Entrepreneur | Business Startup Methods: The Nadel Method

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’m the most excited to interview you about. It is in my mind a super valuable tool, but it’s a business startup method that you’ve come up with. It’s a five-step method called the Nadell Method. And you developed this through six decades of in-the-trenches entrepreneurship. And so we’re gonna go ahead and dive into step one of your Nadell Method for startup here. Is one, you say, identify a business idea you love. Talk to me about that, my friend. Well, I think you have to start with something that you’re going to be spending a great deal of time, and you’re going to get a lot of excitement and hopefully a lot of pleasure out of it. It has to be something you really enjoy doing. So, and not only enjoy it, but have a capacity for it. I enjoy negotiating. I really enjoy it. You do? It’s a kick. I enjoy selling. It’s a kick. I enjoy making a deal because one of my basic principles is that a deal has to be good for everybody. So picking something that you like and as I have said before the importance is the journey as well as the destination. So if I’m working with something I enjoy working with I don’t care how much money I would make I will never and I have rejected and I broke up a few relationships because of it, deal with anything that involves tobacco. You won’t do it? Won’t do it. Won’t do it. Now, interestingly, this is, this was something that could be done. I have nothing to do with that. That comes in front. And if I made a billion dollars on it, it would not give me the satisfaction. So you focus on step one is identify a business idea you love, but you also in your book, you talk about it, and again, your book, The Evolution of an Entrepreneur, you talk about really defining your goals, and you’re saying, no, the difference between wishes and goals. Can you walk me through why that’s so important to do that. Right. The wishes and you run into so many people they call dreamers. The dreamers. You want to accomplish something that is not within your mental or physical capability. This is a mistake you’ve got to recognize it. For example, I love to play football. I would have loved to have been a great passing quarterback, but my arm did not have it and I could not be. So having a goal to be a great quarterback would be stupid and having a wish to be a great quarterback would be believing in the I’ve got to have my capability, have my desires doable. And when it’s doable, it becomes a goal. Well, you also talk about, and again, this is all from this chapter of your book where you talk about this method. It’s phenomenal. As you talk about aiming high versus settling, walk me through what you mean. Because, again, you’re saying, on one hand, you’re saying, don’t be delirious, don’t be crazy, don’t believe in the tooth fairy, but you’re also encouraging us to aim high and not just settle. How does that work? Aiming high can mean a number of things. For example, once more, let’s talk about the pen business, talk about a segment of the pen business. I was offered equipment at a huge discount that is used to manufacture stick pens, the cheapest pen. Stick pens? Stick pens, like Bic. I did not want to get into that business. It’s highly competitive and you make one mistake, you’re in bad trouble. Because you’re dealing with a lot of money, but each item is small dollars. That’s not where you wanted to be. That’s not where I wanted to be. What I wanted to be was in the segment of the marketplace where I could make a profit. So what I wanted to do is to be within the name brand category, although I didn’t have the name, but I made the name. Yeah. And if not, I had a different deal at times. I had exclusive deals with Paper Mate, with Schaefer, and with another company that’s out of business now. But I had deals with them and I was able to do more. I could be very proud of what I have and I didn’t have to worry if someone was taking an extra 10 minutes on their break that I was it was costing me a fortune. Yeah. So I never wanted to for example my tendency for me I stayed away from any business that was a bid business. Okay. Yep. I said I want to know. Now that becomes a wish, not a goal. Because if I really want to be competitive in the bid business, and that’s changed a lot of my specialty business now with the internet. Because if you want anything, you want a t-shirt, we put t-shirts in, you get a dozen quotes, or a hundred quotes, and you pick the lowest quote, and that’s it. And I’m not interested. I had a call from one of the major oil companies. We have three people that we give all our business to, but they have to bid against each other. Well, one of them is in a place like Oklahoma. It was cheaper. What is that supposed to mean? If I’m going to be in the bid business, I can’t be in Los Angeles or New York, which is a high-priced labor. For anybody who’s not been to Oklahoma, but they have been to Santa Barbara, just picture Santa Barbara, California, and then something twice as awesome, and that’s what Tulsa, Oklahoma is like. I just want people to get the wrong idea about Tulsa. Okay, I’m glad you straightened me out. All right. Now, I want to talk about… But the point is that that’s a business I don’t want to be in. Right. I want to clarify this because this is a huge thing because step one you’re saying identify a business that you love but then in step two you’re encouraging us to ask the right questions as you research. And so maybe one of those questions would be, is this a bid business? Or what kind of questions should we be asking? The questions are never that direct or obvious if it’s a bid business. But if you say, how many people do you have as customers who are continually supplying these millions of stick pens. That tells me the same thing. And who are the companies that are in this business? Am I competing with Schaefer or am I competing with Joe Blow? I’ve got to ask these questions. I’ve got to see what their penetration of the marketplace was. I’ve got to ask questions of the customers and the potential customers. And they’re all asking questions. Have you used this product? How successful has it been? How have you used it? How would you like to be using it? How would it be a great product for you to use? What goals do I have to achieve to get you to buy a million of them? In your book you encourage people, you say, if it’s a good idea, someone has already probably thought about it first. Now when you said that at first, when I read that, I was going, well, that’s not very encouraging, you know, but it’s true. You’re saying if it’s a good idea, somebody’s probably already thought about it. You’ve heard the old cliché, I’m not going to invent the wheel again, which is the oldest invention that is always in use, is the wheel. If I have an idea that’s going to work for somebody, and they come up, gee, that’s really a terrific idea, then it has to be the height of ego to think that no one has ever thought of that idea before. So what I want to do is to cross-check and see if anybody has, and what success they’ve achieved, and where they are now in that business. So I have to find these answers, and today it is so easy. You just go to your search engine, and bingo, you have it. Well, you said in your book, you said research what they did, how they did it, and how you can do it better. And this is one thing I think that people watching this, that the Thrivers watch this, and you guys can get out of this, is you’ve been an entrepreneur for 67 years, and you look at it and you’re like, it’s never been easier. This is the best time in the history of the planet to be an entrepreneur. You’re saying this is so much easier. Back in the day you had to go to the library, you had to physically travel places, whatever you had to do. It took me three weeks to get a sample to China. Really? Now I get it there overnight. Boom. So just do your research, though. You’re saying research what they did, how they did it, and how you can do it better. And I think that’s massive. Now, you also say, though, some of the questions we should be asking are, what products in the marketplace are similar? Who else in the marketplace is doing this successfully? How big is the market? These are all big questions we should be asking. But you’re saying that first is find something you love, and the second is start to ask those tough questions. Exactly. Ask all the tough questions you can think of because it’s going to be half of what your customers are going to ask you or half of what you have to prove in your final accounting that did I make a profit on this or not. You’ve probably seen this before but in the world of entrepreneurship and the world of formal education, I found there’s two camps. There’s a group of people who are entrepreneurs, which basically could be very busy, unemployed people. They’re an entrepreneur, but they’re not actually running a business. They’re just running around with ideas, the dreamers. In the world of formal education, there’s people who might be on their ninth year of their fourth degree, and they’re just kind of staying on campus there. But at the end of the day, if you’re going to have success, you have to be a doer. You have to get into the details. You have to focus on actually delivering. I’m a total believer in doing it and experimenting with it. In other words, if I have an idea for a new product, I will make a handmade model of that product. I want it to look exactly what it is and I want to get some exact quotations on the quantities I need to make it a profitable item. So it’s a question of just getting into it and examining and asking the questions and finding out how someone has blunted their pick with it before. I had a guy who came to me through a connection seeking my advice. He had a new program that would work on the Internet. Of course, there must be a million new programs, but he had a new program. And to me as an amateur, it sounded great. Yeah. It sounded great. So I looked at him and I said, you know, this is so simple. Has anybody done this before? He said, no, that’s the remarkable part of it. Nobody has done it before. After he left, I went to my computer and I found there were seven companies offering the same goods and the same services. If you don’t do the research, and you have to do it yourself, because you’re doing it with your discerning eye, what am I looking for in this research? Am I looking for how difficult it is to make, or am I looking at how difficult it is to sell, or how difficult it is to convert it to a profitable item. Well, step three of your system and your method is you say, plan a deal and focus on the details. Now, the word detail is scary because that sounds like work. It is work and it’s fun. It’s scary because that’s what you have. It’s fun. It is work and it’s a thing. And I’ll try to keep this in the mild zone, whatever that is. The act of investigating it, the act of examining all the details, the act of producing a sample, the act of going out and selling it, is all necessary for you then to have a price structure that one is going to give you the sales and two, I should say one really, is going to give you the profit. And this is what is needed. Well, you know, you say also in your book, you say structure a deal and create a plan around it. What do you mean by that? Well, let’s say I really like a special idea. Okay. If I have like a television screen over my head and I visualize that deal, and I visualize I did everything I wanted to do and it came out perfectly, and the price was right, and the goods were great, and everything was great, I ask myself one question, how do I feel about it. Okay. And if I don’t feel good about it, I don’t go into it. And you say in your book, you say entrepreneurs must think in specifics with laser-like precision. Right. How is that different from how most people are thinking? What do you mean by that? Because most people talk and think in generalities. Okay. Deals are made for specific products or specific processes or a specific service. So you can’t deal in generalities. Exactly what are you talking about. And it changes the deal completely. What do you say to the guy, because you meet these people who are very big generalists, big dreamers, they say, well basically what I’m going to do, I’m going to go in, I’m going to buy this pen factory, I’m going to flip it around, move some stuff around, add value, I’m going to streamline it, you know, and then you say, well how? Well, you know, I’m not going to get into the details, it’s just a big idea. What do you say to the guy who’s the generalist, Captain Generality, what do you say? You better tell me how you’re going to do it, otherwise I’m not interested. All right. Period. I have no interest. I have no interest in generalities. I want to know how to… how could… perfect example, simple, so simple was almost, almost crazy it was so simple. We were manufacturing ballpoint pens successfully, we were selling them through Europe successfully, and we were having a good time and suddenly a thing comes out called the highlighter. The highlighter? The highlighter. It came out. I’m sorry if I purchased any that hurt you in any way. No, no. Okay. It was a deal. I said, I said, why don’t I get a highlighter like this and put it on the end of my ballpoint pen, one of my pens, because I need the pen to make the notes, and then I have the highlighter at the back of the pen, and the same instrument. I have to go looking, but hey, where’s the highlighter? Right? Right. So I did that. It was very successful. Of course, nothing. Really? I mean, really, almost zero. Well, you, in your book, as you’re talking about details and the importance of having a laser-like focus, you also say that stress is guaranteed. Some people say, well, this sounds stressful. I mean, this might be a lot of work. You’re saying stress is guaranteed, buddy. Guaranteed, absolutely. How much are you prepared to take? But it’s going to be guaranteed. So how much are you prepared to take? How much are you prepared to take? You know, there’s some stresses that you say I’m just not going to go through that. Not worth it. Certain things that come through, the stress that was involved in the deal with Pierre Cardin and getting the license. But the joy of knowing this man and how his mind worked and having him with me and traveling with us. Priceless. Fantastic. Now, you also encourage entrepreneurs to figure out what their distribution model is going to be. Why is that so important? It’s important because somehow even in this or whatever you are doing, whatever your business is, let’s say you say, I want to sell it, let’s use a popular phrase, I’m going to go viral on the internet. I’m gonna go viral. Yeah, okay. Go viral. Good. Hockey stick growth. How do you do that? How do you do that? So let’s say you have this service, a product, or what have you, and you say, but I don’t know enough people to make it pay for itself or an AIM brand to put it with. So what I would do is we happen to be a celebrity oriented society today. And if I have a celebrity name who’s got 10 million followers, that distribution can work. Or I can have someone who is selling something similar to that and is selling the same type of people. In other words, it’s a question of just analyzing it. But to start at this point and say, now I’m going to build the market for it, one at a time and send it out to all my friends, ask them to send it to all their friends and put it on their Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff. The odds against my succeeding are very, very small. And in your book for the entrepreneurs who are into this and they want to really deep dive into it, you give a ton of questions we should be asking. There’s a lot of questions, but one is, is your time frame flexible enough to allow for unexpected delays? Are you dealing with a patent or a brand name for your product or are you just going to enter the marketplace and let the chips fall where they may? What is it going to cost to make your product? You say, what is the minimum you must produce to sell to ensure a profit? What do you have to do to produce a superior product at a better price than your competitors? Is your profit margin large enough to sustain steady growth? I mean, you have a ton of questions. And you need to have them answered. And you need to answer these questions. My point of the Nadell Method, the real point is that there is a huge number of failures. Everybody goes into business. And what I’m saying is if you do these five things, these five elements in the Nadell method, you dramatically, that doesn’t mean you won’t fail, but you dramatically reduce that chance. Well, in this method, step four, you say fulfill your agreement and then sum. This right here is massive. If we, if me, if we, I’m sure you watching, you already do this, but if everybody would just do this, this could be a game changer. Walk us through what you mean when you say fulfill your agreement and then some. How nice it would be if you were able to give a bonus of additional accounts or merchandise or goodwill or whatever it is that your client is looking for that he didn’t even count on. It’s a deal of like when you do that, it appears as though the trust factor has to go through the roof and then the repeat customer Repeat is automatic. Repeat is going to come when you give a value and you give more than you promised. More than you promised. In fact, one of my bank customers absconded with the saying. And where you get, come to, at that time it was Gibraltar Savings, and get a little something extra. At this point in your method, you talk also about, you say, you must be prepared to make some course corrections along the way. Can you walk us through, you mean by that? I think every time I have yet, and this is where I believe that so much methodology is out of step with the times, is that you’ve got to prove what you’re doing and the best way to do it is to actually do it. There’s no shortcut to that. I mean, I’ve got success stories, I’ve got failures, and I think I’ve learned more from the failures, but it’s something that seems so perfectly simple. Well, you say here in your book, you say it’s almost impossible to anticipate the problems and all the opportunities that will present themselves by doing, by virtue of being in the marketplace. I think that’s, you have a certain mindset that you can’t possibly figure out. You’re trying to ask these questions ahead of time, right? You try to ask them ahead, but you can’t anticipate them. You can’t truly anticipate them. An imprint rubbing off because the product doesn’t have a service. It was too slick. Stuff that you would not anticipate in front that you don’t know what happened. Some things that you think are so simple and changing a direction to find out where to go. I mean, I say we’re in the pen business, but for example, when we had our pen line set, I wanted to produce a women’s pen. Women’s pen? Women’s pen. Okay. Made for women. So my big idea was, I was gonna put a little perfume in it. Oh, really? So, right, you got perfume and ink. And that was good. That worked pretty well? It worked like a charm. But I didn’t have the pen that looked female enough. Now, when I say you have to go somewhere else, who makes a barrel that looks female enough? Lipstick manufacturers. So we went to a lipstick manufacturer and got our barrels made. You say here in your book, you say, always hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Right. That seems a little bit like a, it’s like two separate ideas there. You’re saying, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. What do you mean by that? I mean, if the worst things that can happen, I always ask when going into any new product, what’s the best thing that can happen, what’s the worst thing that can happen? Okay. These are the extremes. I wanna know that I can withstand the worst. I wanna know I can recover from it. I wanna know I can maybe invest something and lose it. Yeah. And then go on and go on from there. Or I can change it. Right. But I’ve got to be prepared for it. I can’t suddenly have it happen. Hey Charlie, remember what you wanted to be? We can’t make those things. Well, this is huge because again, these steps you’re talking about don’t necessarily require a lot of money. They do require a lot of mind power. That’s correct. And you can look at, what, ten deals on paper and blow up nine of them before you spend a dime by just going through your method. Run it through the five steps, and if it, you know, step three it gets weird, step four it gets crazy, you just blow it up and there’s always a new deal coming. You’re not like there’s a shortage of deals. Deals my friend are like buses. There’s one right after the other. There’s that, that never stops. I want to underscore that because there’s so many people watching this right now who are going oh my gosh this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You’re saying there’s gonna be another bus coming. Another bus coming down the road. It’s gonna happen. It’s happened to me I had deals made which we had to break apart and there was, oh my God, what’s going to happen? No worse off than before this whole thing came together. We can’t do this. We’ll get into another one. In this case, we were looking for a building to accommodate the printing plant. And we made a deal, perfect size, et cetera, et cetera. Met two weeks later to sign it up, they drew it up, and the guy’s attorney shows up a half hour late. First of all, that irritates me to begin with. part of the deal, we have to cut the lot over here. I said, wait a minute. I turned to the other and said, did we make a deal? He said, yeah. I don’t want to renegotiate. I didn’t come here to renegotiate. I came here to sign the deal we made. Now, if you’re telling me I have to renegotiate with your attorney, then we might as well say goodbye and not waste each other’s time, which we did. There we go. And three days later, I got an offer for a building that was twice as good. Oh, man. And that’s the way it goes. It’s so I wish one of the things about mentorship is hopefully you can learn from your mistakes and your successes so you don’t have to go through it. But for anybody watching this, they need to know that new deals are always coming. You’re never going to be able to have a shortage of those. And as we move on to your final step, step five, you say, review the results for next time. Again, review the results for next time. First off, what is next time? And what do you mean by review the results? You’ve come back to our original premise, which we started with nine years ago when we started this interview. We just started it. To review the item, did it work? Was it good? Was the profit right? Was everything right? You have to know where you’re going. If everything turned out great, and the customer is happy, and you’re happy, you’ve set the stage for my first rule of business Which is relationships because I just established a relationship And the door is open For other deals. Yeah And that’s that’s what I meant by that that there’s always something else Down the pike. It isn’t like people stop With this one deal if I was dealing with banks, I could deal with every bank in the world. Because that demand hasn’t stopped because one bank either bought or rejected it. Yeah. So there’s opportunities all over. Well, I’m going to say this. You’re supposed to review the results. As I finish reading your book, if I can just kind of review the results from your book. Yeah. I read the book and as I review the book, and I want to kind of marinate on the results here, your book is filled with so much wisdom. But what makes your book better than almost every other entrepreneurial book I’ve read is that the wisdom is distilled from six different decades. So it’s not like you wrote a book about how you made your money in tech in the 90s. Or you didn’t write a book about how you made your money in the 80s, you know, working on George Michael videos or something, or in the 70s because you were, I mean, you’re talking about six different decades, going from the end of World War II all the way till today. And I just, I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to share this wisdom because for me and I know for people younger than myself, people older than myself, the wisdom is what you’re seeking. I mean, you can lose your money and make your money and you can make it back, but that wisdom is what we all need to get ahead. And I just can’t thank you enough for taking the time to share your wisdom. It is just refreshing, it’s exciting, and I just can’t thank you because you fulfilling part of what I’m looking for which is to pass it on. Well, thank you. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get your to get your goals yeah because if you have a 15 million dollar business but you have 15 million dollars of expenses it’s kind of pointless holy crap alright so the question I would have here for you if you can take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save three thousand bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees would you do it yes absolutely oh crap Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year? Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Um, maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. That’s clear. That can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take ten minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees. Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes, and they’re like, nah, that’s not worth my time. Hello. We getting there, everybody. We getting there, everybody. There’s probably someone out there that would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you, folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they thousand dollars a year on average I and at a loss I cannot be camp who is better I go on first and clean the hair good yes I is a better I need to hear you key and smooth old me for really good good that means one let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually, years ago, compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours. And in my case, in my in my case, my particular case, I save over twenty thousand dollars a year. Holy crap. Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. OK. Oh, God. Everything okay ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, alright? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, alright. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s an elegant, from Ridgeway. It’s from Ridgeway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information. A member of our team will call you. They’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you ten minutes or less. And they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time freedom and financial freedom. In order to do that, you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both 1.3 billion dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has. By being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pesce Monde company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast, like Jared had mentioned, that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in, but Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, and they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. We just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crockwell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, like Clay is, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like I remember, we got closed down for three months he helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right. This is where we used to live. Here’s the house. This is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales which is awesome but Ryan is a really great salesman so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. The Thrivetime Show, two day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this, and because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying. 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. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their calls. Okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about 40,000 was up and down rollercoaster and so now We we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of a hundred clients That’s awesome And so I would have anywhere from five clients to 20 clients on my own with networking But I had no control over it. I I didn’t without the systems You’re gonna be at the you’re gonna be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have grown, I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked now, so so I’m looking we’ve been good friends seven eight years, and I’ve got Doubled five times which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it. That’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly Yeah, I mean that’s more believable. We’re working our bless assurance off this year to double we’re planning on doubling again We’re incorporating new some some some new things in there to really help us do it But we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, is I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when I needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take, no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well I’ll tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls. We make two to 300 calls a day per rep, right? And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 200 and 300 calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. That’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road. Maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012 and at that time I was five years removed from the deep from the DJ business and you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software It was about 10 11 years we met How did we remeet? What was the first interaction or some interaction where you and I first connected? I just remember that somehow you and I went to hideaway pizza, but you remember when we first reconnected. Yeah Well, we had that speaking thing that oh there was so it’s victory Christian Center. I was speaking there My name is Robert Redmond. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship. But I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses, implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding, I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. Working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence. And then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory, and the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship, that as we pursue our goals, and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. you know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. People that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity. People that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by. People who are not looking to develop themselves. People who are not coachable. People who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people and in short anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met clay I literally carried a notebook with me all around I was looking at this notebook the other day actually I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about about three or four months just from being around clay following him and learning from him and Then I would say come come coachable Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.