Clay Clark | Start Here Book – 4.2 – 4.3a and 4.3b – The Practical Steps of Turning Your Dreams into Reality

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them Hi, it’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three two one Drive nation. Hello and hello and welcome Clay Clark over there world’s best business coach and potentially the world’s most humble man. That’s true. You are. I have. I mean, there’s there are various documents I’ve created for myself that demonstrate my humbleness. Yeah. We’re talking about getting your business going, Clay. Yeah. We’re on 4.2 stage 2. Stage 2. Raising a baby business. All right. Yeah. We’re at the very beginning of the business. Yeah. We’re taking baby steps. Let me ask you this, Clay. What was this stage like for you? Well, here’s the deal. You now are selling something. Yeah. So you’re running around. You’ve been trying. I mean, this is the deal. I had a Mazda MPV. It was a maroon. Nice. And I hand-painted that beast. It’s beautiful. I hand-painted it. Yeah. And I’ll put a picture up on the screen. Hand-painted is beautiful. I said beautiful. Beautiful. We’re going to put it up on the screen. I’ll bring in the photos. Shark, I’m doing. I’m bringing the photos. We can make sure they add them to the screen. It’s great. And so I’m just telling this, look at this, Thrivers, look at this picture. It’s hot. That thing had 200,000 original miles, one owner, one owner, 200,000 miles. And that, that, that, that, the whole transmission system, it worked sometimes. And because I wanted to make sure that the car had everything it needed, the vehicle, to be a DJ, I had pulled out the back row of seats to make room for equipment, but I made room for what? I made room for a subwoofer and amplifier, because when you’re in a vehicle with 200,000 miles and you have a poverty mentality, you put a subwoofer in your car. It doesn’t matter what your budget. You might be eating 96-cent budget gourmet, that chicken panini at Walmart. It’s called budget gourmet, oxymoron yeah driving around that thing I was trying to convince my mom my mom would call and my mom my mom doesn’t sound like this but this is how I heard her I am I might I just if I heard my mom would go I’m like mom why do you sound like smeagol what are you sure why did you drop out of school we thought you were gonna be something. Really mom would just go, honey are you able to pay the bills to your dad? Do we need to send you ten dollars? Because they weren’t wealthy you know. Right. Ten dollars you know. But I just heard, yeah your business is stupid. You know and so I’m running around being like, mom I’m fine. My mom’s calling. I’m sure if you were to listen to my calls back in the day. Yeah. My mom would have been very reasonable but I’m like, listen Listen, why are you in my business? This is a viable business. And she’s like, honey, I don’t know if you, I got married, I had double hoop earrings, I had the hoop earrings. And my mom used to be like, I don’t know whether that’s a good decision. And I’m there meeting with brides and grooms face to face. I’m not kidding, wearing my Wu-Tang clan shirt. True story, I had my Luggs boots. I’ll put pictures on the screen. Yeah, my lugs boots had my super super baggy jeans Okay and I had my Wu-Tang shirt on double hoop earrings And I usually would have like a hat on and I would go to know the river that I’m just saying then I’m trying to Convince somebody to spend 20,000 on their wedding. Yeah, pay me a thousand of it to DJ and I’m showing up always about 17 minutes late Nice, it’s in the van where I pull up and it’s like, boom, boom. And so what happened is for me in the baby stage, I eventually, through the mentorship of Clifton Talbert, one of our Thrive 15 mentors, I was told that I need to take my earrings out because people couldn’t hear me, my presentation, because my earrings were too loud. My appearance was too loud. So I changed it, I had a briefcase, got a tie, oh, I paid to wear that tie. And I basically started to show up at Panera Bread and I started booking some weddings. I was booking some weddings, booking. My mom was like, how’s it going? Is your business failing yet? I used to go, hey, I have a booking. I remember I booked Dave Ramsey. No, no, Ramsey, Dave Ramsey is the financial coach. It was Ramsey, Jeff Ramsey. I booked Jeff Ramsey. Different Ramsey. Yeah, Jeff, Dave Ramsey, I did not book your wedding. But Jeff Ramsey, I booked his wedding. And I remember I was the first guy that I tricked because I had never DJed a wedding before. I remember he’s like, it’s at two rivers of the four winds of the six whatever in Keystone Lake and I was like, it’s a resort. If you ever, we’ll put a picture of it on the screen. But I drive to this place, not a freaking clue of what I’m doing. I had a white table, you know, they have the plastic tables they just came out with because before they had the heavy wood six foot tables. I roll up with a six foot table, the wood one. I see a white one, I’m like, oh, I’m not even going to bring in my table. This will save me the… I set up on that white table, which they were going to use as a gift table, true story, and I put my DJ system down. I could have put a linen down, but I didn’t, because you know what? I was legit. I took my orange power cord and I plugged all this DJ equipment into that stuff and I had a bin. It was a plastic Tupperware bin that I got from Walmart. I had every song labeled in order that I was going to play in order. I was nervous as crap to make announcements and I would make such a beautiful announcement that says, ladies and gentlemen, up next now the bride and groom are going to be doing the test. No one can hear me and I talk fast and I would go, up next, cutting the cake. And then I would look at people with disdain because they were whack because they’re like 35 with kids. Those are my sellouts. And then they would say, can I can play some music? And they would go and they would say, and I just Jaheim, there’s a song called Just in Case, just in case I don’t make it home tonight. It’s like R&B song. Yeah, I didn’t care what song you asked for. I’m playing Jaheim. And people would say, so it’s these white people, they’re like, hey man, we appreciate you coming out to the wedding, you think you can play some country and western, you know? I’m like, absolutely. Jaheim. Jaheim. And then people would say, hey, is there any way you guys could play some country and western? I’m like, yeah, I got some country and western, let me get it for you. And then they’re like, hey, seriously though, can you play some country and western? Absolutely. And in my mind, it was like the Yucatan liquor stand everywhere I went. Yeah. I could see the lights and the fog. And they were people wanting to dance to country and western music. But I was wanting to have a hip-hop, you know, like dojo of mojo, where I was just gonna get real. You were a hip-hop superstar. And I had bought myself a big old car, you know, and I had that big subwoofer, and I would just sit there and I would take your wedding, every, didn’t matter what wedding it was, I would take it to the club. Every wedding, I was going to take your wedding to the club, and they would be like, um, could you play the edited version? And I would go, are you kidding me? That’s what I would do. And I was an idiot, I was just being real. And I would go, and then after the wedding, thank God there was no social media or transparency or accountability, because I would get a letter back in the mail. I’m not even kidding. I’d get a letter, and it would say, we were very disappointed with your performance, and we would request, I’m not kidding, we’d request a refund if at all possible. I was like, you guys are whack. I remember thinking, idiots. And Jeff was the first guy who pulls me, he pulls me, it was the first wedding I’d done, he pulls me aside and he’s like, hey, I really need you to take this seriously because this is my wedding and you’re kind of screwing up my wedding. And I remember going, oh man. And so I shifted and I did a C minus job. And Jeff thought it was good because I think he agreed to pay me like $200 or $100 if I was going to do it. He was like, I’ll pay you cash if you show up because it was like, you know, like he probably couldn’t afford a really good beach at the time. And I was absolutely now I saw him, uh, about two years ago and I invited him to the thrive 15 office. Nice. And I honestly believe he was like, you are the biggest jackass in the whole world. How is it possible that you have a functional business? I thought you were mildly retarded. I’m pretty sure that’s what he thought. But I’m just saying, that’s what it is in the baby stage. All of us are doing these things. I wrote down some notes I wanted to share here. One, if you’ve got a car that barely works, you’re in the baby stage. If you’re out there screwing up things and you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re in the baby stage. If you’re trying to take your kids to soccer while making a sales call, you’re in the baby stage. If you’re out there trying to figure out how to sell something, you’re in the baby stage. If you’ve sold some stuff and you’re not quite delivering, you’re in the baby stage. You know what? It is such a great thing how business works. It is awesome you’re in the baby stage because when you’re a little baby, people typically don’t mock babies. Look at the baby, he’s just crazy. Look at the little baby, he can’t even move his legs. People don’t mock babies. Look at him, he can’t even move his body, he’s such a stupid baby. People don’t do that, right? People are like, look, he’s a cute baby. But if you did go to a little party for a baby, and you did have someone say, that baby can’t even talk, we did an idiot. You know, you would be like, why do you talk like that? And two, why are you mocking this baby? You know what I’m saying? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that’s how, so baby entrepreneurs, you almost get a hall pass. People are like, look, he’s just starting out. Right. He’s just getting going. He’s an idiot, but he’s, you know what I mean? And so it’s a good thing you haven’t scaled your marketing and got your big office and all that. Well, there’s going to be messes as a baby. Yeah, there’s going to it’s going to be messy times. You’re going to get stuff everywhere. You can have full diapers. You had a lot of full diapers, apparently, but in your baby state. And here are the specific things you want to do. You baby says you got to work this out. Yeah. One, you’ve got to get your checklist made. So I remember going, I went to a wedding one time in Houston while my wife and I went down there and I get there and I go. Oh, no. And my wife’s like, what? Oh, no. She was like, Oh no. She’s like, I forgot an amplifier. We can’t play the music. I’m like, no. So we drive the guitar center like a wild man to buy an amp. Yeah. And I buy an amp. I maxed out that credit card. I come back and I’m like, Oh no. Oh boy. She goes, Oh no. She’s like, we don’t have their first dance. So I remember going into the bride and groom going, hey guys, what I want to do to make it incredible, this is like two years into the business. What I’m gonna do is I want to do your first dance kind of midway through the party. I want people to anticipate, it’s gonna be awesome. We’re gonna get everybody, cause they’re like, yeah. And I was so glad that they were able to fall for that because I was screwed. My wife’s driving around probably crying, like why is my husband so stupid? But then I made a checklist of making sure you have the first dance, do you have the amplifier, do you have, you have your checklist, okay? Then you wanna have your systems. And a system is just a step-by-step way of doing everything. You can also call it a process. You wanna get your scripts, how do you answer the phone? I used to answer the phone like this, what up, and DJ Connection, which I would’ve loved that. People were like, are you DJ Connection? Yeah, I am. What up, you know, maybe like how much do you charge 500? All right. Thanks a lot, but you have to have a system right, right then after you have your scripts Then if you have all this, okay Then you have to have your templates and a templates like, you know This is the order of events for a typical wedding. What do you want to choose a or B? You know Then once you say what you get you want to just go through just make it really the checklist the systems the processes the scripts the Templates you want to have all this stuff. I know it seems overwhelming, but guess what? We have all of these as downloadables available for you. And how can they get it, my friend? You got to go to thrive15.com slash resources. And the greatest thing about this is that you can find all of these things, all of these great things in about 15 seconds. And it took Clay like 20 years to get all these things. No exaggeration. I was named Entrepreneur of the Year for the city of Tulsa from the Chamber of Commerce when I was 21, I believe. I mean, it was 2002, so it would have been like 22, 21. And I’ll tell you what, I quit screwing up weddings that year. But you know what, I was so crazy I just kept trying to book them. And I would come back, I remember my wife would be like, I know that she thought this, she had to have thought, you, like it’s embarrassing when you’re around somebody who sucks so much at their job. But I was like, oh, I’ll get them next time. I went to a prom and I got booed at the prom. And I was like, I’ll get them next time. I just don’t understand how you kept getting gigs. It’s just crazy, it’s wild. I got gigs from just selling. I literally would cold call everybody and go, Hey, did you go to Lincoln? Yeah. Okay. A Lincoln Christian, Rabu Flava Lava, Rabu Flava Lava. He got me that gig and the lady sweet lady, her name was Pam. I think Pam and Pam, and she says, could you make sure the music is clean and edited music. And she made me, seriously came up to me and made me turn off the music and go home. You’ve ruined so many things, it’s crazy. I know. I laughed because I want to cry. But you know what? I learned though, that like, that’s not how you do it. So then, I mean, I did for after that, I probably did, I probably personally DJed, at the peak I did in a year was maybe 300 events. And at that point I got to a point where every show was automatic awesome. I had a checklist for all the music, I had all the scripts for the announcements, I knew how to talk to the bride, I had an inbound script, outbound script, I knew how to respond to emails, everything was templated, I had systems, and it was awesome. But I’m telling you, we’re trying to save you that pain, because I’m just so stupid that I wasn’t aware of, I just wasn’t aware. And I honestly, if I think about it right now, I want to cry. But I’m not going to. I don’t think and I don’t think babies are aware of what they’re doing. I just like just like baby business. That’s why in the book we called the baby stage, because if you were to call it an adolescent stage, you would go, there is a prison for people like that. Right. You know, but a baby you’re like, look, the baby ate ate my favorite thing. You know, like my one of my kids this week or last two weeks ago. I’m not sure which one of the kids did. Which one of you? They’re in the studio today. I’m not sure which one of you did it, but you blew up my blender that I bought myself for Father’s Day. I bought it. And you, it was like a $500 blender. It’s the Blendtec. The guy had the mic on his head at Sam’s Club. He’s like, do you want a blender that can make smoothies? It can turn like anything into like a smoothie. It can turn it into soup. You throw in your vegetables. You’re going to get this. It slices. It dices. Did he do it? He did it. Aubrey, Aubrey, he’s in the studio. He is the one. He blew up my blender. And then today, I bought my wife a new oven in Havana. You know this story? Do you know who did it? Because I bought my wife a new oven. I bought it. It’s stainless steel. It’s state of the art. This thing, it is hot. You could go to space with this thing. This thing has its own oxygen creating. It’s a space station I bought. I spent a lot of money. And you know what they did? They put plastic in the oven yesterday, and they melted that like they’re… I am so upset. But because they’re babies. It’s just cute and part of the… It’s funny. Drivers are laughing. They’re going, this is funny. This is hilarious. No. That was my oven that either the terrorists destroyed, or their babies. Or the terrorists destroyed the blender, or their babies. I think all proms and weddings are so happy that you got out of the baby stage. Oh my gosh. They’re so happy, Clay. Ruining them. Hey, if you’re in the baby stage, you can get out and actually you can take an assessment to see what your stage two is like, to see what your stage two score is. And that’s at thrive15.com slash stage two score. Take an assessment, see where you’re at, see how much of a baby you actually are. Boom. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back. We are dissecting Clay’s amazing book with all this fabulous entrepreneurial and business coaching advice. Thank you. I know you and Josh Merrill talked about the baby stage of the business in the last section. Yeah, it’s kind of embarrassing. And now we’re in stage three and we’re talking about the bipolar teenager. Yeah. What’s that about, bipolar? Well, here’s what happens is, if you’re going to run a kid, a teenager kid, like a 13, 14 year old, they start to like, like all of a sudden your son gets like a hair on his chin or on his lip and he calls it a mustache. I’m not shaving. And you’re like, it looks weird. I’m not, I’m not shaving. Or just think by the body’s changing, things are changing. Odor. Odor’s going on. And what happens is, is that they are super excited. Like, I’m going to the dance, eighth grade dance, ninth grade dance. I’m going to the dance. Mom, I’m going to the dance. I remember as a high school kid, you wanna go to the dance. Right. And you wanna take a girl, which is code for you’re not gonna talk to her. You’re not gonna look at her. But then the last song of the night, you’re gonna find her and you’re gonna dance. And that’s what you’re gonna do, slow dance. And then you went with her to the dance You’re going with someone that means you’re you you were dating exclusively. We don’t go anywhere, but we’re going together We only talk to each other not really we write these little letters like what will you go out with me? You know I said yeah, and then and then we get rejected Mm-hmm, and we’re like your mom says how are you doing? I remember just fine. Yeah, you’re gonna be okay. Yeah fine I might kill myself Why did you say that? Because my life’s terrible. It’s over, I’m done, I give up, I quit. Why? Because she said no to the dance. You know, because you’re just so rejected that they said no, they’re not going to the dance. Then, the next week someone says yes, I do want to go to the dance. And you’re like, yes! And mom’s like, how are you? I’m doing great! And you’re like, are you gonna go to bed? No, Jake and I, we’re staying up all night drinking Mountain Dew. Yeah. We’re gonna, you know, my mom’s like, you have to go to bed. No, we got two pounds of Twizzlers. Yeah, we’ve got all the Mountain Dew we need. We’re watching a movie marathon. Yeah. Watching all the Star Wars movies in a row tonight. I mean, and that’s what high schoolers do. They’re middle schoolers do that. They’re kind of in that phase where they’re super euphoric or in the dumps. You got dumped by the girl or you just won the game and you’re like we beat everybody we’re going to the playoffs you know and that’s how you are your hormonal a little nut now as a business owner with this with what this is a parallel to the business owner is what you get into this phase you are so pumped that you’re selling something right but people love my product mm-hmm yes but then your employees are not stable you’re firing people. People are quitting. People aren’t showing up on time. You’re screwing up. You’re getting complaint letters and you’re just like, yes. And then you’re like, oh no. And you’re not sleeping at all. You’re up. You’re you literally are going four years in a row without taking a day off. And you’re waking up every day at 2 a.m. and you’re just stressed. You have bags under your eyes. People are like, how fine. Why? You look a little off. Yeah. Are you? Hey, my business is a rocket. Don’t judge it because you’re so used to people telling you it’s not going to work. Right. But now that it works, you’re like, it’s great. And every time you get anyone, anytime someone calls you, you’re like, yes, we can be there in a minute. Right. And on social media, you’re like a plumber and you say yes to every job because you remember when you couldn’t get the phone to ring. Right. Now you have that momentum. And now you’re like, yeah, absolutely. We could do it by Saturday and your wife’s going you could do it It doesn’t matter I’ll do it so you’re pulling all-nighters you’re you’re you’re trying to make your checklist while you’re trying to sell stuff Yeah, you’re trying to run the business while work on the business Yeah, you’re just because of sleep deprivation and because of the highs and lows of sales and struggles It’s your first time being sued. Mm-hmm. You’ve never now I get sued and I’m like, whatever. But I used to be like, oh no, why is this guy following me? And so that’s what that is. And so we’re going to teach you how to get out of this phase. And this is a normal part of your growth. Yes. And the faster that you can embrace that this is what you’re doing, I’m going to try to help you get out of this phase in like 30 days. Sweet. But if not, somebody’s watching this right now and you’ve been stuck in this phase for years and it’s become your normal. Wow. And your spouse is like, he just doesn’t ever sleep at all and he’s never home and he’s just always stressed out and that’s become your normal. Got you. Everyone’s walking on eggshells around you because you’re gonna freak out at any moment and that’s not where you don’t want to stay. This is just supposed to be a phase, not a normal way of functioning. You really don’t. I mean, have you met an adult? Yes. Who acts like a teenager still? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know many. I’ll give you an example. I know a guy who is 46. And he came to visit. And I’m not kidding. 46. Jacked. Jacked. This guy is jacked. Yeah. He says to me and my wife, he says, where are the pool parties? What? And Vanessa’s like, you mean like for kids and stuff? Because he has a kid. Right, right. He’s 46. And he says, no, I mean where the chicks are. Oh. And we’re like, like the chickens? Because my wife and I, we have big chickens. Baby chickens? Yeah. And he’s like, no, no, I mean like, you know, you know where the ladies are, you know, the college girls. It’s 46. Oh, yeah, I know people and so then I say to guys the guy we don’t go to pool parties No, it’s like a foam party. No, I know you we’re not talking about the descriptive narrative We’re talking about we don’t go to this kind of thing. All right, he’s like, well, when do the casinos open? I’m like, this is not what we do. We have five kids. We’re very emotionally stable, you know, right and then he goes Um, hey, I got a question My daughter won’t my daughter’s really confident attitude with me right now. And she’s been blowing up my phone. How do you know when it’s time to answer your phone again? Oh goodness. And I’m like, your daughter’s 16 and she needs you to answer the phone all the time because you’re her dad. Well, I haven’t seen her for a couple of years so I’m moving in with this new girl right now. And you’re just like, whoa. Right. And this is how you will become as an adult if you don’t get out of that phase. Yes. I had to have that truth can with this person and go, you’re like an adult teenager home skillet. You need to make some. And he’s just no one apparently had told him or he claimed they didn’t. Now I’m saying you as a business owner, if this is what you’re doing, if you’re in this weird hormonal ups and downs, high and lows, chaos is your normal, you have got some issues that we need to deal with. I like he said, chaos is your normal. If that’s become the normal thing that you do. Help me help you. Give me permission right now to teach you the specific steps. Yes, tell us what are these steps? How do we get through this phase? Okay, we got to create some systems. Not a million systems, but six systems, okay? One, you have to define your three-legged marketing stool. So you got to figure out the three most profitable ways to reach your ideal and likely buyers. As an example, I’m meeting with a young man yesterday, a really nice guy, and because I’m 35, everyone looks like they’re 7 now. Yeah, I get it. Look at this guy. This guy, what is he, 7? He’s a kid. And he’s like 25. Yeah. What, he’s 7? This guy, he’s a little baby, little baby. So anyway, I get it. Actually, I’m, you know, 27. Anyway, but this guy, he’s got a neat business. He’s doing about $100,000 a year of revenue. He’s making about $40,000 a year of profit. I said, how do you get your business? He goes, it’s all word of mouth. And I go, but you want to grow it, you understand that like you can’t duplicate you. Right. You’re normal right now. You’re working till 2 a.m. every day, bro. Seriously, this has to stop. Yeah. If we’re gonna scale or grow the business, we need to find three turnkey marketing systems that work with that. He goes, why would I want to spend money on advertising? I make all my money word of mouth. So I say, I’m just trying to help you. So one, you can do a ValPak, which is a blue envelope filled with coupons from companies. Yes, I love that. Very affordable, very neat. We have templates for Thrivers that can download for a ValPak that’s very effective. We also have online ads. You can do like targeting ads where they show up on Facebook, they show up on websites. You could do internet optimization. You could do cold calls, you could do trade shows. I mean, there’s a lot of things. But what you want to do is figure out the three best ways. How come I like to do 80 ways? No, you have to have three. Because you have to measure what’s working. I see a lot of business owners who are like, I have 87 ways of marketing. I got this new book called 907 Ways to Market Your Business. Have you seen these books? Yes. I’m like, read the credentials of the author. That man is homeless. All right, don’t read a book written by the homeless guy. I have a question about that. How do you find out your three most profitable ways? Like, how do you discern what works for you? You want to look for the goat. I’m quoting LL Cool J. But the greatest of all time, you want to find a goat, someone who’s already doing it. So if you’re in a pizza business, ask yourself, how does Papa John’s market? And do what they do better, but do it in an affordable way. So as an example, Papa John’s does TV commercials. You probably can’t do that. So that’s probably cross it off. But Papa John’s does a lot of mailers. Maybe you could do that. There’s street sign marketing where you hold up signs and you’re in the road and you drive by it says, you know, get your first pizza free or a discount. $5 pizza, I’ve seen those. You can do signage, but you have to figure out your three most profitable ways. And the second thing, you must learn to dominate internet marketing. Now I wrote this down because I want to read this to you. Sometimes I really do hate to be the guy who points out to the doctors and the roofers and the dentists and the appliance stores and the auto shops and the optometrists and the, oh boy, the coaches. I just hate to be the guy who always points it out, but the internet is starting to catch on. Why do you have to point this out to people? Because we’re a lot of people are old school. Oh, really? And I was what we’re doing. We’re going. I ain’t got time for that. And you go, Hey, Bruce, I understand Bruce. Bruce. I know you’re 40. Bruce. Right. I talked to this guy today. Literally. He’s an insurance guy. He goes, I ain’t got time for the internet. No, no. I’m like, dude, everyone I know has a smartphone. True. When they’re looking for anything. True. What do you do? You go to Tulsa restaurants. Yeah. You look for Tulsa haircuts. You Google it. You go, if you’re in New York right now, if you’re in Brooklyn, I was in Brooklyn recently, my wife and I were near the Barclays Center and I was looking for something to eat. I was looking for Jamaican jerk chicken because your husband turned me on to that. So I look for Jamaican jerk and guess what it does? It pops up on my phone. Whoever has the most reviews, that’s where we went. You know what? Because the internet is starting to catch on. And so there’s a lot of entrepreneurs are like, oh wow, no, I ain’t got time for that. So this guy, I’m literally, I’m talking to this guy, he’s an insurance guy down in Dallas. And he goes, I ain’t got time for it. I’m being real. I mean, I don’t got time for it. I mean, so that’s weird. So we’ve got a master internet marketing. You know what? We have awesome trainings for you on how to specifically build, optimize a website, come up top in Google. You know when you type in Tulsa restaurants or Brooklyn restaurants and the first one that comes up on the map, we’ll show you how to get there. Yes, you’ve done that for so many clients that you work with too. Hundreds of people. Totally doable. The third, you have to have your ABC sales machine. Jackson 5. Oh, ABC. As easy as 1, 2, 3. Now you must define specifically how your always be closing sales machine works if you’re not going to be the one who personally closes the deal. You should build a system. How do we get customers on the phone or how do we get them in our store? How do we convert them? How do we get them to pay us? What are the words we need to say? What are the print pieces we need to show them? What are the menus we need up on the wall. How do we do the process of closing? Okay, always be closing is what ABC stands for. You got to do it. Step number four, you have to define your product and service delivery systems. You must refine and document, document, put them on paper, your systems to the point that an honest moron could deliver the products or services. Because here’s the deal, there’s a lot of really, really, really, really good people. Mm-hmm. I would put myself into a category where I try really really really hard but I might be a moron of Automotive right I might have never worked in automotive before my dad might have not have shown me how an engine works And now guess what? I’m applying to work at O’Reilly’s. Yeah Yeah, I’m just telling you I mentioned them because I’ve spoken at an event for them before. But imagine the stress level if you run an O’Reilly’s and you have to hire someone like me. I have never, you say never, I’ve never changed my oil, I’ve never changed my air filter, I’ve never changed a tire, I’ve never mown a lawn since I’ve been married, I don’t own any tools, I am a moron of maintenance. But you know what? I just applied in the high tech world. I was raised on smart phones. I was raised on computers. And now I am now applying to work at your O’Reilly’s. How are you going to teach me? Hopefully you have systems in place. Yeah, and a lot of business owners don’t. They’re just like, hey, it’s common sense. Yeah, get in there and do it. I don’t know what kind of muffler to recommend. It’s common sense, bro. Now, I ain’t got time for that, bro. And they got that, you kind of, when you get to be like 40, you start to make that crazy look where you go, I ain’t got time. When you’re 40, you do that thing where if a young whippersnapper, which is somebody under the age of 39, you think they’re like a young kid. Right. Like, sir, I’m 34. And you’re like, I ain’t got time for that. Yeah. Old school. You know? So anyway, now there’s a quote I want to read to you because I just said I think it has the power to maybe freak you out a little bit. But Warren Buffett says, I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them because sooner or later one will. That’s the point. He’s buying businesses where the systems are so tight that idiots could be hired. In this case, I would be an idiot of that industry. System number five, you have to have the accounting systems. Okay. Do you hire an individual do you use software? What how does that work? What do you need to just determine these things? I wrote them down so you can have these okay thrivers here We’ll put them up on the screen you have to have you have to determine your break-even point So how many sales do you need to break even you know to? Spend as much as you’re making to make as much as you’re spending you have to determine your profit per customer You have to know the lifetime value of the customer if Bob buys pizzas from your restaurant And he buys seven pizzas a year if he buys seven pizzas a year for ten years How much is his lifetime value? What’s it worth? When are your taxes due and What the heck is going on with your daily numbers like yeah? How much do we have to spend on marketing so we’re elephant in the room? We have to spend about six hundred dollars on mailers a month per store to get roughly 60 new customers to come in a month for the $1 first-time haircut. So I have to spend $600 to get 60. So how much am I paying per customer? Somebody, $10. So I’m paying $10 per new customer. And on our internet ads, we spend about $8 per new customer. Now remember, we cut their hair for how much? A dollar. So we cut their hair for a dollar and we spent ten to get them in. It really cost us eleven. Then the guy cutting their hair didn’t do it for free. Right. So it’s twenty dollars per new customer. So we really have to be great at word-of-mouth, otherwise we go out of business. I have a question about this. If I’m just at the beginning or starting out, I have a small business, how would I know how to figure out my break-even point? Is that something where I need to talk to an accountant or someone to help me. Stay away from the accountant. OK. They’re going to be $175 an hour, $100 an hour, $75 an hour. What’s going to happen is you are going to want to talk to them less because they keep sending you big bills, right? OK. So what happens is, as an example, my neighbor growing up, her name was Marilyn. And Marilyn, I love Marilyn. She’s a sweet lady. Yeah. And Marilyn, by the way, I have a surprise I want to show you on this episode. I got a surprise. It’s Father’s Day. And so this, my dad’s, you know, doing the whole ALS. He’s struggling with ALS. And so this is probably maybe the last Father’s Day. So I made him a super gift I’m going to give him today. So I’m going to show you, just a minute, I’m going to unveil this super gift. And Marilyn was our next door neighbor. And Marilyn would do a deal where if you came in the house, now Oklahoma being real, it’s the, I don’t know what the temperature is right now, but the humidity is insane. Ridiculous. And so if you went in the house, Marilyn would always make cookies and ribs and great food, but then you had to go out. Yeah, go outside. I don’t know if you were around that. Yeah, I get it. So growing up, she’d go outside. You gotta go out. And you’re like, it’s 107. Go out. Yep, get outside. And if you ever made the mistake of speaking back to Marilyn, there’s a wooden spoon. It didn’t matter whose kid you are. Yeah, she’s gonna take it. She’d say, getcha. Clayton, you need to go out. And I would say, well, I wanna stay in. And you’re like, oh no! And then Ed, her husband, he had the belt. Oh, I know, oh, I love it. He had the belt. I love it. And so if you didn’t understand what the wood spoon was about then we had to up it she would tell you hey listen when ed comes back and he wasn’t my dad yeah i love it old school though i love it just i love it so anyway so the reason this relates is that i would i would say i don’t want to go outside yeah and and then ed would be like the belt and you’re like oh and i’m not gonna it only happened like once or afraid of that. Right. We are afraid of big bills. Yes. We do not want a big bill. And these accountants are standing on Mount Awesome many times going. Now, if you have any questions at all, please call me and for one hundred and seventy five dollars an hour, I’ll be happy to answer those questions. And then they talk when you meet and they use jargon. Right. Well, now you’re Abadda. You’re a bad guy. It’s called EBITDA, but it’s income before it has to do with basically what’s your income before you pay taxes. Now your EBITDA is yada yada. Now your escrow, one thing we want to do is we want to look at your… and we got it on a pro rata basis what we’ll need to do is we don’t need to depreciate over time because really when you look at the algorithm what we need and you’re like beta beta beta beta and they do that and they go it’s too complicated for you to possibly understand so I’ll do it for you and then you get a bill. You’re getting a bill from an accountant before where you’re like and you go I’m not talking to him again. So now we remain financially stupid because we’re afraid of the accountant. So here’s what we do, Thrivers. We have specific trainings for you on how to do this. And you just straight up email info at thrive15.com. One of our coaches will help you through this and we will help you. We have a template you can download. I worked with a coach just the other day and we found out that he literally only makes eight dollars per hour Oh, no, after all the income per hour and all the expenses per hour The income and the expenses and his accountant would always talk in jargon Yeah, and we looked at it. We determined we need to make some serious changes like Michael Jack We make a change. Yeah, you guys don’t look at the man in the mirror. We got some changes No, I’m saying is he what he was he didn’t know that not he’s a bad guy, but every time he would talk to his accountant, they’d send him a big bill. So he eventually was like, I don’t want to get beat by Ed again. That belt’s crazy. It hurts. He’s a kid. Have you seen the size of this belt? I mean, the guy’s got like a 28 inch waist, but he’s got like a 60 inch belt. Whose belt is that? It was a belt for special occasions. It was a car belt. He was ripping that off his car. Well, shy out. So I love how the Thriver came in. We were able to help him. And so for the same thing, we can do that for our Thrivers. You can call us, email us, and we can walk you through it. We’ve done this with hundreds of Thrivers. Love it. So that’s a huge thing. Now, the final thing is the system number six. You’ve got to figure out your system for hiring, managing, and training people. Because as long as your business is based on the planet Earth, you are definitely going to have to manage people. And people… I mean, there are some, there’s some problems that can go on. There’s some issues. I mean, I am just telling you, I had years ago with the DJ business, I had a very, very awesome sales guy. Yes. And one day at lunch, um, I I’m listening to like a SWV or something. Can I just listen to like, yes, double you, double V. Yes, yes. Double. You know, I remember that I was, I get so weak at the knees and I’m having a great time I remember I was listening to that for some reason. I remember that I get so weak at the I’m just having a good time. We’re selling some stuff. We got in the background. Mm-hmm. I get a call Thank you for calling DJ connection. This is clay. I can help you feeling good about life. Yeah, she was to see there I said who just is he there? I go who’s just this is such-and-such and is he is he there or where is he? I go he’s at lunch. Yes. Yeah, I’ve heard about yeah. Okay. I know what that means. I know what that means. He I’m tired of you covering for him. And I said, I said, no idea. I said, what do you choose? He’s in the strip club again. Any what? Found out this guy had been going to brothels, illegal massage parlors and strip clubs during the workday. No, true story. Oh, my God. Every day. And he had told her that I was taking him. Please stop. Swear. Please swear. Oh, so then I was like the truth bus. Yeah. Oh, so I’m like, I get so. Yeah, I go downstairs. I tell my wife, you would not believe what’s going on. Oh, gosh. And then she goes, well, so then we check the Internet history of Guy 2, Guy 3. Let’s just say they’re not watching healthy movies. Oh, no. Every time I leave the office. Oh, stop it. No. And then we find out they have separate Yahoo accounts. Remember back in the day when you had AOL? They had these AOL email addresses and they were emailing clients directly and going if you want to do it cheaper just give us a call. Stop it. No true story. So I find out then when the customers we would charge them for their wedding, it’s 150 to do the wedding and the remaining balance was due on the day of your wedding. This one guy had found a move where he would tell the customer oh the deposit doesn’t go towards the balance just the remainder and we’ll all do so you’re totally you owe another 600 not 450 you owe 600 Wow, and I’ll just and then he would write it in the accounting column as a tip So we thought everyone was just tipping in 150 and the number was so consistent that because of the truth bus. I Checked his numbers and I found out he’d been lying about so I literally fired I think four of the six staff members then good I can’t Italy horrible, but because I was interviewing new people all the time I just called the the resumes that I had said hey I don’t have a place for you right now because my team is so good Yeah, then I but then I ended up calling the old resumes and that’s what I did So as long as you’re managing humans you have to have a system for hiring and firing and training because you’re always gonna be doing that and I see a lot of businesses that really struggle because They don’t know how to hire people. They feel like, you know, they hired their cousin. It’s usually like when you say cousin, my cousin. So you say, I see a lot of business owners, and I say, well, how come you can’t fire your front desk guy? He’s terrible. That’s my cousin. And we go way back, and I ain’t got family. Blood, sticker, and water, something stupid like that. Blood, sticker, and water, and I don’t got a, or you’ll have somebody, and you’ll say, well, why is the person on the sales call so terrible? Well, man, that’s my sister. You talking about my sister? You talking about my sister? We’re going to go to war, consultant man. Yeah, and so you see these people there, it’s like the only people in the world they can hire are people they know. Right. No, no, no. Listen, you got to, I know we have other trainings on this, but you need to get your Craigslist, your monster.com, your Indeed on, and we have awesome downloadable templates for you. What kind of job posts you can post to get people to respond. Nice. We’ll teach you all this stuff, but this is what you have to do to get out of this phase, that pool party phase, that adolescent, that crazy bipolar. You got to move on and get into the adult phase of your business life. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all this information, Thrivers. If you want to take an assessment, you can go to thrive15.com. You can do a stage 3 score to see where you are in this bipolar teenager phase. It’s www.thrive15.com slash stage 3 score. Until next time. Do you want something else? I want to give them a surprise. Do. Oh yeah. The great surprise. Now here we go. Thrivers, I know. Now this is the thing. Now imagine that you were me and you come from a family, maybe you can relate. My brother, I’m pretty sure, voted for President Obama, loves President Obama, loves him. And everyone has their own different things. So it’s funny, my dad, we have two kids, each one of us so different. And so my brother and I, we have different political views, different business views, and he hates Donald Trump. And my dad, I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t like him either. And so, and I kind of have a reputation for being known as the jerk, because I’m the guy who gets stuff done. Yeah, and so I figured the best gift, because my dad with ALS, he can no longer stand up. So he spends his whole day laying down looking at the ceiling, because he’s on the breathing masks and all. So I figured if this is the last Father’s Day that he’s going to have on the planet, he’s got to go out in style. And so I have made this gift for my father. So here we go. Look at that. It’s scary. I can’t look. And I’m putting it on the ceiling. I’m going to put it on his… So every morning when he wakes up, he is going to have this. He’s going to wake up. So when he wakes up, he’s on some medication right now. When he’s sleeping, I’m bringing a ladder in tonight. And when he’s out there, he’ll be out there in the living room. I’m going to put this above his bed, and this is what’s going to happen. It is absolutely going to. He’s going to wake up and he’s going to go. And he’s going to hate it. My brother is going to hate it. And I wrote here, Clay Clark, the jerk, because that’s my dad’s favorite movie is the jerk. And it is the absolute best way to show that I love somebody is to put my head on Donald Trump’s hair with the jerk. So it’s the hair. It’s the hair. It’s just so disturbing. I looked at it and I’m like, that is awesomely terrible. Until next time, Thrivers, happy Father’s Day. Bye. JT, do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005 What year were you born? 1995 dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old But I’ve never had to the two-time Heisman Award-winning Tim Tebow come present and a lot of people, you know If I followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field And off the field and off the field the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is JT, how does he do it? Mmm well they’re gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying, Tip Teeva is gonna teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s gonna walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is gonna be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who will be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a $100 million net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind Nine Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russia, Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He’s Inspired me listening to him talk and not only that he also has he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this folks I don’t get this wrong because I get it wrong Someone’s gonna say you screwed that up buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s gonna be coming He said who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like Top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s gonna be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re gonna add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com and some people might be saying well how do I do it? How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com let’s go there now we’re feeling the flow we’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com again you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com you click on the business conferences button and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford and the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in a bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. It’s I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you go to if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office and so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th to 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com and again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re gonna give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be on. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast and he’s traveled all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Lifetime show two-day interactive business workshop if you’re out there today folks you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast a Broadcast you want to get in you want to improve your marketing if you’ve ever wanted to improve your Marketing your branding if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales you want to come to the two-day interactive back to June 27th and 28th, Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life changing. Get your tickets right now at thrive timeshow.com. James, what website is that? Thrive timeshow.com. James, one more time for the four enthusiasts. Thrive timeshow.com. Even if I got three strikes, I’mma go for it. This moment, we own it. Hey, I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment, we own it. Thrivetime Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get small business loans? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. The great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money, and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvey Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, I have to, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just wanna tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, Kings Point in New York, acta non verba, watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey, I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. So having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super. It’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool, the people are nice, it’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. What was your first impression of the conference? Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake and alive the whole time, it’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use to human resources? Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort, and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do, and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it’ll be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing world kicking. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun, it’s super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s gonna come eventually or try to pick up this tag, so you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just wanna give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just wanna say a big thank you to Thrive 15, thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 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 ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere Place office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door, and it really got me and If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.