Cash Flow Management 101 + How to Balance Pay, Pricing, & Profits As An Entrepreneur + How to Not Lose Your Business, Your House, Your Wife & Your Health While Securing Funding + How to Avoid the 3 Common Funding Scams

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

Beautiful weather, huh? Yeah, gorgeous. It reminds me of Dubai. Really? Yeah, I was just out there a few weeks ago. The Sultan of Abu Dhabi flew me out there in his private jet.

You know him? Friend of a friend. I met him in Vegas. He’s pretty wealthy, right? You know how they make those lists? The world’s wealthiest people?

Yeah, like Bill Gates is number one, or… Used to be. He’s at $100 million in a Swiss bank account. He can’t touch it. Why not? $10 ,000 just to get the paperwork done.

I think he’s got $10 ,000. He can’t do it. It’s illegal to use your own money. Of course. Hey. So I’m like, Salton, listen.

I’ll invest $2 ,500. I’m sure I can get some guys to pitch in $2 ,500 as well. OK, we’ll get the $10 ,000. You get your money. You go on your merry way. He was so moved by my compassion that he said, I’ll split the $100 million.

Half for the investors, half for himself. Half of a hundred million dollars. That’s fifty. That’s fifty million dollars. Is it? I don’t really pay attention to the money.

I’m just trying to help a friend out, you know? Here’s the crazy thing, though. We just need one more guy to pitch in $2 ,500. Dude, that’s me. I’m the guy. I can do that. Yeah, I barely know you.

I don’t want to oppose. No, no, no. Hey, let me call my wife. Hey, I’ll clear it with you. I wish there was time. What do you mean?

I have to have the money by 6 p . m. when the whole deal’s off. That’s in like three minutes. You know, I’m sorry for breaking this up. I don’t mean to impose.

Thank you, it was nice to meet you. Who do I wire the money to? You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show, but this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi -million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you, and they have a lot of time on their hands.

This started from the bottom, Now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time show starring the former U . S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. What’s on today’s show?

We’re talking about cash flow. And I want to just break it down, want to be really clear. Let’s see, James, number two, you got to get on a mic. Find a way to get on a mic. Get some headphones on. Do the whole thing.

You’ll figure it out. So this is important. Cash flow. just how much money is coming in versus how much money is coming out. So it’s money coming in, money coming out, and then how much profit is left. That’s what it is, cash flows.

How much money is coming in? How much money is coming out? How much money did you lose? Cash flow. What mic number are you on there, James? This is mic four.

Mic four, mic four. OK, let’s see. Are you on there? Mic four, mic four. So cash flow. So we’re going to take the example of a law firm, the example of a medical business.

And we’re going to take the example of a cleaning company. And I’m going to put it on the screen so we have a little bit of traction here with this idea. I’ll put it up on my screen so people can follow along. And maybe this will help somebody out there that’s having perpetual cash flow problems. And we’re going to pretend for a second that most of our listeners did not go to a public school. We’ll try to work through that.

So here we go. So first off here, Dr. Sproul, with a medical business, let’s say that you bill a client for services rendered. And let’s say that the total income for that was $250. Is that reasonable that, in your world, somebody paid $250 for something? I mean, could that be a number that’s somehow reasonable? Or maybe $500?

Or what’s the number we want to put in there? It’s just revenue coming in. Yeah, $250 works. OK, now, James, let’s go to your side, Attorney James. So let’s go to the legal side of things, OK? You’re a law firm, services rendered, you want to say, I’m going to say $500 coming in, $250.

I need some kind of unit of income coming in. How much money do you want to say came in? Let’s do $500. $495. $495. OK, here’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to round it up, because I’m going to make them all. So now what’s happening is we’re all going to say that in the medical space, you brought in $500. In the legal space, you brought in $500. And in the cleaning space, you brought in $500, just so it’s equal here. Now, each business has a different amount. margin to it, a different profit margin.

All right. So the cleaning business, if you’re going to bring in $500, there’s going to be certain expenses that go out related to cleaning that are different from legal, different from medical. And Dr. Sproul, I want to start right there. When you first opened your medical clinic and you first started seeing money coming in, was it tempting to think that very little of that would actually stay in your account? Or did you right away have a pessimistic view about cash flow? No, no, I liked cash coming in.

That was a very positive feeling when I actually got paid for something. I just remember when I built my DJ business, I didn’t know when I was building DJConnection . com that roughly half of all the money coming in would go out in some way, shape, or form to taxes or insurance or overhead. I had no idea. Were you aware of the vast overhead that existed in the medical space, Dr. Spiro, when you opened your practice? Not at all.

In fact, in my first month, everything I brought in went away instantly. Okay, instantly. Now, Attorney James, when you first started as a lawyer, were you aware that, hey, I’m going to be in New York and the cost of real estate is going to be insanely expensive? And were you aware of the kind of overhead that would be facing you as a lawyer? Mildly aware, not 100 % aware, but mildly aware. When did you have your wake up call, Dr. Sproul, when it occurred to you, holy moly, man, this thing called overhead is real.

These expenses are real. It was in my first month, because when everything was said and done, Uh, I actually had enough for lunch. That’s how much money I had left over. It was just, just enough for lunch. So it was, it was a lot, but, uh, I was happy to have at least, uh, made something that first month. Now I’m going to keep this really, really, really simple.

Cause I’m trying to help somebody out there break through this. I’m gonna keep it real simple. I think simplicity scales, complexity fails for everybody. Picture in your mind, $500 of incomes coming in now, labor, labor. Now, what you want to do is you want to do merit based pay. So, James, let’s just let’s talk through it real quick.

If you had a legal assistant was helping you with some of your legal processes, Dr. Spurl, if you had a medical assistant helping you, James, if you had a clinician or a cleaner working with you, could we say, is it possible that we could cut, that we could keep our labor at 25 % of our gross revenue? Dr. Sproul, could we try to do that? Is that even a sane idea to try to keep our labor to 25 % of gross revenue? Is that even possible? In health care, it’s really hard.

The range is 25 % to 50%, but yeah, it’s possible. Okay. I’m just going to put 25 % in here just to try to give us some sort of baseline here for, for maybe you’re saying up to half. I mean, what, what’s a, whew, Matt, you’re nuts. It’s like you had to go to school for years and years and years and years to become a doctor. Okay.

So, uh, attorney James, let’s talk about this for a second. Uh, if you had, if you had a person working for you, you have a, you have $500 coming in. Is it reasonable to think that your team, your human resource costs could be kept to 25 % or less, or should it be more than that? Yes, it can be kept. And then James, on the cleaning side of things, could you imagine a world, James, where you would say, wonderful employees, wonderful team, for every $500 that’s coming in, I’m going to take 25 % of that and pay you guys. I hope that’s possible.

OK, well, we’re going to try. OK, so now you’ve got overhead. Overhead. Dr. Sperl, I mean, you’ve got an office, air conditioning, utilities, taxes, insurance. What’s a number you want to put on that? I mean, what percentage is it?

Is it 102 percent? Is it 25 percent? What number could that be or should that be? We try and keep that to 25 % as well. OK, 25%. Now, James, what do you think?

You’re in New York there, where it’s super expensive to do business. The real estate is ridiculous. Despite massive record numbers of vacancies in New York City, they still have pretty impressively high lease rates, their rent rates. What do you think your overhead percentage would be just on office space, insurance, that kind of thing? Yeah, we’re around 20%. Okay, 20%.

So you get the idea. Now, what happens is, and James, I see non -attorney James, I see a lot of people that they go out in the marketplace and they say, these are the numbers that I’m going to go with. However, I’ll go to you, Dr. Sproul, then we’ll go to non -attorney James. Have you ever seen employees take longer than they should take for a task and want to be paid? The task should take an hour, but the employee takes four hours just to see what happens. Have you ever seen this happen, Dr. Sproul?

It happens, absolutely. James, you’ve seen this as an attorney. You’ve seen this where you’re working with a legal assistant on your team. The task should take four hours. They turn in 16 hours. Have you ever seen this?

Oh, 100%, yes. And I have a solution for that, what I think you’re going to come up with. But yes, I have. OK. So James, how could you see this? getting crazy as a home cleaning business.

How could you see the employees, not that any of our listeners would do this, but how could you see, not that any other employees ever done this before, but according to Inc Magazine right now, 85 % of employees lie on resumes, not our listeners though, okay, they lie on resumes, they just make stuff up on the resumes, and according to the U . S. Chamber, 75 % of employees now admit to stealing from the workplace. Could you ever picture James, in a scenario where you would have a great team of people that would make up their hours? Oh, yeah, I could see that so much, especially being in the military. The military is like the king and queen of this idea where you go and you hide and you sleep in the back area and then your shift is over.

You were in the military. Yeah, and I was in there. Yeah. OK, now let me let me let me bring this up real quick. I have a person I know very well be very vague about how I know this person. James is a person I know very well.

OK, I hear. And they’re in the military. And I asked him, I said, you’ve been out of the military for 20 years. Tell me a crazy story. I won’t share your name. I just need to know who you are.

what’s the craziest story. He said, well, OK, craziest story. He said, I was on aircraft carriers, OK? In the military during peacetime, if you don’t use all your ammunition, then when it goes for approval the next year, then the budget gets cut. He said, so what we would do is we’d pull up to an island area, an area where we were near an island, and we would deploy an amazing amount of weaponry at the Dolphins. And I’m like, at the Dolphins?

And he’s like, oh yeah, entire massive groups of Dolphins. Because we saw them and we just obliterated them. We said, we’re all idiots, we’re all in our 20s, we’re shooting everything we can, anything blows up. We’re blowing it up. That’s what we did. And I go, no way.

He’s like, you asked me, this is what we did. Now this story is now by 40 years old, but that’s a real thing. And I go, come on. He goes, no, no, no. And also we would go up in the fighters. Cause this guy did some pilot work there.

He said, we’d go up there and we just do joy rides and do all sorts of crazy maneuvers and things you weren’t supposed to do. We’d fly into the wrong territories. And this is what we do. And I go, wouldn’t you have started a war? He’s like, These are the thoughts we didn’t have. Uh, you know, we did, they go no way.

And then Robert Kiyosaki on this show talked about how he would take the military helicopter into enemy territory to pick up women. So he’d pick up foreign women and pick them up in a helicopter and take them on long vacations while intoxicated. On this show, he talked about flying helicopters while intoxicated to pick up foreign women that didn’t speak the same language he was speaking in enemy territory to take them on long weekends. James, could you ever picture that kind of thing happening in the military? That’s insane. I actually, I can picture it because I know that when I was in at the end of the year, you know, instead of buying people cold weather gear or upgraded

tools and equipment, the command is getting Ferrari leather chairs in their office. So now I’m just saying these are real. And that’s and that’s we just talked about medical. And that’s not 40 years ago either, is it? No, 10 years ago. And we’re talking about medical.

We’re talking about legal. We’re talking about cleaning. I’m just telling you, uh, years ago, elephant in the room, our haircut chain, we have cameras pulled up there. I pay our employees to work a set number of hours. And I watched an employee on camera, sped it up lapse time, take three hours to clean their workstation. So we’re supposed to shut down the store at seven and from like six.

to almost nine o ‘clock, they’re there by themselves. They’ll say, I’ll stay late, I’ll clean the stations. Let me guess, it wasn’t that dirty, right? They didn’t do anything. They just looked at me on their phone, they made calls, they played video games. So if you do not have merit -based pay in place in some way, shape, or form, you are going to lose.

What does that mean? You need to pay your employees based upon what they do, not based upon what they say they’re going to do. That is a very important principle. I want to get to your thoughts on this, Dr. Sperl. What happens if you ever get away from a meritocracy and you begin to pay people based upon just massive salaries and big resumes and you start to behave like the government? What happens quickly to a private business?

Well, they start to work your business instead of work for your business. So they’re working to get things out. I don’t know about Attorney James, but I feel a little better about my employees and what I’ve caught them doing versus what I just heard about the military. But yeah, it’s very, very important. They’ll push the limits on what they can get away with. Oh, they certainly do.

That’s tracking with me as well. Attorney James, have you ever seen a situation, can you picture a situation, where you would have an employee working for you at your law firm, who fabricates the hours they work. Oh, 100%. I see it all the time. And it’s attorney staff and non -attorney staff. Ah, sick.

So James, when you go in and you’re growing this cleaning service, What happens if you pay the employees without an element of merit -based pay? What happens? They’re going to steal time from the clock, and they’re going to expect me to pay them the time that they stole from working. And when you go back to the customer and say, hey, I want to greatly increase the amount I’m charging you to cover the jackassery, they’re not going to stick around as a client anymore. And that’s just how it works. Now we continue here.

Little facts here. Dr. Sproul, I want to get your thoughts on this. 85 % of employees admit to lying on their resumes, according to Inc. Magazine. Making stuff up. I love this one, by the way, and I have something to say.

75 % of employees admit to stealing from the workplace, according to the U . S. Chamber of Commerce. We’re talking about cash flow here. Income, labor, overhead, and profit. Now, I’m going to type the following three P’s on the screen for everyone to follow along.

You have the thing called, okay, here we go, pay, You have the thing called price. You have a thing called profits. This just in every, every employee wants more pay. This just in all employees. This just in on behalf of planet earth, all employees want more pay. Okay.

Price. This just in all customers want a lower price. This just did from the human race. This just in from planet earth. This just didn’t send this to the aliens profits. Nobody cares about the profits.

of the business, of the profits, of the business, other than the owner. Why is that true? I don’t know. What’s your thoughts on that, Dr. Sperl? I think there’s an entrepreneur out there that for some reason isn’t aware of or isn’t expecting the conflict. Because James, once you start to go out there and you’re cleaning houses at scale, there will be a conflict that will happen very soon when an employee wants more pay and the customer wants a lower price.

And if you cave on either one of those areas, the thing that gets the squeeze is the fact of profit. Dr. Spurl, how do you handle the three Ps? That’s absolutely true. Number one, I make it known to my staff when it comes to the three Ps. Number two, it’s usually the nicest people that you work for that actually, when you’re not auditing things, when you’re not actually looking back at things and tracking it properly, it’s the ones that are nice and lie right to your face.

You just can’t believe it happens. You taught me this. And then, so this was a hard lesson for me because I trusted everyone. Turns out Reagan was right. Trust but verify, trust but verify. So it’s a big, big part of it.

Now tonight we have a group of people, James, going to the Tulsa Drillers Minor League Baseball game. And at the game, our team, they’re there for our company called Elephant in the Room. It’s a men’s grooming lounge. And what we’re trying to do is to get first -time customers to come in and get their hair cut for a dollar. We’re trying to go out there in front of a large audience of ideal and likely buyers and convince them to get their hair cut in our store for a dollar. And we’re doing that.

And James, I want to track those numbers because if you don’t track the numbers of how many people are coming in get their hair cut as a direct result of that game. What’s going to happen, James? They’re going to lie. Yep. And it’s like 99 .9999999 % of the time. It’s so important.

You get this. Attorney James, I want to get your thoughts on there. What happened on this? If you do not keep in your mind, as an entrepreneur. And when you open your business day one in mid -August, mid -August, mid -August, and you open up day one, and all of a sudden, you’ve got people going out there cleaning houses, and you’re not aware that every employee wants more pay, and every customer wants a lower price, and no one cares about your profits, and you don’t put in merit -based pay. Attorney James, if you do not put in merit -based pay, what’s going to happen?

Well, first of all, you don’t know what you don’t know. So you’re probably not going to see anything that’s going to happen, and you don’t even know that it’s happening. But what’s going to happen is they’re going to take advantage of you. every time, every time, every time I watch it. We were doing the Reawaken tour. And we had probably the lowest energy person I’ve ever met in my life.

But you know, sometimes you do the interview. We interview candidates every week. Sometimes you’ve got to go to Florida. You just have to go. Come on. If you’re watching this show, you know what I’m talking about.

You need a warm body. Come on. You know what I’m talking about. Your car quits working on the side of the road. You call for help. You can’t control who shows up to help you.

And the guy who shows up, you’re thinking, if this guy doesn’t kill me, I hope he fixes my car. So we’re getting the vans ready for Florida, and we have to go to Florida for the Reawaken event in Tampa. And James, you were there in Tampa. I was, yeah. And one of our teammates says, yeah, we got to bring this guy. I go, this guy?

Why? They go, we need someone to ticket people, to get people in. We got to go. And I go, I don’t feel good about this guy. He’s like, no, no, I know this guy. I’m like, I don’t know.

I don’t know. And the guy who was vouching for him, that made me even more suspicious of the whole thing. But we go there to Florida. And this guy, we have a special where you pay $25 for a ticket or whatever price you want to pay. And this guy who’s low energy, low enthusiasm, probably low intelligence, probably low integrity, he shows up and says to me, Clay, I sold like 300 shirts last night. I sold 300 t -shirts at the Reawaken event.

I sold 300 shirts. It was unbelievable. And I go, 300? Like a really good salesman maybe sold 50 all day. You sold 300? He’s like, yeah.

The only thing, though, the only thing is I only brought in $1 ,500. $5 a shirt. And I’m going, what? Because the special is $25 for a shirt or whatever price you want to pay. So he’s running around telling people, five shirts for $25. Come on now.

And the commission we paid per item sold was $3. And I look him in the eye and I’m going, have you been telling people that you’re selling five shirts for $5? He’s like, yeah, a little. I’m like, come on. And he openly had been trying, but everybody, all the employees vouched for him. And I want to get your thoughts on this, on this phenomenon, Dr. Sproul, all the employees are going, no, no, he’s a good guy.

He’s a good guy. He’s a good guy. I don’t want to throw him under the bus. He’s a good guy. Why is it that everybody always wants to not shed light on the Jackassery? Why is that?

Well, I really don’t know because they, they don’t think like entrepreneurs. Like obviously the math wasn’t math in there when it comes to, to what he was doing, he was just getting his own. So that’s a nice guy that’s ripping you off. So my definition of nice guy is a little different as a business owner. James, what are your thoughts? I know if somebody who served in the military, they came back, they got an award for something they did not do.

And to this day, they still run around talking about the award they got. I know they didn’t do anything. Many people know they didn’t do anything, but they still continue to to say, I did the thing. What is that phenomenon? Whether it’s military, it’s business, what is it where people… No one, what is that?

What is going on? You know, a human is a human no matter what uniform they put on or what they do for work. So I think they’re going to, you know, go to that instinctual level of their own, whatever that is, and just try to take. But I think our business owners watching this show, they think their staff is different. Dr. Sproul, I want to go to you real quick here. Because every client I know, they say, no, no, no, my front desk lady, she’s good.

No. She’s like, that’s my sister’s friend. That’s my friend’s sister. That’s my brother’s cousin’s neighbor. I’ve known her since high school. They always have a story and a blindness.

What is that all about, Dr. Sproul? Why is there a blindness and really a disproportionate, oblivious kindness that every entrepreneur has towards the people on their team that are screwing them? Well, you actually said that to me, because I said that very same thing to you about how I’ve got a good staff. And the reality is they were nice to me on the surface, but when we started auditing all I can tell you is my other clinic director and I were sending that emoji with the mind -blown Back and forth all the time about what actually was happening Numbers and they were nicely screwing us. We had one gal who kept saying Oh, we’ll collect next time next time.

It was a hundred and sixty thousand dollars over three months. She did not collect Oh Now real quick, I have a story for you around that $160 ,000 story. One of my clients is a doctor and his best friend from military and life post -military was this guy keeping his books. And we found that the guy had created bogus LLCs and was invoicing. So basically he created bogus LLCs for catering. And so this doctor did a lot of catering for clients and things.

And so his best friend would make up invoices and send invoices to him for, you know, 2 ,000 here, 4 ,000 here, 500 here, for different LLCs that seemed realistic. You know, it’d be companies like, you know, Healthy Foods LLC or Tastes Great Catering. And he had accompanying websites that went with them and all this. And the only way we found out was that there’s a website called Who Is, where you can see who owns the website or who whatever. And long story short, it looked like he my client got double charged for something and he was trying to reach the person to make sure he wasn’t underpaying or overpaying and he said could you help me figure out who this company is i said sure i look it up and it’s his friend and my client’s like Why would my friend be the owner of the catering company that we use all the time? Let’s look at the other ones.

And we found out that all of the catering companies that he was using for these random caterings were all from his friend, and they got bigger and bigger over time, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I’m trying to help somebody on this show, because waste and fraud, folks. Those are the number one expenses for every business, waste and fraud. Back to you, James. Well, Clay, you know, the topic of this show is cash flow, isn’t it? So the guy had probably pretty good cash flow, didn’t he?

Oh, yeah, that guy had great cash flow. He had no expenses and a lot of income. Okay, now let’s put a little meat on the bone here before we wrap it up here. First off, if you’re looking for a doctor you can trust, check out OfficialSynapse . com. OfficialSynapse .

com, if you’re looking for a lawyer that you can trust, check out TheLawyerJames . com. TheLawyerJames . com, that’s The Lawyer James D. Cristofaro. Again, for the doctor you can trust, check out OfficialSynapse . com.

And James, Made to Please, that’s your cleaning service for everybody in the Tulsa area. Made to Please, and there it is, that’s the website, that’s the company right there. Please encourage everybody out there though, trust but verify. And as it relates to the money, you got to manage the cash. You got to keep your mind on the money, your money on your mind. You got to make sure that you’re not getting screwed and you have to use merit -based pay.

Dr. Sproul, I’ll give you the final word. What do you say to any entrepreneurs out there that maybe haven’t gone through the level of mentorship or coaching that you’ve gone through and are going, My employees, they just keep turning in more hours than what they were supposed to and they keep doing the salary game and the hourly game and they’re not managing people. What do you say? Well, first of all, most entrepreneurs are good at what they do or there’s some level of expertise that they have and they get busy with that and they don’t get to work on their business. So bring in someone like you helping to mentor was a game changer because it allowed me to focus on the details that could actually see, get the data. So in health care, I don’t make decisions in regards to people’s health unless I have the data of their actual body, the blood pressure, the lab work.

This is the same thing. it comes to running your business, yet as an entrepreneur, I wasn’t doing that as well. So mentoring is key, being held accountable, working with someone who understands how these operations work. I am extremely trusting, a little bit gullible when it came to how people were, and actually getting a little shot in the arm And to Attorney James’ point, the cash flow coming in is great if you’re really good at your job, but if you’re just wasting it, and being from Minnesota, we don’t know anything about waste and fraud and stuff like that. Absolutely.

You live in some of the best daycares in the world up there. Yeah, trust them all. Dr. Sperl, thank you so much for your time. Attorney James and non -attorney James, appreciate you both. And we’ll talk to you soon. Bye -bye.

Yes, yes, yes, and maybe no, maybe no, folks. You see, a lot of entrepreneurs, they come to me, they say, Clay, I want to grow my business. I say, let’s help you. Let’s do it. Yes, let’s make it happen. And then they say, hey, do you know of any connections for capital?

And I say, most of the time, no. And they say, why? I say, well, you know how I funded DJConnection . com is I worked at Applebee’s. Target and DirecTV. For anybody who’s taking notes, who wants to tap into that secret pathway to ultra -riches, it would be Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV.

Somebody says, well, how can I take the Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV quick shortcut to success? Well, step one, you work at Applebee’s. My boss, a nice guy named Ian, I worked at the one off of Harvard and I -44 in Tulsa. Target. My boss at Target, Tara, nice lady, did a great job. Target, worked at Target primarily the hours other people did not want.

And then my boss at DirecTV, his name was Lex, and Lex looked just like, he looked a lot like Terry Crews from, you know, Terry Crews, the famous actor. So if you don’t know Terry Crews, look him up. And then I worked at those three jobs because it turned out nobody really wanted to invest money in the growing of a DJ entertainment company. You know, people weren’t lining up, banks weren’t lining up, private capital, private equity institutions, billionaires, millionaires, rich family, which I didn’t have. They weren’t lining up saying, oh, hey, hey, you want to be a DJ? You want to buy JBL?

speakers and SM58 microphones and compact discs? Sure. I’ll invest in you, buddy. How much experience do you have? And I would say no experience. And no one was saying, well, great, based upon the fact that you want to buy assets that depreciate almost instantaneously and you have no previous business experience and you are a young man.

Sure. We would love to invest in you. No, no one wanted to do that. So I worked at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. However, today, we have a longtime client who happens to be an attorney. I’m going to pull up his website here, folks.

For anybody who wants to look up his website, you can. It’s at the Attorney James. He’s in New York, okay? So he’s in New York. And so, folks, we’re going to do a Google search. We’re all going there right now.

Now, when you type in the Attorney James, New York, you’re going to find Letitia James, but that is not who we’re looking for. James, what is your website? We want to look you up on Google right now, sir. Thelawyerjames . com. Thelawyerjames .

com. Thelawyerjames . com, not Letitia James. But if you type in James, New York lawyer, you’re going to find Letitia James. That’s not the right James. So James, tell us your first and last name and tell us how long have you been a legal eagle, sir?

My first name is James, as you can probably imagine. My last name is DeChristophero. I have been a legal eagle since 2001, so 25th year anniversary really yes sir that’s impressive you know my wife and i just celebrated our 25th anniversary maybe subconsciously we chose to get married that year because we knew that was the year you’re becoming a lawyer i feel it okay so uh tell us about the funding resources that you are working on, and I’ll do kind of a rude interview here, where I’ll kind of interrupt you, I’ll argue about it, I’ll act like I don’t believe in what you’re saying, and we’ll kind of work through that, that way the listeners out there have, because you know, we know Satan certainly needs an advocate, so you can be team positive, team optimistic, hey, this is a good thing, I’ll be team negative, and that way we can help the listeners sort it out as they’re looking for funding, sir. You know, whatever helps the listeners, that’s great with me, perfect, excellent idea. Okay. What do you got here?

So tell us about your funding resource. Well, so I’d like to give you a little bit of background first, if you don’t mind. Since 2018, almost 10 years, I’ve been representing small businesses in a very niche market called the merchant cash advance market. These are purchases of receivables or financing. that are given from funding companies to small businesses. They have, these funding companies are notoriously known in a very, very bad way for destroying small businesses.

In fact, I got a phone call about a month ago from a small business owner who had taken out one of these merchant cash advances. He didn’t do well with it. He lost his business, had a heart attack, lost his wife and lost his house. And the next day he said to me, I can’t speak to you right now because I am on a ventilator. Wait a minute. You’re telling me a guy lost his wife?

Lost his business, his house, and his wife. Your business? I’m taking notes here. This guy lost his business, his house, his wife, and his health. And his health. Yeah, he had a heart attack.

And the next day, he said, I can’t talk to you during our scheduled call because I had a heart. I’m on a ventilator now. Whoa. OK, that’s kind of a tough story. Back to you, James. Yeah, so these folks have been very, very poorly affected, very, very badly affected by these financings.

There are a lot of hidden things, these games that these brokers play to set up the financings. And I said, you know what? Let’s put a stop to this. So, I founded my own funding company called ClearMCA . com. ClearMCA .

com. ClearMCA . com. Now, ClearMCA . com, is that Hebrew for, uh, you’re gonna lose your business, your house, your wife, and your health as a result of securing a high -interest business loan? Yeah, exactly.

Exactly not. No, I mean, that’d be insane. All right, I’m just saying, I’m interested. the tough questions there, James. Back to you, sir. Yeah.

And so the reason why it’s called Clear MCA is because a lot of times brokers approach small businesses and there are three main hustles that they do, these fraudster moves that they make to get to get small businesses, to take money from them, and then pay it back under really, really, really oppressive circumstances. Do you want to hear about those three scams? I do want to. Our listeners out there are saying, I want to avoid the three most common funding scams. I’m taking notes. Back to you, James.

OK, the first one I’ve labeled as SBA bait, SBA. SBA stands for the Small Business Administration. There are loans called SBA loans that small businesses love to get. because they are low interest rates over an extended period of time. So these brokers say, hey, listen, why don’t you do some financing with me? And once you do this financing with me, in 45 days, if you do this financing with me for $10 ,000 or $15 ,000, $20 ,000, in 45 days, you will qualify for a $1 million SBA loan.

Oh, come on! That’s what they do. That’s what they do. It’s insane, Clay, because guess what happens after those 45 or 60 days? They jack with your credit. They start charging you crazy fees.

You lose your house. You lose your wife. You lose your health. You lose your business. And folks, in this order, you lose your business. Then you lose your house.

Then you lose your wife. Then you lose your health. Then you’re on a ventilator saying, I can’t take the call. Yeah. And you know what, Clay? Guess what?

The broker disappears, and there is no SBA loan on the other side of that rainbow. Come on! Come on, I can see why this would cause someone to lose their business back to you, James. And OK, so that’s the first one. Watch out. Beware of the SBA bait.

I like to call it. Just beware that. OK, so the second one is called I call the ten thousand dollar hustle. This can actually be a fifty thousand dollar hustle. or a $100 ,000 hustle. You ready for the way that this works, Clay?

I’m ready and I’m taking notes. You call this the $10 ,000 hustle? Yeah, the $10 ,000 hustle or the $50 ,000 hustle. The $10 ,000 hustle or the $50 ,000 or the… Now again, folks, if you’re saying, if you’re watching this show right now and you’re with your wife, your wife’s looking at you, she’s kind of getting anxious, she’s like, is this going to cause me to lose my husband? Folks, he’s trying to help you prevent losing your wife.

Your business, your house, your health. This is move number two, scam number two. This is scam number two. The $10 ,000 hustle or the $50 ,000 hustle? James, back to you. OK, so here’s the way that the $50 ,000 hustle works.

Because it’s insane, I’d rather use $50 ,000 because it’s just more impactful with the $50 ,000 number. OK, so hey, Clay, do you want a $50 ,000? Would you like $50 ,000 today if I could get it to you? That’s what you did there. So and then right away, you’re the possibilities of having $50 ,000 in your pocket feels pretty good to most people. Give me your fit.

Give me your wiring information. I’ll wire it to you right now. And then tomorrow, you’re going to wire me $80 ,000. And then next week, you’re going to qualify for a $500 ,000 financing from my company. How’s that sound? It sounds like the thing that would be developed in the minds of a criminal loan shark based primarily on the East Coast.

That’s what it sounds like to me. Well, I’ll tell you what, if it sounds like a scam to you, why would I be sending you $50 ,000 today? I don’t know you, you don’t know me, and I’m sending you $50 ,000 today. How am I scamming you? This is the way the scam goes, by the way. You’re blowing my mind right now.

Isn’t it insane? And then guess what? The merchant’s like, yeah, you’re right. You know what? I’ll take your $50 ,000 today. I’ll give you $80 ,000 tomorrow.

And then next week, you’ll give me $500 ,000, right? And it makes sense that a lot of people would take this money because according to Inc. Magazine, 96 % of America’s businesses are failing. According to Inc. Magazine, that’s not a stat I’m making up right now. Inc.

Magazine says 96 % of businesses failing. And so you could see if somebody’s right on the verge of failing and somebody reaches out with a scam like this, and by the way, a well -polished scam, a scam where someone’s thought through the sales pitch, the rebuttals, James, it might almost be too good for people to say no to. Oh, yeah. Listen, how could I be scamming you? I am sending you $50 ,000 of my money right now.

What’s your account number? It’s radical. It’s radical. Isn’t it radical? And so, yeah, so people fall for this, and guess what happens? The next day, they send back $80 ,000, and the phone number for the broker is disconnected, and they can’t be found.

Oh, come on. Now, I bet you that’s the part where you lose your wife. I bet you the first scam, that’s where you SBA, but you probably lose your business. But that one there, it’s like you leapfrogged ahead. You might even lose your house and your wife with that one. But James, back to you.

Tell us about scam number three. Scam number three, I call it the interest only credit line. The interest only credit line. Now that in and of itself doesn’t sound like a scam, but listen to this. I get text messages all the time, even as a merchant, not as a clear MCA owner and an MCA funder. I get it just as often.

for being on somebody’s mailing list. I get these text messages all the time saying, hey, listen, I have $348 ,000 ready for you right now. Interest only credit line. I will get it for you. You’re already pre -approved. And I’m like, how on earth is somebody going to pre -approve me, not know me, hasn’t seen my bank statements, and doesn’t know what my business is, yet they’re offering me all of this money?

Well, I can tell you this. There’s so many people that have thought, I want to think about scams. I think that we need to really take a step back and just unpack it for a second. You see this every day as a lawyer, you’re trying to help your clients who have been scammed. Oh yeah. Is the thing about the scam is a lot of people, they’re talking to somebody who really has absolutely zero, zero cognitive dissonance when it comes to ripping people off.

There’s no talking to somebody who’s a hardened criminal that frankly views business as a game where there are winners and losers and they don’t mind scamming you to make a quick buck. It’s hard to believe that if you’re somebody who is not that way. How common are these kinds of scams? They are rampant. It is a $20 billion a year industry about to grow to $30 billion, with a B, dollar per year industry.

And it’s interesting because I did some mystery shopping and I was speaking with a broker, very actually reputable broker I happened to stumble upon. And he says that through his shop, they do $35 million a month in business financing. About half of that is merchant cash advance. So he’s doing about $18 million a month. in these merchant cash advances out the door. It’s wild.

Now, what is the main reason that business owners are needing so much capital? Why are business owners needing? When you talk to people and they say, hey, I took the capital, I took the capital because of what? What are you hearing is the reason why people took the capital? Well, first, it’s not that it’s so much capital all the time. For instance, the average size of a merchant cash advance is around $60 ,000.

So it’s not astronomical. We’ve funded, you know, our Our sweet spot range is anywhere from $10 ,000 to $5 million. However, our sweet spot and the nationwide sweet spot is around $60 ,000. We’ve done Merchant cash advances for $25, $50, $100, $300. And so it just really sort of varies on the needs of the merchant. But the main selling point of this is, as an analogy, you know these home delivery food services, right?

Where if you go to the deli yourself or you go to a restaurant yourself and you get a sandwich, it’s $8, $10, whatever it is, right? If you get it delivered to your home, it is $15, $20, $30. a year, so you’re paying for a premium there for this delivery. It’s the same thing with a merchant cash advance. You’re paying for the convenience of it all. All you need to do is send in four months of bank statements, and you get the money the next day if you are qualified.

How often do you talk to people who are going to your website right now? How often are people going to clearmca . com where they have been scammed before reaching out to you? How often do you hear from people that have already been scammed And they’ve already been bruised a little bit, injured a little bit, or they’ve heard of somebody who’s been scammed before they talk to you. And from the perspective of the New York attorney, when I have my attorney hat on, there’s about between 50 and 150 of these lawsuits in New York alone that are filed each week. And a lot of times, it is by, I would say, about 20%, if not more, are being scammed, are as a result of being scammed.

Hey, listen, I spoke to this broker. He said that, you know, I would qualify for an SBA loan, you know, within 45 days and then he disappeared. I’ve heard that story quite a bit. And so what separates ClearMCA . com versus these other companies that clearly are not behaving the right way? Well, there’s a couple of things.

Number one, we don’t just push money out to anybody. They have to be qualified. And the way that they’re qualified is it goes through an underwriting analysis, certain bank balances, number of deposits, revenue, and things like that. And this is a very, very important thing, is that they They need to have a clear plan for repurchasing the receivables that are back in the advance. This is very, very important. If we don’t see a path for them coming out at the other end, we don’t extend the funds at all.

It doesn’t make sense because we want the business to succeed. We don’t want the business to fail. As opposed to other, or the industry generally, it likes to put money, it’s called, out on the street, and they’ll worry about getting it back later without concern for the health of the merchant. And how do you secure funding? Like, where are you getting this pool of capital from?

Well, I have my own personal capital deployed, and I have capital from other members as well who are like -minded individuals and want to have merchants succeed. OK. And so if somebody wants to start the conversation with clearmca . com, clearmca . com, what does the process look like if somebody wants to investigate this and perhaps to look into it to see if it is potentially a good idea? Well, number one, go to our website.

That’s the easiest way. It’s clearmca . com, clearmca . com, clearmca . com. You can call the number on the website.

But Clay, for your listeners only, I can give you my personal cell phone number, and they can text me directly. That’s 917 -783 -3153, 917 -783 -3153, 917 -783 -3153. 3153. Now, I’m super protective of our listeners and making sure that our listeners don’t get taken advantage of by anybody. And so what are the kinds of questions that you’re being asked from people, from business owners that are reaching out to you? What kind of questions are you being asked right now as it relates to the funding that you can offer?

Well, I actually just did a recording today where I said, where I gave them five questions to ask funders before agreeing to an advance. If you just hang on for a second, I’m going to look up the questions, and these are very, very helpful questions. And for anybody out there, if you’re listening right now, what I encourage you to do, if you go to clearmca . for a potential funding resource or a funding partner, again, pray about it, think about it, sleep on it, no matter what you decide to do. You You never want to rush into financing. I find so many people make bad decisions because in a moment, in a quick moment, they get in a pinch and they’re making aggressive financial decisions that will impact their future for some time, and they’re making those decisions without really thinking about it, praying about it.

And I just encourage everybody out there, take the time, take the time to think about what you’re doing before you go out there and decide to deploy real capital to do anything. And I encourage you to just think about it and make wise decisions. But back to you there. Yeah, I do have those five questions. All right, so number one, What criteria do you use? This is what you’re asking the funder.

This is what a small business owner is going to ask a funder. What criteria do you use when deciding whether to fund a merchant? These are the underwriting criteria. For instance, the number of deposits, minimum daily balances, and things like that. Revenue. OK, that’s question number one.

Question number two, what information can you share about performance and risk? Question number two again. What information can you share about performance and risk? This means what is your default rate? How many of your merchants are defaulting on their purchase of their merchant cash advances? What is the default rate?

The industry standard is pretty, pretty high. Ours is less than 10%, around 8 % currently. Question number three, what is your company’s mission statement? Question number three, what is your company’s mission statement? And there’s a reason for these questions I’ll get into at the end for a second. Number four, who owns the company?

Question number four, who owns the company? Who am I doing business with? Who am I taking money from if I take this advance? And question number five, and you asked this of me, Chris. what is the source of the funding for the advance? Question number five, what is the source of the funding for the advance?

You know, Clay, we were approached by a hedge fund that has a $650 billion fund, $650 billion. And the reason why we turned the money down was because they put all of these restrictions. We have a very unique underwriting system where we get to know the merchants, we understand their finances, and we want these merchants to succeed. And right now, actually, the 8 % is a lot less than the 8 % default rate because we have an agreement with the merchant. So in any event, Uh, the funding actually work. Like if somebody says, you know, I do want to move forward with this.

Can you walk us through the process of actually securing the funding? Is it you, you get on a phone call, you, you apply, then the money is beamed to you. Are you going somewhere with a traditional closing? Uh, are you given payment terms where you can pay it back over a period of years? Is it, is it seven years or we’ll just walk us through a little bit more detail. If somebody does in fact move forward with your funding.

Well, yeah, so step one, fill out an application. We get on the phone with you, take down some basic information. The four months of bank statements is key. Once we have that. We then run it through our underwriting process, and you’ll know right away, probably within a few hours, usually within a few hours, whether or not you’re approved or not approved. If you’re approved, you get an offer.

If you’re not approved, you’re told why. For instance, minimum bank balances are too low. There’s not enough deposits. It’s not an industry we work in. For instance, we do not fund adult entertainment. We do not fund vape shops.

We do not fund cannabis. We do not fund truckers. And we don’t fund law firms, believe it or not. These are just high -end companies. industries that we don’t work with. So what kind of terms can someone have to pay back?

Oh, yeah. So that’s step two. Once you find out that you’re approved, you get offered terms. Typically, the payments are weekly. We don’t like to go out farther than six months. Got it.

OK. And what kind of interest rate are we talking about? Well, it’s not. So here’s the thing, right? It’s not a loan, right? It’s you’re paying for your we’re buying your future receivables from you.

and you are repurchasing them back from us. That is the key here. That’s what a merchant cash advance is. And the cost of the money varies depending on the risk. And when are we going to meet the Saudi prince that’s going to wire us the money? When do we get a chance to meet the Saudi prince who’s going to wire us the money?

OK, so once we agree on a dollar amount and repayment plan, dollar amount repayment plan, you have what’s called a funding call. When you have a funding call, This is where the person that is going to hit send on the funds is going to interview you, talk to you for about 20 minutes or so, understand your business a little bit more, understand who you are, make sure there’s no weird stuff. And we’re going to also access, peer into your bank accounts with you. You’re going to give us access to your bank accounts through this software that we use. And we’re going to view everything that’s going on, verify that the bank statements that you gave to us in the context of your application process are The same bank statements, you’ve got the same deposits and withdrawals and all that stuff. There’s no funky stuff going on.

Once that’s all verified, you’ll get it within five minutes. OK. And so you feel good about this. You feel good. This is something you feel good about. I’ve known you for a long time.

You’re saying you feel good about this. I am 100 % behind it. And the reason is because, and here, do not take a merchant cash advance. Do not take a merchant cash advance. pay off your old bills. That is ridiculous.

It’s insane to do that. You need to take a merchant cash advance to generate revenue. That is the only way that these things work. And the way that I like to do it is this. Clay, if I were to offer you $20 bills for $15, how many would you get? If you were to offer me a $20 bill For a $15?

For $15. I’d do one and see what breaks. I’d do one and see. Because it seems like a good deal. I also have an overall paranoia that’s got me through life so far. Yeah.

So only take out a merchant cash advance if you, let’s say you have $10, and the cost of your $20 bill is $15. And you borrow that $5 to purchase a $20 bill, you’re going to have a $5 spread. And therefore, you’re going to immediately make $5 on it. That’s the way that a merchant cash advance works. if that makes sense. I don’t know if it did.

You seem a little bit too likable to be the kind of guy that we’re dealing with as it relates to being a lawyer and money. Because usually people don’t like lawyers, and they also don’t like the people they’re borrowing money from. So I’ll put a picture of your face on the show. People can look you up, verify you’re a real guy. I’ve worked with you for years and years. I feel good about you.

You’ve always been kind to any of the clients we’ve ever sent your way. You’ve always treated them with respect. But I encourage everybody out there to do your research and assume that James has lost his mind. and assume that I, therefore, have lost my mind as well. And again, this is not an endorsement. This is more of an opportunity.

I just say, look it up, folks. Do your own research on this. James, I really do appreciate you carving out time to be here with us today. And on part two of today’s show, folks, on part two of today’s show, it’s the lightning show, laser show. On part two of today’s show, we’re going to interview Dr. Troy Sperl. He’s a longtime client up there in Minnesota.

And we’re going to talk to him a little bit more about cash flow as it relates to your business. James, you smelled for cash. We’ll be back on part two of the show, folks. Stay tuned. Excited. Thank you.

Well, folks, on today’s show, we have the attorney James in the studio today, all the way from New York City. And we’re joined here with Dr. Mark Sherwood, who’s joining us remotely. Dr. Sherwood, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing well. Thanks for having me, Clay.

I appreciate it as always. Hey, so I want to talk to you today about cash flow and specifically as that relates to business. And I want to talk about the three P’s as I see it. There’s P number one. Every employee pretty much wants to make more pay. I’ve got no problem with that.

They want to make more pay. Two, most customers want lower prices. Most customers want lower prices. Most employees want more pay. And the third is most of the human population does not care about the profits of the business owner. Again, let’s repeat that.

Prices. Virtually every human on the planet, every customer wants lower prices. Pay, every employee wants more pay. And profits, nobody cares about the profits of the owner. And I want to get your thoughts on these one by one, because there’s somebody out there watching this show who hasn’t run a business for as long as you have. And maybe they want to, or maybe they currently do run a company, but they’re just not sure how to navigate those three areas.

Let’s talk about pay for a second. What’s your thoughts on pay? Because you know that every employee wants to get paid more. And you know there’s a certain threshold or a certain maximum amount that a customer is willing to pay for your product or service. There’s a certain maximum amount that customers are willing to pay for your product or service, but every employee wants to get paid more. What’s your thoughts on employee pay, sir?

Well, certainly when you find an employee that’s worthy of pay, you need to pay them well, pay them well above what is maybe average or expected from their pay grade or even their education. Ultimately, when you find those eagles, as I call them, that are able to fly above everybody else, you pay them like eagles. And there’s plenty of on the opposite side of that clay buzzards. And you got to cut them off, man, because it’s not about equity. It’s about equal opportunity.

And everybody has the same opportunity in our business, in our world. So you pay them well. And today’s workforce, I find it very fascinating that that expectation is more and more there. People wanting equal pay, but they don’t want to perform at a level that’s actually equivalent to their pay. So again, I think it’s awesome for business owners to have the opportunity to pay great employees a great wage. And the more you feed the eagles, the higher they’ll fly.

Next question for you is, you talk about the price. Virtually all customers, they want to pay a lower price. And whether you’re an attorney or you’re running a medical clinic, you do have to charge a certain amount, but yet most consumers would like to pay less. They want to pay less for the lawyer, less for the medical field, less for the medical care. They want to pay less for groceries, less for tickets, less for entertainment, less for their vehicles, less for their homes. They want to negotiate and pay less.

What’s your thoughts on pricing? Well, I think pricing is something that’s very interesting. And I’ll give you a little bit different twist with that because price equates to value. And people sort of want to pay less, but they truly get less value. When I look at an attorney like Attorney James, you mentioned him being there with you. It’s important if you want the best attorney, you want to have the best attorney.

And that means the best attorney needs to have a perceived value. The value is set by the price. And that price is not going to be equivalent to the least of the attorneys, but the best attorneys. The same is true of the doctor. You know, my wife and I have talked about this a lot. I get it that people want to pay less, but we want to create the value that’s more.

If you want the best doctor, the best outcome, the best attorney, the best outcome in court, you want to make sure that you actually set your value up there with the price. And to that end, Clay, not everybody wants to pay the best price. They want to be cheap and that’s okay. But ultimately, we look at it like, I think it’s self -worth as well. You can help people that want to be helped, but if they don’t value your services and not willing to pay for them, they’re not going to pay your bills, and they’re certainly not going to care about your profitability even more so, as you mentioned earlier. James, with your law practice, you don’t run around advertising to be the least expensive attorney in the world.

You also don’t advertise to be the most expensive lawyer in the world. What are your thoughts on this? Why don’t customers come to you and say, geez, I want to pay more? Why don’t customers email you every day asking to pay more? Why aren’t people begging Dr. Sherwood, please, Dr. Sherwood, charge me more? Why don’t consumers want to pay more?

Well, first off, Dr. Mark, hello. Nice to hear your voice. I came down last minute because Clay graciously agreed to try and get Gay Hendricks on the phone. He’s a favorite author of mine, and he set it up. I came down last minute to interview him tomorrow in Clay’s office. Nice to hear your voice.

And you know what? I agree with everything that you said in terms of the value and the price. So I’m not sure if I’m going to have much more to add there, Clay, other than, you know, People do try to beat me down on the price sometimes. And I say, you know what? I don’t think it’s a good fit. You can go somewhere else.

Now, this is big, though. I want someone to get this, because you’re not, James, you’re not connecting with our listeners. I’m not connecting. The only person who’s connecting is Sherwood. He’s connecting. No one’s like it.

No, but seriously, a lot of times, I talk to great entrepreneurs, and they say, Clay, I don’t want to price myself out of the market. And I go, and I don’t want you to take advantage of people either. But currently, Mr. Entrepreneur, you’re in poverty. And you’re charging, and I’m talking for every one entrepreneur I know that overcharges, nine out of 10 of them are barely charging enough, especially contractors. They’ll actually finish installing the swimming pool and they almost break even. They’ll finish building the house and they almost break even.

They’ll finish doing the wood flooring, and they almost break even. I’m going, hey, you need to make a healthy profit of some kind. And they say, well, customers are always asking me for lower prices. I go, I know, because this just in, on behalf of all customers in the history of the world, they all want to pay a lower price. Dr. Sherwood, what say you? Yeah, and this goes back to the very concept, and I’ll take it one level further.

Again, I know James very well, and I know you very well, and my wife and I, I know our hearts behind it. We want to help people. We want to help people. But sometimes you do people the greatest disservice by not charging them a price where they actually have skin in the game. With skin in the game, you’re actually going to get your money’s worth. I’ll use a simple analogy or example that people can get.

When you buy season tickets to go watch your favorite sports team, and an outdoor arena like a football team. You’re going to go to those outdoor arenas whether you get rained on, snowed on, or it’s cold, or it’s hot, because you want to get your money’s worth. And the same is true with your medical care. The same is true with your longevity endeavors. The same is true with your case you’re working with your favorite attorney, hopefully Attorney James. But the bottom line is, you need to pay for that.

And at the end of the day, the persons that paid for that, that had the courage to say, you know what? I understand. I want that great value. I perceive great value. When they pay for that, those are the very ones that are going to refer you to the next person because they’re going to go to the next person and say, man, that was worth every single dime I spent because of the outcome. I just believe there’s somebody out there that needs to hear this again.

There’s three P’s and they’re never going to go away. I think people think, oh, I’m going to start a business. And the product is going to be so good, it’s going to sell itself. And therefore, I don’t even have to deal with the employee pay or the pricing or the lack of profits, but you have to deal with all three of them. And I’m okay with that. But let me just give you an example.

This weekend, I’ve got wonderful kids, Dr. Sherwood. It was raining. We were taking the kids on a trip and it was raining. And one of my kids is like, rain or no rain, we’re still going out and we’re doing the outdoor activities. The other four are saying hard pass. We’re going inside.

We’re doing inside activities. We’re going to do some board games. We’ll play some pool, some billiard. We might watch a movie. We’ll make some food, whatever. But the one is like, well, no matter what, nothing will stop me. I’m going in the rain.

Lightning may kill me, but that’s how I’m going out. And I had to say to the one, I love the enthusiasm, love the energy, love the Daniel Boone nature, love the remember the Alamo kind of energy there. But we’re going to stay inside today because you have friends with you. And I also don’t want them to get killed by lightning while boating on a lake with torrential rain downpour coming down with lightning everywhere. And so I was OK with one of my children being upset. And it didn’t bother me.

Let me try that again. I was okay with one of my children being upset, and it didn’t bother me. There’s somebody watching this, Dr. Sherwood. You want universal praise. And universal praise cannot happen if you are going to solve the issue of cash flow. It is not possible to receive universal praise.

And there’s somebody out there watching this right now. You want to receive universal praise. You can’t do it in football. If you’re a big Bronco fan and you’re on the Broncos, And your buddy is a big fan of the Steelers, and he’s on the Steelers. You’re both professional football players. Both of you cannot be happy with the outcome of the game.

one of you there’s two candidates to vote for even if you’re even if you’re a member of the same political party if there are two candidates to vote for and you vote for one candidate and your friend votes for somebody else you both cannot be equally happy and there’s somebody out there trying to find universal happiness by getting the prices exactly where the customer wants it the pay where the employees want it and the profits where everybody wants it where is zero. Dr. Short, what do you say to the entrepreneur out there seeking universal acceptance? You can’t get that. To try to please everyone is to try to become as foolish as possible, as quick as possible. Because ultimately, it’s not about trying to please everyone.

It’s about trying to walk correctly in your calling and what you’re supposed to be doing. And I agree. Jesus walked around and could heal everybody if they wanted to be healed. And he made a very clear declaration when he said, I came to heal those that know they’re sick. I can’t help those. who already think they’re well and don’t think they need a doctor.

You know, you can’t help everybody and your job is to help those that want to be helped. to heal those who want to be healed, to serve those who want your services. And you’ve got to be OK with those that don’t. Like you mentioned, one of your five children that weren’t happy about something. You’ve got to be OK with that. And I’ll tell you this, this is one of the things I struggled with probably as recent as five years ago or six years ago.

I would get my feelings hurt if someone didn’t want to work with me. But I’ve learned to grow past that. I still want to help people, but if people don’t want to pay for the services and they don’t want my help, I can’t make them want me to help them. So I’ve got to be OK with that. Now last night, James, tonight we’re going to be going out to the waterfront for a little meal after this. Last night, my kids, they said, dad, where do you want to go out to dinner?

I said, waterfront. They go, you always say that. I go, because that’s the place I always want to go. I want to go there. I want to get a ribeye. I want to look out over the largely sandy river bed bottom with a little bit of water.

But I want to look over the view of the mud, a . k . a. the dry river. And, you know, so I got one of my kids who’s like, yes, the weather’s perfect. The other one says, yes.

My wife is going, yes. Then one of my kids is going, oh, come on. Outside the river? Oh, come on. And I go, you know what? Your lack of happiness brings me joy.

Let’s go. But there’s somebody out there. There’s somebody out there, James. You know what I’m talking about. They’re going to not be able to make a decision where to go to dinner because they’re trying to make all of the kids happy. They’re going to be unable to price their service because they want to make the customer happy and their wallet happy.

Talk about this for a second, James. How have you resolved that? Because you’ve been in business a long time now. You’ve had to work through that. There’s somebody watching this show right now. They’re not used to working through the idea that people are going to leave that meeting without universal agreement.

I am a huge fan of Napoleon Hill, Clay. A huge fan, OK? I don’t live in scarcity. I live in abundance, OK? And when you live in abundance, those problems don’t really exist. Are you talking about taking the kids out to five restaurants?

I’m talking, I’m not talking about the kids scenario. I’m talking about what Dr. Sherwood said about, um, not being able to help everybody and only help those that you can help. So in that context, it is, thank you very much for your interest. I’m sure there’s a better fit somewhere else. And it’s, it’s, it’s about the, um, the mental attitude and the, and the frame of mind with which you approach these types of situations. So with the children, I only have one, so I don’t have that issue.

Got it. Now, we’re going to go to Sherwood . tv. Sherwood . tv. And I want you to know, throughout the Reawakened tour, we met so many great medical teams.

We met Dr. Meehan’s team. We met Dr. Sherwood’s team. We met Dr. Sperl’s team in Minnesota. And what was great about Dr. Sherwood is he’s right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And so my wife and kids, they went over to his practice. My friends went over there.

Dr. Sherwood, we know of a pastor that lost almost 90 pounds with your program. We know that my children optimize their health. We also know you work with patients all over the country. Tell the listeners out there, about the solutions that you offer at Sherwood .tv. tv.

That’s Sherwood . tv during the final 60 seconds that we have you there, sir. Certainly I’ll begin with the problems. The problem is our country is the most unhealthy it’s ever been in the history of mankind’s existence. I mean, we’re, we’re kind of setting the benchmark about what not to do in the world with regard to our health. So I want to solve that problem.

I don’t like human suffering. I don’t like human suffering needlessly out of ignorance. Now I can’t help those that are in rebellion, of course, as James has talked about, but I can’t help with ignorance. We can give them information, how to, remove excess body from frame. We can get them hormones back in their system that are badly needed to control brain, bone and heart disease processes. We can get peptides in their system, we get supplements in their system, we can help them with nutrition, sleep, stress management, movement, all these things to put life back together in a great way.

It’s about giving people their life back and improving health span and decreasing sick span. And that’s our mission. And we’re gonna stay with that for the rest of our days on planet earth at least. Again, folks, that’s Dr. Sherwood. That’s the Attorney James. One more time, folks.

Someone says, what’s that website? It’s sherwood . tv, sherwood . tv. Someone says, what’s James’s website? It’s thelawyerjames .

com. Dr. Sherwood, thank you so much for your time. Attorney James, thank you so much. And we’ll talk to you next week. All right. Sounds great.

See you all later. Bye -bye. Goals become like a magnet. They pull you that direction. And the better you describe them, the more they pull. So ask intelligently.

Believe you can get what you want like a child. Not an adult. Adults are too skeptical. So the formula really reads make plans like an adult and believe in them like a child. The big question is not what am I getting paid here? The big question is what am I becoming here?

Because true happiness is not contained in money. you get happiness is contained in what you become yes it is about vision it is about team but is about the tools and it is about building the habits every single day to do not just your best but to do what others aren’t willing to do when you build those habits over and over and over and over again it gives you such a unique form of confidence when you build those habits daily one of the two quotes that was in my room almost all my life growing up was somewhere he is out there training while I am not, and when we meet he will win. And it sounds really negative, but I loved it because I wanted to be that one that was training while other people weren’t. Most of the best in the world in business or in sports, they have also coaches on the side and mentors on the side. Why? Because they want that 1 % of 1 % of 1 % to get better.

But so many times we feel like, well, we don’t really need it. Man, I think it is one of the most vital things to our life, to your company, for us as a ministry. We have so many pastors and wise counsel that we go to. Clay Clark, man, he is one character. That’s a good word for him, character. Yeah, that is it.

Good, driven, smart, and I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother and she just says, She just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, so he’s endorsed by his mother and he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with. His Clay Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning.

Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah. He’s, he’s like, he’s, he’s a machine. He’s a machine. But his you know, I could I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes.

Hundreds of people showing up at five a . m. in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s fantastic. Yeah, man.

No, he is. He is. He also has this wealth of knowledge. He’s worked with so many different companies and different businesses. He could take a concept that he’s used before in the past with somebody in a totally different industry and see how it would work perfectly for you in whatever niche market you’re in or whatever type of service you’re providing. And so his brain is just a wealth of knowledge.

And just to have that type of perspective as a part of your team and your own company is huge, super valuable. So I would definitely encourage people to use him. But one thing is you’ve got to be coachable. You’ve got to be wanting to get feedback. You’ve got to be wanting to really grow your company. You’ve got to want to put that extra 10 hours a week to working on your business and not just in your business.

And so, yes, I would recommend it to anybody who’s wanting to grow their company and provide great systems, checklists, workflows, great encouragement, and have accountability. Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. 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 going to do. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes. And, I mean, we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area, and that was without Clay. 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 have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us. And it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay.

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

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. you if you’re thinking about working with clay.

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

decide not to give it a shot. 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 Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full -time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide, what do I want to do?

My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand, and we 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 of the to just this week we signed on our 16th agent.

We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision.

When you dream big, big things happen. I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations.

I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve.

Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63 ,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans.

He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in. because they found us on the way. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced. I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic.

Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do. I hear The ripple effects from you are good ripple effects. You know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you. So congratulations. From expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000.

Kelsey with K &D’s Wooder Finishing, business owner at 23. So I’ve been working this K &D’s company for about five years now. And we started working with Thrive. Expecting maybe $1 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000. So we’re pretty excited about that. just listening to what they have to say their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help the just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly and such good insight the resources they have for specific business questions it’s all been really incredible it’s been a great experience so I’d recommend it to anybody.

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. services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid -June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least.

I started working with them in mid -February of this year. So we’re about four months in of working together and it has Completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet So I check my notes here So in four months my leads have tripled I was getting probably like two leads a week now. I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week I have doubled my number of employees I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company week to week it seems like We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. Hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring. I typically only get maybe two complaints a month, if that, and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now, especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work, you know, cleaning houses, cleaning businesses.

I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of, you know, group interviews, and interviewing every single week. It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time on low -quality candidates anymore. And your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Luke’s like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be when I’m being stern. and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them so that’s just great worth every penny I mean I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can and maybe someday I’ll be able to but I would just say go for it if it seems like a good fit just go for it Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work.

You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that. But it’s having these systems in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening.

And I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited every single week when I’m having all these wins and things like that. They’re so excited for me. So it’s the best thing ever. And I would suggest to anybody to work with them. So sorry for the long -winded reply, but I just had so much to say, and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are.

But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me, and I am so excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching. My saying is, if it’s important to you, hire a coach. And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean? And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained. And as my rich dad always said, you know,

amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches. So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach. I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like this I would go to these motivational seminars no money down real estate Ponzi scheme get motivated seminars and they would never teach me anything it was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny but inside of it it was a hollow nothingness and I wanted the knowledge 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, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t loan. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you.

Transcribed with Cockatoo