Forbes Senior Editor, Zack O’Malley Greenburg | How He Became Senior Editor of Media & Entertainment + How Kanye West Developed the Yeezy Brand + Join Tebow At Clay Clark’s June 5-6 Business Conference

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 9)
And I was obsessed with this car as a child, you know.

(Speaker 1)
Is there any shoe that that Countach is, you know, kind of represented in?

(Speaker 9)
There’s a little bit of Lamborghini in everything I do.

(Speaker 6)
On today’s show, we interview the Forbes senior. That’s Oklahoma man law 1.273

(Speaker 16)
Always, I mean every entrepreneur. I mean that if that’s on their bucket list to be on the cover of Forbes

(Speaker 1)
I mean and I don’t you know, I could be on the cut and you can tell he has so much passion For each individual thing that he’s doing. So, you know for me When I was interviewing him, I think the thing that he was the most fixated on was This this housing concept that he was the most fixated on was this housing concept. Like he was building, he wanted to build these, you know, these special, you know, specially designed homes that were done in the style of his own home, but for, you know, low income folks to try to scale, you know, scale up something that could help people in the local

(Speaker 1)
community in LA. And he was talking to me about this in the interview and we finished up around midnight and he goes, alright well I want to show you something. Okay so he takes me outside and I follow him back and I’m like maybe he’s got a workshop or whatever and no instead he

(Speaker 1)
ushers me into his Lamborghini SUV and he cranks up the JS Bach and off we go barreling down the hill in the middle of the night and after about 15 minutes we come to a little bungalow in the woods. I’m like alright we get out inside there there are three guys mashing away on laptops and on these laptops are these presentations that they’re about to give on this housing concept and and he’s like, I changed the font there, changed the color of that.

(Speaker 1)
And after about a half an hour, he seems satisfied. And he says, I want to show something else. Come on. So he opens the back door. Off we go into the woods. And now it’s one in the morning. And we’re, you know, somewhere in the Santa Monica mountains,

(Speaker 1)
the foothills of Santa Monica mountains, the foothills of Santa Monica mountains, you know, pitch black middle of the night by the lights of our iPhone. We’re going up this trail deeper and deeper into the woods.

(Speaker 6)
Does he own this land?

(Speaker 1)
Yes. Okay. Or at least that’s what I had been led to believe.

(Speaker 16)
There’s a little big insert to the corner.

(Speaker 6)
That’s all you need.

(Speaker 16)
Like this just in, you know, Clay and Robert, boom, they’re boomtastic. They’re boomerangers, by the way. So, uh…

(Speaker 1)
But my main concern at this point is, you know, I’m gonna get eaten by a mountain lion. Yeah, yeah. And Kanye will, too, and I’m just gonna be a footnote.

(Speaker 29)
And then…

(Speaker 3)
The dude Kanye died with.

(Speaker 1)
Right, right, exactly. So, after about 5, 10 minutes, we come to a clearing and in the clearing you know he stops wordless then we look up and in the clearing are these like 30 foot tall structures and you know kind of like oblong oval type shape things and and he leads me inside and and they are the physical embodiment of of these structures the prototypes prototypes he’s been trying to create yeah, and

(Speaker 1)
And I’m like well hey Kanye can I turn my recorder on and so you can explain? You know what you’re what we’re looking at here, and he goes um He goes no. I want you to paint a picture with your words So I’m like all right well I’m just gonna have to get out my little notebook here and sure sure scribbling away get two words down five minutes later He’s like are you good? Yeah, I’m good. Back down the hill into the Lamborghini

(Speaker 1)
and back to my rental car and, you know, in bed by 3 a.m.

(Speaker 40)
So, uh …

(Speaker 1)
What time did you start your interview with him? 8 p.m. maybe. Really? Yeah, on a Sunday night.

(Speaker 29)
Eight to three with Kanye.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah. Yep, stuff like that. Did she have anything to do with the interview?

(Speaker 16)
Did she sit down and be part of it at all? Or was it just…

(Speaker 1)
She talked to me separately for the story. She talked about how they bounce business ideas off of each other and some of the ways that his sensibility for design has helped some of the projects she’s worked on. But yeah, that’s what really stuck with me, you know, I mean the story was about his Yeezy empire and and he

(Speaker 4)
Guy writes Forbes cover stories. So I’m looking at the website. It’s Zoe Greenberg calm and can’t look at put the camera on it. Z o

(Speaker 1)
Gr definitely, you know, that was clearly like a huge consideration for him, but he was so focused on on this housing concept That you know, he just couldn’t move away from it.

(Speaker 16)
It’s his next thing. Yeah, it’s always the next thing with an entrepreneur. Did he talk about the easies? How did he get into that?

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, he always loved to draw, he always loved to design. When he was a kid growing up in Chicago, he would be sketching Jordan 1s, actually.

(Speaker 39)
Oh, really?

(Speaker 1)
Wow. Just drawings, because he liked them. And he would get in trouble with his teachers because he was doing that instead of his math equations or what have you. And I think it took a backseat to the music for a while.

(Speaker 1)
But once he gained a certain stature, he started being able to do these collaborations. So Yeezy began with Nike. He did a few different designs there.

(Speaker 9)
You get marginalized by the corporations and what your messaging can be. Now this is one thing where the conversation changes when you have a child. Because it’s always cool that they marginalized me and I asked them when the Yeezy Red October was coming out.

(Speaker 9)
I asked them, me, Kanye West asked Nike, when’s it coming out? They said, we’re not sure yet. You know, they let me design two shoes over five years, and I’m happy I could design them, but they ain’t do me no favor

(Speaker 9)
because Eminem designed a shoe. And Pharrell designed a shoe. I just designed the Yeezys. I put that feeling and the same feeling I put in College Dropout and graduation and Aider.

(Speaker 4)
E-E-N-B-U-R-G. Zo Greenberg. You can see here this man has done the article with Katie Perry.

(Speaker 6)
The cover article, the cover story. Ashton Kutcher, Justin Bieber,

(Speaker 9)
it’s all that fill in there, I put that fill in there. So then I started turning up in a BBC interview, and they came, they said, okay cool, we’re going to give you a bigger sandbox of plan. It’s not even like I even got a joint venture, I’m billion, he makes $100 million a year off of 5% royalty. I said, I need some type of royalty. Nike told me, we can’t give you a royalty

(Speaker 9)
because you’re not a professional athlete. I told them, I go to the Garden and play one on no one. I’m a performance athlete, and also I’m a thinker.

(Speaker 38)
Did you say that in the meeting?

(Speaker 21)
Do you really say that in the meeting?

(Speaker 9)
Did I really anything? Yes. Anything, yes. Did I really everything? 100,000%. I’m 100,000%

(Speaker 14)
at all times.

(Speaker 16)
I don’t want to go to the meeting tour.

(Speaker 9)
Because the thing is, it’s people that work in offices trying to tell me how to think when I got a better perspective. I live in Paris.

(Speaker 21)
I love, and I was there last night. I was there last night and I was moved by your there last night. I was there last night and I was I was moved by your by your rant last night

(Speaker 1)
and then you know several years ago pulled it over to Adidas and You know, it’s because he insisted on ownership even when he was Nike I mean, they’re really paying him but he owned the concept he owned the Yeezy brand And he took it over to Adidas where he continues to own it But you know because he insisted on insisted on that 100% outright ownership, it enabled him to make that move.

(Speaker 6)
Rapid fire. We have time for three final, we have four minutes, three questions. Four minutes, three questions. Here we go. Wes Carter, what question would you like to ask senior editor from Forbes who made a series of four life choices and has ended up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hebert just did a sit-down interview with Kanye West.

(Speaker 6)
Zachum Alley Greenberg, welcome on to the Thrive Time Show. How are you?

(Speaker 1)
All right, good to be here.

(Speaker 6)
I am so glad you came to Tulsa, Oklahoma to visit. He’s not in Manhattan today.

(Speaker 4)
We’ve got him inside the studio here.

(Speaker 13)
What question do you have for him? I’m wondering, out of all these interviews, I know a lot of them talk about their side projects going on. Have any of them really opened up about their thoughts on wanting to transform the music business itself, with all the new things coming out with streaming and Spotify and Apple Music? Do they gravitate towards their own business

(Speaker 13)
in the music industry? Or do you see that they really focus on some of their side projects that they’re trying to get other stuff going on?

(Speaker 1)
You know I think it’s a mix of both but if you want to talk about changing the music industry I think one of the most fascinating cases to look at the three kings of hip-hop Jay-Z, Diddy, Dr. Dre I say three kings that was the I wrote a book the same title in 2018 and in that that book, and also in my new book, A List of Angels, I talk about how those three guys were like, you know what, we became entrepreneurs by necessity in the late 80s, early 90s,

(Speaker 1)
because people weren’t interested in hip hop. We created our own record labels, we created our own clothing lines. Now, we’re gonna create our own streaming services, or we’re going to invest in existing ones. So Diddy invested in Spotify, Jay-Z bought Tidal,

(Speaker 1)
and Dr. Dre had Beats Music, which then became Apple Music. So they each found a way to not only create the music, to create the stuff that comes out of that, but to own pieces of the next platforms that would deliver the music as well. And I think that’s the kind of change, that’s the kind of vision that the best of the best

(Speaker 1)
have. It’s not just how to create the next big product, it’s how do I create the next big category.

(Speaker 4)
I will say this, if you were to ask my friend, have you been overwhelmed, underwhelmed so far? What’s going on as you’re processing all things Tulsa, Oklahoma I out there today and you’ve not yet purchased a copy of Three Kings Diddy Dre and Jay-z and hip-hop’s multi-billion dollar Rise that is an incredible book in my hands. I have an early edition here of the new book here a list angels How a band of actors artists and athletes hacked Silicon Valley and I And I’m just so fired up to read this book because, Zach, you write with such detail that if you’re somebody who’s remotely interested at all in business, you’re going to love these

(Speaker 4)
books. But if you’re somebody who likes music, which I do, you’re going to love these books. Now, if you’re somebody who likes entertainment, you’re going to love these books. So it puts them all together. So many books they just drivel about, we’re just sort of talking about how successful somebody is, but his book deals with the messy middle. It tells you how they did it, how they got there. It’s really the detail in here. A-list angels, check out this book. I’m excited to

(Speaker 4)
read this book. Thank you for hand-delivering it, by the way. Dr. Z, we have time for one more question before we hit up our next guest on the phone line. And Cory Minter with Trinity Employment stepped in.

(Speaker 16)
It’s a laser show. I know, it’s a laser show. Oh boy.

(Speaker 12)
Zach, what’s next for you?

(Speaker 37)
What’s next for you, man?

(Speaker 1)
Well, you know, I think the next thing I really want to do is bring more of the storytelling to people in person. And so, you know, if you check out ZogSpeaking.com, there’s more details on, you know, sort of my, some of the speeches that I give. But the idea of like telling these stories, bringing actionable advice to people, you know, from having sat down with a lot of the leading figures in show business, what are the things that I can bring to the average entrepreneur, to the average person that they

(Speaker 1)
can use in their careers, in their journeys? I think it’s actually kind of surprising. Been very pleasantly whelmed. Whelmed? Nice. Overwhelmed feels like a bad thing sometimes. You don’t want to be overwhelmed,

(Speaker 1)
you want to be underwhelmed, you want to be like pleasantly whelmed.

(Speaker 16)
Wow, that’s well said.

(Speaker 6)
I give you a mega point.

(Speaker 1)
How much overlap there is. Do you like speaking or writing better? Man, I think it depends on the day, you know? It’s just, um… Depends on how much you’ve been riding last week. The grass is greener, you know, you do a few big travel gigs in a row and you’re like, I just want to sit and write. But then, you know, if you’re, if, and a lot of times when I’m really in crunch time on the books, I’ll take a week or two off from Forbes and I’ll just kind of go hard on the book writing and man, you know, you just, after a couple weeks, it’s like you really

(Speaker 1)
would love to be out speaking to human beings.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, exactly. If you guys go to ZOGspeaking.com, ZOGspeaking.com, that stands for Zach O’Malley Greenberg, so ZOGspeaking.com, you can see samples of him speaking. So you can see, but I’m just telling you, if you’re listening out there today

(Speaker 4)
and you own a company, a lot of times when your employees get a chance to hear stories about Justin Bieber and Kanye West, but it’s practically, it actually practically can be related back to your business, that’s fun. It’s entertainment, it’s education.

(Speaker 6)
We call that edutainment. That’s what we call it. And now, without any further ado, three, two, one, boom! Stop what you’re doing and think about this for a second. What would happen if your company was suddenly able to generate exponentially more quality sales leads?

(Speaker 6)
That would be incredible. What would happen if your company came up at the top or near the top of the Google search engine results? Well, I would just feel overwhelmed with all that business. How many thousands of dollars? Yeah, he does get to make a point for that.

(Speaker 6)
How would you describe what you do for Forbes now? I think a lot of people don’t know when they hear the phrase senior editor. What does that mean?

(Speaker 1)
Sure. It means a lot of stuff.

(Speaker 4)
Lost sales or millions of dollars in lost sales are you missing out on simply because your potential customers can’t find you when they go online to search for the products and services that you offer. I refuse to think that thought because I don’t want any more business. Unless you are a dirty communist that hates money, my new book, Search Engine Domination, will help you grow your business.

(Speaker 4)
In my new book, Search Engine Domination, we will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate the search engine results. What do you mean by dominate? You see, in my new book, Search Engine engine domination? We will teach you the specific steps that you need to take to dominate search engine results Download your free ebook copy today at the best SEO book

(Speaker 6)
Calm I repeat that’s the best SEO book

(Speaker 14)
Calm my name is Amy Baltimore, and I am a CPA in Covington, Tennessee I’ve been working with the Thrive team now for about a year. One of the first things that they did was to update my website and my search engine optimization. I prior had a website but I was not being found on Google and all of my new business was coming through referrals from friends, family, etc. And right away I started to see results. People were

(Speaker 14)
calling and coming in saying that they found me on Google. They just googled

(Speaker 8)
CPA near me and there I was at the top of the page. And so it’s been a great

(Speaker 1)
help to my business. And not all of it is editing you know for me the the kind of bread and butter of it all for me at Forbes over the past decade has been doing these big stories on business again you can download your

(Speaker 12)
free ebook copy today at the best SEO book.com hey this is Dustin Huff I’m with Keystone Harbor Marina we joined joined Thrive back in January and have been working with these guys for about seven months. During that time period, we have moved up our Google rank through reviews and SEO processes that we’ve compiled through these guys.

(Speaker 12)
Our leads have gone from about four a week to now 165 a week, so the process works. I will tell you from experience, once you begin you have to stay with it. As long as you continually do this week in and week out, month in and month out, you’ll continually grow.

(Speaker 4)
The system works, but nothing works unless you do. You’ve got to take some action. Download

(Speaker 36)
the ebook for free today at TheBestSEObook.com.

(Speaker 6)
Remember nothing works unless you do. You have to go to thebestseobook.com today. Download the e-book for free. Just download that e-book for free, and you’ll be off to the races.

(Speaker 18)
Hi, my name is Christina Nemis. I’m the owner and operator of Angels Touch Auto Body and Detailing in Bourne, Massachusetts. We have been working with Thrive and their coaching for say eight to nine months. And it took us about six months, five.

(Speaker 1)
The biggest figures in media entertainment, particularly music and particularly hip hop, which is kind of my passion over there. So, you know, dating back to the very beginning of my time at Forbes, the way I got into.

(Speaker 18)
Six months to get on the top of Google and with their help with the website and marketing and the SEO and retargeting ads with Google. And it has been phenomenal. We just have light and day business coming in, phone calls coming in, walk-ins, referrals. It’s just through the roof and we couldn’t be happier. At the moment we are up 50% this year from the previous year.

(Speaker 11)
Play, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do. I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects, you know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you. So congratulations.

(Speaker 6)
Sean, guess what’s happening June 5th and 6th right here in Tulsa, Russia. We are probably gonna have an amazing business conference here at Tulsa, Russia. Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is gonna be joining us right here

(Speaker 6)
at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters, June 5th and 6th. He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman Award winner, but he’s also a very successful entrepreneur. Now when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies, do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? Every day. How often is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s almost, it’s like maybe 90% of the issues as people are trying to grow their company.

(Speaker 6)
Well Tim Tebow is going to come join us here at the in-person Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop and he’s going to teach us time management and his approach to personal self-discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here. Zach O’Malley Greenberg on how Kanye West created the Yeezy brand. What it’s like to interview Katy Perry.

(Speaker 1)
It was an editor walked into my cubicle and this was 2007, I just started. She said, hey, you’re under 30, do you?

(Speaker 6)
Also at the two day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be, oh there it is, we’re gonna be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization.

(Speaker 6)
Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? Is it generating leads? Is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops? Well I think it’s management because time is

(Speaker 6)
the most valuable resource for these business owners and being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control then generally the numbers you know being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. We teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay.

(Speaker 6)
You love to hammer on time management.

(Speaker 19)
It’s my favorite part of the conference.

(Speaker 6)
Now I’m going to pull this up real quick here because we’re going to go through it. If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here. The two-day interactive workshop, this is my 20th year hosting workshops. So I’m telling you folks, we’re in rare form here. So one is the idea of establishing your revenue goals.

(Speaker 6)
I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals. Would you agree or am I off my rocker? No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board as we have to Establish the revenue goals and generally speaking we have a vague idea But not an exact idea that can be engineered down into like the daily

(Speaker 1)
Goals for sales and that’s that’s a really big one hip-hop. I said, I love hip-hop. She said great We’re gonna put together the first ever list of the top earning rappers in the world Let’s go do it so I did it we put it out Jay-z diddy 50-cent

(Speaker 6)
We’re next is the break-even numbers. Oh, yeah, what kind of sales do you have to do to do to even break even? Yeah, third is how many hours per week? Do you want to work? You know, what is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur. Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your company unique from all the different businesses? In a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows,

(Speaker 6)
how can you be the purple cow that stands out? How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil? Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand? Box number six, marketing. Your three-legged marketing stool.

(Speaker 6)
What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed? Because if you don’t have any leads, your business will bleed. If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads.

(Speaker 6)
Sean, how often do business owners by default tell you they have a hard time generating leads? It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. And many times they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth. So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems and then they need to create more leads, but they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads? Something we hammer on at the conference a lot.

(Speaker 6)
Box number seven, box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system, sales scripts, recorded calls, one sheets, pre-written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business, whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you got to have sales systems in place.

(Speaker 1)
We help you with that. Box number eight. In the top three, in that order, I believe. And they were so excited to be recognized by Forbes that they made a song called I Get Money,

(Speaker 6)
the Forbes. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized. We’re gonna teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization. Box number 10, we’re gonna teach you how to manage people,

(Speaker 6)
real people on the planet Earth. This just in, we’re gonna teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people.

(Speaker 6)
Box number 13, accounting, this just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep. We’re gonna cover all the accounting things you need to know and step 14, finally, what is the point of even achieving success? We’re going to go over that. What is the point of even achieving success? How to design a life that you’re excited about?

(Speaker 6)
How to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re going to spend your focused time. We’re going to go through that, all this and more. Now, we always do it. It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford. Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket?

(Speaker 19)
Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You could be at a startup phase, or you could be way along in your business.

(Speaker 1)
But we want to make it accessible for everybody. be dollar remix. Forbes. One, two, three. Why get money? Why, why, why get money? Why, why, why get money?

(Speaker 35)
Why, why, why get money?

(Speaker 22)
Why, why, why get money?

(Speaker 34)
Why, why, why get money?

(Speaker 4)
Hours a day, 20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back-to-back workshops?

(Speaker 6)
We do a 30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question and answer, then we take a break. Why do we do that format, Sean? That format is so that we can keep people engaged and not just sitting there listening, but also getting involved. We really encourage people to ask questions and that’s really where the juiciness of the conference comes out. You can put your personal situation and your questions on the board and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program you can get direct coaching from Clay. It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoyed a lot. Sean, final 60 seconds pop quiz here. What date is the conference? June 5th and 6th, 2025.

(Speaker 6)
Question number two, who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in-person two-day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford? That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford.

(Speaker 6)
Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards? words. P. M. U. R. T. C. I. R. E. That took a long time. I’ll have to listen to this. All right. Again, that’s Sean Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, inviting you to come join us at the in-person Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive workshop, June 5th and 6th, right here in Tulsa, Jerusalem, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Sean, I really am. I’m excited to have this event. I’m excited to see you at the event. Junior.

(Speaker 20)
Imagine what I got now. The Bentley, the Ferrari, maybe the Bugatti, Range, the Maserati.

(Speaker 33)
Yeah.

(Speaker 1)
And then we were off to the races. So that editor came back and she said, you should make this.

(Speaker 4)
And sixth right here in Tulsa, Russia. You could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here.

(Speaker 32)
Clay Clark is here somewhere.

(Speaker 6)
Where’s my buddy Clay?

(Speaker 17)
Clay is the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy.

(Speaker 31)
I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right?

(Speaker 17)
His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing.

(Speaker 10)
Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We’ve got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather, and man, people are so excited as they come in. The conference has kicked off, this house is packed. We’ve got Aaron Andrus with Shot Loops up there.

(Speaker 10)
We’ve got Steve Ehrington with Total Winding Concepts up there talking about what is possible

(Speaker 23)
when you just implement, when you implement, when you do the process. So exciting.

(Speaker 10)
People are going crazy.

(Speaker 30)
Guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day two and the energy is high.

(Speaker 1)
People are so excited to be shooting. I did she left got her contacts started kind of growing this this part of the coverage and and kind of brought it up to, you know, all the way through the rest of media and entertainment and music and started…

(Speaker 4)
I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two.

(Speaker 10)
It is going to be incredible. I cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, you go, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google.

(Speaker 29)
It’s doable.

(Speaker 26)
It’s possible.

(Speaker 10)
Now we’re in the middle of a break and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them. Bathroom break and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information

(Speaker 10)
that you’re receiving the whole time. Right behind me, we’ve got Bob with his grill gun, melting an ice sculpture, it is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time

(Speaker 7)
that we have. I heard about it on the podcast. Started listening to the podcast, became a fan and then figured out about the workshop. I own an insurance and financial services agency and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big

(Speaker 1)
on systems and processes. Writing books on the side. Previous to working at Forbes what were you doing before that? I was in college at Yale I was writing for the Yale Daily News not really about rappers. And always learning better ways to run a

(Speaker 7)
business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none. It’s a high energy, really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious, I would say. Just something every entrepreneur, I think, would appreciate and love. I’d say humorous, high energy, and full of substance, which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars maybe are high on motivation and making you feel

(Speaker 7)
good but don’t have a lot of substance that you can take back and implement the following Monday where his does. And there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m going to say like I came to this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes and that saving my time on that part is valuable. It was that and then

(Speaker 7)
the sales scripting that have been two major things just so far. I think they’re missing out on you know expert advice from somebody who’s been there done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons you know that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that I can learn from that’s ahead of where I am and I think if you choose not to come you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business.

(Speaker 3)
Hi, this is Charles and Amber Kolaw. We’re the owners of Kolaw Fitness. We heard about Clay Clark through Paul Hood, our CPA. We’ve worked with Clay Clark for the last two years.

(Speaker 1)
Clay Clark has helped us take our… Unfortunately.

(Speaker 6)
Did you, did you enjoy your time at Yale?

(Speaker 1)
I did. You know, I gotta say, college newspapers.

(Speaker 3)
Three locations in three different states and create checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks for every employee. He’s helped us with creating systems and audits for every department, quantitative scorecards for each department and every position so that everybody has a number. It’s been able to give us a lot of time freedom and financial freedom and peace of mind to know that everything’s running efficiently and it’s been helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine

(Speaker 3)
optimization, helping us really rank high in Google and pretty much every area of

(Speaker 15)
the business. It’s been very very helpful. We would describe the experience of working with Clay as very energetic, he’s full of energy, he’s very encouraging, very motivating, but also accountable. So he keeps us accountable and we love that accountability. It keeps our drive in the right direction

(Speaker 15)
so we’re not chasing things that aren’t

(Speaker 3)
worth spending our time on. He’s a great coach he helps push us on certain areas helps coach us in certain areas you know we’re all emotional creatures and we go up and down and he actually will tell us kind of where we’re at how we can get from there and even like emotionally like we’re stressed about something you’ll have a story to relate to and really helps us in every area of our business and very very helpful

(Speaker 15)
I think Clay’s ability to have a whole team behind him that help him with all of his clients, all his coaching clients

(Speaker 1)
is that it allows Clay to do what he’s really good at and that’s working one-on-one with the client and coaching them and then you know a lot of times have the kind of the the setup and the resources you know that a lot of major publications you know don’t don’t these especially in smaller towns. He can have his amazing staff

(Speaker 15)
come in and help help you accomplish all these goals that you’re setting.

(Speaker 3)
Of course he has all these resources whether it’s videographers or whether it’s web developers that they can quickly jump on your project, knock things out, he can quickly give you the right coaching, he’s just got a whole team of people that whatever area you’re lacking in in in your own company. He’s got resources from video, web design, search engine guys who are just knowledgeable in that. Even though he knows a lot of that stuff,

(Speaker 3)
he’s got these capable lieutenants that are ready to just take off and help you get that stuff. More stuff gets done on a weekly basis than you would on probably most…

(Speaker 29)
An individual.

(Speaker 3)
Yeah, than an individual or some other… We’ve worked with several companies before, and it’s just not as many things get done on a weekly basis, so it’s been very helpful. Well, the conferences for me, I’m a slow learner, so I have to learn over and over again,

(Speaker 3)
hear things over and over again. I’ve been to, I think, eight different conferences, and each time you come, I learn a few new components some things are repetitive But a lot of the stuff just resettles and I get a little bit more depth at the each component So I mean I’ve been to eight of them. They’re all super entertaining. He’s very funny very encouraging You get to kind of self reflect a lot and a lot of the stuff is really polarizing you do a personal inventory of yourself

(Speaker 3)
And you’ll think like I have really got to work on this really ought to work on that so every

(Speaker 15)
time you come I still get a lot of value and as much as every conference is the same it’s totally different so I think we’ll hear stories we haven’t heard

(Speaker 1)
before they’ll have entertainment to actually have all these different desks editors people working any part of it is that we’re all working for free 40 hours

(Speaker 26)
a week

(Speaker 1)
So of course, you know you can make it work

(Speaker 8)
And you like you said you just always catch a different part The material that maybe you didn’t catch before it’s worth it

(Speaker 3)
And it’s really cool because some people that you’ve seen like a year ago at a conference Now they’re you know being showcased as a success story and you get to see their website, you get to see how their stats, all their metrics have improved and the revenue improved. So it’s really cool to see people that just a year ago,

(Speaker 3)
that of course we’ve been here two years, that just came, I met, is now being successful. It’s really encouraging to see other people accomplish that stuff. So McClay has helped us optimize our website and helped with really topping the right search engines that we need to make sure that we are very, very competitive with all of our

(Speaker 3)
other competitors. He’s done, basically he outlines exactly what you need to be accomplishing and he creates tasks that we have to accomplish and his team has to accomplish. I would say over the last two years we’ve totally ramped our website. We’re topping Google in every one of our markets. We’re just doing, I would say just doing really really good. I feel very very confident in all of our future locations and making sure that we’re in front of the ideal and likely buyer. It’s very encouraging. It’s important to me that, to know when I’m working with Clay,

(Speaker 3)
you know, I’ve been in business for a while and met with him, even when I already had three, three businesses in three different states. And to know that what I share with him is staying private. He’s not sending that out to anybody else. To know that I’m, when he’s working with me,

(Speaker 1)
he’s only working with one other, I know other gyms that are in direct competition with me. It’s very encouraging to have somebody you can trust.

(Speaker 6)
Justin Bieber and other super successful entertainers. On today’s show, Zach O’Malley Greenberg shares his path from the campus of Yale to becoming a senior editor at Forbes.

(Speaker 1)
Not have to charge for subscriptions, but it really was a truly functioning news organization on a small scale that had a pretty big footprint

(Speaker 3)
And you know I got to kind of rely on that he isn’t going to like somehow tell your trade secrets or give information away Just really awesome that he’s a trustworthy guy really cares about you as a client for us It’s a complete mind freedom because clay has helped us create a lot of different documents and one sheets for every department, put quantitative scorecards to each department and so for us it’s been very encouraging. It gives us peace and when you like as an entrepreneur it’s stressful you go to bed at night you’re worried like did we cover this, did we

(Speaker 3)
cover that. So he helps extract everything out of your brain, everything from your business, put it into document creation, put it into checklists and workflows for every person in each department, and make sure that everything’s getting done every week, every month, and funnel that all into KPIs or key performance indicators as you can see on a weekly basis to make sure you’re moving the needle in the right area of your company. So very encouraging and give you a

(Speaker 3)
complete mind, freedom, and peace to know that that stuff’s created so you’re moving the needle in the right area of your company. So you’re very encouraging and it gives you a complete mind, freedom, and peace to know that that stuff’s created so you’re easy to duplicate and scale your company.

(Speaker 8)
Right, and then we can spend time doing what we’re really good at and just trust the system.

(Speaker 3)
I honestly believe everybody needs a coach. I think we’re all inherently lazy and selfish and carnal. I truly believe that humans are humans. We’d rather, if we’re standing, we’d rather sit. If we’re sitting, we’d rather lay down. And if we’re laying down, we’d rather be asleep.

(Speaker 3)
So to have somebody that challenges you, have real active candor and be honest with you on every aspect of your company is really, really encouraging to me because I want to know, I want to work on what we’re weak at. I wanna see any areas that we’re not doing well in.

(Speaker 1)
Like, kinda grow my, strengthen my writing muscles over there.

(Speaker 4)
Were you into writing a lot as a kid growing up?

(Speaker 3)
See his perspective from a third party because you can look at your own business and just see the good. It’s good to have somebody who does, who’s done this with hundreds of companies. You know, really look at your company,

(Speaker 3)
reflect on your company, and see like little chinks in the armor to make sure you cover that up so your competition can’t get to you and that you’re successful overall in the big picture. Yes, I would recommend Clay Clark

(Speaker 3)
because he is a great friend, great encourager. To me, he’s been a wonderful friend. He’s also, you can tell he cares. And he also, he has such a wealth of knowledge. He’s worked with so many different companies and different businesses. He could take a concept that he’s used before in the past with somebody in a totally different industry

(Speaker 3)
and see how it would work perfectly for you in whatever niche market you’re in or whatever type of service you’re providing and so his brain is just a wealth of knowledge and just to have that type of perspective on you know as a part of your team and your own company is huge super valuable so I would definitely encourage people to use him but one thing is you got to be coachable you got to be wanting to get feedback you got to be wanting to really

(Speaker 3)
grow your company you got to want to put that extra 10 hours a week to working on your business and not just in your business. And so yes, I would recommend it to anybody who’s wanting to grow their company and provide great systems, checklists, workflows, great encouragement, and have accountability.

(Speaker 4)
Hi, I’m Aaron Antus with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them and I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden So I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over 800 million dollars in real estate.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, my parents are both writers. They wrote about everything that I didn’t end up writing about. So my dad wrote humor and thrillers and my mom did kind of true crime stuff. So, you know, I do business.

(Speaker 4)
So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed after doing 800 million in sales over a 15-year career I really thought I knew what I was doing I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw homes and I mean we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa

(Speaker 4)
area and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay I really thought man there’s not much more I need to know but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably

(Speaker 4)
never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us, and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t

(Speaker 1)
Hip-hop music, you know, immediate entertainment, all the other stuff.

(Speaker 4)
And your wife’s a psychologist.

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, full-on psychiatrist.

(Speaker 4)
Some from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry. But the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such

(Speaker 4)
a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner

(Speaker 4)
who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do.

(Speaker 4)
I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a

(Speaker 4)
little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town.

(Speaker 6)
Psychiatrist, does she…

(Speaker 1)
That’s like probably four extra years you’re talking.

(Speaker 6)
Has she determined why?

(Speaker 4)
And so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing and I think for a lot of people they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you if you’re thinking about working with clay. I mean, the thing is, it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes, this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us. And I know if you give them a shot,

(Speaker 4)
I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me, the thing I would have missed out on if I didn’t work with Clay is I would have missed out on literally an 1,800% increase in our internet leads going from 10 a month to a hundred and eighty a month. That would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend Clay Clark to anybody who’s thinking about working with

(Speaker 4)
somebody in marketing. I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about, and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t.

(Speaker 8)
My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what what do I want to do my degree and my background is in education but after being a deep dark

(Speaker 4)
psychological level why you write about entirely different things than your

(Speaker 6)
parents once wrote about is there is there some thing is there is there do we

(Speaker 8)
have a label for it oh man you know we’ve got mom and staying home and all of that. I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a home builder, so real estate and home building go hand in hand and we just rolled with it. I love people. I love working with people.

(Speaker 8)
I love the with people. I love the building relationships But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things the processes and the advertising and marketing I knew that I Did not have what I needed to make that what it should be so I reached out to clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us.

(Speaker 8)
We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage eight months ago. And in that time we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we right now have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents, but I have to give credit where credit’s due.

(Speaker 8)
And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us.

(Speaker 1)
Get on the line.

(Speaker 6)
Have you guys talked about this?

(Speaker 1)
You know, we had an idea actually for a blog, which was that I would interview.

(Speaker 8)
It has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen.

(Speaker 5)
I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it.

(Speaker 5)
My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic,

(Speaker 5)
I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific

(Speaker 5)
written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and

(Speaker 5)
search engine optimization.

(Speaker 1)
We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us

(Speaker 26)
on the web.

(Speaker 5)
With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business.

(Speaker 1)
People and then she would psychoanalyze them but we thought that that might be breaking both some kind of journalistic and Hippocratic oath.

(Speaker 28)
I was going to say yeah.

(Speaker 4)
Okay so what we’re…

(Speaker 11)
I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. Clay, my honor, my honor to be on your show and thank you for all you do.

(Speaker 3)
I hear the ripple effects from you are good ripple effects.

(Speaker 27)
You know what I mean?

(Speaker 11)
People rave about what they learn from you.

(Speaker 1)
So congratulations.

(Speaker 12)
Went from expecting maybe 250,000 this year to we’re at 400,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. Hi I’m Kelsey with K&D’s Woodfinishing, business owner at 23. So I’ve been working this K&D’s company for about five years now and we started working with Thrive not too long ago. And we went from expecting maybe $250,000 this year to we’re at $400,000. That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed.

(Speaker 12)
So we’re pretty excited about that. It’s been pretty much just listening to what they have to say. Their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly and

(Speaker 26)
Like such good insight the resources they have for specific business questions

(Speaker 25)
It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience. So I’d recommend it to anybody

(Speaker 3)
What I’ve seen from clay and his group at thrive is they’ll give you a simple system And it’s the simple systems are the ones that people can wrap their brain around They’re the ones that people can work with on a day to day basis.

(Speaker 24)
Hi there.

(Speaker 2)
My name is Stephanie Pipkin. I am 24 years old and I own Blackbird Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid June of 20.

(Speaker 4)
Going to do now is this is what it sounds great, though. I mean, the concept is pretty cool. This guy went from the cubicle to the top in terms of the top, you know, one of the

(Speaker 2)
top 20. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid-February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my

(Speaker 2)
business in pretty much every facet. So I’m gonna check my notes here. So in four months my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week, now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees. I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like. We went from about six appointments a day as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. And hiring quality employees has become much simpler and less stressful by using their systems for hiring.

(Speaker 2)
I typically only get maybe two complaints a month if that and everybody shows up to work. I just have really high quality employees now especially in something people typically consider a high turnover type of work you know cleaning houses, cleaning businesses. I have amazing employees now and I get rid of the ones who are not so amazing and bring on new ones because of you know group interviews and higher interviewing every single week.

(Speaker 2)
It’s just been great and I don’t waste as much time.

(Speaker 4)
I want to do is this is going to be a shameless name drop show.

(Speaker 6)
Let’s do it.

(Speaker 2)
So what I’m going to do, and I know I don’t have as much time on low quality candidates anymore, and your coach will hold you accountable, which I love. Again, the tough love is really great. Luke know, Luke’s like a stern father figure, but he’s also nice, but also stern when he needs to be, when I’m being lazy and not doing the things that I know I need to do because I don’t want to do them.

(Speaker 2)
So that’s just great. Worth every penny. I mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things

(Speaker 2)
just happen for me. And you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and perseverance and working until you cry sometimes. That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that. But it’s having these systems in place of, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening. I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team

(Speaker 2)
working really hard to make sure that I’m a success. And I can tell that they are just so excited. Every single week when I’m having all these wins and things like that, they’re so excited for me. So it’s the best thing ever, and I would suggest to anybody to work with them.

(Speaker 2)
So sorry for the long-winded reply, but I just had so much to say, and I could go on for hours probably about how amazing they are. But thank you to Clay and Luke and the entire team there, everything you guys have done for me, and I am so…

(Speaker 23)
Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show.

(Speaker 22)
♪ Started from the bottom, now we’re here ♪

(Speaker 4)
When you’re interviewing people, there’s certain things you can share about the interview, certain things you can’t, but I would just want to go, I just said nothing but name drops. Okay, so here we go. So when you’re sitting down with Katy Perry, and you’re interviewing her for the excited

(Speaker 2)
to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching.

(Speaker 11)
My saying is if it’s important to you, hire a coach. And I think that’s one of the reasons people are not successful is they, you know, they eat a cheeseburger instead of hiring a coach, you know what I mean? And so my coach pushes me, they’re younger than me, they push harder, they’re trained.

(Speaker 11)
And as my rich dad always said, you know, amateurs don’t have a coach, but professionals always have coaches. So I’ve always had coaches for whatever was important. My rich dad was one of those persons. I wanted to learn how to play Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach.

(Speaker 4)
I have a story at Forbes called America’s Pop Export. Did you come up with the title for this?

(Speaker 1)
I believe it was a collaborative process, but certainly I think I suggested at least part of that one, sure. Who had the idea to interview Katy Perry? That was me. I thought she’d be a great fit for a lot of reasons at the time I did the story. I think it was 2014-2015. She was one of the top earning, I think top two or three earning musical

(Speaker 1)
acts in the world, but you know people like Taylor Swift, maybe Lady Gaga were getting a little more ink and you know I thought one of the really cool things about Katy Perry was she sat down with me two hours, you know, no publicist, no handlers, nobody in the room, and that was just the first interview. And she really dug in to her journey as an entrepreneur and she wasn’t kind of afraid of talking about money and wealth in the way that a lot

(Speaker 1)
of people I interview are. I think a lot of entertainers, they think, oh if I talk about my wealth people are gonna think I’m a sellout. Not so much with hip-hop. Hip-hop it’s sort of like, no, you know, we’re gonna we’re gonna go get it and we want you to enjoy this journey with us. But a lot of pop acts in particular are afraid that they’ll be seen as sellouts and and Katie really owned it. She was like, you know to know that that you can be your own boss you can go get the thing that you want and you know build a business be an entrepreneur and you know I really want to own

(Speaker 1)
as opposed to sort of shying away from it so I really I really respected that a lot and I think it it really made the the story come alive also we did a second interview in Italy which was the beginning in Italy in Rome and that really made the story pop I thought that was beginning the intro of the story and where a lot of the color and the drama came from. Who pays for you to go out there? Oh that’s that’s Forbes yeah. So Forbes, so you fly out there and you’re interviewing, do you use a… In coach you know but yeah. Do you use a pen?

(Speaker 1)
Are you using a pen? Are you typing? Do you record the interviews? Yeah yeah recorder and then usually notes as well. Notes okay. Sometimes two recorders just to be safe. And you go in with all the pre- so questions depending on how long the story’s gonna be but you know I find the best kind of interviews are the ones where you’re not just kind of ticking through a list right you’re having a conversation with this person and and you kind of just ask follow-up questions

(Speaker 1)
see where it goes you you get you follow the flow and I think you know in a way it almost stops feeling like an interview anymore. It stops feeling like a chore. Yeah. Instead, you’re just having an interesting conversation with an interesting person. I usually bring, you know, let’s say a dozen or so questions depending on how long the story’s going to be.

(Speaker 1)
But, you know, I find the best kind of interviews are the ones where you’re not just kind of ticking through a list, right? You’re having a conversation with this person and and you kind of just ask follow-up questions see where it goes you you get you follow the flow and I think you know in a way it almost stops feeling like an interview anymore it stops feeling like a chore yeah instead you’re just having

(Speaker 6)
an interesting conversation with an interesting person and so you end up after four hours with Katie systems to give what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks. I break down the books. He’s bringing some wisdom. And the good looks is the father of five. That’s what I’m looking for.

(Speaker 4)
Ours with Katy Perry. How much material do you have at this point?

(Speaker 6)
How many pages of transcripts are we talking about?

(Speaker 1)
You’re probably dozens of pages. But then there are the notes, right? So I mean of the story, you find me in a Mercedes van roaming the streets of Rome. Yeah.

(Speaker 6)
When in Rome, Rome.

(Speaker 1)
That would get edited into something a little more descriptive.

(Speaker 6)
When in Rome, Rome.

(Speaker 16)
When in Rome, I ate Italian food.

(Speaker 1)
Okay, there we go. And my phone rings. It’s like, all right, you need to stay in the van for one more mile, and then at the end of that journey, you’re going to get out of the light, and you’re going to walk down the street for 200 feet

(Speaker 1)
until you see the red arch. And it’s like out of a spy novel so I get out of the car I walk the mile and I turn and I look I’m like which arch it’s Rome there’s gonna be a lot of arches and you know there’s it’s like okay you’re gonna look for a lady in a big white hat lady in a big white hat and I look down and there’s a lady in a big white hat and sunglasses and you wouldn’t know it if you hadn’t had her security team on the phone, but it was Katy Perry and so they had to

(Speaker 1)
Do this whole charade because she was being stalked by a paparazzi So they had two Mercedes vans and she was in one and I was in the other and I didn’t realize I was the decoy Oh, wow to kind of get them off my back. And so, you know the door open and out pops Some American guy and they’re like, whatever, off they go and then I go meet up and we do a tour of the Colosseum

(Speaker 6)
and the whole time so if you see my wabbit kids please tell them hi it’s C and Z up on your radio and now 3, 2, 1

(Speaker 22)
here we go!

(Speaker 1)
story was about you know it’s a here’s Katy Perry this giant arena act but here we are in the original arena And that was kind of from there we jump into the business

(Speaker 4)
Do you get nervous when interview when you’re interviewing Katy Perry? I mean if you ever find yourself saying You know what was your name? I mean sir. I mean can I you know do you ever get do you ever get nervous?

(Speaker 6)
I’ll have you ever gotten nervous?

(Speaker 1)
You know, maybe in my first year doing this, like a little bit, I’d get butterflies and stuff, but you know, at some point people are just people and you know, and it’s, it’s fun to, I’d say it’s fun to interview interesting people, whether they’re like, dang, you’re really tall.

(Speaker 1)
But if you’re only interviewing basketball players, it just sort of stops being a thing.

(Speaker 3)
Yeah, they’re all tall.

(Speaker 1)
You’re just like, okay, hold on.

(Speaker 6)
Is Katy Perry funny?

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, she’s funny and she’s very earnest. I think people don’t maybe realize that. you know, not like, she doesn’t put on airs. She’s very direct.

(Speaker 16)
Yeah, she seems like a down to earth kind of gal. Yeah, 100%. Just off the top of my head, I’m gonna ask you this question, just like, first thing that comes to your mind. Here we go, here we go. Of all the interviews you’ve done of celebrities,

(Speaker 16)
A-list celebrities, which one has surprised you the most?

(Speaker 1)
First thing to mind. You know that the name that pops into my head is ludicrous Okay, explain. Yeah, you know, I mean he has this kind of outrageous persona right in his music

(Speaker 16)
Outrageous name. I mean, yeah

(Speaker 1)
But you know, I was interviewing him and he was kind of getting into

(Speaker 4)
Yes, yes, yes and and yes. Dr. Z, my friend, what do we commonly refer to as our business

(Speaker 1)
buyer? You know, his portfolio and these businesses that he owns and this and that, and he’s creating this company that he wants to hand off to his daughter when she gets old enough and you know, this kind of stuff. And I was like, you know, so how do you kind of justify that side of you with, you know, Luda? And he said, well, you know, if you do you kind of justify that side of you with, you know, Luda? And he said, well, you know, if you think about it, like, if you have a buddy, like, he’s like, think about, think about your best friend. And it’s like, what’s your

(Speaker 1)
best friend’s name? Julian. Okay, well, what’s his nickname? It’s like, Chops. You know, you never, you never know. So just like, just like that, you got Chris Bridges on the weekday, but he’s Luda in the club, and he really kind of bounces back and forth between these two different personas as needed. But I think he kind of inhabits both of them

(Speaker 1)
pretty well, I’d say, and to great financial advantage.

(Speaker 6)
When you’re sitting in the room with Kanye West, you went to Kanye’s home, correct? Indeed. And people could look up the article.

(Speaker 4)
What’s the name of the article people can look up right now?

(Speaker 1)
It’s called Kanye’s Second Coming. It’s on Forbes.com or there’s magazines floating around with it too.

(Speaker 6)
So when you fly out to his home and you arrive there, how would you describe the interior

(Speaker 1)
of Kanye West’s home? It’s almost like a monastery. It’s a very simple kind of alabaster color. Everything is high-ceilinged. And in fact, it’s made from, all the floors are made from this special paste

(Speaker 1)
that you can only get in Belgium. Or you can only, the crew that makes it is based in Belgium, and so if you, if you so much as scuff the floor They have to fly in all these guys So, you know

(Speaker 6)
We always quote Forbes, I mean Forbes is our business Bible that’s what we do. It’s in Forbes book it

(Speaker 1)
That’s okay. I walked into this interview wearing my Air Jordans because I thought it would be an interesting conversation piece, you know Cuz Yeezy and the minute I walk in they’re like oh you have to put these little booties on your on your on your Jordans you know but it wasn’t because of any you know hatred for Air Jordan it was because he didn’t want his floor scuffed so you know did that and that was kind of like a nice little twist but then Kanye walks in you know know, in his own easy with no little

(Speaker 1)
cloth booties on. He’s like, whatever, it’s my place.

(Speaker 4)
What is he like? What is his personality type like? I mean, I know you were with him in a room for a long time doing the interview. People can see the actual video, some of the video of you interviewing him on Forbes. What was it like, you know, sitting down with the

(Speaker 6)
guy? How would you describe the aura he puts off, the energy?

(Speaker 1)
Yeah, I think, you know, he will just sink his teeth into whatever idea is on his mind, you know, at the moment. And he won’t let go.

(Speaker 9)
I’ll be working on home designs and looking at references from 3,000 years ago and reading the Old Testament at the same time so it’s like a soundtrack to the visuals of the shapes and the ideas and ideals of what we’re creating.

(Speaker 1)
And you know he can’t really. I think he he he can’t let himself give it up until he’s he’s you know kind of like And you know he can’t really. I think he he he can’t let himself give it up until he’s he’s you know kind of like perfected it to his specifications.

 

Transcribed with Cockatoo