Entrepreneur | Checklists, Checklists, And Getting It Done Right

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 get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s what I’m about. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them that it’s C and Z up on your radio. And now 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we hit it. Started from the bottom, and that’s what you gotta do. Dr. Z, how are you, my friend? I’m great, Clay. How are you doing, buddy? Good to see you. I am doing very well. I feel like the wonderful food we just had, I had a couple of burritos, feeling good about life. And we’re here talking about checklists. Come on. Now, here we go. We’re talking about checklists, checklists, and getting it done right. Oh, yes. Now, before we deep dive into it, I’m going to say something that might offend 95% of the viewers, but we’re going to do it in a nice way because we care. And I’m going to start by ripping on myself. I’ll be a viewer, too. I know when I grew my businesses, I got to a certain point where I could no longer do everything myself. And at that point I just yelled at people for not doing it right. Yeah. So I hired people, no one did it right, I’d tell them not to do it wrong, we would have these endless conversations and as I’ve been consulting with companies all across the country I’ve been astounded to realize that about 95% roughly, almost every business I work with, when they first bring me on there’s no checklists for anything. There’s no checklist for cleaning the bathroom. There’s no checklist for answering the phone. There’s just no checklist. So if there’s a ton of people watching this right now who have no checklist, no written down systems, how important are checklists in your mind to growing a company? Well it’s one of the few ways you can try to duplicate. You know people always ask me how do you have so many businesses and and you have so many things going on you have to duplicate yourself. Well you know there’s a lot of really smart people out there, and you can tell them something, and they may remember a part of it, but they don’t remember all of it. And it’s a few things that they forget that they don’t do that makes you have a very, very difficult day. So writing it down and making it, you know, where you can replicate it with other people. It’s like, here’s a, here’s what you say when you answer the phone, here’s what you do and before you leave here’s the 10 items you have to make sure that are done for the day. I mean checklists are very important because what it does is it helps you replicate and with turnover of staff even you may go oh yeah here’s the 10 things I went out and I think there’s only 9, I can only remember 9 so just do these nine things. Oh wait, the next employee. I know there’s 8 I need you to really do before you leave for the day and then pretty soon you’ve forgotten stuff too, so you’ve got to. There’s a lady I know who is a sports coach. And she has a business that’s not in Tulsa. I’m not going to give away the location, but she’s a lady who asked me to help her grow her business. She’s a sports coach. She’s a lady. And what she did is she grew her business from her, coaching about 50 kids, to now there’s about 400 kids. In every single meeting I went to, I mean, literally every meeting, she was like, OK, why did you guys not clean the bathroom? And then the four or five trainers look around and they’re like, I thought she was gonna do it. I thought, and then after about three weeks of freaking out about that, then she says, you guys didn’t do it right. And like every week I would say, it’s not written down who’s supposed to do it or what’s supposed to be done. And she’s like, it’s just common sense. What do you say to the entrepreneur on the other side of that camera who is watching this right now going, give me a break, I don’t have to make a checklist for my front desk staff or for the end of the day or for the bathroom cleaning, it should be common sense. What do you say? It is common sense, it’s common sense to you and that’s why you’re the boss, that’s why you’re the entrepreneur. You know we think differently and those things to us just make sense, but for all the people that we surround ourselves, we’ll call them employees. It’s not common sense to them. And that’s quite frankly why some of them are not the business owners, is because they don’t get things like that. So you have to help them. You can tell them and tell them and tell them and tell them and tell them. Or you can write it down and you can make it to where they can find what it is that they need to do. You can have a filing system. You can have some kind of organization to where it’s written down and it spells it out. And guess what? Now if they don’t do it, now you have a different problem on your hand. And oh, they just forgot about it or it didn’t make sense for them to do it that way. So let’s talk about your businesses because you do own a, basically, what do you call a ranch? What do you call your, where you raise your horses? What do you call it? A thoroughbred ranch. A thoroughbred ranch. You have these competitive race horses. You have the optometry clinics. You have the sleep center. You have a lot of different businesses going on. Let’s just jump real quick to the optometry clinic. What are not necessarily the specific items on the checklist, but what are the kinds of checklists that we could find at the optometry clinic? One would be for my doctors. I try to train them and try to coach them. I want them to be as much like me in the exam room as possible. So they have a list of things that they’re to follow, that they’re to do. And then also they have a, if this happens you go here, if this happens you say this. And so not only is it a checklist, but it’s also kind of a script of an exam and some things that can happen through that. So now let’s hop over here to this place, which is the Z’s Auto Auction. So Z’s Auto Auction, you guys are selling hundreds of cars, maybe 7, 800 cars a week in and out of here. What are the kinds of checklists we can find here? Well, I didn’t finish on the optometry. The optometry is about four areas, and each one of those areas have their own checklist to walk through for the employees in that. Same thing over here in Z66. Ronnie, my operations manager, has an entirely different checklist than Doug in my sales office. My ladies behind the desk, if you will, they all have their checklist of things that they need to do to prepare for the sale. Because what happens is, we have a sale every Friday. So, you know, you show up on a sale and all of a sudden you look around going, hey wait, why didn’t anybody know that we’re doing a special RV sale today at 1130? Whose job is that to get the word out on that? Everybody’s looking at each other like, uh, you have to make those lists. You have to let people know what they’re being held accountable for and what they’re also what they’re responsible for. So you know each one of my businesses it’s not just one checklist for everybody so to speak. I mean there are the basics that you expect for your employees but each area has its own checklist of things that they need to do for that week to be successful or for that day to be successful. So let’s just say that I got hired to you as some sort of hired to work for you as some sort of man secretary. And so you say, I want you to every day answer the phone, I want you to clean out the restroom, I want you to, there’s just things that you want me to do every day. How detailed of a checklist do you have, one, and then do you inspect it or follow up on it every day? How do you know it gets done? Well if I’m your direct supervisor, yes, I follow up on it. I mean that’s part of a supervisor’s checklist, is to make sure that all the people underneath them did their checklist. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa, great. So you’re saying there’s a checklist for every job, and someone follows up on that job? Well, that’s part of their checklist. And that’s what keeps it together? Yeah. Unless people are checking it, you know. I’m asking this because this does not happen. I guarantee you that almost everyone watching this right now, ask yourself, if you’re watching this right now, ask yourself, do I have a checklist for who’s cleaning the bathroom and what they’re supposed to do in the bathroom? Do I have a checklist for every time I book an event or sell something of how I want the customer to be handled? And if we’re honest, we’re probably not. But yet the entrepreneurs that I’ve met who are successful, at Disney World, there is a checklist for everything. And at your businesses, there is a checklist. When did you learn this? When did you have this epiphany of, I need to make a checklist for everything? What happens is you just get so many, you know, I mean, when I started, it was me and another person that ran the business. There was two of us. And yeah, it was common sense. I had my checklist right up here. And guess what? Everything got done for the day and everything got taken care of because it was me and this other person doing it. But as I grew and as I hired more people, you know, unless I wanted to be the one doing everything and run around checking everything, I started to hand those responsibilities off to people. And then I understood that, you know, you look up two years later, and now you’re fourth generation. In other words, you’ve gone through four employees at that spot. And you look at them and you go, why aren’t you doing everything you’re supposed to be doing? It’s like the old gang back in kindergarten or in elementary school, I whisper something in your ear and around the thing by the time it gets rid of the 10th person, the story is completely different. Would you think that even videographers who might or might not be filming this show should have checklists? I think so, but especially videographers. Are you kidding me? They’re the worst of it. OK. No. But the point is that having a master kind of file back that you go to, that you add to, that you’re always kind of tweaking, is good and healthy. Because then what happens is whenever you’re training the next person, guess what? It’s easier to train them. I love this. This, to me, is like story time. This is great. So now I want to read this quote to you from a guy named Michael Gerber. Michael Gerber has written a lot of bestselling books about entrepreneurship, specifically called the E-Myth Series. He has this quote. He says, most entrepreneurs are merely technicians. With an entrepreneurial seizure, most entrepreneurs fail because they’re working in their business and not on their business. Do you agree with that concept that you see a lot of entrepreneurs who are busy working in it but not making these systems to work on it. Yes, I see that. I mean, I, you know, here’s the deal. It’s kind of like the guy that says, hey, I’m really good at doing yard work. So he does yard work. And he says, you know what, I’m doing, I’ve kind of got my own accounts now. I probably should have my own business. And he just keeps doing yard work instead of stepping back and coming up with the logo and coming up with marketing and coming up with a plan and hiring people and training them how to do it. And so you go from this, the business is just me out doing what I can do, versus really growing a business. You’re working in it, not on it. And I see that a lot. Now, when you first started your eye clinics many moons ago, and you put in the checklist for the first time, was it possible that you made a checklist that didn’t have everything on it, and then you had to improve upon it a little by… Oh absolutely, still do. Still do. I mean things are changing. I mean we didn’t know… I mean for example when I started in business back in 1991, I didn’t have to put on the checklist anything about a cell phone. You know, I mean things change. You know, I mean you know piercings and tattoos and I mean the way you address these with your employees and your policies and I mean you have to evolve, you have to change and you have to understand that just because you make the checklist today doesn’t mean it’s never going to change. If it’s not changing, that’s probably not healthy. And that’s one of the things I think a lot of people don’t realize. When I built the DJ business, we were doing 4,000 weddings a year at the time before I sold it. And I think a lot of people don’t realize, they would come into my office, friends, family, whatever, and they would go, Do you really need a checklist that says check voicemail, respond to all emails Lock the door. Do you really need to micromanage that word micromanage? Do you really need to micromanage say clay? Do you really need to micromanage your people like that? And we did about a million and a half, you know dollars of revenue at that time and I said well, yeah I mean because I would forget to check the voicemails or for me There’s something I would forget and they had I think the people had about 20 items on their checklist for every day I mean is stuff. Do you what do you say to somebody who says well, I don’t want to micromanage my staff. I kind of want everyone to have their own artistic sort of, I want people to be a feel like they’re, you know, I want them to be able to come to work and then just, they don’t want to micromanage, you know, I don’t want to put on a list. They have to check off and they check voicemails or locked up. I feel like people should be a little more loose, a little more, what do you say to that guy? Well, if you don’t manage them, somebody else is going to manage them. And if they’re your employee and you’re paying for them, you need to manage them. That’s what management’s about. And running a business is duplication and making sure people are doing what they need to do to help you grow your business. And if you don’t care about it, and if you don’t have a passion for it, why on earth do you think they’re going to? So micromanaging is a term that can be misused in this area. You know… I hear it all the time. That’s why I’m asking you. Yeah, I mean it’s a term, I mean it’s kind of like going, well, I’m going to hire a doctor and I hope they do a good job and I’m not going to micromanage them and go get them. Good luck. But they’re representing me, they’re in charge of the thing most precious to me and that’s my customers. All the other employees are looking at them, wondering what they’re going to do. You don’t think I’m not going to micromanage that to some degree? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m not going to tell them, hey, we’re blue today. I mean, it could get to the point of maybe silly, you know, but the point is, is it’s your business, you have a passion for it, and if you don’t have that and express that in the way that you manage your people, then your business is going to suffer because of it. I’m not saying it won’t be successful. And I’m not even, and one of the things I never want to do is argue with Thrive mentors, but I want to push back on one thing for you, because I’ve noticed even at your businesses, too. I don’t think you don’t make them wear blue, but I think one thing you’ve done is you said, I want you to wear one of these four colors. Or you have a uniform now, too. Yeah, I have a uniform. And I know maybe that was a bad example. No, but I mean, I just want to make sure. I’m going to give them the four colors I want them to wear. You know, I’m like, you know. I mean, I think it’s amazing, because you are, people think, when I know people who know you, they go, Dr. Z, he’s, he’s, he’s high energy. So they assume that you must be disorganized. Loosey goosey. Loosey goosey. Whatever. Yeah, but you are a systems guy. You have to be. That’s what you build an empire, if you will, of businesses. That’s the way that you know that you can go to sleep at night because you know that staff members know what to expect from you and they know what to do. If they don’t do it, that’s a whole other topic. I want to think about this real quick, because this is just a concept that blew my mind. If we had, if you could, right now you have a couple hundred employees. If all of them just made two mistakes a day, or just one. I’ve had those days. Where all of them just forgot to do one thing on their list that doesn’t exist, because it’s all in your head. Right, common sense. How many calls would you have? It would be crazy. Oh, I mean, it’d be endless chaos. It’s kind of like you forgot to lock the front door. Did you not think that was important? You didn’t set the alarm. I mean, these are common sense things. But the thing about it is that if you don’t have someone checking it and inspecting it, these things, you’d be surprised. These things get forgot. Let’s pretend that this piece of paper is my checklist. And I’m that man secretary you hired. Okay. And it says check voicemails and send out the mail. Okay. And wear blue. And wear blue. With a red tie and a white shirt. Check. That’s on my checklist every day. But if I didn’t do it, so it’s about 4.55, can you kind of role play just real quick on how you would follow up with me on the checklist and how you would respond when I tell you that I didn’t get it done. Can we just kind of do that little thing real quick? So you say, hey, Clay, hey, did you check the voicemails? And did you go ahead and send out the mail? And I said, you know, no. I was I was I was going to. I just totally forgot. And it’s on my checklist. What would you say to me? First of all, I would say I listen to answer. Is there a reason why you didn’t get to your voicemail today, Clay? I didn’t look at my checklist. I just, I guess I left it in my car. OK. Well, do you understand the importance of the checklist? I mean, yeah. I just thought, a lot of it, honestly, a lot of times I don’t even look at it because it’s kind of here. And I just, I guess I forgot. Well, I know. But that’s why we have the checklist. If you have your checklist in an area that you see it, recognize it, and you know that before you end for the day, you’ve got to make sure everything is taken care of on this because these are important things. I mean, we can have a voicemail on there, for example, of a very important deal. And if we don’t respond to it in a timely fashion, we can maybe lose that deal. So everything on this list, I want to stress to you, is very, very, very, very important. Now, you’ve got to ask yourself a question. Are you going to take this job serious enough that you’re going to address this checklist? Because I need to know that going forward, Clay. Let’s say a week later, same conversation. Okay? A week later, you’ve already had this one conversation. Now we’re going to conversation number two. Okay. You know, I’m sorry I left the checklist in my car. Well, Clay, I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go get in your car and drive someplace and take your checklist out and go get a new job with it. No, I mean, at some point, you have to understand that. At what point would that have to happen, though? If I was your man secretary, and I have to know this because people are watching this. I’ve got to get serious now. I’m just saying, because a lot of people are watching this, they are saying, I hired an assistant and they didn’t check the voicemail once. I asked them, they didn’t check it again, and so the owner is either left to kind of give up hope and say, well, no one will ever do the job, or, I mean, what do we say now that second time? What do you do? At what point do you say it’s gone too far? It’s an excellent question. And I get that asked probably about as much as anything. And I look at everybody that asked me that question. I said, you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to put up with that as long as you want to put up with that. So if I feel like it’s too bad of an issue I’ll probably just out of resourcefulness find somebody else. Bingo. And for the business owner that never just draws a line in the sand and makes that move, they’re just stuck with what they’re stuck with. Yeah I’m telling you what, I mean obviously they have a high tolerance for being able to put up with it. They have a high tolerance for having an employee that doesn’t do what they want them to do. There’s a lot of people out there that put up with it. God bless them. I mean it’s kind of one of those things where, but then there’s also a lot of people complaining about why their business isn’t growing and why they aren’t making more money and what’s wrong with it. And I’m kind of going, maybe you’ve gotten too lackadaisical in the things that you’re putting up with from your own employees. You are paying money and trying to employ to help you build your business. So the thing about it is if you did everything great and you forgot on your second time to check voicemails in the course of a day, I mean, yeah, you probably have a little bit of grace or a little bit of, you know, but if you had a lot of other things you weren’t doing well either on the checklist, you had a lot of other things you weren’t doing for me that I told you to do, then I would probably have less grace with you. You would be replaced sooner. So in all your businesses, these active companies that you have, I mean, you’re seeing thousands of customers a day. It sounds like there is a checklist for every position. Or if there’s not, I mean, there’s at least a category of positions. Yes. I mean, yes. So yes, okay And because I’ve had the opportunity to work with business owners all over the country I can confidently say that almost every business owner I’ve ever met with does not have a checklist for every position and I would also confidently say that the number one reason that businesses are failing is not because of a bad idea or Bad marketing or bad, but it usually has to do with poor execution for delivering on those things. So I’m going to read you Michael Gerber quote here that’s this huge huge quote here. He says, just think what would you do if you honestly believe that you’re going to create 10,000 stores, 10,000 offices, 10,000 shops, or 10,000 orchards, or 10,000 of whatever it is you set out to do. 10,000 times. My goodness, where would you begin? And to me it sounds like with checklists. Yeah, well you’ve got to build the first one. In order to build the first one, then you want to replicate it. In order to replicate it, then you have to have you have to have it in a box, and that box is the checklist. That box is the things that are reproducible. The things that I can sit down with an employee and say, here’s what you’re responsible for, here’s what I want you to do, I’ve spelled it out for you, here’s what you say when you answer the phone, here’s what you say before you leave for the night, here’s what you do. And if you’re going to do that 10,000 times, you better get your handle wrapped around. Otherwise, you’re not going to remember what it is every time you open a store. If I am watching the website right now, and I have 20 employees, and I have no checklist at all, and I’m now going, okay, I know I need to do this. I’m doing it. I mean, man, I’m, bam, let’s go. Do you recommend, I mean, you just say it’s not going to be perfect, but just start from… Start, absolutely. Start with the big stuff, and you can kind of get it as detailed as you need to get it for. And always go back and kind of check that list every now and then. And especially when you’re bringing in new employees, that’s probably a really good time because you pull all those out, so to speak, and you’re going through them and you’re freshening them up and you’re looking at them and you’re saying, okay, that has no relevance now, take that off the list. Or actually that is now some other department is doing that, so that’s off of your list. So you’re always constantly doing it, but you’ve got to start somewhere. It probably sounds like almost minutia to harp on this, but I want to make this a real example so people watching this can really get it. You’re auto auction here. You have a restroom. I’ve been here three times. I’m sorry, four times. I’ve been here four times. And each time I’ve come here, the restrooms are clean. This is not the case in most restrooms across America. And so with the checklist, how does that work? Do I turn it into my manager every day if I’m the person who cleans the bathroom? I clean the bathroom, I turn it into my manager every day? Or how do you do that? So because it’s always clean here and I’m going, this guy’s a guru of cleaning bathrooms. Or, I mean, what is your system there? How do you use the checklist for these things? Well, I have a lady that’s in charge of, I have a, on on sale day, you know, we have busier days here than others. So on the actual sale day, she checks it on a more frequent basis. But other than that, it’s a couple, three times a day that they go in and actually physically do a physical inspection of the bathroom to make sure that all the toiletries, that all the soaps, all that’s full, that the floor is actually cleaned. Just check it off. Check it off. Boom. Toilet paper, boom. Make sure the backup, boom. Also to make sure that the actual things are, I don’t want to get into too much detail, but I want to make sure that the physical areas are actually clean, flushed, clean, wiped down, sanitized, floor cleaned, walls, trash emptied. You know, there’s a, you know, maybe 10, 12 things. Now you say, now who double checks that? Well, she has a supervisor. She has an office manager that then will on spot check or randomly check. And then on sale day, when we have a lot of people here and it’s much busier, that goes to, instead of two or three times a day, that goes to every 30 minutes. Now, Colin Powell talks about the importance of holding people accountable. And essentially when Colin Powell served in our military, he had somebody who held him accountable. And he talks about how basically if you don’t piss somebody off by noon, you’re probably not holding people accountable. Could be. I mean, you know, there’s a little bit though of there’s an inherent just a little bit of not necessarily you don’t have to be mean about it, but there’s a little bit of accountability and a little bit of confrontation just embedded in the fact that you’re going to be relentless about following up about your bathroom being cleaned every day, right? I mean there’s a little bit of… There is, it’s kind of built in, but that’s why management is not… if it was it was easy to be a manager, we’d all do it. And the thing about it is getting people to do things that they don’t necessarily want to do or do well is a challenge sometimes. And people, as a general rule of thumb, their work ethics need to be improved upon. I guess is probably a good way to put that. And so that’s what management’s about. Oftentimes, the guy that ends up being the manager was the guy that could do, he was the one that, like for example, in my labs of my optometric offices. The guy that makes the glasses the fastest, he moves up to shift manager and then pretty soon he’s the guy that’s he’s the guy that is now the lab manager and pretty soon he’s a store manager. So you just kind of move up this list with not necessarily the right tools and mindset to be one. You know, they may be a good worker but not a good delegate or a good checker of other people, you know. So there’s a little bit of that confrontation of, you know, hey, I want to be friendly but I want to make sure it gets done. Okay, so the guy on the other side of this camera who has a business, he doesn’t have a checklist for his bathroom, every day he talks about how his bathrooms are dirty. What do you say to that guy? The non-checklist bathroom guy. Get a checklist. I mean, the thing about it is, is that, you know, right now if I were walking into your business and said, well, who’s responsible for doing it? You know, if I lined up all your employees and said, okay, which of you are responsible for doing it? And, let’s say someone did raise their hand and say, okay, how often are you supposed to do it? I don’t know. What are you supposed to do when you go in there? Clean it. I mean, these are things, this is why you’re set up to fail. If you don’t give them specifics to do it, because in your mind, it is common sense. We talked about that earlier. In your mind, it makes sense. It’s your mind, you go in and you do it because you take pride in it because it is your business. It’s not their business. They’re an employee. They’re worried about, you know, what someone said on Facebook last night. They’re worried about, you know, where they’re going to get their boyfriends going to ask them out to dinner this weekend. I mean, they’ve got other things on their mind. Yours is in there to make sure your business is being as productive and as successful and growing as much as possible. And so no one’s going to care as much as you do. So write it down. Write it down for them and then help encourage them to follow through with it. And if they won’t follow through with it, find someone who will. And that’s how you fix a dirty bathroom. And I will say this, I mean this because I think somebody watching this is saying this is not possible in every scenario. And I’m going to just keep pushing back and for some reason this is the most exciting topic in the world to me. But I want to share this because I mean it. Steve Martin, the great comedian, Steve Martin, the great playwright, Steve Martin, he talks about in his book Born Standing Up, how he went out there and he performed his routine and he says joke one was funny, joke two was funny, joke three was not funny, joke four was funny, joke five was funny, note to self, gets off stage crosses it off, not gonna say that joke anymore, replaces it with joke three, joke three is replaced, joke 3b, oh that was a good one, joke four not so good, and he did he build a checklist for his routine. Yes. And if you watch a gifted comedian it’s the same routine over and over. Why am I talking about this? Because I had to get convinced men, you understand with my wedding entertainment company, I found out after meeting with the guy who was running Quick Trip at the time, Mr. Chet Caggio, that it’s best to hire people for attitude, not for skill. And so I literally hired people and I made it a prerequisite that you could have never DJ’d before. And I could teach 45 men to be funny every Saturday who had no comedic experience and no experience playing music. And I even had the employees come in and I said, hey, if you’ve never heard of music before, you’re actually the kind of guy I want. Because as a wedding DJ, I don’t want you playing your biases. I want you to play what that bride wants. And so I made these checklists. I’m not kidding. You and I, in like an hour and a half, you can be DJing your way to success. Because if someone says, could you play some country? You just open up that page, and there’s a checklist of country songs that are the most popular that work. And what announcement to say. Literally, the words to say were right there by. And it became so funny and so freeing when you could teach people to be funny. Yeah. When you could actually teach, I used to think you can’t well you can’t teach people to be funny, oh but you can. Oh but you can. Now we’re gonna hop in here, we’ll get a little deep. The Harvard Business School where they they did not let me into that school. I could not get in. Shocking. I don’t know. So the Harvard Business School, there’s a book written by Heskett Sasser and I want to say it’s Schlesinger, but this book was introduced to me by a guy named Doug Fears I used to be the CFO of a big oil and gas company. Here’s the quote from the book the service profit chain Being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service The important thing is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the first time All the smiles in the world aren’t going to help if your product or service is not what the customer wants. Amen. So now, I want to know, who inspects the checklists in your businesses? Is it somebody who is committed to being the best friend of every employee? Is it the person who is committed to never having a confrontation? Is it the likes to fight guy? Or is it somebody who cares about people but they’re kind of I mean tell me what? Personality you put on top of this Checklist to hold people accountable what kind of personality you want there? Well, I mean you you want that you want your and it’s really the manager the supervisors Depends on the different level of the checklist But your supervisor your manager is a little bit of mixture of all that you know I mean you it’s a it’s a challenging thing to work next to someone all day and to kind of work with them to be somewhat of a co-worker, yet also be their boss and then also be in charge of. On your checklist is to check their checklist, so to speak. But you have to have somebody on there that’s not afraid to get in there and to do what they need to do, because that’s on their checklist. And you want someone that’s, you know, you want someone that’s nice, but you also want someone that’s thorough. You want someone that’s attention to detail. And you want someone that’s going to be your advocate. You want someone that’s going to be your bulldog, if you will. You’re going to want someone that’s going to be your policeman. I mean, being a police officer’s got to be a difficult job. Yeah. But you need them, and you need that mind to listen. I can be kind, I can be nice, but I’m going to be thorough, and I’m going to be firm, and this is how we’re going to get it done. I think the police example is perfect, because I got pulled over the other day. I don’t have any moving violations for a few years now. I never, I didn’t get one. Usually because I’m in my suit and they think I’m a good guy. Yeah. And I’m nice to them. And you smile. That’s 20% of it, right? I get pulled over though, and the officer, and I respect him, and again, I’m glad he does this, and I totally get it. But his least priority is to care whether I like him. He says, sir, did you not notice there was a dump truck over here on the side, and we were waiting for traffic to go through? I had my lights on. Yet you drove around me into a way. It was one way. You want to go this way? It’s not like one of those passing lanes. It was just a hard line. So you can only go this way or this way. And I went ahead and went into oncoming traffic in the Hummer around the car, and I just kept on going. And then I went another car. I saw another car that was stopping so I went around the shoulder Hmm, and I said I did the figure eight Making good time. Yeah, and the guy pulls her sir Driver’s license right, you know, and he’s not making eye contact He’s got glasses on like sunglasses and he’s just big you tell he’s not looking at looking to my soul He’s just intense like let’s surge. I said why sir drip so he gets the stuff, he comes back. Sir, are you aware that you broke this law, that law? Do you have any idea why I pulled you? He’s just intense. And then I was like, he takes his glasses off. He smiles. And it’s someone who I did their wedding, it’s the husband. And he’s like, stop doing that stuff. Why would you make me? And so he let off the manager face for just a second. And he was like, why would you just stop? And he was funny, because he has to be stern. So he’s in character. He’s not looking. He’s got sunglasses on. He’s just looking down at the. And then he looks at me, and he puts two into it. He pulls my license. He realizes that it’s me. He tells his wife. He’s like, what is that guy’s deal? But again, he could not. If he would have said, sir, is it now a good time to pull you over? How you doing, sir? I’d be like, I’m in a hurry It’s okay is now a good time. I don’t know if you’re aware of the law if you would have been meek He would have lost right, but instead he put me in my place. I’m thinking. I don’t want to get shot Don’t go to jail don’t get a ticket, so I’m just gonna do that But he you have to assert yourself like the referee kind of right absolutely you you’re the most amazing part of that whole story That I find hard to believe Well, I’ve driven with you and the idea that you don’t have any moving violations for two years is crazy. I mean… We need to make sure when we edit this, we insert the footage of my recent Hummer excavations. Oh my goodness, I’ve been driven with this guy, it’s like, oh lord, how do you not die? How do you ever get to where you’re going? I gotta say this, though. I’m just telling you, and I’m a red light runner. I’m a midnight gunner. That’s the least of the issues. I mean, that’s like so far down the checklist of things you do wrong in a car. That right there, that right there is like a spirit of my soul of truth. It just, that’s awesome. Okay, I’m not, I don’t lose any trust now, and I’m not going to satisfy because I’m continue to be a bad driver. But okay, so now we’re now we’re moving on. I know people change, sell them. That’s why we get a good driver. Okay, so now we’re moving on here to the service profit chain. Another quote from the Harvard Business School professors. They said, these guys by the way studied UPS, Southwest Airlines. They’re studying companies like Disney World and they’re saying how do these companies build successful businesses? That’s why there’s so many successful people are coming to Harvard Business School because they know what they’re talking about. This is the quote, he says, the perceptions of priorities were quite different at the second and third levels of management than at the top. They went into these companies and researched them and they said to the boss, what is the objective of your call center? And the boss says, to book speaking events. They go to the low-level guy just to make calls. Just trying to make calls. If I get 500 calls and I put my name on this list, I’ve won. I put my name on the list, I put the tally mark on the board, I’ve won. They go to the boss, they say, what’s your job? And he says, our job is for every Dairy Queen to produce at least a million dollars of gross revenue and $200,000 of profit. They go to the front line guy. My job is really, I just have to punch in and punch out. I gotta make sure I’m here physically behind this thing. And so as you go down the food chain, the people who have the wrong perception tend to stay there. And the people at the bottom that have the right perception tend to move up. But there’s always a big disconnect between the guy at the top and the guy at the bottom. So I want to know from your, how important is it from your perspective to communicate to your managers what your expectation is from you? It’s almost a daily grind. It’s almost a daily occurrence. It’s not weekly I mean I say daily, you know, I mean the thing about it is you can’t overload them with everything But I think every time you’re talking to them, you’re always highlighting you’re always talking about You know, you’re you’re trying to put your DNA into them It’s really what it’s about and you do that by spending time with them You do that by taking them lunch you do that by talking with them. You do that by coaching them up. You do that by sharing with them your dreams and your views and what your goals are. And you’re just trying to take your DNA and put it in. You’re trying to clone yourself as best as possible. It’s about the only way I can say it. And I want to say this for somebody who’s watching who maybe doesn’t understand what’s going on here. What Dr. Z is saying is people change seldom in terms of their character traits, but somebody who’s coachable is coachable. Right. And so if you’re coachable, you can impart your DNA. So example, we had a young man who came to work for me years ago who had no discernible skills, but he said, what can I do better? I remember that. What can I do better? And you just don’t hear it. Yeah. Well, years later, he’s out doing this very successful company right now. Sure. And he’s in the industries that are way above his pay, or way above his degree level or his certifications. I think if anybody said, well, Dr. Z, but you’re an optometrist. How do you have any business racing competitive horses that are actually winning? How do you run a… How are you qualified, Dr. Z, to go out and run an auto auction? What is your pedigree? But if you’re coachable, you’re coachable. And so you’re looking for that coachable person. Absolutely. And imparting your DNA. Yeah, and that’s really what it’s about. I mean, you’re trying to impart your vision, your dream, your passion into that person. And you can’t do it completely, but you try to do it as best as possible. And that is that replication, that is that duplication, that is that if I’m not there today, I know that they are doing things the way I would do it. One of the questions that gets… People come to me you know my manager team comes to me with a problem and say Dr. Z we have this problem and they outline the problem and when they’re done I look at them and I go that is a problem now what would I do to fix that and then look when I go well you probably do XYZ and I go you’re right now do XYZ okay cool now I want to ask you this. Do you then write down on your list somewhere what those people are supposed to do so you can follow up with them later? Or how do you keep track of it with all the different companies you have? Well, if it’s a big thing like that, I mean, I don’t typically write that down, but I do follow up on it. I mean, it’s part of my, you know, I have my checklist. It’s a mental checklist that I go through. I mean, it’s part of my, you know, people say, what do you do every day? And I go, whatever needs to be done for that day. And that’s a lot of it. And the other thing too is that, coaching people up like that and then having them do that and then following up with them on that is kind of my stuff, that’s my job and that’s what I do. So every now and then I will write it down just a job because if it’s a long-term thing, it’s going to take a month for that to happen, it’s going to take a whatever to happen. I’ll on my big calendar on my desk, I’ll just circle back around to it. But as a general rule of thumb, I mean, those are the things that I do on a daily basis. I am absolutely obsessed with this next quote from the service profit chain to the point where if I was a tattoo guy, I’m not. But if I was, this is probably the tattoo that I would go ahead and get on my arm. You know why I don’t have a tattoo? Why is that? I mean, would you put a bumper sticker on a Ferrari? Oh, that’s true. Okay. Boom. Okay. But if you did put a bumper sticker on, we hope it’s a good one. When you’re committed to it. It better be, yeah. OK. So let me read this to you real quick. It says, the service profit chain quote, in God we trust, for all others bring data. And I just thought that was essential. I read it the first time. I thought, in God we trust, all others bring data. And I’m just kind of marinating, like, what is it? And I’m starting to realize that it’s so true because if you if you as an owner begin to trust without verify you know Ronald Reagan was famous for saying trust but verify if we ever just blindly trust and you know I talked to a gentleman the other day and I said hey when you’re making calls for our company we’ll just you know I’d thrive what we do and someone subscribes we want to make sure we’re taking care of you that’s just it. So somebody called in and had some question and I knew about it. It was a big, big con. I said, did you call? Oh, I forgot. We’ll call him. And don’t forget, write things down. And I mean, but if I would have just assumed that they would have done it, the whole line, you would make an asset of you and me, you assume. But do you believe that, though, in God we trust and for everybody else, bring data or bring some sort of proof that you did it? Absolutely. I mean, I think that that’s, you know, and here again you’re just holding people accountable for it. I mean, I think that, you know, you want to make it, you want to, you know, and then you want to celebrate it, you know, you want to say, hey, great job, good job, you know. I mean, I think that that is, that is one of the things in managing a lot of people that they have to come to learn to expect, that if they know that they’re going to be held accountable for it, they’re going to be followed up on, they’re going to be a lot more likely to get it done, because they don’t want to answer the ire of their boss being mad at them or upset with them or not happy with them. And I can say this, people, if you’re watching this and you’re going, well I can’t fire them, get over that. We’re not talking about firing every single person if they make a mistake. We’re talking about us holding people accountable. And people, if they know you’re following up relentlessly. A lot of times, people are like, I’d rather just have it done than to deal with that confrontation every Tuesday. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So now I want to ask you this here, because this is a big thing. When you’re making these checklists, do you walk around your office? Like, when you have a problem of something that’s not done, do you immediately grab one of the checklists and write on there, like, OK, this is how I need to update this? Or do you, how do you make your checklist? I think a lot of entrepreneurs, I mean, I know it seems like a simple task. But for your auto auction, let’s just say that one of the cars goes out and it’s not cleaned the way you want it to. When you first started the auto auction, did you immediately go, okay, I need to add that to a checklist? Or is that on a checklist? I mean, is that how your mind kind of works? Absolutely, and I was a big fan back in the early, early kind of checklist forming days. I was a huge fan of sticky notes. I carried sticky notes in my pocket and I would write notes throughout the day on stuff and I would then compile them and it was like around the office was, did you get a sticky note today? Did you do? Were you sticky note free today? Because I didn’t get a sticky note today. So one of the things about it is that a lot of times if I didn’t write it down right then, when I was back really working in the business, I mean like taking ups as we call it, you know, seeing patients and grinding and doing all this stuff, if I thought, oh yeah, I need to remember to talk to them about the checklist on emptying the trash, and they used to have this little thing where they’d take a cotton ball and take alcohol and wipe off the machine, and then they’d throw it, and it would oftentimes hit the wall and stick to the wall, and they’d go in the trash and just look like a snowball, like a snowman ran against the wall and just smashed himself, you know? So, you know, things like that, it sounds silly, but I’d be sitting there and look at that going, why did I just put my sticky note, and make myself a note, because then at the end of the day, I could add that to a checklist, I could talk to someone about it, I could say, hey, because if I didn’t, you know, you see 10 things a day, it’s hard to remember all of it when you’re in the heat of the battle. I just think it’s so important, because if you think about going to Disney World, think about the choreography, let’s just go there mentally for a second. When you go into Disney World, the pathways are clean. There’s a certain music playing. Who hit play on the music? Who cleaned? Then you walk in, it smells a certain way. I found out there’s actually smells that are kind of pumped in to create that smell. Then there’s a certain, you walk in the ticket guy. He has a certain system where he checks your ticket in, he checks your ticket out. There’s somebody over here selling tickets, this person’s letting you go through the turnstile. Somebody else is saying, hey, how are you guys? Do you need any help? It’s all this choreography. All this is this symphony of commerce, this orchestra, and it all has to work. I know some of the footage the guys got of your auto auction in operation. It is a controlled chaos. But how many cars would you sell at one time? Well, see, we have five lanes going. We have five cars being sold at the same time. And say they drive them through here, and each car is a minute, if that, and in a given day we’ll sell upwards to 1,200 cars. 1,200 cars? Yes. In a couple three hours. It’s so hard for me to get it because, and again, that’s why I love learning from you guys, I felt like a boss. 4,000 weddings a year. Like a little boom? Boom. 1,200 a day. That’s awesome. In my face. It’s unbelievable. In like three weeks this guy is selling more cars than I’m selling. And you know the thing is I just want to say this because no matter how awesome we think we are we can always learn to thrive and play better. We can always learn to improve our skill. It’s huge. I want to ask you this. Now we’re getting into the money. One of our companies, and I say one of them, all of our companies have cameras. I always tell people, smile, you’re on camera, just so people don’t feel the need to steal things. And in one of the businesses that I’m involved in, I’m very passive in these companies where I help do the marketing and help them get them top in Google, and then I kind of step aside. And I said, hey, we’re always short on cash, you know, by $100. Watch the tape. What do you mean? I just watch the tape. I mean, we have a motion sensor thing. Just watch the motion moments. Well, that’ll take like two hours. Yeah, do it. Well, you see somebody taking money, working there, putting money in the pocket, putting money in the pocket. You watch the customer taking a product. And the thing was, I was most frustrated with, and we fixed it since then, but I was just saying, this person is somebody who you know their character’s not that awesome. We can’t have a genius at every position in our business. I realize that the American work ethic is something that needs to be addressed. But I would also say that somebody has to be in charge of following up with whoever handles the cash. Right. There’s got to be a daily checklist for who handles the cash. Oh, yeah. And in any business, there has to be accountability. Yes. So I don’t care if you own your own business. I mean, if you own your own business, you need to have somebody who follows up on the cash. You can’t just… I trust people. And it’s amazing how… So I’m going to get into the cash issues, because I think these are the ones where it gets really personal to entrepreneurs. And these are some of the rare areas where you can end your… You can go out of business real fast if you don’t do this right away. So I’m going to get into this. In a small business such as yours, let’s say a small business, a medium-sized business where you’re selling a ton of cars, who handles the cash at the end of the day? And is there a checklist for you had the cash, you signed off on it, it went in here? What’s your end of day cash process? Not necessarily where does it go, but what’s your process to make sure the cash is not being stolen? Well, we have a checklist. We have people that handle it. And then we have multiple counters. Obviously, some days we get a lot of cash that comes through here. We have cameras, and we have people that are responsible for that. So the bottom line is that we don’t have a lot of employees here that handle cash, number one. Number two, and some of it comes up missing. We pour into it and figure out where it is and what happened to it. And we hold people responsible for it. So if you’re being given $1,000 and it shows up missing, you’re responsible for it. So let’s talk about responsible. Let’s just say I’m responsible for, let’s say I’m at your optometry business. And a customer pays $200 of cash. And I go, I don’t know where it is. I mean, I was there. I don’t know where it was. I mean, I thought Joan was the one who cashed out. Yeah. Well, we would know, first of all, you have the key that has to open the drawer attached to your wrist. The key that opens the drawer is attached to your wrist. Yeah. Why? Well, because you are then responsible for, during your shift that day, whether it’s noon on, whether it’s all day, you’re the only one that can open the door to mess with the cab. So guess what? It was you. So you’re responsible for it. That’s one of the things that we’ve done. We’ve got a camera on you. You’re the one with the key, and you’re responsible for it. So whenever we’re counting down or counting up, now mistakes happen. I mean, people hand out wrong change that, you know, I mean, there’s human error involved, but you know, but you are responsible for it because you’re the only one that had access to it. And that’s what you do. You try to eliminate, you try to look at your system and you say to yourself, I need to make it as difficult as possible to steal. And then I need to limit the number of people that can do it. So therefore, let’s say you are the only one. It was me and you that worked there, and I’m in the back working, and you’re up front taking all the money, and the money’s short. Guess who’s responsible for it? You. So you limit the number of people that touch it. On behalf of all the slow learners in America, I want to chime in on this. Just pretend that you used to DJ for me, okay? You come out. I think I’d like to. I think we would. I think it’d be about two weekends of glory. I think you would have just been like a meatloaf concert meets a wedding. Oh my gosh, yeah. Awesome. They wouldn’t mind me to the end. I mean, they’d just keep going. They would, they would. If I get married again, just to have me on the cake. They’d put a Z on the cake. So here’s the thing. So what happens is the DJs come out. Now if you’re a DJ, people that are entertaining an audience until two in the morning, they come back from the show jacked. I mean, they’re pumped, like, woo, this wedding was awesome. You would not believe what happened tonight. It was the… And there’s 40 guys all unloading, a place like this, 40 guys all unloading equipment, all simultaneously. And I would always be a thousand to two thousand short of cash. I was like, what happened? I put the cash right there. So I did this for like a year. That’s as long as you put up with it. Yeah, about a year. And finally my wife is like, you know, people are going to keep taking cash unless you make them accountable. I’m like, whatever. Go meet with a mentor. He says the same thing. I come back to my wife. Vanessa, you’re right. Yeah. Sorry. So then I come back. I say, here’s the deal. Moving forward, you DJ a show. We require a $150 deposit. The remaining balance is due at the end of the night. And if you don’t return your cash or your credit card receipt, I pay you not. You can’t do that. I’m going to. I will not pay you at all. Well, they said, it’s a violation of labor law. I was like, OK, well, great. We’ll average your two shows together. And now you made $8 an hour per show instead of $30. But I’m not paying you. And if you leave a piece of equipment at the wedding and you don’t come back with it, if it’s system number 42, it’s not back, I’m not paying you. And I remember how mad these guys were. Oh yeah. You’re crazy. I remember this one guy, he says, so you’re going to charge me $600 for a speaker? I’m like, yes! That’s what it cost. I had to go a little crazy. Yeah. So I had some big turnover. And I realized because I was a bad manager, I attracted bad employees. Is that real? Yeah. Bad manager, bad employees. Well, I mean, the guys, you know, could care less about stuff, that’s for sure. They started getting the… and this is… and I’m telling you about me so you guys can say, oh, I’m not that dumb. So it’s like 2005, it’s Christmas Eve, and I decide this is operation checklist. It’s going down, everything’s gonna be, so the guys come in, this is the first week I’d really enforced, Dr. Z, and I said, okay, you have your cash? Oh, yeah, they never paid me, but I need to get paid tonight. I’m like, this guy, I’m not paying you tonight. What, why quit? Good, go for it. Next guy. Hey, do you have your cash? No, I don’t. Out of 40-something guys, I’m not exaggerating, and Jason Bailey is going to be with you, he can vouch for this. I think I fired like 18 guys out of like 45 in one night. Well, what made it doable is that in the DJ industry, there’s almost no events in January. So they’re running off the… walking the plank. But I found is from the guys who stayed were diligent and didn’t mind being followed up on. They had nothing to hide. They were honest and they had honest friends who were afraid to work for us because of all the crazy people. And then the honest guys, one guy comes to me, I’ll never forget, he says, you know, I would have referred my friends, but a lot of the guys who worked up here, you know, are kind of embarrassing. And so I appreciate you making that call. I’m just like, I needed that little bit of validation. And then now since that time, if somebody can’t produce cash and they can’t tell me where it went and they’re wearing the thing on their wrist and they can’t tell me where the cash is. I don’t get emotional about it, it’s just a black and white issue. But you had to have had money stolen from you at some point, right? Oh, absolutely. How much money did you have to, or not how much, but how many times did you have to have money stolen from you maybe before you decided, okay, we’re going with the wrist thing, with the key thing, and the camera thing. I mean, how big of an issue did it become before you finally were like, I’m not tolerating this? Four months into my very first business, 20 some odd years ago. Four months? In my face, this guy beats me. He sells 1,200 vehicles a day. Four months in, it took me like five years. In my face. It might be. I mean, it was the craziest thing. When you start business, you don’t even think about it. OK, how do I keep my employees from, how do I keep them from stealing from me? You don’t even think about that. Yeah. But when it happens to you, man, it’s just like a punch in the gut. And then your mind gets to thinking, well, how do I keep that from happening again? So. I know I mentioned I didn’t get into Harvard. It took me three times to take my ACT to really get in. And I’ve determined that the slowest learners are also the slowest earners and it works the reverse, the fastest learners are the fastest earners. So I am impressed with the speed at which you pivot there. Now, whoever, when it comes down to the money, there’s a quote I want to read from the service profit chain that again blows my mind. It says, measuring and establishing facts at every step of the process. Without facts, assumptions and misperceptions will defeat whatever reason and good judgment can be brought to effort. So you have to get the facts, you have to get the numbers. Do you get a daily number at the end of the day about how much cash is in? I have my people text me every day. Every day? Every day. Every day. So good. And how do you turn off that mindset when you come, I’m just asking you, as a man, you come home, because you are like a captain follow-up. You’re bringing the… You are following up on the checklist. You are! I like that! Is that just a salute or what? Well, you’re following up on the checklist, you’re following up on the managers, you’re empowering people, you’re constantly pushing and pushing, and it doesn’t come easy. When you come home, how do you dial it down a notch so you can still be an awesome husband? is one of the secrets of life that you have to master in order to have some kind of normalcy about you. And I know this is gonna sound silly and cheesy, but it’s the truth. It’s one of my top 10 things of how to be successful in business. Back in the early days, I brought this in and I incorporated this every day into my into my life. And what would happen is that I would I would be in front of the exam door getting ready to go and see the patient and back then we had paper charts still now we’re wire I mean we’re paperless now but we had paper charts back then and I would I would pull the chart out of the little slide, the thing that was on the door and I would look at that and I would look at the person’s name, and first of all, see if it was the first time they’d been back before, so if I’m supposed to know them. Of course, in the early days, no one had really been back yet. And I would take a deep breath, I would clear my mind as best as I could, and I would say something to myself. I would say, it’s showtime. Really? I would. And I did it. And that was on my checklist to do every time I’d see a patient. That was one of my things. It’s show time. I’d take a deep breath. I’d say, okay, show time. And I’d open that door and I’d walk in that room and I would pretend like, I would act like, I would feel like that that was the only person in the world, and it was definitely the one person that mattered the most to me. And the fact that my car has a flat out front, the fact that my wife’s taking my kid to the emergency room on a, just fell and bumped his head or something, or whatever it was out there that I could have been more concerned about. Wondering if that girl’s out there stealing money from me right now. Whatever it was, I had to clear that and I had to do what was the important thing to do at that moment. And that follows through. So when I go home, I take that deep breath and I try to unwind out of everything and open that door and try to be the nicest, best husband, coolest father and enjoy the moment and understand that that is the most important thing in my life right then. said this to kind of, I mean it goes along with what you said, he said, you always want to be where you are. Yeah. And again, you know, when someone Yoda speaks, I don’t get it right away. I’m just kind of marinating, but that is powerful. The idea that when you’re with your kids, you’re with your kids, right? When you’re at work, you’re at work, it’s showtime when you’re at work, it’s showtime when you’re at home. Yeah. Just I love it. It’s hard to do. Can’t say that both of us do it all the time, but I can say the most successful people I know do Showtime more often than anybody else. They are where they’re supposed to be. And I think that’s powerful. And so in wrapping this segment up about checklists, checklists, and getting it right the first time, I want to encourage you, if you are watching this and you feel like that you’re just missing the mark consistently, it’s probably because your checklists are a little bit off, or you don’t have checklists or finally the big one is you might not be following up and I encourage us to do we all need to do that and I appreciate you being here because I consider you kind of a czar of follow-up. You’re kind of an American honey badger but you’re a kind person. I appreciate you sir. Thank you. I appreciate you Clay. Alright 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 is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind and your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to 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! All right, so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save $3,000 a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? 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 to schedule a 10-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? Maybe because they didn’t understand how you said the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. That’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card 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 three thousand dollars or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and then it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than three thousand dollars every ten 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 thronetimeshow.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 ten minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. 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 case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is, uh, you know, like, uh, groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. No! Everything okay, ma’am? Uh, 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, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. 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 in elegant, from Ridgway. It’s from Ridgway. 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 10 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 at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom, and 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 nonexistent 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 Pescemon 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. 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, the first, 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 an implemented checklist that way everything Gets done and it gets done, right? We 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 the 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, and we didn’t know. Okay, the last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut. Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So 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 the use of services, you’re choosing to use a proof and turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, the head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. 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. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that like Clay is like he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go and that’s what I like the 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 you and Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and 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. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. 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 grew to 13 grams for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the 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 Edith Bick chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. 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 our talk. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 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 didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to 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 doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. It’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. So I’m looking, we’ve been good friends 7, 8 years and I’ve got doubled 5 times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating 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, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it 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 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. 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 100 calls. We make 200-300 calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down 5 and 8 appointments a day on that script. 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, 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. It’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 even further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed 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 meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well, we had that speaking thing that… Oh, there it was! So it was Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. 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, you know, 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 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 Clay I have learned so much I mean, I would like to say it was everything about about business in terms of the different categories. I don’t learn 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. You know, 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 wanna 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 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. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with 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 three or four months just from being around Clay, following him, and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning 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.