and you’re staying happily married. You’ve got a lot going on. Are you aware of how nice the hotels that you own at Capella Hotels are? Have you seen these hotels? Horst, have you seen how nice your properties are? Have you seen these? It’s difficult to see it because I always see some things that are wrong. Well, I mean, can you walk the – I’m not going to do a pop quiz where I’m asking you about every single hotel, but can you share with the Thrive Nation of a half a million listeners out there about some of the locations you have in your Capella Hotels portfolio? I can tell you, the closest really is in Europe, in Germany, in Dusseldorf, right by the Capella Hotel. I mean it’s high quality high quality great location fabulous service by the way We measure we measure total satisfaction on a scale of one to ten top box top box in this Top box and this hotel is 96% of the guests that leave Wow and said top box. I want to come back a month recommend you 96%? 96%. I mean you have to comprehend that. That is such world class. It’s mind-boggling to accomplish that in a hotel where the average stays only two nights. In two nights, they accomplish that the guest says, I want to come back here. I want to recommend it. And a great hotel in Singapore, absolutely great hotel. That is just fabulous and overlooking the water on 24 acres, a former club of British officers club redone and into a modern style, just fabulous, fabulous service. If I can give you one service incident, a friend of mine, I didn’t know he was there. He was staying in another hotel. And then he checked into the Ritz Garden. He walked from his room to a meeting room. And on the way, there was a landscaper in the garden. He walked to the gardener who said, I hope you have a nice day, sir. And he said, I don’t, because you don’t have Fox News on your TV. And the landscaper said, what room are you in, sir? And he told them, and he walked on and forgot about it. When he came back to his room, Fox News was turned on. Oh, wow. Now, see, that is service, complying to the guest’s wishes at all times. And this was not just somebody. That was a landscaper who was pulling weeds out of the garden, whom he told that to. You know, in Singapore, they have laws where if you go out there and you spray paint a building or you litter publicly, they can cane you. Do you cane people that won’t pick up trash at your Singapore hotel? I want to sometimes. Okay, okay. Now for the listeners out there that are wanting to know more about you and your book, Excellence Wins, is there a specific website you’d recommend everyone goes and checks out? Amazon, it’s on Amazon and it is, it can be ordered, it will be delivered starting March 5th. March 5th, okay, so March 5th the book is available. If you want to pre-order it, I believe you can do that on Amazon. Absolutely, absolutely, then the delivery date, the first delivery day is March 5th. Now I have one more question for you. I know Paul had one more question as well, but I had one more question for you because I’m always curious about the habits and routines of super successful guys like yourself. So I guess it’s kind of a two-part question. Throughout your career when running the Ritz-Carlton, what did the first four hours of your work day look like? You know, what time were you getting there? What time were you getting up? What did the first four hours of your day look like? Well, I usually came in very early and walked to a hotel. I walked to the restaurants, the kitchens, and said hello to the people, the employees area, the laundry, and so on, and just walked it, and have connection with the employees. That was the most important. When we were small, next thing you go to your, when you’re around the hotel now, not the company, I’m talking about the hotel. When you go to your office, you go to your, you went to your office and looked at the security report from the night before and all kind of interesting things happened and you made sure that there was nothing there that you had to follow up on. What happened during the night when you were not there? Somebody coming in drunk. Invariably, once a month, somebody locked themselves out of their room naked in the corridor. I don’t know what they do in the corridor naked. I have no idea. I do not know it. They used the wrong door. They obviously wanted to go to the washroom. And those reports are there. You go through that. The next thing, I have a planning meeting for the rest of the day with the steering committee. And then we were in the mail, answering guest situations, etc., etc., etc. And again, going into the operation again. So to be close to the employees, constantly close to them, constantly control, constantly be available to them. That’s a key element in a hotel. And be close to the lobby. Be close to guests. If there are any guests, try and speak with guests. Be a host. Part of the day, you’re a business person, and part of the day, you’re a leader, and part of the day, you’re a host. What time did you wake up back then? Well, I usually was at work before seven. And then went home usually about seven, eight o’clock. Went back often at ten o’clock one more time just to make a round. What time were you waking up? Were you waking up at five in the morning or six? Yeah, five. Waking up at five, okay, getting to work around seven. Yeah. Okay, and did you have a certain book throughout your career that really impacted you? Well, I tell you, Kavi’s book, Seven Habits, really impacted me. That impacted me because I was kind of driven with urgencies. Urgencies are satisfying. I take care of making sure that everything worked out fine today. In fact, I got applauded because there was a big party. They thanked me, the wedding went fine, the check-in of the convention went fine, everybody’s happy, but I didn’t concentrate on improving. I mean he really impacted me with the sex station, do also the urgency in the future, really impacted me lately, that’s kind of different, but the book on Bonhoeffer by Matthias, and the way he tells the life of Bonhoeffer, and what impacted me is because of many letters that are in there from Bonhoeffer himself, I could actually felt, I could get into his mind and his soul. What made this man think? What made this man who was thinking totally different than society was thinking at the time and being right? Are you discussing, just to make sure that those listeners know the context, you’re referencing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was the German pastor and the anti-Nazi theologian, is that what we’re talking about? Yeah. Yes. Okay. Yes. How was he able to think totally different at the time? And Metaxas wrote a fabulous book about it and explained, and I could always understand and have this strong feeling of yes. And it is just a different feeling than what I had in other times. Yes, you can do all things with with God Paul hood You have a hot question here for Horst. I do Horst. Hey, so in today’s in society’s terms You are a massive success. You came from you you came from nothing and became something I Counsel a lot of people usually on the financial side, but I hear a lot, you know, to be successful you have to be a special person. You have to be either lucky or special or something to that effect versus hard work and being consistent. What would you say was the key to your success? Because you did, I mean, you climbed the ropes of corporate American and created a name for yourself. Was that because you were lucky? Was that because you were extra special? What would you attribute that to? Let me answer it two ways. First of all, most of the people ask me about the success of Ritz-Carlton. The success of Ritz-Carlton was many good people. Many good people. Personally, if you have one more minute here, I’ll tell you an epitome that I had years ago when I came to the United States first. I worked in the Hilton in San Francisco as a room service waiter. And I knew I was a good waiter. I worked in the finest hotels in Europe and room service there was nothing and the waiters there had not even closed my experience. And my wish was to be promoted in room service before I go back again to Europe, that was in 1964 and 1965, I’m still here by the way, so my wish was to get promoted to room service supervisor. I had an in because the manager was German too, and I was a good reader, why wouldn’t I get it? Sure enough, it became available, but somebody else got the job. And I was so bitter, now, you know, forgive me what I say now, stupid management and all that things went through my mind. And it took me several months before I admitted to myself that the guy who got the job deserved it more. After I got over my ego, after my pride, he deserved it more. I was late once in a while in the morning. I was very tired because I went out partying the night before and I was inconsistent. I wasn’t always the best. I had the best knowledge because of my background, but I wasn’t the best. And I promised myself that I would never, ever have the coin. I had forgotten. I remember my first medley, to go to work for excellence, and I had forgotten that. And I said, I will never forget it again. I will never again go to work without creating excellence. And I will always be five minutes before everybody else, and five minutes later. And I will give a little more. That is not difficult. So I did it. And I got one promotion after the other. That was the moment. That was the moment. And then see, and then remembering, now mind you I was a Christian already, but remembering, remembering, excellent, remembering caring for your people, caring for people, remembering what my Medi-D told me. Now mind you I was still very young, I was 24, but I still, everything came back in my memory, what really is excellence, and I applied it from there on. I made sure, I made a decision to apply it from now on. You are a wealth of knowledge, my friend, and I’m honored to have you on the show, and I know our listeners are as well. We are so excited, and Thrive Nation, if you’re out there today and you enjoyed today’s show, I would encourage you to go on Amazon today and buy a copy of Excellence Wins, a no-nonsense guide to becoming the best in a world of compromise. Mr. Horst, thank you for being on the show today. I was honored. Thank you very much for having me. Chup, it is just awesome to have a guest of that caliber on the show. World class. World class. And I think, again, we talk about this after every show, but the whole point of this show is that knowledge without application is meaningless. And to quote Thomas Edison, vision without execution is hallucination. So, Chuck, what is the action step that you think that all the listeners should take as a result of today’s show? What’s the one action that you got out of today’s show? Well, I would say that you need to be real self-respective about being a leader. I really like the stuff that he had to say about being a leader and not just a manager. So if you’re someone in charge, there is a difference between management and leadership. The action step that I got out of it as well is I think that we got to write down today, I think we need to write down today, how good of a leader are we being on a scale of one to ten? Let’s rate ourselves there. Let’s say if ten is a horse to Schultz and one is a terrible manager, how good of a manager are we and what can we do to improve? Oh yes. And the other action item that I thought of during today’s podcast that really prompted attention was this idea that you shouldn’t let feelings dictate your commitments or what you do. Once you’ve committed to your marriage or to your business or to your team, it doesn’t matter your feelings. I mean, screw the feelings. Feelings frankly don’t matter. Feelings should not dictate your actions because feelings are followers of your actions. So if you’re feeling right now overwhelmed, you’re feeling stressed, the worst thing you could do is spend your whole day hiding. What you need to do is you need to get out there and act in spite of your feelings. We talk about it a lot on the Thrive Time show as well as at our in-person workshops. We talk about how inaction is the big giant. So many people are worried about, oh, what do I do? Just not doing anything is the problem. Inspiration is the reward that you get. Inspiration is the reward, but inaction is truly the giant. Inaction is your sword. Right. Chuck, also, I think a lot of people might have maybe, you know, you’re taking notes, listening to this show. I want to play back that sound clip about feelings one more time. It’s so good. Because it’s so good. I think about making it into like a remix rap song of some kind. But we don’t feel like it. What? This is so unreasonable to even allow that to happen. Oh, think about that. You’re waiting for feeling. I’d rather make a decision what my feeling is, rather than make a feeling make my decision. This is huge. You make a decision, and then you have to fight the decision. You have to fight against the feelings that try to interfere with your decision. Chuck, we’ve made a decision here at the Thrive Time Show that 2019 is going to be the year of sharing. The year of sharing. Because the previous three or four years, I only asked people to share the podcast less than 20 times. So if you’re out there today and you learned something today from Mr. Horst Schultz, I would encourage you to share today’s show on Spotify, iTunes, you can share the link there, you can go to Thrivetimeshow.com, share the link, maybe share it on Facebook, hashtag us or something, share it on Twitter, share it on Instagram, but share today’s show with somebody. Somebody. If you know somebody climbing that corporate ladder or wanting to be a better leader, I know that you want them to be successful, so this is an absolute must-listen. And now, without me further ado, 3, 2, 1, boom! Shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, shush, day if I could reach the stars I give them all to you I don’t know why I said the things that I said I don’t know why I did the things that I did I don’t know I love this. I love this. Ha ha. La la la la la la la la la la la. 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 what we wanna do is we wanna share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both 1.3 billion dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent 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, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessamon 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%. So 411% we’re 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, 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, more new customers last year than we did the first five months. Or I’m sorry, 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 why we have that success is 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 when 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 I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives and also 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. We were in a rut. 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, 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 gonna 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 percent 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 the use of 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’re 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. Clay has 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, the 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 any work from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical It’s a critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it 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. 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 of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing 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. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime 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 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 ten 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 with Dr. growth. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems 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, but 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 systems 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 love it. We 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’ve got to 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.