Entrepreneur | Product Creation: How To Develop A Prototype With Jill Donovan

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 where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. Jill, the thrill. Thank you for joining me here. Thank you, Mr. Clark. Yeah. One of my favorite things to do is to get together with you when we have a backdrop of historic barn wood. That’s one of my… This is a lovely backdrop. Yeah, these bulbs scare me from time to time. But we’re here to talk about product creation, how to develop a prototype. You have developed this rustic cuff product that so many people all across the world love. Celebrities are wearing your products. You’re not paying them, they’re wearing them. They’re on magazine covers wearing them. I think I saw Britney Spears wears your stuff. It’s awesome. So according to Webster, our main man Webster and his rebel group of dictionary writers, the word prototype means an original or first model from something from which other forms are copied or developed. So in the world of product development, you’ll hear a lot of people in the industry say, well, you’ve got to make a great prototype. You need to make a prototype. And I remember, I don’t know, until I was about 22, I didn’t know what that word was really. You know, make a prototype, make a prototype, you need a prototype. But in your mind, what is a prototype? You live it. What is a prototype? I never actually knew what a prototype was until I needed to know what a prototype was. And really, that’s the best way to learn something, when you really need to know it. What I’ve learned is, for me, a prototype is an example or a sample of something that I am creating to see what the ultimate product that I want to release is. It’s the basis of a future cuff that may or may not need changes. Lee Cockerell, the guy who used to run Walt Disney World, he has this thing called Be Your Own Shakespeare and he literally wrote out almost a story about how the perfect experience to Disney World should be. And I was amazed. I mean, it’s literally a document he’s written out. It’s like 40 pages long. And he says, well, dad plans the trip. He calls this number. When he calls the number, this person answers the phone. They say this. They feel like this. It goes through this. He shows up at the airport. Someone picks him up in the Disney tour bus. They take him to Disney. The whole thing, the check-in process, the bellman says this, and they walk into the park and it smells like this, it looks like this, the whole thing. And I’m going, you literally have written out, yeah I write out the whole story, and that’s my prototype. And I’m just going, what? And he said, yeah I make the whole experience. And I said, well how do you know if it’s perfect? He said, well it’s not. You just script it out and you continue to improve it. Is that kind of what you’re doing, is you’re taking your big idea and making a rough draft? Absolutely. I have at the beginning of every, well actually it’s a continual thing throughout the year, but we release a fall collection and a spring collection, and I’m constantly thinking of new ideas, but those new ideas only stay as ideas until I make them into an actual sample. So I can sketch it out, I can have a picture of what I want, I can make changes, but until it’s an actual sample, this is what I consider my prototype. So, you know, Mike Posner’s a songwriter. He’s constantly doing his song sketches. You know, he has a thing called the notebook where he writes off his lyrics in a physical notebook. I want to know, in your mind, as a prototype, is that going to be a tangible, actual sample product, or do you want to have it drawing? Are you looking for like an Etch-A-Sketch, you know, drawing there? What is your version of a prototype look like? Because my business is product driven, it is actually a combination of all of those. So it starts with a thought, and then it goes to a drawing, and then it goes to actually getting that cuff made. So for me, the prototype, it can’t get to this part unless I have the thought and the drawing first. But the end vision is my prototype, the actual tangible cuff. Whether or not it’s perfect, but that is my prototype. That’s the basis of where I start. I’m writing these down here because this is blowing my mind here. You want to make cuffs too, don’t you? Well yeah, I want to be the Clay’s cuff business. We’re even more rustic. Okay, no, but you have a thought, then you have a drawing, then you have the tangible. Those one, two, three. You can’t have, I can’t get to the end without having the drawing, for me anyhow, or without having the thought. Are you kind of a Bob Ross? I mean, do you make these happy trees and are you making unbelievable drawings? Are you okay at this drawing? Are you pretty rough? I am not. I am not even close to being a Bob Ross. As a matter of fact, I can’t even read my own handwriting. So it’s so bad. So if I make notes, I don’t even know what I said to myself earlier. So pictures are always so much better, but it’s a very, very rough sketch. It’s very rough. Jill, the thrill. Yes. Would you be happy to show America and other countries, non-Americas, would you be happy to draw an example of what one of your sample prototypes might look like, the drawings? I’m a bad, bad drawer, but I will show you. I just think this is helpful. Okay. I’ll show you how the process goes for me. Let’s do it. Okay. I’m going to switch chairs so I can watch you. We’ll just kind of go over there. Okay. Awesome. Okay. All right. I’m going to move, and I’m going to give you the power pen here and show America how to draw a prototype, my friend. I’m going over here. So if I’m at home with my whiteboard or a notepad or if I’m… usually this happens on an airplane, so I’m usually sitting there and I’ve got three hours of just me and no Wi-Fi. So I’ve got a notepad and I start thinking of ideas and because I’m such a bad drawer, you probably won’t even be able to tell this is a cast, but this is how my brain works. Sitting there and I’m looking out the window and I think of my ideas and then I get the note pad out and it goes something like this. It goes like, okay, I think I want it to be about two inches tall. There we go. Okay, I’m thinking it needs a couple lines here, but wait, I wanted one to be here and then how about a little circle there, but I want this to have sort of a base and then I want the thickness. Yeah, like that. And then that really looks like an angry face if you put something like that. You wouldn’t even know that’s a cuff. But for me, because I drew it, I knew the frame where my brain was at the time, I know that this is not. Do you label it? You put like Excalibur. No, I don’t actually name it until I do. I name all my cuffs and I name them later. But this is enough for me when I go back home to know what that is. I don’t ever show anybody that, except for all the people that just join Thrive. Well, you’ll take your thought and you turn it into a thing. Yes. And then you take your thing and make a prototype? Yes. And I make a prototype. So based on this terrible picture, which is embarrassing, but I know the idea that I was trying to… Now, if I would never have drawn this out, by the time the plane landed, I may have actually gone off my brain. So if I don’t get it on paper, it won’t happen. I think a lot of people, at least a lot of people I’ve met, entrepreneurs who call me, they say, I have this great idea, and I say, well, have you drawn it? Have you written it down? And they say, well, I don’t draw. It’s embarrassing. Like you said, it’s kind of embarrassing. I don’t really want to show anyone my drawing. I don’t even want to show myself my drawing. Right. I guess, would your encouragement be to that man or woman, just go ahead and draw, even if it’s bad, just so that you don’t forget the idea? Yeah because this is so bad but this actually is good for me. So my drawings I’m like you said I’m scared sometimes to look at some of the um you know some let’s say I wanted to do a leather cuff and I’m like okay I want it to have something like a monogram here and snaps here. Like my husband is a is a great drawer and when he would draw that that looks like a dollar bill. But when he would draw it, you would know, you would actually want to take the cuffs off of this board and wear it. So I know what that means for me, because it was my, it was born from my brain and my heart. So that’s all that I need. But nobody, anybody else, listen, anybody that’s watching this has to be a better drawer than I am. There’s no way it could be worse than that. Let me ask you a final question here at the board here, while you’re, because this is just magic here. Yeah. Do you do make any other drawings before you start making the product? Do you ever maybe say, you ever kind of write even more detailed notes? I’m just trying to get at your head here. I do. Do you do any other drawings? So for example, let’s say I’m on an airplane and I decide, okay, this is the leather cuff I want to do. I want it to have a monogrammable piece. Based on that, and especially this helps so I don’t forget exactly what that was, I decide, okay, what colors do I want to make that? Okay, that, that, that, that. Okay, and then what width do I want to do? So I write the notes of the dimensions that I’ve thought about this cuff to be, so I don’t forget about it. So here’s my mental picture, and then I just do very, very basic dimensions so I can match those up. Why do I even need to make a prototype if I’m going to try to sell thousands and thousands of products? I mean, why can’t I just have my idea and make a bunch of them. Because if you want to sell thousands and thousands and thousands you have to test it first. I truly believe that you have to have something that you even know if it’s going to work or not and without a prototype your odds of actually succeeding are slim. So again if you want to sell thousands and matter of it evolves into the product that you want it to be. It is very rare that the very first prototype that you made just based off of your idea or your sketch is the one. There’s so much tweaking that goes into it, so if you just launch your product without having a prototype, then you didn’t have the process of the evolving of what it really should have been. How many revisions to that product or a product You might have any six or seven or eight or how many? For mine, sometimes, well actually, the longer you’re in it, the better you get at it and the better the quality is and so you cut down on your revisions. Initially, when I started to get prototypes and get samples, there were four to five different prototypes or revisions to that particular prototype and even when it launched, it wasn’t always perfect. But over time, you learn. But without having tested it in the first place, it would have epically failed. I know a lady who wanted to get into the bakery business. And she started making these really nice cakes. And Jeff Peele said, you make great cakes. You should start a cake company. So she makes some cakes. They said, your cakes were so good, you should make another. And I remember she made a wedding cake for somebody on the big stage, this big thing. And everyone was like, oh my gosh, who made that? Because it looked so terrible, it was leaning in the wedding. And that was the first time that she’d ever had to test something new, but she tested it in front of a lot of people. And so when it failed, she got her emotions hurt, and she basically dropped out of that business. And I was trying to encourage her, I’m like, hey, we need to fail, but just not in front of everybody. Exactly. We just need to fail in the living room and build a… So I guess what you’re saying is, if I have a prototype, there are three steps. We take the thought, we make a drawing, then we make it tangible, but we need to probably just keep testing it until it’s perfect. Absolutely, and really the chances of that first prototype that just came from my thought on the paper being the perfect one that I launched and then sold thousands, it doesn’t happen that way because ultimately something was a little sharp here or the fit wasn’t four, five, six, sometimes more to get it to the perfect product or you know perfect is, I hate saying the word perfect, but to get it to the product that you want, that you feel comfortable releasing, that you know is going to do very well. One of the things that I find myself doing, a lot of entrepreneurs do this, is we’re working on a prototype and we are pumped. I remember when I came with my first products with the wedding I thought, oh man, this is Eureka. And I would pull this all-nighter, and then the next morning I’m like, that is terrible. And I would do it again and again. I just wanna know, I mean, how many all-nighters and how much coffee were you drinking when you first launched Rustic Cuff to get those first couple prototypes right? I mean, were you pulling all-nighter after all-nighter? I tell this that for the first year, once a week I missed a night of sleep. Once a week, and that is no lie. And then probably the other four nights, four of the nights were maybe three to four hours of sleep. How long did it take you? How many hours or how many days? I guess the question is, how many days did it take you before you developed one prototype that actually was a product that could sell? Okay, probably the first cuff that I made that I felt like I could put out there, it was for me two months. Two months? Two months. That’s because I knew nothing. You’re putting the kids to bed at 9.30 at night. You’re staying up from like 10 o’clock at night until what, 4 in the morning? Yeah. Six days a week? Yeah. Well, five days a week. I’d sleep in one day. Five days a week. So we’re talking five times six, like 30 hours a week for two months miss one all night, then the other nights will I get like three or four hours sleep and Working on it that much now I know not every product is going to take that much Yeah But this because I didn’t I wanted to make something that was like I said Better than was already being made and with without having spent that amount of time I don’t think it was gonna get there. Would you pay yourself for those 240 hours? That is so crazy I never paid myself a dime Never even thought about paint because I just got the satisfaction and my husband one night We were laying in bed. Well, actually no, I didn’t go to sleep with him for about a year He said are you ever gonna come sleep with me again? Really? Yeah, and I said someday so Think about next week starting that just get the prototype, right? Yeah, so he said I don’t understand how you can spend so much time On something and you are not getting paid and I said well this first was never about me getting paid It was just the passion of doing it. And he said, well, you know, you got at least, your time is so valuable and you’re losing so much sleep. So that’s a whole other chapter. So I just want to encourage you, about any entrepreneur watching this, because as we interview you, Jill, and a lot of other successful entrepreneurs, we’re finding more and more that hundreds and hundreds of hours are being spent on something that’s not even good until the first sign of success. So if you’re watching this and you’re digging for gold, don’t stop, because you might just be three feet from gold. I mean, you might be three inches from gold. You just have to keep going. Yeah, and the more you get into it, the more of a shame it would be to stop because you have invested so much time into it. There is a person, and I’m going to just be gender neutral so I don’t get myself in trouble for sharing too much of the story. There’s a person I know who has spent a ton of money on developing their product. And they’ve hired an engineer. They’ve hired a lawyer. They’ve got a patent. They now have a patent attorney who says there is potentially another patent we need to file. And so we’re probably $80,000 into it. Not a single one has sold, nor does anybody know about said product except for said person. Would you advise that anybody watching this should go out and hire an engineer, a lawyer, an attorney, and all that to build a prototype? Or do we just need to get in the garage and get a little crazy with some… what is… do you recommend we hire all these professionals? I think I know that same person. Okay. You know what I would recommend is the person who is going to go out and hire the lawyer, the engineer, invest the $80,000, that person should be somebody that already has done five, six, seven other products successfully and has the confidence that knows that this is going to work. That’s for, you know, it all depends. I mean, that’s a lot of money. And to be, just be transparent, I want to give this example some context here. This is a person who, you know, makes probably a teacher’s salary. Yeah. And has just taken every dime for the next maybe four or five years of income plus all their life savings to do this. I truly believe there are other ways to do it than to take that amount of money and time and invest in something that you’re not even sure. I really, really believe there are other ways. Now let me ask you this. What kind of people do you not need to hire and what kind of people do you need to hire to make your prototype? I mean, do you need to go out there and get an attorney? Do you need to get a lawyer? I mean, is there anybody you say that you go, you definitely need at least an engineer to help you? I mean, anybody you need to hire or can you just be your friend? I think it depends on the product. Okay. If it’s something that you feel is patentable and you need to get a patent on it ASAP, then yeah, I would hire an attorney. That is something I would invest in. You know as far as an engineer and the other people, there’s so much that you can do to get a prototype without having to go and spend. You can spend very little money on a sample. It does not take that much cash to get a sample for your prototype, but people don’t even hiring and going you know overseas which I know we’re not going to talk about that right now but it it doesn’t it really is not that difficult. It creates like a barrier of entry where people feel like oh my gosh I have to spend all this money. No it’s not like that. Okay. Yeah especially I mean for mine you know mine isn’t such a different there’s some products that are technical and they you know to get a prototype of that would require so much more of an investment, but there’s still much easier ways to do it. There is an adult I know who has made gross sales over $100 million of products. And he pulled me aside one time and I said, what’s your theory on patents? And he said, well, what I do is I go through all the work of getting a patent. And then as soon as I make a great product overseas, there’s a couple of countries, in particular this was the great country of China, they would rip off his product within days of getting it and be selling them. And he said, good luck suing those people. So I said, so what’s your theory? And he says, I honestly, I go to market first and see if there’s a need for it and if there is then I go for the patent. But I don’t even go for it until I know someone wants to buy it. And I said, really? And he said, yeah. And this is a guy who sold a hundred million dollars of products and I met another one of his friends and he said the similar thing. Do you agree with that? Absolutely, 100%. I think there are easy ways to tell if people are going to like your product without having to invest the amount of money in a patent. And I mean, and like you said, good luck having a patent hold up in another country. And yeah, I just, I don’t think, I don’t think people understand that though and that’s very scary. It’s the lack of knowledge on that that would scare people away. I just want to encourage you, if you have a product idea right now and you feel like it’s going to cost you $100,000 of legal fees and all these professionals and engineers to make a prototype, don’t let that stand in the way. Just get in the garage, get some crazy glue, get started. Absolutely. Now, Steve Jobs, he’s the co-founder of Apple. He’s the man who grew Pixar into this filmmaking juggernaut that it is today. He says, sure, what we do has to make commercial sense, but it’s never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience. What does that quote mean to you? I mean, because you’re big from the gut person. What does that mean to you? It means that, you know, I can draw out a plan, I can figure out how it’s going to work in wholesale and retail, but really, if it’s, if it is not going to work with the person I want to sell it to, then why would I even have, why would I even continue on with that? So I would say for anybody that has a big idea, there are such simple ways to even test it out to see if it’s going to be marketable. I know somebody who started a food company and the food was so rough, but they brought it by in the packaging, and it was super nice packaging. We’re talking maybe 20 G’s in the packaging and everything. And they were like, we’re in stealth mode. I’m in stealth mode. They would actually use this word, I’m in stealth mode. Mum is my word. Mum. And I’m like, well can I have some of the mum? And they’re like, yeah sure, we’ll have it. And it was truly awful. And they never had gone outside of the building. Do you recommend going outside of the building to get some feedback once you have something? Absolutely. Yeah, I think you know when I first started and only a few people saw him, when I had a party there were a hundred people there who had not really seen them before and the feedback that you’ll get from a hundred people is worth more than any dollar that you can spend. That’s free. That is free. You have a hundred people come to a party looking at your cups. You see what they’re going to buy. You see what they don’t like, what they leave alone, what they’re attracted to, and you cannot pay for that. There’s that, that is so really for anybody, I’m not saying you need to throw a party and have your have your prototype there. Anyone needs to throw a rustic cuff party. Exactly, okay, that that’s a great point, but I think that it does not hurt to have people come and see if it’s even marketable or see if it’s even Did you have anyone working for you as you’re making the prototype? Was it you and like a dude or a lady friend or was anybody helping you? It was me. You? It was just me for a year. A year? A year. Really? Yeah, yeah. It was a hard hard year but that’s because I’d never thought that I needed an employee because I was so into it that I just wanted to be my thing. At what point did you hire your first person to help you either develop the product or at least just get the product going? The point that I hired my first person was a year after I started and it was when I realized I could not handle the emails that were coming in because that was a full-time job. I needed to do what I did best and that was design and then create and make. And I could not handle, which was a full-time job, the constant communication every day of all the people that were now starting to buy them. I love that part, but I just couldn’t do both. I have a confession. This is very funny. With the DJ company, I was so worried about hiring people, because I’d answer the phone, I’d say, thank you for calling DJ Connection. This is your ultra humble host, DJ Clay. I can help you. And they’re like, am I on the radio? And I had a certain way I would do it. I thought no one could ever learn this because I’m the only person ever. And so I literally, when I hired people, I, and this is embarrassing, but I did this up until 2003. So we’re doing almost a thousand weddings a year at this point. And I had one phone and I call it the money phone. And I had a dollar sign. I drew it with Sharpie. And if the phone rang, I was like, phone! And everyone would run to the phone and bring me the phone. And then if it was not a sales call, I could pass up. It was like an advertiser or somebody. But if it was a sales call, I would do it. And I just never, I never wanted to hire somebody. I thought, well, no one could do it like me. And then I got to that email mode and the call mode where I couldn’t possibly. And so that’s when I delegated too. And nobody, in my mind, nobody could make it like I could because I only had made, I was the only one who had ever made it. So the product you’re getting needed to be made by me. That was my big thing. But when I started getting hundreds of orders at a time, so the reason that I hired, when I hired my first girl we got, we were on Good Morning America and I think we sold like 2,000 in the first day. And I knew then that I was in big trouble. And so I had to give up some of And that’s when I had my first girl. So if I’m watching this and I am struggling to decide whether to hire my first person to come help turn my big idea into this big time product, how should I decide whether it’s time to hire someone or not? Really, I think that you will, you’ll know, because when you can’t do it by yourself anymore, when your quality is slipping in any area, because there’s only one of you, then I think it’s time to at least try, even if it’s just part-time, have somebody relieve you of something so you can do what you do really well. Because when you have to start spreading yourself too thin, then you’re not really doing what you do well. I think it’s important too, then I just two rules that I’ve used in my career, I don’t know if you agree, I wanna get your feedback. Is I always try to staff my weakness. Yeah, yeah. Whatever I feel like I’m weakest at, maybe it’s the quality slipping or that. And then I always try to only hire when I need to. As far as I try to keep a Spartan in a startup, keep it very like a Spartan workforce where you have very few people, it’s lean, and you only hire when you need to. Absolutely. Do you agree with that or am I off? I 100% agree. I don’t want to have somebody standing around going, okay, now what’s your job? So I would almost rather wait until we were desperate and then fill that need. Like all of us work until we can’t handle anymore and then fill that need. Last week we had a guy named Dan. He said, I’m scheduled 18 of the next 24 hours every day this week. Can we hire somebody? I was like, yeah we probably should. But I’m so into it, I don’t even notice. Yeah, exactly. Because I’m passionate. Exactly. Because I’m passionate, I don’t even notice really. And I think as an entrepreneur, we just have to make sure we keep it lean, staff our weakness. Now, if I’m watching this and I feel like I’ve developed this prototype, and I feel like I know there’s a market for it, did you immediately start marketing it, or do you recommend that if I’m an entrepreneur, I have my prototype done now, do I immediately start marketing it, or do I try to go out and find a factory to mass produce this? I mean, what is the next step? I have my prototype. I think people want it. Do I rush to market? Do I find a factory? You know, one of the greatest ways that you can really test it, I would, this is my opinion, but I would not go to a factory to get it mass-made right then because you One of the great ways is you can go to Market and set up a booth and you can get a lot of feedback from a lot of different locations and different personalities and that will be one of the big telling things. So go to Market, when you say Market, is this a physical place? What is, when you say go to Market, what is Market, how do I find a Market? Walk me through what you say when you say market. What is that? Okay, so it depends on what product that you’re… Can I pick one? Pick a product. Let’s say that I am making jeans, a new kind of jeans. Okay, so you would go to an apparel market and it could be apparel and accessories, but there are many different types. Some more popular than others around the country. Vegas, New York, Dallas, Atlanta, several several times a year and you would pick you would pick one of those and then you would go set up a booth you pay the fee for a booth. How much does it cost to be in a market? You know it can range anywhere, for the ones that I just told you, it can range anywhere from two thousand to I think you know at least ten thousand two thousand to ten thousand. That’s just the range. If you’re going on, I mean this is what people understand, if you go online and you find a market and they’re asking for 10,000 or 4,000, don’t be freaked out, that’s normal. Depending on, you know, depending on the booth size and depending on all the goodies that you want with a booth, I think we paid $10,000 for when we went to Vegas market last year. And you had to design your own booth on top of that. Yes, we had to design our own booth, yeah. And then of course you have all the expenses of going out to the unit. What does a booth cost to design? We did it ourself and believe it or not we went and bought from IKEA like because it was cheaper to do it this way and got like six different sets of shelves and then just put it together at market. We did it right there. We just kept it very simple so it doesn’t have to be and they have stuff they have stuff there that you can use but it’s a great way we had never done market before it’s a great way because you have hundreds and hundreds of retail stores that are coming through all different kinds, from high-end to small boutiques. And they’re all walking through, and they’re seeing, it depends on the market, but there’s hundreds, 300, 500 booths in one big space. And they walk through, and they decide, they have X amount of budget, and they decide what they want to… So the buyers for the stores are there, and they’re walking around going, I want to see if I want to buy this product or that product and put it in my… Let’s see what’s new, let’s see what’s fresh, and let’s see what you know some of our some of our suppliers that we’ve purchased before. Let’s go a lot of them go back for that purpose to rebuy for the coming season. Do they ask you for any information? Do they expect every retail or every vendor there to have a certain… Yeah, yeah we need to see a line sheet and this was all new to us because we had never done anything like this before. I’m gonna just harass you here. You say we want to see a line sheet. What’s a line sheet? Line sheet are what your retail prices, what your wholesale prices are, what they would be for that store. So it’s basically a list of everything that you sell and then what the wholesale prices would be if I were to sell to this store. But they’ll just say, do you have a line sheet? Yeah, they’ll say, do you have a line sheet? And you don’t know what that word means unless you’re watching some Thrive show. Yeah, what’s your MOQ, what’s your minimum order requirement? I mean, there’s a lot of the language that you don’t know or that you don’t even know that you’ll need until you get in there if you’re brand new at this. Can you give me a few other things that they would ask you for that they believe to be common sense? What else they say? MLQ? MOQ, minimum order requirement. Minimum order requirement and they expect you to know this. Yeah, minimum order quantity, sorry. They expect, yeah, this is anything and any type of ordering or prototype, all this stuff, there is a basic language that you really just difficult. But you’ll have these stores that have been going to market for 10, 15, 20 years, longer and that’s all that they know and this is your first time. It’s very scary but what you realize is that they don’t know that. They don’t know that you don’t know all this. And so it’s very scary to think that you’re that vulnerable to see how we were going to be received to the entire country. So we set up a booth. How long is this market? Three days. Three days. This one was three days. What time does it start every day? It starts at about 10 o’clock every nine or 10 o’clock every day. It ends about five or six. So you’re on your feet for eight or nine hours? All day. Not only that, but you have to be on. On. What does that mean? Personality-wise. You have to, you, you, there’s no, there’s no just chilling. Cause you always, you don’t know at any point who’s, who’s going to be walking by. So you’re always on. You’re, and I want to, you’re always on. So that, that probably didn’t even make sense to you. Well, I want to share this because I want to make sure we, I mean, I wake up, my wife makes fun of me with this, but I wake up, I have this kind of process I do. I don’t want to give too much information, but I wake up and I like to talk two hours by myself in my bathtub every morning and I read my stuff and if anyone speaks to me I kind of mumble. I’m like Shaquille O’Neal when he’s tired. I don’t really articulate myself too well but if I get in front of people I sort of articulate myself. I see a lot of people at market. I’ve been to those markets and they’re not on. You’ve seen them. They’re sitting down. And that makes all the difference. And they’re not even on and they’re trying to sell their own product. They’re eating. They’re eating. They’re eating their lunch and their cardboard thing. I see that all the time. And because they’re so exhausted or because they just they don’t care as much. But you have to have people there, whether it be you with whomever you’re with, but they have to be on. Because that’s half the sale. So if you have your prototype done, you don’t want to just park it. You want to go to market. You want to go to market. You want to test it. I have the same thing. They didn’t have like 50 different cuts. They had a product and so they went to market, they set up a booth and they had basically, because when you come up with a prototype, it’s not always 20 different styles of that. Sometimes it’s just one thing that you want to market and so they took that one thing and they did an amazing booth and then they had 50 basically of the same thing. So people would walk by and they got because we have 50 stores that want to sign us up and we’re not even prepared yet to do that. So for them it was more of a testing but it worked and they got to see from a wide variety of people whether or not it’s even worth investing further. I want to make sure that you’re hearing this if you’re watching this because typical education what you want to do is you want to study and then you don’t take the history exam until you feel confident you’re going to get an A. So you study and you study and you want to get an A. But in entrepreneurship, you have an idea and then you go out and you actually test it to see if someone wants to buy it before you decide if you’re going to invest all the money into doing it. I know for Thrive, we interviewed thousands, literally thousands of college students, entrepreneurs, business owners, and saying, do you have a need for… And a lot of people, yes, yes. But I mean, we had to hear that before we knew whether it was worth spending money on. So this is good stuff. Now, I want to ask you this. I know a lot of very smart people who are super scared about taking that leap of faith and turning their idea into reality, turning it into the prototype here. Napoleon Hill, my favorite success author, he says, the time will never be just right. We must act now. So in closing, if I’m watching this and I’ve been struggling for years or months to turn my big idea into an actual product in prototype, I mean years, I’ve been sitting on the idea and it’s been years. What encouragement would you have for me if I’ve been sitting on the sidelines, haven’t jumped into the entrepreneurship game because I’m scared, what encouragement would you say to me? One of the things I think that people wait so long is because they think it’s not perfected and I’m not going to get out there until it’s all perfect right here. And one of my favorite sayings is, done is better than perfect. So and I love that because it may never be perfect but you can perfect it as you go. So to say what I would say to that person is get off of the sidelines, get in front of people who would be your potential market, see if it’s something that you can launch even if it’s not at the perfected final stage, because that can come in time. I just I hope if you’re watching this you’re hearing what Jill’s saying here, because I’ve met some incredible people. I met one lady who’s an author who never wrote a book, because it’s just a little old me, just little books I write for my kids. I just write these books for my grandkids. I’m like, you write books for your And she’d been sitting on it for like 15 years. And now she’s like, I don’t know why I didn’t do that all that time. So I would just encourage you, what you said is awesome. Done is better than perfect. Absolutely. I love it. Jill, I appreciate you letting me harass you. You are an angel of truth and a great American. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. JT, do you know what time it is? 4.10. It’s T-Bo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma baby! Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting. Now, we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind nine round boxing. He’s gonna be here in Tulsa Russel Oklahoma June 27th and 28th. JT why should everybody want to hear what Peter Totten has to say? Oh because he’s incredible he’s just a fountain of knowledge he is awesome he’s inspired me listening to him talk and not only that he also has he practices what he teaches so he’s a real teacher he’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers so you gotta come learn from him. Also let me tell you this folks I don’t want to get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. You say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now, people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So, if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup. But I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the Business Conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. It’s Tulsa Ruslim, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th to 28th. Who? You. You’re going to come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which give you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s T-Bow time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. That’s Tim Tebow and that’s Michael Levine. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. Oh, he’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveled all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales. You want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeshow.com James, one more time before you leave. ThriveTimeshow.com to see these people I ride with this moment. We are ready. Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get 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. 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 gonna be the best business workshop ever and we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop. All you gotta do is go to thriftimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy in Kings Point, New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa! Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you sir for changing my life. Well not only that Clay, you know thank you but you’ve become an influencer. You know more than anything else you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power so that’s why I congratulate you on becoming because as you know there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa! Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business. And I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school and I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us and getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place to the having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards it’s pretty awesome that’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here to say. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making sure you’re on time, and then you’re ready to go. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making sure you’re on time, and then you’re ready to go. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get in control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are you know you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know what are those three marketing tools that you want to use to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. He’s set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also give me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else can do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up this tactic. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. 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. So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s being another guy. 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 ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere of Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business. Bottom line. I love the environment. I love the way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned. Marketing is key. Marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow our business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business, as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before, we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Grouping uses completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. you