Business | Understanding the Proven Path to Growing a SUPER SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS “Since Working with Clay Clark I’ve Got a Much Firmer Grasp On How Business Works.” – Dr. Timothy Johnson

Hi, my name is Tim Johnson. I’m the owner of Tuscaloosa Ophthalmology, as well as Southern Eye Consultants, two ophthalmology practices in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I’m a client of Clay Clark. He asked me to answer a couple questions. The first question was, how did I hear about Clay Clark? I am a big fan of business podcasts, and his podcast popped up as a recommended listening, so I started listening to the podcast. I was a little suspicious or skeptical, because I thought there was going to be an upcharge or an upsell. But the idea of the month-to-month canceling really appealed to me, and I kept waiting for the shoe to drop, and for the upsell or for the scam to come in, but it never did. It’s very legitimate.

Since working with Clay, I’ve gotten a much firmer grasp on how business works. Even in medicine, business is business. I’ve learned a lot about marketing, especially how Google reviews work and how important that is. That’s very important even in medicine. At least once a week, if not every day, I get a new patient because somebody Googled eye doctor in Tuscaloosa, or ophthalmologist in Tuscaloosa. You’d be amazed how many patients just look for an eye doctor that way, and so he’s really changed our business. Our business has grown a lot, maybe 15 to 20% this year, and so we’re really grateful for the things he has done for our business. And the last question was, when did I perfect the laugh? I would say that you can never perfect the laugh. You just keep working at it, and it just keeps getting better and better each day, but you’ve got to keep working at it. Thanks.

Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, it’s business school without the BS, featuring optometrist-turned-entrepreneur, Dr. Robert Zoellner, with U.S. SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark. (singing)

Oh, wow. That’s some hot sauce.

It’s the new intro. It is the new, official intro, and do you know why? Shep, do you know why we have a new radio show intro, my man?

I mean, I do.

Do you know, Z?

I think I do.

Because we are now being broadcasted live in Portland, Oregon, whew. So if you’re listening right now, and you’re in Portland and you’re … If you’re currently finding yourself where you live in Portland and you are struggling to get zoning approval to build something to grow your business, to build a structure …

Yes.

I get it. The average time it takes to pull a permit in Portland is significantly longer than that of Tulsa. If you find yourself stuck behind the world’s largest all-nude bicycle ride-

Wow.

I get it.

[inaudible 00:03:52]

Because that’s something in Portland. And I just want to tell you that this is a great thing for you to do while you’re waiting for a permit, while you’re stuck in traffic behind the nude bicycle race. And Z, both in Tulsa and in Portland, we do whale watching.

Well, absolutely.

Think about that.

And yeah, we have the blue whale up here in Catoosa.

That’s right.

We could do whale watching.

That’s one famous whale right there.

One famous whale. And I’m glad we blazed the trail to Portland.

Yes, we did. We blazed-

So we’re kind of like Trail Blazers.

Oh, nice.

Oh, no, no.

That was an incredible … Wait, the basketball team.

Oh.

Oh, well okay. What a chap you are. He’s quick on the uptake today.

I got it. I got it.

So today what we’re talking about … What we’re talking about today is feeding your mind, best practices, proven strategies and scalable systems, and not opinions, whims and feelings. Now, this is one thing that I have discovered in the world of entrepreneurship that is fairly fascinating when you watch it happen. It’s this thing called osmosis. And Shep, I want to put the definition of osmosis on the show notes today, because osmosis is probably the number one way that Dr. Z has taught me. Osmosis means the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas and knowledge. So it’s like you’re around the thing enough that all of a sudden you begin to understand the thing.

Another example would be Reid Hoffman. This is one of the early members of PayPal, the founder of LinkedIn, the venture capitalist behind Greylock Partners, who have funded things like Facebook … Never heard of it.

Book face?

Instagram, Airbnb … Not book face, but Facebook. It’s a newer one, Z.

Oh, okay, okay.

It’s a newer … Book face was the old one. Now Facebook-

But wait a second, wait a second. Just real quickly, I don’t want the audience to because I’ve told a lot of people that I thought the best way I taught you was through the taser.

Well, the taser was a good form of reinforcement, to remember-

Oh, but osmosis got the process kind of going.

Right.

Gotcha, okay. I’m with you now.

So this is what Reid Hoffman says. Reid Hoffman says, “The fastest way to change yourself is to hang out with people who are already the way you want to be.” And so that’s where I want to start the conversation with you, Dr. Z.

Wow.

And I want to get Shep’s take on this. So Shep, you see business coach clients come in, and usually 60 days later a very, very different person emerges out the other end. Some people take longer, but some people, they come into the office with a bunch of intentions and goals that aren’t getting done. 60 days later, they’re purposeful. They’re getting things done. So Z, what advice would you have for somebody listening to the show, who is maybe surrounding themselves right now with negative people all the time? What advice would you have? How does somebody begin to surround themselves with good people?

Very good. First of all, your network is your net worth.

Oh, say it again.

Your network is your net worth.

Yes.

And that just isn’t talking fiscal. That’s talking mental too, okay?

I surround myself with heathens and people that steal a lot, and it doesn’t affect me at all. I mean, I just surround myself with it, but I’m able to … It just goes off me like a duck, you know?

Exactly, exactly. You know, you run with the dogs, you’re going to catch fleas. Here’s the deal, Clay. Everybody out there listening right now … This is going to sound kind of mean. I just don’t-

I’m ready for it. I’m ready.

You’re ready? Are you sure? Can I-

I prefer the mean information.

Can I just talk truth?

Yeah, go for it, basically.

You need to, first of all, be honest with yourself and be honest about the people that are in your inner circle. And if any of those people in your inner circle are … I’m just going to say the word … Idiots?

Idiots.

Idiots, idiots-

Not very smart.

And you know what I mean out there … You need to just get rid of them. You need to ghost them. You need to say, “No more. No mas.”

It’s fourth and four.

Nein.

I want to share with you the three signs you’re around idiots.

Okay.

These are three signs, and Shep, we can put these on the show notes, because this is a good audit here. These are three.

Yeah, yeah. These are three.

If the people that you’re around you are constantly saying, “There was a miscommunication,” There is a strong probability that either you or they are idiots. Because I’m around Z consistently, and I can think on a hand, or maybe a finger, of a time where you go, “Oh, there was a miscommunication.”

Right, right.

But there’s people that are perpetually in a state of miscommunication.

Miscommunication.

This is what they do.

Okay.

The second sign is they say, “I forgot.”

Oh.

“I forgot,” you know? “I don’t remember. I don’t remember.” Z, in a hypothetical world, I’m working for you right now in your office. You asked me to do something, and I didn’t have a chance. “Oh, I forgot.” What would you say to me if I said to you, “I forgot”?

I would say, “Well, do it again and I’m going to forget to pay you,” hey.

That’s how it works.

Yeah.

So again, now the other thing is, people who argue everything emotionally, everything.

Oh, well yeah.

You’re trying to make a pro forma with this person, it’s emotional. You’re trying to raise prices, it’s emotional. You’re trying to fire somebody who is literally stealing from the business, whether it be not doing their job or stealing cash, and every time you … There’s a logical conclusion that needs to be done. The person just can’t do it.

Wait a second. Wait a second. So you’re telling me that someone that spends half the day on the book of face …

The book of the face …

And snap grammy?

It’s a snap of the face. A snap of the face.

And Instant something?

The book of the face.

You’re telling me that they’re really stealing from you? Wow, that’s harsh.

I like to look at that as they’re screwing me. They’re screwing me. They’re screwing, taking the pie. They’re taking a piece of the pie.

You’ve got to clock out and clock back in, every time you look at the book of the face, you know?

You like the juice? Unbelievable. So I’m just saying though, this is probably a strong indication that you are around idiots, if they say those three things all the time.

All the time.

It’s [inaudible 00:09:39]. “There was a miscommunication.”

“I forgot.”

“I forgot.” They argue with you emotionally. Now little sub-moves under those three that are just common is if they’re always perpetually late.

Mm-hmm.

They just constantly are super-duper late.

Yeah.

Z, at a very fundamental basis, if you and I owned an NFL team and we had a quarterback who couldn’t actually get on the team plane on time. There has been famous example of this in professional sports where a guy is super talented, but he just cannot get on the plane on time.

Yeah.

What do they typically do with people like-

They hire some like security guard-level dude.

Chaperone?

To just sleep at the foot of his bed, and to put him over his shoulder and put him in the limo or put him in the car and get him-

Because if the talent is so rare, it’s probably worth it.

Yeah, yeah.

So like Josh Hamilton, the famous baseball player-

With the Rangers?

I’d like to put a link on this, to the Rangers. This guy was drafted, and he couldn’t keep his life together. I want to say for like eight years in a row, he just couldn’t stay sober. So the Rangers are going, “Hey, here’s the deal. We’ll sign you, but we need a chaperone to follow you around everywhere.”

Everywhere.

But the trade-off was worth it, because he had like an MVP season. Shep, I want to put a link to his stats, because his stats are absurd. It was like, he’s not even playing professional baseball. He gets a chaperone. Now he’s the man. Now, the angels sign him and they get rid of the chaperone, and he just goes in the toilet again.

He goes, yeah, imagine that.

So I’m just saying right now, if you’re listening to the show today and you’re surrounded by people that are idiots, it’s going to slow you down. Other signs you’re surrounded by idiots, just little … They’re sub-moves, little subsets of the main three reasons to worry you’re surrounded by idiots, is if the people who are around you all the time are constantly having drama.

Ugh, ugh.

I turn it over to you. Such an easy one for you, but you say it.

Since I grew up a thespian, I think I’ll handle the drama question. I tell you what, folks. Drama is the resource-sucking, emotional love-sucking … That’s the sound of drama effect on your life.

What’s crazy is you and I are together all the time-

Sounds terrible.

It’s horrible.

And we never have drama.

We don’t have drama … Drama.

It’s crazy.

Or does it make you … It could be-

Because we-

It could be a silent D. It could be just rama. I don’t know.

Because we understand how life works, so this is how … I mean again, drama. Now another sign you’re surrounded by people that are-

Well, this is one that’s really high on my list.

Drama?

Negative people.

Oh, just negative.

I tell you what, folks. If you have a lot of negative people around you, you cannot build a wall around your mind enough to keep it from affecting you, you know? And so if someone’s just constantly negative, they’re constantly pulling you down, they’re constantly wanting to steal your joy because they can’t manufacture it on their own, those are the kind of people you don’t have to have in your inner circle. You can-

Another-

I can step away [inaudible 00:12:25].

Another example, this is like a not an intentional negative, but it ends up producing a negative, is people that have a new idea every day.

Oh yeah, yeah.

And they forgot about the old idea. So you said to your staff member, “Hey, every day I want you to check inventory for the optometry clinic, and then send me once a week a report, or once a month a report.” So it’s an order going on every single month, “I want an inventory report so we never run out of a certain frame.”

Sure.

And if I’m an idiot, I’m the kind of person that would say, “Okay.” And then every 30 days, I’d forget to do it but I have a new idea.

Mm-hmm. I love your story about when you worked at the restaurant, and the guy kept forgetting to order food.

All the time, yeah.

So he’d be like, “Okay, guys, we’re going to have steaks. All we have tonight is chicken and a little bit of shrimp,” you know?

It was so embarrassing. I worked at Applebee’s. I remember this. My boss constantly would pull us aside and go, “Guys, here’s the deal.” Some things have happened, and we’re running low right now on shrimp.” And we’re like, “Some things have happened? Some things didn’t happen.”

Right, right, right.

“You ordering it.” So I mean, it’s just people that require themselves … People that require you to constantly remind them of just basic tasks. Another example … I’ve got one more, Shep, and then I’ll turn it over to you.

All right, let’s do it.

It’s the person that has passive-aggressive attacks.

Oh, yeah.

Or passive-aggressive just anything about everything.

Yeah.

So you might say, “Hey, I would like for you to edit the video.” And then they would say, “Absolutely. I just want to make sure it’s my highest and best use.” And you go, “What?”

[inaudible 00:13:54]

They go, “No, no, no. I mean, I just wanted to know, I mean-”

Yeah, “Just, you know.”

Or, “Hey, I need you to go ahead and call those leads.” “Sure, if no one else can do it.” And you just hear those things, or you know what I’m saying? Where it’s like, “Hey, I’d like to take you and your wife out for dinner tonight.” “Absolutely, I’d love to go out to dinner with you guys. I mean, you know it’s not like I didn’t have other plans.”

“Well, you know,” no, you know?

It’s passive-aggressiveness that kills companies.

Kills them.

No Shep, what were you going to say there, my friend?

I was going to say, I’ve got a little action on them. If this is you, and you’re not hanging out with the right people, one thing you can do immediately is start saying no faster.

Yes.

Oh, there you go.

When you don’t feel like saying no, but you know that’s not going to take you down the path you want. And so the main way to do that is to really take control of your schedule, and don’t just drift in your relationships. Be very functional, and what’s the word I’m looking for? Be very intentional with scheduling those meetings with your friends, with people that you want to be around, because like Dr. Z said, if you’re running with the dogs you’re going to get the fleas.

Now, here’s the thing. We as a Thrivetime show business coaching community, what we have done is we’ve created two ways for you to feed your mind right now, today. One, you can buy the physical copy of the Boom book on Amazon, or you can download it for free right now. Now the Boom book is filled with notable quotables, statistics … Mystic statistics, proven cited best practices. Z, the book is filled with best practices, proven strategies and scalable systems.

It’s awesome.

It is the real deal.

It’s awesome.

Also, you can subscribe to this podcast so that way you never miss a broadcast. So instead of listening to negativity about a bridge collapse … Unfortunately, there’s a pedestrian bridge that collapsed in I believe Florida.

Yep.

And you can’t, if you’re listening today, probably fix it, and knowing a lot about it probably won’t impact your life-

It may make you sad.

In a positive way. But if you would rather take that negative time and fill it with positive things, you can do that. When we come back from the break, we’re going to talk to you about … We’re going to break down this notable quotable about the importance of being intentional about what you feed your mind. You see, your mind is what your mind is fed. Think about that. Your mind is what your mind is fed. Stay tuned. This is the Thrivetime show on your radio.

And back to a show that’s cooler than the other side of the pillow, it’s the Thrivetime Business Coach show. (singing)

Wow, is that a new genre? Is that jazz rap?

What it is is-

I mean, that’s-

I’m finding a lot of street vendors, and I love brass. I love brass. Live brass instrumentation is incredible, like live marching bands are awesome.

Yeah.

When you combine that with hip hop on the street, I think that’s my musical voice.

Is that it?

Street hop.

What do you call that? Yeah, street hop, or-

Raz, raz.

I mean seriously, whenever I go to … Whenever I go to like Brooklyn or New York, I will literally just watch the street performers for hours. The guys who can take a bucket and create just unbelievable music out of it, I’m forever fascinated by that. And so when you combine that with the brass, it’s just a magical combination.

You should see what I can do with a bucket.

Really?

Yeah, I can carry stuff.

He can kick it.

I can stand on it-

Can you kick it?

To reach the high shelf.

Yes, he can. He can. He can kick it. Yes, he can.

I can do a lot with a bucket. I’m pretty creative.

You know, on tomorrow’s show let’s talk about what you can do with a bucket and a block of wood.

Oh, a lot.

(singing)

(singing) I think the turkey has just entered in beside the man cave in the studios here. So we’re talking about how your mind is what the mind is fed. And for those of you who have not yet booked your tickets for our next in-person Thrivetime show workshop, we have about 40 tickets left. I would highly recommend that you book those tickets while supplies last, because when you meet … If you just … Tell you what. Just type in Thrivetime show reviews into Google, and just listen to the video reviews from people. So many people said, “I met other entrepreneurs just like me, people that are used to waking up at 5:00 am every day, people who are used to being financially free but they’re trying to create time freedom. I met other people just like me, who understand what it’s like to manage a team of people.” And when you surround yourself with people that empathize and get what you’re going through, it’s a powerful thing. Now David J. Schwartz, the best-selling author of The Magic of Thinking Big writes, “Your mind is what the mind is fed.” Dr. Z, break that down, my friend.

Well, I tell you what. It’s the same analogy as this. If I went out in your back yard and I planted corn, rows and rows of corn, and came back, what, a couple months later.

Right.

And turnips were growing.

What?

I would be shocked.

Shocked.

I would be shocked.

Chaka Khan.

But yet, we plant … Some people do … All kinds of negative and bad things in their mind, and they’re shocked-

Shocked.

That negative and bad things are growing out of their mind.

This was a thing that you taught me through osmosis, and then actually verbally one time.

Yeah.

There was a gentleman who was asking you about how to deal with people that don’t do their job. And I won’t get into the details, because it was a man cave sessions, so some of the details just cannot be on a radio show.

Cannot be.

Throat punch. But you explained to a gentleman that if he were to do certain painful acts to his anatomy, it would be less painful than it would be for him to go ahead and just fire the person. And you pointed out to the guy that he was surrounding himself with a village of idiots, and the only thing that could grow out of that flock of morons, was more morons. I mean, it was amazing. And the clarity of him knowing that … And you didn’t say this notable quotable, but you live this notable quotable.

Tim Ferriss, the best-selling author of The 4-Hour Workweek says, “You are the average of the five people you most associate with.” And Shep, you see this all the time where we’ll have a client that grew up poor, which oh by the way, I want to put the stats on the show notes, but there’s a book called The Millionaire Next Door. The Millionaire Next Door, and if you type in The Millionaire Next Door and then New York Times, Shep, you’ll find it. But the statistic shows that over eight out of 10 multimillionaires grew up poor. So if you’re somebody who’s growing up poor, Z …

Right.

Growing up poor, Shep, and you want to leave poverty, you have to leave the people behind. You have to leave poverty. So Shep, many clients you work with … Think of a client right now. Think of one in your mind who’s really doing well, but had to completely change his or her ways of doing business.

I would say we talked about him the other day on the show, but he just continues to update me and he keeps grinding, so Lanny Smith with Arrival 3D. He-

Lanny Smith.

He has a new baby. He got himself a new baby.

He’s a new baby?

He is a brand-new baby. He started a business at three months old.

Wow. Wow.

He is on fire.

This is a great story.

No, so he just really has taken command of his schedule lately, and it’s awesome watching him change the way he operates. Because he used to be one of these late-night guys, and it was really hard for him to get up and manage his team in the morning. Therefore things were happening, right? Because he was getting all that work done at night.

Here’s a negative series of statistics that have a positive outcome if you change your ways. According to Forbes, 90% of startups fail.

Oh.

According to Forbes, eight out of 10 businesses fail.

Oh.

You know, just over existing companies. According to CBS, News and World Reports and the U.S. Chamber, 75% of employees steal from the workplace. According to CNN money, the average American has less than $500 saved. Shep, I want to put this on the show notes but according to Forbes, 70% of Americans hate their jobs. According to Gallup, 17% of employees are actively disengaged and actually trying to harm the company they work for, 17%.

So I say all this to say that if you are going to have success, you’ve got to change the ways you’re doing business. And Z, a successful company is ran completely … It’s radically different than a non-successful company. So I’m going to go through what a non-successful company thinks, and you tell me what a successful company thinks. Here we go.

Oh, okay. That’s fair. That’s fair.

So a non-successful company says, “I’m going to do advertisements that are kind of safe because I don’t want to offend anybody. I don’t want to upset anybody. I want to maintain homeostasis. I want to keep it calm, copacetic, very conservative ads.” And a successful business owner says what about ads?

They follow our rules. They have three focal points of ads that are going out there. They’re staying consistent with them. They have a no-brainer in them.

I don’t want-

They have branding that’s awesome, and they have their purple cow.

I don’t want to have an offer that stands out, though. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to stand out … Stand out.

Now you’re telling me I’ve got to get in the cattle business to have a successful company?

An un-

You’re telling me I’ve got to go get a cow and paint it purple.

An unsuccessful business owner would say, “You know what? I need to coach people up who work for me, because people change all the time. People are very dynamic. In fact, I hire people who low character who have great skill, and I just coach them up. See, they change. I watch them change all the time.”

Throat punch. Successful company says … Knows one of my tenets is, people change seldom.

Repeat that.

People change seldom, and so you find people of high character. You find people that are the kind of make and model that you need in your business, and then you teach them how to push the buttons. You teach them how to make the call. You teach them how to answer the phone. You teach them how to clean the bathroom. You teach them whatever you need to teach them.

Unsuccessful people say all the time … Unsuccessful people say, “If you want to do it right, you know what they say. You’ve got to do it yourself.” Unsuccessful people say this all the time.

Yeah, and good luck with that because we’re all about having time freedom and money freedom. And if you have to do everything in your business all the time, you’re not going to have time freedom. So you have to be able to hire people, put your DNA into them, get them as close to you as possible. Did you hear that? As close to you as possible-

Slow down.

Because nobody’s going to love your business as much as you do. It’s just a fact.

It’s the facts.

It’s a fact, so-

It’s a fact, Jack.

It’s a fact, Jack, so you get them as close to you as possible, and then guess what? You give them a little responsibility, and as they do and conquer and do better, you give them more.

So here’s the deal. Download the Boom book today. It’s the proven system. It’s the 13 proven-point system. Download it today at thrivetimeshow.com. Subscribe to the podcast. Never miss an episode. Feed your mind positive things, and book your tickets for the next in-person, two-day, 15-hour Thrivetime show, in-person workshop. Get your tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com.

Hi, my name is Clay Staires. I’m from Tulsa, Oklahoma. I am the president and CEO of The Leadership Initiative. The Leadership Initiative is all about inspiring and engaging leaders to expand their capacity, so they can process greater complexity in their positions. Clay Clark has been my coach for the past five years, so here with Thrive 15, I’ve been so excited to be a part of the movement that’s been going on here with Thrive 15. And so now that we’ve got these monthly workshops going on, I’ve been able to bring my clients to these workshops, as well as come myself and be a part of it.

Man, it is such an energizing time. If you remember those old Hot Wheels tracks that you would put, and the cars would go around and they’d hit that little thruster, that little booster? That’s what these conferences are like on a monthly basis. A key thing that I wanted to grab when I was coming to these conferences, and when I started engaging with Clay, was simply I knew that I had a skill. I knew that I had a talent. I knew that I had a product, but I didn’t know how to make money at it. I didn’t know how to turn that skill and that service into a business. And so man, when I first came to Clay and when I come to these conferences, I’m always looking for what is the next step? What is the next thing that I can do to help me take my business from this point right now, that’s wonderful but I know I can do more, to go to that next step?

I tell you, the conferences are just a blast. They’re energetic. There’s music going. In the environment here at the Thrive 15 world headquarters, there’s just a lot of energy here. I’m an energetic guy. I love being in energizing areas, so this conference is great. Clay does a great job talking. He’s very edutaining. There’s a lot of laughter, a lot of engagement in the content as he’s going through. I promise you, this is not … This is not the PowerPoint slide, death by slides, okay? This is a wonderful, wonderful conference.

If you are sitting there trying to decide whether or not to come and be a part of one of these conferences, here’s the deal really quick, okay? Are you experiencing the outcomes that you want right now? Are you at that spot? Are you getting what you want out of your company? Number two, are you at a place where you’re getting freedom? Are you in a place of freedom? If you are not getting what you want, and if you are not in a place of freedom and choosing not to come to this conference, that’s you sitting there saying, “I’m not getting what I want. I don’t feel like I’m getting the freedom, but I think I’m going to stay here,” all right?

To choose to come here is to take a choice to move beyond where you are right now. It’s to believe that there actually is a beyond where you are right now. Don’t get stuck in an old mindset. Grab hold of a growth mindset. Come to these Thrive 15 conferences here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I promise you, you will be engaged. You will be energized. You will meet other entrepreneurs that are in the same position. You’ll get all up in the synergy of what’s going on, and before long you will be in a spot where you’ll see the path forward to freedom, and that’s where we want to be.

What I’ve seen from Clay and his group at Thrive is they’ll give you a simple system. And it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around. They’re the ones that people can work with on a day-to-day basis, and that simplicity brings power with it. So it shocked me how simple some of the stuff is, and at times I’m like, “Why didn’t I think about that?” Workflow creation, systematic marketing and coaching has helped our church so much. You know, the workflow creation is … What it really is, is they’re going to look and see every moving part of your church, of your ministry, what needs to be done, and it’s going to go up on a massive board.

And so now what it does is it takes what you know needs to be done out of your heart and out of your head. Really, it takes the pressure or the stress off your shoulders, and it puts it on the board where your entire team, your ministry, can see exactly what you want them to do every day and so they know, “This is the playbook. This is what we’re doing.” And then there’s laser-sharp accountability with a meeting afterwards, “Did it get done or not?” I’ll tell you, it’s changed the way we execute as a church so fast, and it’s produced really an excitement. Because people, they want to get done … If they know what they’re supposed to do, a good person wants to get it done. It’s been massive for our team.

The systematic marketing has really been like this. In the past, we used to market and we would try something. I’ve done everything; billboards, ads, mailers, internet, Facebook. But we would run something for so long, and then we wouldn’t see that it was producing the results we want. And instead of staying consistent, we would jump to another horse, then we would jump to another horse. And what systematic marketing does, is it makes you pick some things and stick with it. Now I’m already seeing, just after just a few months, I’ve been working with Clay since October, about six months ago. I can already see just the trajectory going up. People are finding out about us. Our number of visitors are going up. I can see the marketing working, and it’s just an approach that makes sense.

And then the coaching is massive, and I think having a coach that looks and sees what you’re doing, and can come help you make small adjustments … I believe those small tweaks, once he gets everything set up, those small tweaks can make massive differences. And a great coach doesn’t even have to play your sport, right? Doesn’t even have to do what you do. A coach has an eye to see things that you can’t see, or to see it from a different angle. And just having that extra eye on what I do, and just, “Hey, have you thought about this?” It’s making all the difference in the world.

What Clay Clark and his team can provide for your church that you can’t do in house, and I can’t do in house; well, what’s been massive for me is that search engine optimization, how to get to the top of Google, taking care of transcribing all of my sermons to drive me up the list on Google. Stuff that I don’t think about and I don’t have time to do. I’ve got all these things I have to do as a pastor, right? I have sermons to preach. I have a staff to manage. I have a budget to take care of. I’ve got sick folk to see about. I have a team that has to do that. You know how it is. You’ve got to marry people. You’ve got to bury people.

We’re never going to stay in a dark room with a keyboard, optimizing our Google presence, and these guys do that kind of thing for you. Also, if you’re a couple hundred-member church, I remember how hard it was back in the day to take care of the website needs, to come up with graphic design. These guys are available to you for sermon slides, getting that kind of stuff done where you can have a sharp-looking presentation of the gospel. It takes it off you and it puts it on them at a very reasonable price.

I really believe Clay Clark and his team can help a church with limited resources, in a big way. I know what it’s like to be a church of limited resources. My wife and I, we walked into a town where we didn’t know anybody. We had a Bible, and we just had a few bucks in our pocket and somebody introduced us to a couple of families. We started going there. So I know what it’s like to be a church of two, and I know what it’s like to be a church of 2,000 in two different campuses now, 1,000 apiece and everywhere in between. So I love churches at every level. I believe God wants them all to grow.

I think about the needs I had back in the day, the lack of direction I had. Man, I was working 80 hours a week all the time, but a lot of times I was a shotgun instead of a rifle. I think when you start, you can really hone in with the right coaching. You can get a lot of your different needs met in one place, instead of having somebody on marketing, and somebody on showing you how to do systems, and somebody on graphic design. Thrive can do a lot of that for you at a very reasonable cost. I think it’s a great place to invest in the life of your ministry. I’m telling you, I think you can get the results you want with the coaching here faster than any other way. It’s going to be powerful.

Success requires focus, and focusing on core tasks until success. Three, two, one, boom. You are now entering the dojo of mojo, and the Thrivetime show. (singing) Sonic boom.

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Thrivenation on today’s show, we have a special guest, the always might fine Matt Cline on the line. Matt, how are you?

I am doing awesome. How are you guys?

I’m doing great. I’ve decided for today’s show I’m going to start referring to you as Matt. I’m going to put the T. Wait a minute, I feel like that’s kind of the future of your name. What do you think about that, Matt?

I think that’s kind of the future of your name. What do you think about that, Matt?

I feel it’s appropriate.

I think it makes sense.

A little emphasis on the back.

I think when you put the-

Does that… Yeah.

I think when you put the wrong emphasis on the right syllable, things change.

I agree. And that’s appreciated coming from a guy like you. When I was growing up, my age group, there was about 14 maths in every classroom I was ever in, so I believe that that works for me.

Was the name Matt, was it from a biblical heritage? When they name you Matt, was it a biblical thing, a Matthew, or was it just sort of like we don’t know what to name you, and so, we’re just going to name you the convenient name of a early ’80s baby?

I think if you ask my dad, it’d be the latter. If you ask my mom, it would certainly be the biblical name.

Okay. All right. That’s beautiful. I choose to rebuke your dad’s answer then. Okay. So, Matt, things are going well at Oxi Fresh, and things are going well because you guys have stayed the path, you’ve stayed the course, you’ve worked very hard, you’re very diligent. And so, I’m going to read a notable quotable to you, and I’m going to read it to you and I’m going to ask you what it means. And I’m going to read it again and I’m going to ask the attorney, James, what it means.

And then, I’m going to read it again, and I’m going to ask Andrew what it means. And then, I’m going to read it again, and I’m going to ask the listeners, what it means, what does it mean to you? So here we go. This is from Gino Wickman. He’s the bestselling author of the book, Traction. And Matt, you’ve… It’s hard to do it that way, it requires focus. Matt, you’ve read the book though, Traction, correct?

I have, yes.

And it’s a big Oxi Fresh thing. It’s a level 10 meeting. We talk about the Level 10 meeting. It’s a core book that Dr. Zoellner’s team uses. They use it at Regent Bank. It’s a book. It’s got a black cover to it. It’s written by Gino Wickman, arguably, one of the best business consultants of my lifetime, at least.

And he says this, and Andrew, take notes. Take notes, Andrew. Make sure you type this up here. He says, “Most people are sitting on their own diamond mines. The surest way to lose your diamond mine is to get bored, become over ambitious, or to start thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Find your core focus, stick to it, and devote your time and resources to excelling at it”.

Again, Oxi Fresh, with over 400 locations, apparently, Jonathan Barnett has been myopically focused on carpet cleaning for some time now. With over 400 locations. Apparently, Matt, you’ve been obsessed with carpet cleaning for a long time. With over 400 locations, apparently, you’ve been focused on the Oxi Fresh franchise and how you can improve the experience for your franchisees for a very long time. Talk to me about what this quote means to you.

To me, when I hear that, it says that you have all the tools and you have everything you need to be as successful as you want to be. It just depends on what you’re going to do with those tools. Some of that being yourself, some of that may be being the business that you’re in. The grass being greener on the other side, to me, just means that that person on that side of the fence just worked a little harder with their tools. Right?

So, when they’re saying you got the diamond right below you, you got everything you need. As long as you stay the course, you stay focused, you utilize the resources you have, you actually work hard, you got everything you need right in your back pocket.

I feel like it’s easy, though, to get distracted, Matt. I feel like we go to these trade shows, these franchise trade shows where everybody, every vendor’s got a new pitch. And let me just give you one of the pitches. I’m sure you’ve never heard this before, but it’s like, Matt, hey man, are you the Oxi Fresh brand developer? Yeah. Wow. Hey, my name’s Marty. Hey. I want to meet you for drinks tonight. You want to have some drinks? And pretty soon, you’re like, well, I’ll meet the guy.

Here’s the deal. The future of the internet really is what I would call Bing. And so, what you want to do is you want to move your focus off of Google onto Bing. And there’s internet 2.0, there’s internet 3.0, we’re on internet 5.0. So, what I want you to do is take all of your focus, all your energy, take that away from what’s working with Google and put all that into this Bing thing.

Matt, how often do you have a vendor at a trade show who’s trying to sell you on diverting your focus onto something else that maybe isn’t as effective as what you know to work?

Well, for a tradeshow, it happens like 10 times a day. Just in my normal life, I get it probably once a day or so, just different companies, whether it’s marketing, whether it’s funding resources, whether it’s business compliance-type stuff. Right? I mean, the nice thing is, because of Jonathan’s kind of foresight in looking into the future and what we’re going to need technology-wise, we have the luxury right now of being able to compare what we have currently in house with what’s being offered to us.

And luckily, most of the time, we’re ahead of the curve of a lot of these companies that are actually telling us what we should be doing. And so, we’re lucky in that capacity. But there’s always companies trying to sell us on certain things. And some of them are good and some of them are not, for sure.

One thing that I’ve always found to be universally-crap, and Matt, if you want to argue with me, it’s fine. It’s these companies that try to convince you that the call center at Oxi Fresh must completely go away tomorrow because drip emails are the future. I’m not talking about a chatbot that helps book appointments. I’m not talking, Matt, about some people want to book online. I’m talking about these companies that try to convince you that, immediately today, you got to go into an entire drip campaign. It’s got to be a series of drip emails. It’s got to be a ClickFunnel of some sort.

Do you get pitched that a lot, Matt, where people say, “Look, the call center’s dead baby. You got to move on to the drip email campaign”?

Yeah, we get a lot of people calling us, and the funniest thing about it is, sometimes, I take a little time to educate them on what they’re trying to sell me on. A lot of these people call me and they have no clue what we do, what we already have established, the technology platform we use, how we actually have an internal scheduling software and scheduling center. They’ll tell me all these great things, and I say, “Well, you didn’t really look at our company at all, did you? Because you would know that we actually have all these things in place. You’re not really selling me anything that we don’t already have and that we have our thumb on the pulse up”. Right?

And so, that one’s always kind of eye-opening, because if they just would’ve done a little research and literally looked at our franchise website, they would’ve been able to see that, and at least, pique the interest, or at least, be able to have some ammunition behind their conversation, but I get it all the time. And unfortunately, the development department is the easy team to get to because we’re always open to having conversations about our business. So, a lot of very ill-equipped marketing individuals will use that to get to our marketing department.

So, I don’t have a lot of patience much longer for those. After eight years of those same calls, it gets real old real quick.

You know, JB, Jonathan Barnett, the founder of Oxi Fresh, he put out a video last year that talked about the importance of asking for objective reviews when you’re in the home of the actual buyer, of the actual client. That’s when you need to get the review. When you’re actually there and you’ve successfully cleaned the carpet, that’s when you ask for reviews. And you guys are doing it. Well, you have 193,177 Google reviews today.

Andrew, does the switcher work, or we can pull that kind of thing up on video later today? No? Okay. We’ll see if we can get that fixed for future… Probably next week, we’re going to start Zoom calling you, Matt. People want to see your beautiful face.

Oh, perfect.

I’m very excited. People want to see it. So, Andrew’s working through the technological-

You mean, I got to get dressed?

No, I mean, that means you… I’m going to be dressed for the first time, too. I mean, I would like to… I’ve never done a show with Matt Kline where I haven’t been nude.

Oh, wow.

He’s going to bring a new freshness to the whole approach.

Matt will have to wash his hair this time.

No, beautiful. Now, here’s the deal.

Absolutely, man.

Seriously, people try to tell me that getting reviews doesn’t matter. That you don’t need to ask in the home. Matt, the real key to getting reviews is to do a mailer after you clean the carpet. And that’s how you get reviews.

The real key to getting reviews, Matt, is not to ask for Google reviews when you’re in the person’s home, it’s to send a card in the mail. That’s the future. The real future… The real key to getting reviews is don’t ask somebody when you’re face to face. It’s to email them a drip campaign over the next few months after you’ve cleaned their carpet.

Matt, let’s be real. Getting Google reviews, don’t you have to ask when you’re right there in the person’s face?

Yeah. We’re to the belief now that if you don’t get it in the home, you’re almost like 90-plus percent less likely to get that review at all. Right? And you’re there already, you’re having interaction with that customer, you’re more likely to get it right then, right there, because it’s fresh in their mind. You can explain to them how it’s important to your business, and how you as an actual technician, might be incentivized to do so financially, I think that’s fine from your own company, right?

So, yeah, I mean, I literally hired a new employee on last Friday, and he is spending the entire day today just on getting reviews. So, he’s actually doing live jobs just on getting reviews. The next day, he’ll send it on upsells. And so, it’s so vitally important to us, specifically, how we build all of our marketing programs, the base of our programs. The base of our marketing starts with Google and getting those reviews. And it’s the one thing, literally, the one thing that a franchisee or a business owner can control with just effort.

Matt, I’ve got audio and-

You don’t have to be a marketing person.

I’ve got audio, Matt, of what it feels like to be an Oxi Fresh, a successful Oxi fresh franchise owner that is getting reviews based strictly on effort. I mean, this is what it feels like to be a successful Oxi Fresh franchise, because you have to stay on target, Matt. Let me cue it up here. (Video).

[inaudible 00:43:58]targeting [inaudible 00:43:59].

Here we go.

I’m in range.

You just bought the franchise

Target’s coming up.

Here we go. You just bought it.

[inaudible 00:44:06] them off.

And Matt has handed you the FDD. You know what to do, folks. You have the operations manual. You’re ready to run that business. You know what to do because Oxi Fresh has taught you, it’s mentored you, it’s matriculated you. You now know the business plan and the path needed to build a successful Oxi Fresh. Here we go.

For a few seconds…

Stay on target.

Almost there.

Family and friends are saying, “Hey, why don’t you try this new idea?”

Stay on target.

Family and friends are going, “Hey, you want to try a multi-level?”

Almost there.

Your friend calls you and says, “Seriously, you want to come and join my company instead?”

Stay on target.

Almost there.

You get an email from a friend that tells you about a new opportunity.

On Target.

You’re wanting to buy a timeshare.

On Target.

Almost there.

You’re thinking about getting your real estate license.

Target.

Almost there.

Stay on target.

You might go back to college.

… there.

Your girlfriend says it’s not going to work out. Oh, Matt, they didn’t stay on target. Okay. James…

Yes, sit?

You know what I’m talking about. You know what I’m talking about. You go out there, you know what to do. Eventually, use an attorney, you know what to do. I mean, right now, you’re getting people that are calling you all the time wanting to do business with you. You know what to do.

Can’t keep up with it.

I’m going to read the quote to you again. This is Gino Wickman, he’s saying, “Most people are sitting on their own diamond mines”. He says, “The surest way to lose a diamond mine is to get bored, to become over ambitious, or to start thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Find your core focus, stick to it and devote and devote your time and resources to excelling at it”.

James, you’re an attorney. Talk to us about the dangers of thinking the grass is greener on the other side.

Well, it’s not. It never is. And until you can do it on one side of the grass, you cannot do it on the other side of the grass. And why is that? It’s because every business is fundamentally the same. And until someone gets that, they’ll keep bouncing around from business to business, to idea to idea, not getting the fundamentals down, and then, not getting the fundamentals down, the grass, they’re always chasing that grass on the other side, on the other side, on the other side.

And until they mastered on this side, they’re not going to be able to master on that side.

Andrew, you do a great job working with your clients. I’m going to cue up audio. This is Andrew coaching one of his clients this week, man. Let me cue it up here. Here we go.

It’s so good, I can’s maneuver.

Stay on target.

That’s Andrew right there saying stay on target.

Too close.

I had a small feature on Star Wars.

Too close. I can’t get Google reviews. This is what Andrew has to say.

It’s so good, I can’t maneuver.

Stay on-

That was an excuse, buddy. You can’t maneuver. You can’t get that review.

It’s so good, I can’t maneuver.

Stay on target.

Andrew, you’re telling your clients, you say, I can’t get Google reviews. And Andrew looks at him and says…

Stay on target.

And they’re saying, I can’t get Google reviews. I want to get Google reviews. And you say…

Stay on target.

We’re too close.

Stay on target.

That’s the excuse, buddy.

Loosen up.

Oh, he loosened up. I can’t loosen up. Andrew, you’re a great coach. Tell us about this quote though. Seriously…

Yeah.

… people, people tend to get distracted. How big of a problem is it? Not for our clients, but the people who are friends with our clients. Because our clients would never be distracted.

Yeah. I mean, specifically, with the path that you’ve created, there’s proven systems that work and that are proven to work, but a lot of people, once you find a thing that works, it’s fun to try the new thing, the thing that doesn’t work, the thing that hasn’t been proven yet, you know?

And so, it’s a really weird tendency that people have to find the thing that works, and then, immediately, start doing the next thing, because that thing works, let’s move on to the next thing. A lot of people find it very difficult to stick on that one thing that works because it’s repetitive. That’s just the same thing over and over and over again, but it works.

Yeah. Matt, there’s a motivational audio you can share with the Oxi Fresh franchisees, because after people buy an Oxi Fresh, you guys do ongoing mentorship, right, don’t you? I mean, ongoing. If people have questions, they can call you…

Yeah.

… when they buy a franchise?

Yeah. And it’s not really even a suggestion. We have a full coaching program. You’re going to have a franchise coach that’s going to be with you for, at least, the first six months, and they’re going to really be the bridge for everything for your business, right?

We have all the individuals that… Like Kelly, who runs the scheduling center, and Aaron, who’s our director of marketing, and Josh who really runs our online marketing team, and Jordan, who does our vendor relations, but you’ll have a franchise coach. You have a one-stop shop to get everything that you need to really facilitate certain aspects of your business, or just guide you along with that proactive coaching program.

Like today’s Monday, you look… right now, you got 20 jobs on the schedule. Let’s try to knock, at least, 50% and get reviews. Right? Let’s get, at least, 10 reviews by the end of the week. Let’s shoot for more if we can.

Oh yeah.

But let’s stay on track. Let’s keep doing those daily duties that will actually get us to our monthly goals, that’ll get us to our yearly goals. You can actually meet and do the things necessary to be a growing business that can scale and add employees, because that’s what we’re all trying to do here.

So, that coaching program has been super important for the last four years. We’ve almost escalated our initial ramp up period by double.

Matt, this is a motivational audio you can give to all of your Oxi Fresh franchise owners, because there’s a thing called the power of the subconscious mind. You know, what you think about, you bring about, and Andrew, you can put this on the show notes, please. There’s a YouTube video made by Jeremy Baker. It’s called Stay on Target 10 hours. Let me play it for you.

The whole thing? We do the whole thing?

It’s so good, I can’t maneuver.

Here we go, Matt.

Stay on target.

We’re too close.

Stay on target.

Loosen up.

Ohhh… You can’t loosen up. You got to stay on target. Here we go. Here we go.

It’s so good, I can’t maneuver.

Stay on target.

That’s it. That’s Matt coaching you right there along the way. Matt is not an Oxi Fresh coach. He’s a franchise brand developer, but he cares about the new Oxi Fresh franchisees. Listen to the steadiness and calmness of his voice as he encourages you to stay on the path for the systems.

… target.

We’re too close.

Stay on target.

Loosen up.

Matt, you can’t loosen up, can you? I mean, you got to stay on target.

Yeah, stay on target. I mean, what are you trying to accomplish? I mean, it’s very easy when you really kind of write your goals down and understand what you need to do. If you can nail everything down to a day, and you can accomplish your daily goals, it’ll be so much easier to look at a week. So much easier to look at a month. Right? So, you got to have those goals. You got to keep your foot on the pedal.

And again, none of the stuff we’re doing here is really hard, right? Doing something that’s hard is different. Now, bringing hard work to something, that’s what you want to be able to do. Anyone can do that, that’s effort, right? So, I mean, there’s nothing here that’s difficult. I mean, everyone can get reviews, everyone can do that, but the vast majority of small business are missing the… They’re missing the mark here.

And it’s you, as a franchisee… At least, for us, we teach our franchisees, you need to take advantage of the market. Really, missing it. And they’re missing it right now at a large scale. So, if you can gain market share just by simple effort-driven tasks, why wouldn’t you do it?

Folks, success requires focusing on these needle moving, traction-gaining activities, not a bunch of endless new ideas. We got to stay focused. Gino Wickman says here, “Most people are sitting on their own diamond mines. The surest way to lose your diamond mine is to get bored, to become over ambitious, to start thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. Find your focus, stick to it, and devote your time and resources to excelling at it”.

Matt Kline, if somebody out there is wanting to buy an Oxi Fresh today, I know they are. And when they go to thrivetimeshow.com/oxifresh, that’s ThriveTimeShow.com/oxifresh, Andrew, when they fill out the form, they’re going to get a call from Matt or a member of his team.

Yeah.

It gets more fun every time. It requires a lot of focus to really pronounce his name the new way. It requires a new… It’s like when Prince changed his name, from his name to a symbol, people wanted to say, “Prince, what’s up?” And he’s like, “Oh, frick. God”. And Prince is… You know this happened, Andrew. Prince is going, “Guys, I’m a symbol. Stop saying my name”. And they’re going, “Okay, my bad”.

That’s what it’s like right now. We’re relearning how to say Matt, but the point, Matt… Sorry again. Matt… But go to thrivetimeshow.com/oxifresh, that’s ThriveTimeShow.com/oxifresh, fill out the form, and you can escape the norm. You can own your own business. It can happen to you.

Matt, if they fill out the form, are you going to harass them, are you going to interrogate them? What happens next?

Yep. So, they’re going to get an email and a text message just to say, “Hey, this is who we are. Thank you for inquiring. We’d love to have a conversation with you. Let us know when is a good time. We’ll set that bad boy up. And then, what’ll happen is we’ll just go through the intro call, learn a little bit more about you, what’s got you looking, what some of your goals are”. Talk a little bit about Oxi Fresh. Right? That’s that intro call.

And then, the next call, we’re going to get into a screen share. We’ll show you the software, show you the map of the area you’re looking to service. We’ll go through a competitive analysis. We’re literally making the case of whether this is going to be a good option for you or not. And so, we’ll do that process together, and we’ll be with you all the way through the point where you actually decide to move forward, and then, you basically hand it off to our team. So, it cost you nothing, we’d love to have a conversation with you and let’s see if there’s a good fit here.

Final 30 seconds, Matt, how much does an Oxi Fresh cost and how many locations are now up and operational?

Yeah. We’re getting really cool, we’re over 420 now. We’re about 425 territories operating. The price of the franchise is 39,900, which comes with all the equipment, the product that you need, the territory that’s protected. Plus, training here in Denver. Right? So, 39,900. If you get on the phone with me, myself or my team will explain all the other details that go along with the business as well.

You know, Matt, an interesting fact right now, with all these mask mandates, in Denver, Denver is currently a mask mandate place, I believe. And I have audio I want to play of the last Oxi Fresh training hands-on with a franchisee. Let me cue it up real quick.

You guys really went all out with the mask there, right? Are you guys going with a full… Matt, what kind of masks are you wearing there in Denver at this point?

I mean, they’ve gotten pretty [inaudible 00:54:51] I just got yelled at because I had to walk three feet to my table without my mask. But I got to my table.

Oh, Matt, you’re an American icon. You’re a beautiful man. You’re a guy who bucks the trends. You’re not going to use shampoo, you’re not going to let us pressure you into using shampoo, and for that, we respect you very much. Hope you have a great rest of your day, my friend.

All right. I can’t wait to do these screen shares with you guys.

Oh, yeah, baby. Next week, we should be sending you Zoom links, baby. Woo.

All right. Let’s do it.

See you, Matt.

Look forward to having an awesome rest of your week. Crush it out there. And if you guys want to talk to us, let us know. We’d love to have a conversation with you.

Oh, yeah. See you, Matt. All right, Andrew, let’s end this show with a boom. Here we go. Three, two, one, boom.

Boom.

On today’s show, we are joined with the founder of TipTop K9. What’s Tip Top K9? TipTopK9.com is a dog training business and a franchise that teaches people just like you how to train dogs within six weeks, so that you can become a Tip Top K9 franchisee. It’s a business model that solves a problem that many people have.

So many people buy a dog, and then, their dog begins to eat everything they own. The dog begins to change the way they live their life. You end up having people that no longer invite people over to visit anymore because their dog is likely to jump up on them, or to bite them. And so, Ryan Wimpey, the founder of Tip Top K9, has invested over a decade of his life into learning how to become one of the best dog trainers on the planet. And he is passionate about training dogs, and he has created a business model that solves a problem that thousands and thousands, and even millions of Americans have, which is why my wife and I have decided to invest in the business model.

And on today’s show, Ryan Wimpey joins us to share how over the past three years, he’s been able to grow Tip Top K9 from just one location, to now, more than 10 locations. And how maybe buying a Tip Top franchise might just be the right thing for you and your family to use to achieve your financial and time freedom goals.

On today’s show, we cover a lot of ground, so, grab a pen and pad, and let’s enter into the lab as Ryan Wimpey shares with us the Tip Top K9 story.

You pooped in the refrigerator, and you ate a whole wheel of cheese. How’d you do that? Actually, I’m not even mad. That’s amazing.

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 Thrivetime Show. (Music)

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Thrive nation, on today’s show, I am fired up for you to get to know somebody who can relate to you, somebody who is one of you, somebody who is an entrepreneur, somebody who pursued their passion, and somebody who’s, now, having massive success. Ryan with Tip Top K9. Welcome on to the Thrivetime Show. How are you, sir?

What’s going on? I am good. How are you, Clay?

Well, last time I saw you… I’m doing very well. Last time I saw you, last time, you were in the man cave here.

Yeah.

The room looked very different.

It did. It looks a whole lot different. It’s big.

It’s bigger.

Big now. It look more books out, too.

Yeah. We had a big flood, and the flood filled this room. True story, with water about waist deep before I discovered how bad it was.

Oh, that’s crazy.

So, we had to gut the whole thing. So, the man cave is much bigger. It’s much better. It’s back. And-

Did you put more lights in here, too?

More lights.

Oh…

More Barnwood.

Yeah.

More bookshelves.

Oh, more Banrnwood, for sure.

Oh, the whole deal. More Pinion wood is nailed to the walls. Just more accoutrements. The bathroom door has much more a swag attached to it now than it used to have.

Yeah. It looks like it’s about to come off the hinges.

What’s that?

It’s just going to fold off the hinges.

Oh, yeah. The best addition though is that bear paw toilet paper dispenser.

That is cool.

It looks like bear hands coming out of the wall together.

I’m going to have to go to the bathroom.

Oh, no, it’s awesome, seriously. Now, on today’s show, we’re talking about something that’s been 11 years in the making. That’s the Tip Top K9 franchise. Let’s tell the listeners, how did you and I first meet, Ryan?

We first met, actually, called for an assessment. I heard you on the Profit First podcast with Mike Michalowicz.

And at that point, how long had you already been in business?

That was… We’ve been working together for three and a half years, so, I’d already been in business for seven and a half years.

Seven and a half years.

Yeah.

So, when did you actually first get the idea to start Tip Top K9?

Well, I was actually training for someone else, and they were like, “Hey, we’re moving to Indiana”. So, I had-

So, you worked for a guy?

Yeah, I worked for a couple.

A couple?

Yeah. A husband and wife dog train team, and I worked for them. I had actually interned for them, worked for free for six months to try to get hired. And then, I worked for them. They moved and… Well, I had been in a seminar before where famous dog trainer had been training us, and he was like, “Hey, just so you know, if you want to go out on your own, let me know, and I’ll help you get set up”.

A famous dog trainer?

Yes.

Is this a thing?

Yeah. No, yeah, there are some famous dog trainers.

Was it Cesar Millan?

It was not.

Ah…

Are you making that name up?

No. That’s the only name I can come up with. That’s the only one I can think of.

I feel like I’m in a dream world where you guys are making things up.

That’s the guy on the Dog Whisperer show.

That’s a show?

Yeah.

That’s who he’s referring to.

Okay.

Oh, no. Oh, no.

All right. So here we go. So, you had this idea, you thought, “Hey, you know what? I probably shouldn’t lose my job. I should probably start my own thing, maybe”.

Yeah. So I was a full-time purchasing agent, and I trained dogs nights and weekends. And so, I was like, “Well, I’m either going to go back to my cubicle, or I’m going to do my own thing”.

So, you did your own thing.

Yep.

How did you get your first 10 customers?

First 10 customers, not traditionally. I bought a van. I wrapped the van bright yellow, and I went out in the parking lot behind Chick-fil-A and trained my dogs for hours during lunch periods.

Are you being serious?

I’m dead serious, man. I am dead serious. I had no leads. I had no website. I had a business card from Vistaprint, and I would go train dogs with a bright yellow van, multiple dogs in the parking lot, until people would come be like, “Dude, what is going on?”

What I want to make sure the listeners get about this is, is a lot of people say they want to buy a franchise. August 5th, Jonathan Barnett has booked me to be the keynote speaker at the Oxi Fresh annual conference there. And when I’m speaking there to 400 franchisees, one of the things I have to remember is that Jon Barnett has dragon energy because he’s the founder of Oxi Fresh.

Right.

So he did the same kind of gorilla marketing that you had to do, Ryan, to build Tip Top K9. There’s a certain like… Jason, how would you describe these founder people, the scrappiness of these founders? How would you describe the aura of these founders?

They don’t have a, I’m going to lose bone in their body. They wake up every day with this like…

Whatever it takes.

… nonstop passion. The first time I met Barnett, I was used to seeing him on the elephant door cling. He’s this nice smiley guy. I get there, he’s very polite, but my God, he’s intense. He never sat down. He paced around the room the entire time. EXPO marker in hand as you guys were nailing out the FDD and he just… we were there for like what? Seven straight hours, and he just went. It was insane.

Because the idea is we’re going to get an FDD made today.

Right.

So, we’re not going to leave the room until it’s done.

Yeah. But both of you have that dragon energy where you like, yeah, does this suck? Absolutely. We have to listen to all this legal jargon. We have to bounce ideas back and forth, but we’re not stopping until it gets done.

So, what happens is when you sell a franchise, this is the danger. This is what we always have to remember. Anybody out there who sells franchises, you’ve got to remember this. The people that want to buy a franchise, as a general rule, want time freedom and financial freedom. And they are not a bunch of battle acts wielding Viking people.

And Breck, you started your own business.

Right.

You went through hell and back to build drbreck.com.

Yeah. I kind of just figured I was stupid enough to maybe just succeed.

How did you get your first-

Because I wouldn’t quit.

How’d you get your first 10 patients? Were you out there dog training with Ryan?

Well, I wasn’t dog training, but yeah, I mean, it was just a hard slow grind. I mean, it was just meeting people one-on-one, going door to door to introduce myself to neighbors in the area, you know, like business neighbors.

You went door to door?

Yeah.

Oh, I love it.

Meeting people anywhere I was at. I mean, if I was at a restaurant…

I love the story.

… I was leaving the same kind of Vistaprint card.

Adjusted people with [inaudible 01:04:07].

Yeah. I mean, every waitress that I talk to, you know…

There you go.

… like I know you’re on your feet all day.

See-

If you need me, I’m here. I mean, I’m giving my card to people at the gas station. I mean, anywhere and everywhere.

See, and as we’re breaking down Ryan’s story, I want to make sure everybody gets this idea. I was at Home Depot, Office Depot on Wednesday night, and the most helpful customer service rep in the history of the world was there.

Wow.

His name is Caden. He’s a dude. And I went there and asked to buy a printer, “Where can I find the Brother printer?”

Right.

And this dude, like everybody else kind of is almost avoiding me in Office Depot. Probably not.

Yeah, almost.

There’s no overhead music. There’s no energy there. And this dude springs to… He springs into action almost like a puma, a customer service puma, “I can help you, sir.” He comes from across the room, helps me, asks me if I want a warranty, do I like him to help me… Do I need for him to carry out the printer to my car? I mean, he’s called me, yes, sir, no sir. So, I hired the guy.

Awesome. Nice.

I love this.

But I’m always, I’m always-

I was wondering why you remembered his first name?

Oh my gosh. I’m always thinking that way though. When I go to Office Depot… I don’t know how you go to Office Depot, guys, but when Ryan goes to Office Depot, of Tip Top K9, Ryan, when you go to Office Depot, you’re thinking, I’m looking for good employees.

Sure.

Or when you meet somebody, you’re thinking, well, they appear to have a spine. Maybe they need help. I mean, you’re thinking, “Do you have a dog?”

Yeah.

If you’ve talked to somebody in conversation and they say, I have a dog, even though Tip Top K9 is now a bigger company…

Right.

You still have that sort of dragon energy, and it can be tough. When somebody wants to buy a Tip Top K9 franchise, because we have to vet you and to find out if you are the right fit, because if you don’t have a certain level of scrappiness, it’s not going to work.

Because Ryan’s run through the minefield, and has tried every possible marketing system that didn’t work to find the stuff that does work, but it could almost be befuddling to a founder when they’re talking to a franchisee and the franchisee says, “So you want me to go behind a Chick-fil-A and [inaudible 01:06:09]. Are you nuts?”

Most of our people are getting leads now.

So [inaudible 01:06:13]nuts in.

Yeah, they’re getting leads.

They get leads pretty quick.

They don’t need to do that.

No. No.

But you came from a place where it’s almost foreign to you not to do that kind of stuff.

Yeah. I still wear yellow, my yellow polo everywhere I go.

There you go.

I drive my yellow van…

I love it.

… everywhere I go. I have a car seat, so I always take the little man, put him in the yellow van. I still drive everywhere, and people come talk. They see a yellow van outside, they see a guy in a yellow dog training shirt and they come talk.

So, when did you start to gain traction? When did you feel like this was actually going to work?

Probably, about year five or six.

Year five or six.

Yeah. I don’t know if that’s disheartening or not, but it took… I was a pretty high skill level, but low business skill level for quite a while.

Skill level at training dogs?

Correct.

Okay. But low business skill level?

Yes.

Yeah.

It took a while, man. It took a while.

And I think with clients that I coach who are like you, it’s easier, because you have dragon energy. So, the biggest thing we have to work on, I always say, is you learn the systems, and then, the stoicism.

Right.

Because… Jason, you see this. I talked to a guy… And by the way, this show’s going to come out in April, so I’m not trying to throw a customer under the bus or a client. I won’t mention any of the details of their industry, but I’ll just say, this dude got a four star on Friday. We talked about this through texts or calls starting at, I think 6:00 AM on Friday. And we did not stop talking about this until 5:00 PM on Friday, because he got a four star.

And the funny thing about that is, in that amount of time, you could have gotten enough reviews to rebuild that reputation.

I know. But I mean, it’s like won’t stop. He calls me, “Hey man, I got a problem”. “What’s going on?” “Somebody left me a four star, and they’re not even a customer. They didn’t even buy from me”. “They’re not even a customer. They’re not…” And I’m going, “You got to let it go. What I want you to do is go up there. If you want to respond, you can. You can say I appreciate-

What I want you to do is go up there. If you want to respond, you can, you can say, “I appreciate you. We strive to provide you the best service possible. If you’d like to resolve the issue, we can help you in any way, please let me know.” Boom, boom, boom. You know what he does?

What?

He goes up there and blasts the dude who wrote a four star.

Worst move?

Writes like a paragraph.

I’ve looked at some of those reviews for services that I’m wanting, and then I see the owner get into some kind of little petty battle and I’m like, “I’m out. I’m going somewhere else.”

That can ruin your Google My Business page.

Yeah.

It gets bad. So it’s like, well, first off, you weren’t even a customer. Second off, if you’re going to be the kind of person that hides behind a false screen name. Three… And I’m like, “Dude, stop that.” So about noon, he’s like, “Okay, okay, I’ll take it down.” But then he’s texting me, this crazy person is now email. He just can’t move on. He literally spent his entire day focused on the four star, and I think it’s because he’s got that dragon energy. We ended on a good note, but Ryan, can you talk about that? Because you’ve learned to be a really great business owner now, you’ve learned these systems, but was that hard to learn that stoicism, or is that-

Oh, yeah. Our team for a while is deathly afraid to get a four star or anything else? Because we had 305 star reviews and we didn’t have any bad ones yet. And we knew eventually everyone’s like, “Oh it’s not going to be me. It’s not going to be me.” But as far as stoicism, I’m like, “Okay, I spend four hours writing my response to the review. Where now we can kind of let that go. We have a lot more traction as well.”

Okay, so let’s talk about this now. So since you and I teamed up, I haven’t done anything related to training dogs. All we’ve tried to do is Cisconize everything.

We don’t let you touch the dogs.

We don’t at all.

Right.

So if you go to tiptopk9.com and then you go to a certain hidden page, if you’re a owner of the Tiptop K9, all of the documents are there for you. All of the documents on how to train a dog, how to do sales, how to do marketing, checklist, onboarding checklist, new hire paperwork. How to document injuries. I mean, everything is there, but it was like 10 years of knowledge is now on one page of the website. Is that pretty accurate?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah.

What was the most challenging part of systematizing your business? When I started telling you the moves to use, what was the most challenging part? I mean, now we got a turnkey system to generate leads. What was the hardest part to embrace?

Probably sitting down and actually doing it. Because it’s a lot easier to just do my job to just train dogs. That’s easy for me and I like it. So to sit down and type stuff out and creatively think it’s a lot more challenging.

It’s a sit down and creatively think. Yeah, that’s the hardest part.

In quiet room. Yes.

I want to make sure the listeners get this. Let’s think about the workflow, Jason, from left to right on page four of the boom book. Everybody, if you go to thrivetimeshow.com/free resources. thrivetimeshow.com/free-resources. You can see the stuff. But as you go from left to right on the boom book the diagram here, you got to figure out your goals. So if somebody wants to buy a Tip Top K9, why would somebody want to buy a franchise in your mind?

Well, like you said earlier, they want a business that’s going to provide them with time and financial freedom. So they realize this is already a well-established business. All the systems are in place, all they have to do is staff and run it.

Now because franchises are regulated by the federal government, there’s only so much I can talk about, but I want to get into the things we’re okay to talk about here. If I reach out and I want to hire Tip Top K9 to fix my dog, to train my dog, how much does it cost me? Approximately?

Anywhere from 400 to $4,000.

From 400 to $4,000?

Yes.

What would be an average ticket in Tulsa roughly?

Average ticket in Tulsa is $1,700.

Okay. Now each location, Dr. Breck, can run at their own level of profitability or lack thereof. So you could in theory have a SWAT team of four or five dudes training that dog, and it could look like Ryan, the Wu-Tang Clan is out there training your dog. You could do that.

You already have the yellow and black. That’s an idea.

And Dr. Breck, you’ve seen this though, where you’ve seen chiropractors who overstaff.

Yeah. Absolutely.

I mean you could have too many people working for you.

Yeah. I was at a conference recently where this guy’s on the stage talking about different things and I’m like, “Man, he’s got, he’s added up just multiple…” And finally, I see him out in the lobby and I’m like, “There’s an army behind all this.” It’s crazy.

I want to make sure the listeners get this with my business coaching that I do through Make Your Life Epic. I’ve been doing this since 2007 and 8. And one thing that people have never understood, and I don’t get, there’s a graphic design firm in Tulsa who hates me. Oh, he hates me.

I think there’s a few.

And he shows up though to the office. This is 16th and Boston, back in the day. I don’t even know how he got an appointment. But he’s there somehow. And he says, “Why are you the only graphic design firm in Tulsa that doesn’t have a secretary? What is your deal? You’re so cheap.” Seriously. And I didn’t know you at this point, Jason and I didn’t know you yet Ryan or you Breck. But we had a very, very nice coffee bar that I built. So it was going to Starbucks and every kind of coffee’s there, all of the different things you could possibly add to it, the cinnamon sticks.

But I’d never had a secretary. And I said, “Because I meet my clients on time and then I meet the next client on time. So there’s no need for me to pay somebody $50,000 a year to follow me around for them to greet people. I’m just not going to do it. Furthermore, my clients can call me directly,” and he goes, “Dude, you are so unprofessional. I have heard that you don’t even return voicemails of potential clients.” I go, “Absolutely. You’re right. I don’t because I’m booked out.” He’s like, “That is…” But see, he has a person that he’s staffing to answer his phone and to greet customers, and that’s like 45 to 50 grand a year.

The other thing he does that I don’t do is he invoices his clients. And again, he came in for help, I guess he said that he needed help and somehow he booked an appointment. So he’s meeting with me to say he needs help. And he just basically spends his time complaining about things that I don’t do. Apparently, because I don’t invoice people, he thinks that’s kind of shady that I don’t invoice you. Now, Breck, if I did invoice a great client like Ryan, what would I then have to do?

Well then you got to follow up on it.

Yes.

And you got to collect, I mean, yeah.

Now you got a bookkeeper that has to do that. Now it’s two jobs. So it is possible to run a Tip Top K9 extremely unprofitably.

Sure.

Or profitably.

I did it for quite a few years. Yeah.

So what would be your tips for running a Tip Top K9 franchise unprofitably? What are the tips?

Oh, well, definitely the hire extra people that you don’t need.

Get a whole rap group of people following you around.

Oh yeah. That’s definitely not needed. And then the other thing is, some of the people, they just do unnecessary activities that they don’t need to do.

Such as?

Such as they want to make new systems or they want to come up with creative ideas when really they got a franchise. So if they’re diligent, then they make money.

So if you buy an Oxyfresh franchise today, and I think it’s a great deal. I’ve been working with John for a long, long time. If you buy an Oxyfresh, don’t email in to corporate suggesting a logo idea. Don’t email in.

Don’t buy a franchise if you want to recreate the wheel.

Yeah. If you want to be like the Picasso of the business and be super artistic and creative and change stuff around, don’t reach out, but if you want a time freedom and financial freedom creating business, that’s what Tip Top K9 is all about. So now you’ve got these 12 locations.

Yes.

Let’s kind of go through a few of them and where they came from. So the one in Oklahoma City, that’s Seth.

Yes.

And Seth used to be an employee for you.

Yeah, Seth was our training manager here in Tulsa.

And he thought, “Hey, I got to get on this deal. If we’re going to franchise, I want one.”

Yep, absolutely.

And then you’ve got Owasso.

Yes.

Where did he come from? Adam.

So the guy who runs the Owasso location, he was actually a client. He actually paid us thousands of dollars to train his dogs. And he actually used our system for multiple years. And then he actually had a pit bull rescue, and then he became a franchise owner.

Where did the homeboys from Southlake, Texas, where did they come from?

They come from Tulsa. They were actually ex clients as well.

So you got two ex clients who are franchise owners.

Yes.

Then you got Seth in Oklahoma City who’s a former employee.

Yes. Correct.

Let’s go to Utah. I think Utah, he is a brother of one of my clients.

Yes. He used to do door to door sales.

By the way-

Knocking on doors.

If you’re a Mormon and you’re listening to this show, buy a Tip Top K9 franchise.

I was about to ask if he’s up in Utah, is he Mormon?

Dude, Mormons don’t lose.

He’s one of the most diligent. We got a lot of diligent people actually. But he is insane.

Jason. Are you Mormon?

I wish.

Let’s talk about this for a second though. You’re not Mormon.

No.

You’re not Christian.

No. One day-

Are you agnostic? What are you?

I have no idea. I would say, I guess agnostic could be the thing because I don’t openly hate anything. I’m just here.

Just take us into your spiritual world for a second. Where are you?

I am listening to Wu-Tang Clan and trying to better myself as a human being.

Fair enough. Why do the Mormons in the office get it done so well, I mean, we have an army of Mormons working for us right now? Seriously, I’m not kidding. I have thought about this. I have talked about this. I’ve actually called to get quotes to run billboards in front of BYU that says now hiring because the Mormons, I mean, what makes them so awesome in the office?

Well, they don’t subscribe to the same employee mentality that most people do, where it’s just like if I were to come into the office and be, God, what can I do today to make Clay say good job? How can I impress Clay? Most people don’t work in order to be better at what they do. They work for some sort of self-gratification. But Ben and Amelia and Angela, they work super hard because they’re working towards their God. They work as-

Unto the Lord.

Yeah.

That’s their whole thing. That’s their whole deal. And it’s funny, but we have, Dr. Whitlock who reached out to me, he’s one of my clients, and he said, “I need help getting reviews. Can I pay one of your people to do it?” So I said, “Sure. We charge 25 an hour.” And just for the listeners know I pay the person 12 an hour who makes the calls and they get paid per review they get.

Right.

And Angela’s supposed to make a hundred calls a day. Breck, do you want to guess how many calls a day she makes?

I know it’s more than a hundred. 150.

She every day tops 300 calls.

Wow. Oh my gosh.

So if you look up Tulsa Cosmetic Surgery, She’s taken Dr. Whitlock, who’s been in business for over 15 years from-

Well, longer than I’ve been in business. He’s been here probably 20.

Yeah, she took him from 50 reviews. She just moved past 307 reviews on Friday.

It’s nuts.

In just like 90 days.

And then didn’t you say the other day that people are also because she’s calling, they’re like, “Oh, I should probably come back in for another service.”

Yes.

Yeah. Brings it back top of mind.

He did $40,000 of sales last week. It’s just unbelievable. It’s just unbelievable. So he’s a Mormon up there and he’s implementing all the systems. How easy is it for him to run the business or for you? How easy is that relationship with that guy?

It’s very easy. It’s an easy relationship. I mean, he worked really hard when he was here at our initial training program.

Yeah, he did.

Oh man.

He’s a diligent doer.

Oh, he is so diligent. We run 10-hour days for training, and he would be here at least 11 or 12. And then sometimes he would send me pictures or a video of him training his dog later. And I’m like, “Dude, you’ve been training dogs for 14 hours today.” Like every day, what are you doing?

And he runs his staff lean, doesn’t he?

Oh yeah. Very. It’s him.

It’s him.

It’s him.

So if he does, and again, we can’t make claims, but in the FDD you can share sales totals in his first year, could you share how much sales he did? Is that possible today or not so much?

Yeah, so his last month that I have here in the FDD on record, June 2019, he did 19,575 by himself.

He did $19,000 of sales.

I called him and asked him, I was like, “Hey, do you have people now?” And he was like, “Nope, just me.” And I was like, “What?”

That’s awesome.

Now I don’t know what he pays himself, but in that pie chart of where the money goes, if there’s 19,000 coming in and you don’t have a whole lot of people on that payroll, basically you are the only person on that payroll. I empower you to pay yourself a lot of money.

Definitely. No one else has put up numbers like that by themself. He’s hustling.

Breck, get hot take.

Well, so my question is, how many of these people, because you’ve talked about a couple of them are former clients and I mean how many of them knew anything about training a dog?

He has zero dog training experience. Zero.

So what about the former clients who were obviously calling you to train their dogs? They obviously didn’t know anything?

No, they had no idea. So in Southlake, Kat, she was a graphic designer, and Adam, he sold mortgages. So they’re not-

Complete departure. They’re doing something totally different.

They just say like, “Hey, I got a new dog. I don’t know what to do with it.” They called and they’re like, “Hey, I like this system.” And then we’re franchising and they’re like, “Well that sounds like a lot of fun.”

In full disclosure, I was working with Orion and I think this is how I would describe our relationship. When we first started, I love our relationship now, but when we first started, whenever you work with someone with dragon energy, both of us are going to be a little bit pissed. Because I’m teaching urgent, but sustainable, like stoic but let’s get it done. And Ryan is teaching, let’s get it done, let’s get it done. So if you’re not careful, the entrepreneur will want to change their ads every day. They’ll want to change a print piece every day and then nothing gets done.

No, no. It’s a tough thing. But Ryan, very quickly, I don’t know if it was your wife kind of coaching you through that, or if it was me or you, but pretty soon he started getting it real fast going, okay, I got to get Google reviews, I got to write content, I got to have a no-brainer that works. I got to set it and forget it. Okay, I get it. So we’re doing it. I told Vanessa, we need to invest in this business because when you franchise, it costs some money. We’re paying Wes Carter. I think the last legal bill we paid him was more than $10,000, am I correct?

Yes, it was. Yeah.

And we’re paying him $10,000 multiple times. And wintersking.com is a great law firm and I’m happy to pay them. But what we did is I said, “Ryan, Rachel, if you guys want to team up, let’s do it. You guys are the majority owners. I’ll be a minority partner, I’ll put in pro rata. Let’s say we have a bill for a hundred dollars. I’ll put in $33. You put in $66. Let’s do it that way. So full disclosure, I am an investor in the brand. Zero input on the dog training, which is a good thing. But I build the systems, which is a good thing.” So when people want to franchise, I don’t think people realize how much it costs, how much time it takes to do it. It’s an expensive-

A lot has gone into this to even get it to that point.

Right. So Ryan, how long did it take to get all the legal documents together to franchise?

Well, legal documents was a year and a half.

Year and a half.

Right. That’s meeting with Wes Carter attorney every week for a year and a half.

And that’s fast. And just so we’re clear, I have worked with other brands and that is fast. A year and a half is pretty fast. And the reason why it’s fast is because in the franchise disclosure document, you have to put in real numbers. And a lot of entrepreneurs don’t have any numbers. Jason, I’m sure you’ve seen this before.

Oh. Yeah.

We’re like, “Hey, we got to put in your numbers.” And they go, “Numbers? What?”

How are you still a functioning business?

A lot of people, seriously, they don’t pay their taxes for three or four years in a row.

Right.

Breck, I’m sure you’ve met people like this. They’ve gone three or four years without paying taxes. They don’t track their numbers. Is it fun tracking your numbers as a chiropractor? Do you like them?

I personally like it.

You’re sick.

I’m a sick freak. Yeah. I like the numbers, but I mean, especially when the numbers are trending the way you want them to trend, that’s a whole lot of fun because you’re watching the scoreboard just continue to tick up in your favor.

How helpful has Wes been Ryan on the legal aspect of it? Because I find him to be a very non patronizing attorney. Can you talk about him?

Yeah. He doesn’t speak over me, if that makes sense.

Yep, yep.

And that’s probably why we were able to do it quicker. Because he doesn’t speak hardcore legalese. He’s very reachable. He’s very, very responsive. Because he only takes a limited amount of clients and he really streamlined it. Just with how responsive he is, we’re able to make tons of changes really fast. And I don’t feel like he’s trying to ding us 20 grand a month or anything like that.

What’s been the most rewarding aspect of running a Tip Top K9 franchise for you? Well, what’s been the most rewarding aspect of allowing and empowering other people to open their own Tip Tops?

Hands down, the most rewarding is seeing them in a year or year and a half be where it took me six years to get.

Everybody out there should keep that in perspective.

That’s huge. Making what literally took me six years or seeing someone in a year of running a location, they’re able to take a vacation and I didn’t for six, seven years.

And you like vacation?

I do like vacation.

Let’s talk about that. You like it.

You don’t, you’re a sick man.

I know.

I love it. My wife and I, we love taking vacation.

I think I determined the other day when you mentioned that you like vacation, I don’t, I spent way too much time thinking about it, but I think I figured out why-

Yeah. That’s good.

Why I don’t like vacation. And I thought about it. Yesterday I spent my whole day, I don’t talk to a single person. I come upstairs, hang out with the kids around three or four in the afternoon, but all day I’m on vacation. I mean, I literally don’t talk to a single person all day. And I do the same thing on Sunday essentially. So I’m kind of on a vacation and I’m in here reading books, which I love to do and I think I do vacation, but maybe not a vacation on a beach.

You just do it differently.

Staycation, staycation.

Staycation.

That’s what it is. Okay, so let’s talk about this. What kind of person should buy a Tip Top K9 and how much money does it cost?

A person who loves dogs.

Okay, got it.

And is a diligent doer.

Got to love dogs.

Right. Got to love dogs. Got to be diligent. And then the initial franchise fee is $43,000.

$43,000.

Correct.

To buy a Tip Top K9 franchise. You have to love dogs.

Yes, you have to love dogs. It will not work.

You can’t be somebody who wants to buy a Tip Top K9 and let somebody else run it for you. You have to be an owner operator.

You have to be an owner operator. So you could buy a Pizza Hut and not like pizza, but it will not work for dog training.

You won’t sell them one. If somebody out there says-

We will not. No.

So there’s different kinds of franchises. Some are an owner operator where you basically buying a job and then you run that job, you run that business.

But this is a great job.

It’s a great job.

It is a great job.

I don’t know a lot of jobs where you can be up in Utah doing $20,000 a month of sales in your first year.

With dogs. Can you imagine that’s a dream job? Have you seen how beautiful Utah is?

No. He likes it. He loves it. He’s in the mountain, especially when it’s good weather. He’s sending me pictures in the mountains and stuff with dogs.

That’s awesome.

Yeah. That is.

What makes Adam in Southlake so good at selling. Why does he sell well?

First, he was a trained sales guy. He was selling mortgages. His bonding and rapport building with clients is really good, really fast, and they can tell he’s a good person.

What makes Seth such a good dog trainer, Seth in Oklahoma City? What makes him such a good dog trainer?

Well, he’s super diligent guy, but he’s also just sold out to dog training. So when we first met him, he was taking his dog to the dog park every week, or sorry, every day, every week. So anytime I’m at the park, I always saw this guy and I was just like, “Ah.” And then, yeah, I trained him. He trained his dog three, four hours a day for a few months until his dog literally looked like mine from zero to amazing. He sold it. He’s sold out.

Can you share, as we wrap up today’s show about the sales totals of Adam in Owasso, what can you share with us about his sales during his first year? This is stuff that’s fully disclosed in the franchise disclosure document. This is all regulated by the federal government. What numbers could you share with us about Adam in Owasso?

Yeah, so first off, his area is less than 140,000 people.

Got it. So he’s in an area with less than 140,000 people. About the size of maybe St. Cloud, Minnesota. Maybe with some of you listening out there, not a big multimillion dollar or multimillion person city. I mean it’s a small area.

Right. Yeah, I’ll just through we have January to June of 2019.

Got it.

So January he did $20,690.

Of sales?

Yes. February he did 30,500-

Of sales?

Yes. Of sales.

And how many employees does he have? Do you know?

He has two.

If you’re out there today-

Again, he’s a diligent guy. He’s a diligent guy.

If you’re out there today and you have found yourself in a career that causes you to work all the time and you don’t make any money, then maybe it’s time to make a switch. So what I’d encourage you to do is go to tiptopk9.com, tiptopk9.com and schedule initial phone conversation and guess who you’re going to be stuck with? Me. Why? I’m going to try to vet you to see if you are the right fit to buy a Tip Top K9. Now, if I think you’re the right fit, I don’t have majority vote. So then I will have you talk to Ryan and Rachel and they’re going to have you come out to Tulsa for a discovery day. Now, a discovery day is where you actually are working with Ryan and Rachel actually seeing them train dogs. You’re watching the call center make calls, you’re seeing the dogs be trained, you’re meeting the trainers. There’s nothing hidden, very transparent.

Well, I actually have you work some dogs too.

And after that, if you feel like it’s a good fit and Ryan and Rachel think it’s a good fit, then we will then schedule your initial training process. How long does that training take to master the art of training dogs?

It’s pretty intense. It’s six weeks and 60 hours a week. So we go 6 days a week, 10 hours a day.

Six weeks.

Six weeks. So that’s six weeks in Tulsa.

Dr. Breck. How many weeks did you have to go to chiropractic school?

Several. There’s 52 weeks a year.

But I mean you went to school for seven years.

Yeah. Well, I went year round, so otherwise it would’ve been an eight-year process. But yeah, I did all my bachelor’s degree and everything. I mean just nonstop. My wife graduated a year ahead of me in high school and we dated in high school, so I was constantly trying to play catch up, but yet she never did take her foot off the gas. She was still taking full 18 to 24 hours semester. So I’m like, “How am I going to catch up unless I take 26 and 28 hours a semester?” So yeah, it was just like I got to push it. I got to push it because I wanted to finish at the same time and be together.

How many years did it take you running your chiropractic business, drbreck.com before you did 20,000 a month of sales?

Oh goodness.

After seven years of school, how many years did it take you?

Several.

Think about this folks. It took Dr. Breck seven years to finish school to get the training, and then it took you several years to bring in the money that somebody’s bringing in after six weeks, only six weeks of training and one year in business. People are putting up those numbers. It is outstanding-

Well, there was six month grace period on the student loans, so after the six month it was like, oh, this just got real because I got to pay all this back.

How much do you charge for the training, Ryan, if someone wants to buy a Tip Top K9 franchise? What do you-

Well, the training’s included in the initial franchise fee.

And how much is that fee again?

It’s 43,000, but that includes their first three months of SEO, grand opening marketing. And six weeks here and all the gear that they’re going to need.

Man, I appreciate you joining with us here this morning.

Absolutely.

And we’re going to be having you on the show. We’re going to try to have you on at least two or three times a month as we share the success of the different franchisees. We’re going to be calling some of them, we’ll actually be doing like a call in for part of the show. We’re going to call them on the phone and ask them about how it’s been going for them. So Thrive Nation, get ready to get familiar with Ryan with Tip Top K9, and if you are interested in buying a Tip Top K9 franchise, just go to tiptopk9.com, look for the franchise button and schedule a consultation with me and we’ll see if you are the right fit and you can ask any questions you want. It’s all regulated by the federal government because it’s a franchise, so this is a very safe way to buy a business.

The numbers can’t be made up. We can’t make any claims that aren’t backed up by actual documented numbers. I’m a big fan of Tip Top K9 a huge fan of Ryan and Rachel, and I’m starting to even like dogs for minimum, just I have to have just a little exposure to a dog, Jason, I can see dogs every Saturday for about an hour or two. I don’t hate dogs. If you’re listening right now out there and you love dogs, I love that you love dogs. I’m starting to like dogs, but I don’t like dogs to the level that they would ever sell me a franchise. All right, now we’re going to end the show in the boom. So here we go. 3, 2, 1, boom.

Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Morrow. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a market 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’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. I established my practice here in Tulsa in 1985.

One of the things that I hear in my world a lot as a business consultant from business owners is they will tell me, “Clay, I want you to help me, but my industry is different.” And so on today’s show, I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful client who’s a pediatric dentist, and I also am going to introduce you to a wonderful client who’s a real estate agent, and I’m also going to introduce you to a wonderful client who does mortgages and a wonderful client who’s a family doctor and a wonderful client who trains dogs and a wonderful client who runs the UPS Stores for all of Canada. Then I’ll introduce you to a wonderful client who has a massive real estate and franchise empire. Then I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful client that sells new homes.

Then I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful client who sells insurance, and then a wonderful client who runs a church and a wonderful client who sells insurance. I think I mentioned that. A wonderful client that has a research lab. And at the end of the day, you’ll discover that if you will follow the proven systems that I will teach you at our in-person workshops or through our one-on-one coaching program, it’s like bumper bowling for business. It’s like if you’re tired of throwing gutter balls and you want to have success, this system will absolutely change your life. It’s a step-by-step system, it’s a linear workflow. It’s going to absolutely change your life. Now without any further ado here is Dr. Morrow sharing about how this system has changed his life and his business’s life and the lives of his employees and the growth of his pediatric dentistry. So here we go.

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 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’s just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Cockerell, 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 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. I’ve seen guys go from startup to being multimillionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system, critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable scalable business.

One of his businesses has 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy, Elon Musk kind of like smart guy. He comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much when I say that Clay 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 the most about him. He’s 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. And 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 listened to it, and when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, “I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down.” Because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition. 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, because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay, and we have no accounts receivable.

He helped us navigate that, and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time, but great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing and I encourage you, if you haven’t ever worked with Clay, work with Clay, he’s going to help magnify you. And there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps four, maybe six hours a day, and literally the rest of the time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and he loves it. So this is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Thank you Clay. And anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay, it’s a great, great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Colaw. We’ll see you guys. Bye-Bye.

Hi, I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Holmes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them, and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden. So I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over 800 million in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes, and then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed after doing 800 million in sales over a 15-year career. I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Holmes, and I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay.

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

… about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builders shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I’ve found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing, and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental.

It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic, and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they, maybe, are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean, we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town, and so, we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing. And I think for a lot of people, they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you, if you’re thinking about working with Clay, I mean the thing is, it’s month to month.

Go give it a try, and see what happens. I think in the 35-year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give him a shot, I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would’ve missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would’ve missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would’ve been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t.

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

So, I reached out to Clay at that time, and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market, our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago, and in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to, just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we, right now, have just over 10 million impending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due, and Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen.

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

My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school, I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with a specific written business plan.

He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned. It is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through, and even avoid, some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards, and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

Hey, Clay Clark and my Thrive Peeps. It’s Steve Currington, as you can tell, although I’m not wearing my signature green shirt as usual. But I am riding in my signature green Lamborghini, and I just wanted to say how appreciative I am of Thrive and all the guys at Thrive Time and the show and everything that you guys have done at Total Ending Concepts. We have had tremendous growth and a lot of things changing, especially in the marketing front and from a coaching perspective and from a web presence and branding and our internet leads are up.

Everything is hammering on all cylinders, and really we’re just trying to figure out how we can leverage the systems and the processes that we’re learning at Thrive more in our business. So, now we’re setting up a lead tracking system that has been long overdue, and we’re doing lots of stuff. But I wanted to take a minute and say thank you, thank you, thank you to Thrive and Clay Clark and Doctor Z and everybody for all the help in helping us grow our business and, hopefully, buy more Lamborghini like this the more we sell. So, appreciate it guys. See you.

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. I 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, all right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. As you can 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 14, and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome. But Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So, now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year.

In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now, it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand.

So, we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys.

They said it couldn’t be done. They said you couldn’t fill up the BOK Center. They said it wasn’t possible. But yet, if you look, it appears to be full. Oh, we’re making America boom again.

Very full.

Very, oh, very full. Lots of marketing courtesy of John Kelly and Devin and Darling.

And this mind.

And this mind and this hat. So, there it is. [inaudible 01:52:16] Oilers. You hold out, baby. Oh. Oh.

My name is Taylor Hall. I’m the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers Professional Hockey team. Our goal every night here at the BOK Center is to try to fill the seats with lots of people and create an exciting environment so when somebody comes to a game, they want to come back. Working with Clay and the staff at Thrive, they’ve really helped us in many, many ways. Website and graphic design and video production, and a lot of things that go along. And a lot of businesses, including ours, doesn’t have a staff or a full-time videographer or graphic designer. But the biggest thing that we noticed was the needle mover. More sales, more attendance, more successes in business.

We had a record year last season working with Clay for the first time. Our average attendance is higher than it’s ever been, so there was a lot of really cool things that we did and they worked. That’s the nice thing about working with Clay and the team over there. It’s just not one person. You get the entire team. If you need video design and editing and production, they’ve got that. If you need graphic design, if you need some coaching your sales people and call scripts, PR, they offer all that. Clay was instrumental in helping guiding us and getting us on the right track so that we could really raise the bar and become ultra successful. So, it is been an amazing experience for us.

My name is Nick Smith, and I’m an agency owner with Farmers Insurance. I grew up in a middle class family all the way up until I was about 13, and then my dad lost his job. And then, all of a sudden, he was gone, and I was being raised by my mom by herself. She was probably making 20 grand a year. In order for me to have a car, I had to pay for the car. I had to pay for the gas. I had to do everything on my own. So, the independent thinking had to come early if I wanted to do anything. A couple of years ago, man, I was stuck in a rut. I really honestly was. And I couldn’t see it. Not because I was doing it wrong, it’s because I didn’t know any better. Rates were not good. Selling was difficult. Staffing was just unbelievably difficult to keep good staff in here. I was having a ton of turnover, and I was about ready to hang it up and sell out. I was just done.

And that’s about when I got introduced to the concept of the Will of Wealth and Thrive. Some of the specific things I’ve learned about running my business is systems and being organized. Before, I think I just shot from the hip a lot of times. But, man, since I started this whole journey, I’d developed systems for each of the employees, but not just the employees, but for the position. So, the fear of wondering when I’m gone, wondering if things are being done, I don’t have to worry quite as much. Business wise, I finally got over the hump, and we’re actually growing again. Whereas before we were just declining, declining, declining, and now we’re back up and we’re back over what we were a couple of years ago now. The training’s ongoing. Even from where I’m at now, I still feel like I need to get further. The training itself is just, it’ll rock your world. It really will change the way you think and look at business. So, all those things just culminated into this big successful business that I feel like I have now. All that stuff has just been life altering.

All right, Clay’s awesome. He’s very entertaining, very energized. He has some quirky, unique ways to get engagement with the audience. So, really pleased to have Clay do our keynote today. Well, I think it was being willing to take some risks on stage, taking some risks relative to how to set the audience up. I think that created this what’s going to happen next. And so, just that risk taking created a unique engine that I think ultimately resulted in a great experience. Well, I think Clay would be an awesome presenter for a number of groups. One, I think that the material that he delivers is spot on, but he also can deliver some additional products and services to the organization even beyond just the things that he does on stage.

My name is David Drucker. I’m the President for UPS Stores Canada. Also, a member of the AFA board in an honorary position. So-

Okay.

… a crossover with both sides. I thought it was great. I thought Clay did a wonderful job. I think anytime you’re able to get a diverse group together to start finding the commonalities, you’re starting to pull the threads together that are going to make something for the future. I think that was the objective for today, and I think Clay was really able to pull that out. I thought Clay was really good at shifting speeds. He was fast when he needed to be fast, detailed when he needed to be detailed, was able to read the room every so often. If we started drifting off too far to the left or too far to the right, he was right there to rudder us back on course. So, I mean, really, I don’t think we could have chosen a better guy for the day to lead us.

My impression of Clay was his energy, and just the energy that he had on stage and how passionate he is about his message. And I really felt like I could connect with that because it was very genuine and believable and sincere, and I really appreciate the sincerity of it all. So, the lesson nugget is, in fact, the action nugget. You can think of things all day long, you can read books all day long, you can do whatever you’re going to do as far as business planning, but if you don’t implement and actually take action, then it doesn’t mean anything. It is all about taking the steps and standing up and going forward and engaging in an action activity. Well, what was so different about this is the sense of humor, their really great sense of humor, very lively, very engaging, and interesting. And a lot of presentations you just sit there and go, “Oh, no. No.” But this was fun. This was fun and interesting and engaging.

Oh, I loved Clay. Very funny. You never know, right? With a keynote speaker, you don’t know. So, you’ve got to open up. He’s got a good sense of humor. I liked the video at the beginning. It started out perfect. I’m like, “Oh, great. Another speaker that’s been to a million corporations.” I liked it. I think it was really well done. The guy’s good.

Clay’s fantastic. I mean, the guy is hilarious, captivating, kept the room moving. I mean, I love the fact that he got everybody up and moving. The fact that you could get John Tanney up dancing in his seat like that is worth the price of admission right there.

That’s awesome.

It just reinvigorates you. You hear somebody talk about how you’re putting in systems into your business, how you’ve got to seize the day. I mean, all that stuff is stuff you know deep down you should be doing, but those reminders help. And it really, it’s the right time if you’re open to it. I mean, that’s what it’s all about. Because I’m a product of the nineties, I liked his Notorious BIG rap a little bit. But I get it, man. He is exactly right. I’ve got a ton of buddies that are sitting around playing PlayStation every day, and they’re not studying success.

And I think that’s the thing. Because to me, the one thing I really take away from that conversation is poverty is our baseline. Everybody knows poverty. You don’t need to teach poverty. You need to teach success. And the fact that he said that was like music ears. I think he just, I mean, just really gets our industry. You get a lot of realtors that try and be motivational speakers, but he truly is a motivational speaker. He’s a businessman, he’s obviously been around the block and done a lot of things, and I think all those applications. Because real estate, at the end of the day, is the business of business.

I love Clay. I’ve known Clay just socially, but I’ve never heard him speak before. And I was probably most taken by the fact that he was just common in so many ways and made fun of himself, but also brought that aspect of these are my lessons, and these are lessons from some very influential people who we all recognize. So, probably what I took away from him the most was the net promoter score and the fact that your wow factor from what you provide to your clients really creates that score. And you really have to go the extra mile to bring people to that level of impression. I appreciated Clay’s story about his father and the picture with the kids, with the girls. I thought that was very meaningful.

Sure.

And takes the whole thing, the rest of his message and stories and things that he’s sharing, and really puts them in perspective for people who are listening. You could tell he enjoys what he does and believes in what he’s presenting, and that’s a connection with an audience that is more important than the name or even what’s being presented. It’s real, it’s transparent, and it’s genuine.

My name is Josh Wilson. I’m the owner of Living Water Irrigation. So, I’ve been working with Thrive since December of 2017. So, the biggest changes we’ve seen as a company is, first of all, just systematically how we do things, how we present things. Our Google presence is phenomenal, our website’s a million times better, and just the overall accountability and the process by which we’re conducting ourselves. So, our biggest win since working with Thrive is March was a record month for us. It was almost twice as much as our biggest month prior to that. In the last week or so, we’ve closed about $250,000 worth of business. We still have to go dig a bunch of ditches and get it done, but we signed about $250,000 worth of business with the relationships we’ve built and the things that they’ve implemented through Victoria and Clay and everybody here at Thrive.

So, I would recommend Thrive to other business owners simply because they can point out where you’re flawed and what you need to work on. You just have to be real and honest with yourself on what you need to improve upon. So, that would be first and foremost. And the huge reason why I would do it, because it works. Actually, everything that they said when we came in for our initial meeting to today, absolutely positively has been accomplished.

Just how does an irrigation and sprinkler repair company increase in sales by over 450% in just one year? When according to Forbes, nine out of 10 startups fail, and eight out of 10 existing businesses fail. How can one company grow by 450% in one year? Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, it is now time for yet another edition of-

Wins of the Week.

Doing the bull dance, feeling the flow, working, working.

You can do it.

We are joined by none other than my brother from another mother, Mr. Josh, the founder of Living Water Irrigation. Mr. Josh, welcome on to the show, my friend. How are you?

I’m awesome, Clay. How are you, sir?

Well, I’m excited for the listeners to get to know more about you. Could you share the name of your company, a little bit more about what you guys do at Living Water Irrigation, where the name comes from?

Absolutely, positively. So, Living Water Irrigation, the most important part of that to me is John 7:38. So, it’s mentioned in the gospel a number of times we’re the living water, but our specific Scripture that we drew our name from is John 7:38. It says, “Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow through him.” We have a very distinct vision as a company on who we are and what we want to do. And I believe that I was put here to go make some money to give it away.

And I’m not going to ask you for the specific details of your career and how you started the business as far as a linear timeline. But how long has this particular business been around?

We’ve been around just two years, sir.

Two years. And you guys, we first met, how did we first meet?

I came in, and you all started coaching me over the Thrive Time, or Thrive 15.

And do you remember when that was approximately, and how you first heard about us?

So, it would’ve been October or November of ’17.

October or November of ’17.

Yes, sir.

And in terms of your growth as a company, how much have you grown this year?

So, this year we’re up 450% year over year.

So, now that you’re implementing this program, you’re getting more calls, right? Are you getting more calls?

Absolutely.

Sales are going up?

Absolutely.

You’re gathering reviews from your real customers, adding content to the website, adding a gallery of work.

So I’m going to actually take a minute and make you really uncomfortable, Clay.

Nice.

So, when we started with you all, it was awesome. We had a little company, just me and one dude and one little van.

Yeah.

And ’17 was great. I ate more than Ramen noodles, but not much more,.

Right.

’18 was really good. We started to implement the systems, got start here, got the boom book, went to a couple conferences and said, “Okay, I’m going to buy in. I’m going to sell out.” We went to the coaching, got coached by Marshall and Victoria, and started to implement as opposed to just listen, to actually be doers. It’s in James. It says, “Don’t just be hearers of the word, but be doers, as well.” And so, we implemented scripts, we implemented systems, we implemented checklists, we implemented a proforma for quoting and all these things that you talk about.

Yeah.

And so, just as a real person, and I’m real, I promise you. There’s a bunch of Josh Wilson’s out there.

Yeah.

I’m a famous baseball player and football player.

Oh, wow.

And a gospel singer.

Oh, whoa. Wow.

But this Josh Wilson-

Yeah.

… just digs ditches for a living. But I just want to say thank you standing here for all the systems. I encourage everybody out there, go pick up Start Here, go pick up The Boom Book. The stuff you hear on this show, it actually sincerely works. It’s not just some nonsensical guy sitting in an awesome man cave who’s bored, so he wants to record a show. And then, from there, here’s another super-duper move for you. Schedule your day.

Oh, wait. Wait a second. Wait a second. That right there’s a hot tip.

Holy cow.

Schedule your day?

So, I was listening just a few months ago, and I was running all over the Tulsa metro area from Glenpool to Owosso to Broken Arrow, back to Owosso, to Jinx to Midtown. And I’m like, “Man, why am I getting nothing done?”

Why am I getting nothing done?

Well, your issue is that you’re running places. You’ve got to drive.

Why am I talking using a megaphone? Back to you.

Well, obviously, I wouldn’t have his belly if I was running or jogging.

Okay.

So, my wife says to me, “Hey, how was your day, honey?” “Oh, I worked all day. I did all these things.” And I’m like, “Wait, I have nothing to show that I did anything.” So, super move number one, you’ve said it 17,000 times.

Yeah.

Whatever gets scheduled gets done. So, now my day is scheduled.

Come on now.

So if it’s not on my schedule-

Yep.

Nope. It doesn’t happen.

Listen here. Here’s a little secret. You can become successful. You have the tools needed to start and grow a successful company, but you’ve got to implement the best practice systems. You have to implement the proven systems, checklists, and processes that have been shown to work time and time again. And it is very hard for me to help you implement those systems if we don’t get a chance to know you. So, if you’re out there today and you’re saying, “I feel stuck. I don’t know what to do,” I would encourage you to go to ThriveTimeShow.com today and watch over a thousand, we have a over a thousand video testimonials from real people, just like Josh. Watch those videos and build your faith. Believe that you can actually do this. And then, do one of three things. One, you could schedule a one-on-one consultation with me by simply going to ThriveTimeShow.com and scheduling that free 13 point assessment.

Now, our team is going to vet you, make sure you’re not psychologically impaired, or your dream is not delusional. Now, move number two. You could book your attendance at our in-Person Thrive Time Show workshop. The tickets are normally $250, but if you want to attend the workshops because maybe you’re in a spot right now where, financially, you’re strapped, just subscribe to the Thrive Time Show podcast and leave us an objective review. And after you leave us an objective review, take a screenshot of the review and email it to [email protected], and we’ll give you tickets for just $37. Or maybe the Thrive Time Show Business School is the right move for you. Maybe it is. I mean, listen, it’s only $19 a month. And when you subscribe to the Thrive Time Show Business School, here’s what you get. You get access to a massive amount of videos.

We have over 3,000 training videos taught by the world’s business leaders. You can watch those videos. That alone has tremendous value. Also, also, you get to attend one in-person workshop per year. Now, if you think about it, if you go to, I don’t know, Harvard, the average graduate debt sits at around $101,000. If you go to Oral Roberts University, let’s say you go to Tulsa University, you’re going to spend $35,855 per year. If you go to the Harvard Business School, you’re going to spend $66,000 per year. If you go to the Wharton Business School, you’re going to spend $64,828 per year. If you subscribe to the Thrive Time Show Business School, it’s month to month, and it’s as little as $19 a month. Check it out today by going to ThriveTimeShow.com. And now, without any further ado, we like to end each and every show and Win of the Week with a BOOM, because BOOM stands for big overwhelming optimistic momentum. And now, without any further ado, here we go. 3, 2, 1, BOOM.

The Thrive Time Show. Today, interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet.

You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zelner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When 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. Now, 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’ve 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. 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. And 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 Zoellner 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’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you.