How Does Doctor Z Know What to Say No To & How Not to Overthink Everything

Show Notes

Z breaks down: How he knows what to say “no” to, how not to overthink everything, what his new business goals are, how to find a good real estate investor, etc.

  1. How do you know what to say “No” to?
    1. My default is “No”
    2. If they’re cold calling – No
    3. If you don’t find yourself saying “no” often, you are letting others fill your schedule.
    4. If it is something that I need to have done for my benefit, then I am going to be creative about getting a “yes” from someone else.
    5. Do the “Phone Method”
      1. Give them a nod, a smile, and keep walking
    6. Give the person an ending time to the meeting
  2. How do you avoid over-thinking everything?
    1. If I could get rid of one thing in the world, I would get rid of fear
    2. I don’t spend any of my mental runway worrying about legal issues
    3. I pay money to have people fear for me
    4. At some point, I may get pulled into it.
    5. Even when you’re involved, you still don’t worry. Pay someone else to worry.
  3. How do you move on from what most people get suck on emotionally?
    1. You have to break the cycle and just move on.
    2. You can only really show your team how that you aren’t going to allow anything affect your business.
    3. Get rid of all of your pride
    4. Whenever you feel “offended”, remove that feeling from your body.
    5. You want to be slow to anger
  4. What is your next goal?
    1. Vertical integration with the business that I have
    2. Our perspective changes as we get older. The problems we had in the past seemed like big issues now are small issues
  5. Are there any “Shark Tank” proposals that you wish you would have accepted?
    1. Maybe a few commercial real estate deals
  1. Randy with Patio Galaxy – Randy is considering taking on an investor. His first meeting with him is 7/10 to begin the conversation and is looking for advice from Clay and I. He is wanting $150,000 for 15% of the company. He wants the $150,000 to:
      1. When you land an investor, the following things will come with it as a bi-product:
        1. Capital
        2. Connections
        3. Council
  1. What are your thoughts about “business plans”? Obviously you don’t need a formal plan to buy a lawn mower and cut grass. But also, Michael Scott probably should have put some thought into it before starting Michael Scott Paper Company. How do you balance those extremes? Tim, I’d be curious to hear Z’a thoughts too if possible
    1. Team
    2. Problem / Solution
    3. Marketing Strategy
    4. Number of Deals Needed to Break-Event

Here’s our adaptation of David’s template:

https://venturehacks.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Pitching-Hacks.pdf 

  1. Cover. Include your logo, tagline, and complete contact information. 
  2. Summary. Summarize the key, compelling facts of the company. Make sure you cover all the topics that are in your elevator pitch — in fact, just steal the content from the elevator pitch.
  3. Team. Highlight the past accomplishments of the team. If your team has been successful before, investors may believe it can be successful again. Include directors or advisors who bring something special to the company. Don’t include positions you intend to fill — save that for the milestones slide. Put yourself last: it seems humble and lets you tell a story about how your career has led to the discovery of the… DECKS 55 4. Problem. Describe the customer, market, and problem you address, without getting into your product. Emphasize the pain level and the inability of competitors to satisfy the need. 
  4. Solution. Introduce your product and its benefits and describe how it addresses the problem you just described. Include a demo such as a screencast, a link to working software, or pictures. God help you if you have nothing to show. 
  5. Technology. Describe the technology behind your solution. Focus on how technology enables the differentiated aspects of your solution. If appropriate, mention patent status. 
  6. Marketing. Who are the customers? How big is the market? You summarized this in your Problem slide and this is your opportunity to elaborate. How are you going to acquire customers? What customers have you already acquired? 
  7. Sales. What’s your business model? If you have sales, discuss the sales you’ve made and your pipeline. What are the microeconomics and macroeconomics that turn your business into a $X million revenue business? Emphasize the microeconomics (each user is worth $1/year because…) instead of macroeconomics (if we can get 1% of a $10B market…).
  8. Competition. Describe why customers use your product instead of the competitions. Describe any competitive advantages that remain after the competition decides to copy you exactly. Never deny that you have competitors — it’s okay to compete. Against anyone. 56 PITCHING HACKS 
  9. Milestones. Describe your current status and prospective milestones for the next 1-3 quarters for your product, team, marketing, and sales. Use a table with the quarters on the xaxis and the functions on the y-axis. Also include quarterly and cumulative gross burn (your expenses, assuming zero revenue) for the next 1-3 quarters. Don’t build a detailed financial model if you don’t have past earnings, a significant financial history, or insight into the issue. What hypothesis did you test in the last round of financing and what were the results? What hypotheses will you test with this round?
  10. Conclusion. This slide can be inspirational, a larger vision of what the company could accomplish if these current plans are realized, or a rehash of the Summary slide. 12. Financing. Dates, amounts, and sources of money raised. How much money are you raising in this round? Restate the hypothesis that you will test in this round.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE – “Running a start-up is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends”. – Elon Musk

  1. How to properly structure a company giveback program?

I want to provide a cash-based medical service for patients who donate to a specific charity. Specifically, I want to direct the profit to a charity, but need them to pay me for the COGS. Can I ask the patient to donate a specific amount to charity then pay me for my costs? Or do I need to collect the full amount and donate the profit through my company? 

Business Coach | Ask Clay & Z Anything

Audio Transcription

How Does Doctor Z Know When To Say No Ask Clay Anything Thrivetime Show Slides

You have questions, America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your brought up from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of ask clay. Anything on the thrive time business coach radio show.

Yes, yes, yes and yes. Dr Z is always ecstasy when you are next to me. How, oh was your weekend my friend. How was the weekend? My weekend was fine, but the most fun I had was yeah, picturing you on that big cruise ship. Just wondering what kind of mischief you were getting into and how many stressful situations you encounter as a business coach. Your highlights. Cause I know you people, people tend to stress you.

I have a few highlights that that happened that my wife can verify. Okay. The first one we get on the first flight is supposed to leave I think at like nine in the morning or something. Okay. Okay. And I loved me on the first flight out, but in her defense, you can’t book cause we had to connect from Dallas to Miami and so, you know, but the first flight out, I love that flight cause it’s never delayed that second flight. Those are you traveling. If you don’t, I’m like, oh, second flight, that third flight. Here we go. Oh yeah. So the flight they said oh what did you gentleman the a flight from Tulsa to Dallas has been delayed with new time or the departure will be 11, whatever. So it’s like two hours. I’m doing the math going. If I leave now I can get to Dallas by the time either flight’s going to land.

I mean it’s almost the same time, but I’m going, no, I need to wait. Cause you know that my wife talked to the front desk ticketing people or something and then they jump on the flight from Dallas to our propulsive. Dallas has been delayed new time, 12 o’clock. And I’m going, if I wait until then I can’t make the flight. I can’t drive there to Dallas and time to get the connecting flight to Miami. I can’t correct. So a, they said, hey, well Miss Mrs. Clark, here’s the deal. We have tickets available for you and three of your kids, but your seven of us traveling. So you two of your kids can’t be on this flight, but you can sit them on a different flight. I’m like, no, no, I’m not going to separate our kids. So I’m like, we shall just drive to Dallas.

Is that w if you did that, did you pick the ones you really love to go with or you pick the one? No, I’d always pick my favorite one was, sure. I’m just kidding. Anyway, so

I decided to leave to go down to Dallas. So we go down to Dallas, we’re driving and the t z. For the listeners out there that don’t know how long should it take to drive from Tulsa to Dallas, if you’re following the laws that have been established by the various counties and cities around.

Well, I’d like to preface everything with the fact that it’s widely known, yes. That you are the worst driver in the world. What worse driving the world ever and the slowest. So, so, but I mean if you work on the speed, so saying that now, now answering your question, I would say that here again, Dallas is a big community. So when you say Dallas, but I would support from Tulsa. DFW. Right. Not Love. Are we going to love DFW? Okay. A Tulsa airport. Okay. Do you have w that should be four and a half. Four, four and a half hours. I got there and you’re right. Just a hair under three hours. Wow. You were flying and I g I get there [inaudible]

You get it, you’re flying. Oh good. Why get there? And I go through their airport, you know, security thing there, TSA stuff and I get through that and then right then they’re shutting the door to the plane. Oh. And Vanessa had already talked to them and they said, hey, as long as he gets there, we’ll wait a few minutes if we need to. Cause I was there on time for the boat was on time for the boarding time, but as they were before they left. Sure. Well I guess they’d already given my tickets away, stand by or something. But that’s the move. So now they decide that Vanessa can be on the plane but we can’t, but we can catch the next flight to Miami. Her flight wouldn’t take time, time out yet. Did you drop them off and then go park or how did you get separated from, how did she get on the plane and you didn’t cause she flew from Tulsa to Dallas.

Oh, I see. I didn’t Idaho. You drove with the other kids with the and Abra. Yeah. And so we’re, we’re a driving just jamming out to eighties music. Just whoa, Whoa, Whoa, whoa. Just having a good time. And a Abi didn’t like it, but I was having a good tie to stay awake. So anyway, so were I, they, they said we can’t get on the plane. So Vanessa gets on the plane, they go out on the runway and show attention. Passengers will be taken off on approximately the time of arrival should be something happens. What is going on in a mechanical failure. So they texted back, yet cops are pumping notes to me. Vanessa didn’t take off. Oh Wow. So now she’s scamming on the airport trying to find me. Anyway, nine o’clock we meet up, we discover each other. There she is. Do the slow run to each other.

And so what happens is we end up we have audio actually of us meeting at the airports and incredible and just, I’ve see her, she sees me slow motion. I’m just like, Hey, give your little white short shorts. Yeah. It was. Anyway, so we ended up getting to a place where we finally can take off at nine o’clock at night or something. We can get there. We get into Miami around one in the morning or something. The ship itself, it’s a beautiful ship, real Caribbean ship. But I guess that family or unions, it’s a big thing for people to have Hilary reunions and something was, are huge. You got a hundreds of people. And so there’s hundreds of people wearing like red shirts and running around. Sure. And there’s hundreds of people wearing a Miami high school graduation shirts. Okay. And they had little themes on their shirts that had curse words on their shirts.

Oh, just spell it out, you know, I’m sure, you know. So you might say like, class of 99 woo there says you know, you could say ship. Yeah, yeah. But it’s Kinda like that. But anyway, this is, they were clever and Sandy’s shirts running around and it was like a, a rap video is being shot on the boat that was half of the, the audience was the rap video crew should have felt right at home. The other half was like the rednecks from the four for the fertile regions of the Quita boundaries in Oklahoma and people who had, had maybe, you know, hadn’t brushed her teeth or tooth in, brushed her tooth in the last couple decades and they knew it was a beautiful time, certain smells. I discovered it was an a truly incredible time. I got a chance to see a guy extra for that.

I was that guy who was intoxicated laying on the floor in a glass elevator before noon. Nice. I mean, wow. Much harder to do. What time are you starting there? But wow, early one. I mean, probably a little, a hair the dog from the night before, I would imagine. I mean, I’m still, that was our trip. And then on the way home we got stuck because some woman said that she was being taken advantage of and she got taken. So she announces to the flight attendant, she goes, I’ve been taken in [inaudible], she’s writing for student like movie. She’s seated right behind me and she puts her hand and hits a little button. Boop. This, we were about ready to take off. I already pulled down the runway. You’re on the runway, excuse me, on stewards. I have been taken advantage of. Okay. And I, and I demand is my right to get off this plane.

I bought a ticket to St Louis and I don’t, I didn’t buy a ticket to Dallas. And you’re like, well ma’am, you bought a ticket to the house and there’s a connection to St Louis. Are you aware it’s a connection going to be in St Louis Tonight at seven 30 but it’s not a direct, and she goes, ah, I’ve been taking and I want to exercise my right. Sure. So she just demands to get off the plane. There’s 400 people in a seven 77 who’ve been waiting all day with a delayed flight. Huh. And I don’t know what happens, but when I get in small crowds, I start to like actually like get spasms. So I get a full-grown back spasm and think, thankfully windy gave me a an Ibuprofen or something. But I mean I have had some serious like it’s crazy. It was the worst thing ever.

But anyway, the kids had a great time. They’ve now got the chance to discover what it’s like to be in a bus station. Yes. And at sea. And it was a truly remarkable experience. So that was the, the summary. My wife told me that after our vacation was the hot, what was the high point? The high water mark. My favorite one was my wife said to me, getting the plane on the way home. She says, after this vacation I need to vacation your wife. Yeah. She goes, let’s not do this for a couple years. I’m like, yes, yes. Cause I hate traveling with such a passion. There had to be a small part of your brain that enjoyed knowing that all the jackass re of that vacation and good material. I mean some good, I got [inaudible] something off sound clips that I’m going to put into a show.

Nice. That was good. That was good. But then also you know that this verify that you are not going to have to be called upon to go on a vacation for quite some time. You know the guys who work in the real criminal, the nicest employees of all time, great customer service, every one of them. And he’s got on great people and most of the kids are like from other countries. No, they were the heartburn. They’re all working seven days a week. Super hardworking people. These guys are gone nine months at sea and they’re home for too. Just, I mean they are hardworking, great staff there. Love, love them. Good people. They’re all, my flight attendants on American Airlines were very nice. I can’t, I can’t say though, of the four planes we were supposed to leave on, three did not take off. Three of the first four for American Airlines. And I always think that’s kind of a, a Downer when you’re in the business of flying clay to be in three out of the four times that the passenger boards the plane, the plane does not take off. I think that’s always a little bit of a downer. So victims up to our good friends at royal victims.

Up to you guys, victims up to American Airlines the the flight attendants, they mega points for you, but big down downward Arrow for whatever’s going on at American Airlines. That makes you go so many canceled and you fly, you fly all the time. How long does it happen? Is it, is it, is it a third? Is it a half? Unfortunately, when I fly southwest, it’s very, very seldom. Southwest is like, I’d say 75%. Right? Yeah, bet that. What about American though? I mean, there am on, it’s almost 50, 50 anymore. I mean, it’s crazy. Their website though, it’s called a.com and their new slogan is, will drive you to drink [inaudible] dot com we’ll get your short driving. [inaudible] I think it’s a great slug. A lot of people are like, why are you, why are you here? How did you become an alcoholic? I used to travel a lot and I used to travel a lot and you know, American Delta and say, you know what they do every time you’re delayed they give you free drinks.

Oh well there you go. Seriously, the guy was like, sir, I hate Ya. You know, cause I, I always get a cranberry vodka when I get on a plane to Tito. I know every time I get on there and I don’t do sky the do Tito’s. I go in there and get two, two, the guy was like a, here you go, give me like a collection. I’m like, Santa’s like to say it. I mean, Gosh, I mean I’ve been offered more free alcohol from American Airlines cause they always want to make it right now I’m like, you can keep the alcohol. Just get me on time because I’ve got to drive home and now I can’t even drive. So anyways, so now, now that we’ve got into my vacation, now we’re going to ask you anything. See, oh Julia, go harms on our staff. Let me tell you about her. She started off on the search engine team over there working at a make your life after doing search engine articles for clients do to, they did a very good job, accurate, fast paced, hardworking lady. Nice. her uncle is a former client, good guy. And and so we promoted her to be an assistant manager, elephant in the room. Nice. Doing a great job there and is in route to being able to coach them one on one clients doing very well. Ah, Julia, how long have you been on the, on the team here?

Going on? Four months.

Four months. Okay. So four months in 120 days in there. What questions do you have for Dr Z? Well,

Preface with, so Steve jobs says he is just as proud of everything that they haven’t done or that they’ve said no to as much as he is that they have. So for you as a business coach, you have multiple businesses and all kinds of different industries. This is why thrivers love you. So tell us, so how do you know what to say no to or what kind of filter or gauge or how do you piece this in your mind?

First of all, if it’s, if it’s not any energy that I started, in other words, if someone’s cold calling on me, that’s almost the deaths and 99% no, just up this, that just a, I’m going to say no just because it sounds good. His default is no by the way. Yeah, default. His default is now, which by the way, that is rare. And that is an action item for somebody out there. What you did, and I, my wife does this, she says kids first. My wife’s very much husband first kid second. That’s what she does. Everything else is. So if anything gets in the

Way of those things, she’ll go, Nah, what was that again? Yeah. Nah, I mean he’s just very quick to know. That’s a big moment. That’s a big change. Your default to nosy. That’s used in. A lot of people have an issue with that versus saying no because they feel like, cause they look at that other person and they see the disappointment on their face or they hear it in their voice anymore. I guess you can, you can sense it on a text message or an email, right? And you’re just like, oh, I’m so sorry. Okay, I’ll do, I’ll do lunch with you next week. I don’t want to, but I’m going to. And they just sit there the whole time for lunch going, why did I say yes? Why am I here? And then all of a sudden that leads to the next meeting. The next thing, they pretty soon, you know, I mean now all of a sudden you bought something from this person you don’t want to buy and now they’re having to come and service it every month and you’re just like, oh, how did I get caught in this trap where you get caught on the track because quite frankly you don’t say no and you just say no early on.

Now when it’s something that I’m driving the energy, when it’s something that I need to have done for my benefit, for my businesses, benefit for my family’s benefit, for whatever benefit I’ve seen dean worthy, then I am going to be very creative. If I get to know I’m going to keep going, keep at it. And so I’m not saying you don’t, you’re not persevere through a no, but I’m saying if you’re not saying enough nos, you’re wasting a lot of your time. You’re letting other people fill in your, your calendar, fill in your agenda for the day. So I could see that. And I, and I love that about Steve Jobs when he says, listen, my know is powerful and what I have not done has led me to all the great things that I have done. Cause if you’re spread out too much and they’ve got a hundred things on the developmental pipeline, it’s hard to really be focused on what’s really the next move for apple.

What’s really, where do we really want to go as a company? And so, you know, even the CEO, even the boss, you have to be able to say no, even though it may seem like someone’s really passionate about it. I ran into a young man the other day, clay clay loves a story. He was here shadowing, doing something. I mean, he was in the room for a reason and sure he’s a fine young man finding the fine young, meaningful man. Yes. And I’m leaving the studio and I’m headed out to my car and I get the, Hey, hey z, Dr z. So you know, you, you don’t want to be rude, you know. But you always sometimes want to use the phone method, right? You know the phone method. What’s that? The phone method is when you know you’re going to walk through a gauntlet of people that you know somebody is going to want your attention.

You do the old phone to the year, right voicemail. You Do, you do, you do the old phone to the air and you give them a, you give a nod and you give them a, you give them a happy smile, but you just keep walking. He does. He’s very good at establishing when this meeting has to be over before it starts. Yes. Great. You may have someone for coffee or for lunch, he’ll go, hey, I really appreciate y’all. You got me until four o’clock. What do you got? Yeah, what do you got? You got my undivided attention right now. Go with your time. But he asked me, this young man asked me, hey, can we do lunch? I just really would like to, I mean, basically saying, you know, I really would like for you to hang out with me and get to know you and you speak into my life and you know, you seem like such a nice guy. And I mean, I, I wanna, you know, pick me, pick me. And I, and I looked him and I said what’s your name? Say it again. I said, well, it’s nice to meet you, but no. We’re not going to do lunch. Have a nice day. And appreciate you asking and see you later. And I walked on out and, and you would’ve thought that I took it as taking his puppy and gone outside and ran over it with my car.

Let me tell you something that z has done to me. That’s horrible. That’s terrible. Me. I’m gonna keep this audio clip and then I’m gonna give you just a second. I gotta get it. You have a routinely let me know that you are not a big fan of who I believe to be one of the greatest actors in American history. It’s always, it wasn’t always that. Still the, think about this. We have Jerry Seinfeld now, his, it’s recently been disclosed. He’s now worth over $900 million. Yes. For syndicating his, his material now approaching him. And that net worth is Adam Sandler and his deal with Netflix. Now I’m going to keep this audio and you complete the after play. I’d like for you to explain to me why you always say no. Whenever I’m like, Hey, you want to get together and watch Sandler movies? Cause it’s always a quick no, but I just wanna explain to you what about this incredible acting you can possibly get because it’s, it’s always hard to tell. Is this Mel Gibson or is this Adam, let me, let me cue that.

Do Aggression. Now is there anyone here that can tell me why most alligators are abnormally aggressive? I know the answer to this question. Did your hate about it? Anyone? Yeah, so use that. Okay. Mama said that alligators [inaudible] got out emptied, but no toothbrush. [inaudible]

Why do you not want to watch this movie when a crew, incredible movie waterboy an incredible movie. Incredible film. Really. It’s more of a film. You’ll call it a movie. It’s a film. I would rather take a hammer out and like bludgeoned my left elbow. Why?

Because it is, it’s nonsensical. It’s, it’s, it’s not even funny. I mean, it’s like, you know, we got so passed that in junior high school, you know.

Okay, let me, hey, hey, hey. Hey, let me, okay, let me, let me, let me take them funny. Hey, hey, let me do one more. See now this one is where Adam Sandler, I’ve run the book movie. Billy Madison. He walks in on his girlfriend. Oh No. And he believes that she’s having an affair with the penguin. Now we all know from the movie Billy Madison, which I’ve only seen like 50 times, that bill that at Billy Madison drinks alcohol to a point where he starts to see an imaginary penguin that sings strangers in the night by Frank Sinatra. Doobie Doobie, do new doodoodoo. Here’s the scene as we explained to me, what part of this is not good to you? Cause this right here, I mean a movie is like, oh it’s a little movie. It’s a little, you know, we began to call things of film. Yeah, they had touched us in a way. This scene touches my Haryana cued up Megan.

There we go.

Has He was calling his business coach? Huh?

[Inaudible]

So sorry to interrupt rob

Z, what part of that do you not like? I mean, the thing about the beds with the beginning of the end, was it the, was it the plot was the character development? I mean, what weren’t you happy

True lab? Why would you want to interrupt that to, that’s the thing. It’s just mean. Just mean. She sitting there having an obviously wonderful time with a said penguin and he just comes in and parties over Barty Adam’s their party’s over. Go on about your way. And that’s it.

Is there any Adam Sandler movie you like?

I, before I say [inaudible],

No, I don’t think, I don’t think I’ve seen the bubble. I know you’re really, you’re really owed yourself. Why did you bring that up? I saw him live in concert and a, his impressive, oh yeah. I’m sure it was serious that you, you, you would not have liked it. I don’t think, but I’m just saying it is, the point is, is that you don’t feel like, you need to pretend that you agree with me as a business coach just to be copacetic. You’re, you’re not mean about it. I’d be like, I don’t like it. Yeah, it’s, my press might turn you over time, you’ll get more, you know, you’ll, you’ll cite the facts or the reasons. Sure. But it’s a formula. It’s a formula actor. He’s, is he come on, he has a, for me the same formula. It just over and over and over. Okay. Julian or questions do you have for him about what he says? No to any question at all. Any, any questions you have the floor?

Yeah, I have one more question for you. Okay. So you seem to be a very calm guy. Just you go for it. I like that. But I have a question. How do you avoid overthinking every potential liability that will occur or procedures, rules, constantly changing laws. Just how do you avoid overthinking that to the point that it’s going to sacrifice you business and growth?

Well, that’s a great question and I think so many people, if I could, if I could get rid of one thing in the world. Hmm. Ooh, this is a deep question. If, no, I don’t know.

I’m sure he’s a great guy. He’s a great guy. Great. Adam wouldn’t go that far. Ah,

Yeah. The one thing that I could get rid of would be fear. And I think that with all the things that can go wrong in life, I choose not to spend any of my mental runway on worrying about those things. That’s why you have insurance. That’s why you have attorneys. That’s why I have several of the people in my life that are in accounting. Yes,

You’re not, it doesn’t, you don’t, you don’t get scared. No worry. No. Okay, let’s, let’s, let’s let her know, but let me, let me wrap it up a little bit. Yeah.

You say you can’t just throw caution to the wind, but I had people that worry about that stuff so much. It frees me up from having to worry about it and they’ll learn. It may be a learning process for them to say, Hey, listen, it’s now come to the level I need to tell z about. Right. In other words, let’s say gets a slip and fall on one of my businesses. Boom. It happened right when it like do I stay up to write before thinking, oh my lord, what happens if someone slip and falls and hurts themselves in the business that didn’t have enough insurance? Where they’re going through is going to show me, how’s that going to look? What’s going to happen? I’m my gosh, wouldn’t do that or am I going to do, oh my gosh, it’s going to happen. I know. It’s just, Oh,

The real good debt that that what you’re doing though that that your ability to do that. I know in my life it really, really irritates most people around me because most people are controlled by fear and I care not a right, but that really bothers up you like, dude, how could you not? I remember with the DJ Company, we had a company opened up, you know, several of our former employees offered the same packages and like how could you not be worried? I mean, can I be worried I’m going to take a massive action but I’m not going to sit there and cause what does that do? Nothing but people. People, I think it bothers people. When you say are not worried, it really does.

It does. But the thing about it is now, now that it happens and then it goes another step or two down the road, sometimes I don’t even get involved in it. Just a, you know, you call your workman’s comp insurance, they put that to dad, they do all the things that all of a sudden this guy doesn’t like what he’s hearing and he’s an employee of one of the people that do business with you. And so now all of a sudden you get a letter from an attorney, you know, now all of a sudden you get, you know, it goes to the next level. And so at some point I get pulled into it and more times than not I’m like, okay wait, employee saw what happened. So now I’m interviewing five employees, right. It did you right. Have you written any of this down?

No ma’am. We weren’t told right in there. I’m like, Okay Eric, my HR guy, come on, get in here. We didn’t write you write down what you saw, sign it, date it. Because you know when this thing two months from now or whatever or whenever this has to finally you have to tell your story. You know sometimes you get a little foggy on what happened and so you don’t want a document. You want to make sure your button depth on your side. You want to make sure that all your policies and procedures are right and they’re being followed. And then you know, you here we gave you still don’t worry about it. You still turn it over to your legal team. You turned it over to your workman’s comp attorneys, you turn it over to the people that, that you pay to worry about this or you pay to deal with it, I should say. So to me it’s rather easy. It’s Kinda like why? Why do you want to worry about things?

What about when? What about when business coach people have of screwed you over in business? Okay, so you’ve done a deal, somebody screws you over. How do you keep yourself out of the emotional cobwebs of trying to repair something that cannot be fixed? Because I see a lot of people where you have to fire somebody because they’re mad at their job. Right. And then they’re now offended or hurt because they’re your cousin, your neighbor, your former best friend, whoever your cousin, yours, someone’s cousin, someone’s neighbor, someone’s Fred, everyone’s related somehow. You know what I mean? And then you hear them saying bad things about you. How do you move on? How do you just move on? How do you do it?

You take a deep breath and you move on. I like to think of things that are like positive in my life and things that are fun for me to think about. I mean, sometimes getting of your thoughts and, and having your hands wrapped around your own brain and having, you know, I, it’s, it’s sad than me when I hear people talk about, I just can’t not think about that. It’s almost like a, a loop in their brain that they just can’t break through that cycle. And it’s tough. You know, you see some people with the misery of that torment on them of something that they’re either worried about that’s going to happen or that during the middle of, and they’re thinking it could be a worst case scenario. I could lose it all if this could be horrible. And they’re just caught up in that and it affects them physically affects them emotionally, affects their business.

And I think, I think one of the, I think one of the strongest things that you have to understand is that you know, you can only really show, you know, that you’re your team. You can really only show them how to really respond to things that might cause other people fear and really show them that you on the outside, especially on the outside, that you are not going to let that affect you or affect the business if you’re going to go forward. And yeah, it may have to cause for some changes in policies or procedures that you’re doing in your business because you want to make sure you’re buttoned up, everything’s correct, but on the long term bye. By having that no fear and having that pushed through and having that where you demonstrate that to your staff hey, this is okay, we’re going to get through this.

This isn’t a debilitating thing. It’s going to be all right. We’ve got these people over here working on it and they’re professionals in that and they’re going to take care of it. You guys continue to do your job and not let that one bad thing, you know, dictate your month long activity. I mean, I, how is that that you get 10 great reviews, you get one, one star review and that’s the one that you lay there, a bed sitting there going, I can’t believe they did that to me and we, we gave them even a free, you know, it cleaner for their glasses on it. I think when people know

That you freak out. I think what they do is they try to free make you freak out more. Oh yeah. So like Mr. Anderson, I think I’ve shared the story before on the show, but Mr. Anderson in Minnesota, what happened is they decided, they called it outcome based education and there’s this new holistic approach to education. When I was in school and they made you take archery classes and swimming classes, you had to do choir and band and all these various things in Minnesota. And the teacher, his name was Mr. Anderson and Mr. Anderson was a guy who had the ability to deal with emotional situations about one inch thick skin or maybe one 10th of an inch thick skin, like very like just maybe one 10th of one 10th of one. I mean, he was just one 100th of an inch thick skin. See, this guy was like a brittle.

You could break this man by doing anything. So we looked at him wrong. What would we do is we would talk, we would tee I, myself and a guy named Jeff. We would kind of be the ringleaders, but I’m going to go shock. Here’s the deal. Shocking at like a 10, 10 we all need to start coughing. There’s like 200 guys, we’re all going to start coughing. Oh here’s your cough. You’ll start in the front row, it’ll move its way to the back. It’s like a wave and we cannot stop and it needs to get more and more violent. It needs to get where it’s like it’s, it’s crazy. Like we’re wheezing and we have to get into it. And the more he gets upset, the more we pressed on until he throws something. And then when he does, we all just start freaking out.

So anyway, it’s like one by one, each guy starts and then he’s like, guys seriously stop. And then he’s like, are you kidding me? He was just, he freak out every time. So they were like, oh that’s so good. Cause he would freak out. He’d walk out of class. So the next day where like when he starts talking to one of you guys to climb around the back of the class, when he’s taking attendance, he won’t see you. Cause if it got a tutorial, turn the lights off. When he starts talking [inaudible] let’s turn them off. Just turn him off. Dark Room, dark room. I’m going to scream. Start throwing things. Yeah. Okay. The guy’s like, you going to do it? I’m like, we’re all gonna do it. We’re ready to go. So he started calling. All right guys, today we’re going to start sinking. Shannon Doha, it’s a new song.

It’s from the Yada Yada here. Lights up. We’re all just screaming, going nuts, you know. And he like, Oh darn, I’m, he just so pleased to heath. Crazy, crazy. His shirt would be untucked sometimes. Like his shirt would be untucked. He’s got a large man, his shirt be in tucked, he’d be sweating. He called that a short fuse and it was like a deal where we loved it. Oh yeah. We loved it. So we would just, and I think if you’re out there and you’re a business owner and you’re kind of brittle, we all have a certain high watermark cause he, what advice would you have for somebody who’s Kinda a little bit brittle, quick to fire off the cannon right now, short fuse? How can they elongate that fuse and not freak out?

Two things. One I would, I’d like for you to do a summon up all the pride in your body and set it down into a box and light it on fire. Get rid of it. All, all that pride, all that pride. Number two, whenever you feel that bone in your body, the offensive, the, the bone nearby that gets, Whoa, I’m offended. Whenever you need to surgically have that removed, Amygdala does that. It puts in a bone that’s a region of the brain. But you can have that removed too. Is there a bone that control, okay, there’s not, let’s get it from this point forward. The science is no longer relevant to science. The point is, is don’t be offended. I mean by this day and age you wake up in the morning, they’re like, hey, I wonder how, how many times I’m going to be offended today. I mean cause that’s the move, right?

I was on the, I was on the cruise and there was a group of people telling white jokes like just loud white jokes and I actually think they’re kind of funny. Sure. Cause they’re based on some element of truth for sure. So I bet, I mean I could have been offended. I probably could’ve, but there was like really, really? Cause they had like, you know, dance parties on the boat and stuff and there’s a group of people who had just a ton of white jokes here like in a row. Like people have chuck Norris jokes. Oh sure. Just in a row of them. And I mean, and again, if you’re listening right now and you’re a redneck redneck, redneck jokes are kind of funny because they’re based on reality. Yes, there is some, you know, as bus parked on their yard,

You know this, you know that, you know that you’ve been on that bus, been on the bus, you’ve seen this, you’ve had a cold bag, hard choice that said buzz. Don’t be offended. I’d tell you what, just do not be offended. I love the line with time we had, I forget who it was we were interviewing, he said his line was, when I’m offended that you’re offended, right. Rises, lie. Cause he, I have an audio clip of a, of a bus driver that was easy to offend here. Let me cue this up here. Let me get this cued up here.

Okay.

See when you get that kind of reaction, don’t you almost have to throw something else z. Sometimes you do. But

Oh, here we go. This, that’ll end your business coach field trip pretty quick. Huh? Don’t, don’t sandwich. We’re going to go on the field trip. Here we go. Hey, I’m trying to score points with a teacher today.

Believable, Ben. I’m just saying we’ve all seen that scene, Chris Farley’s freaking out. But you see, I mean there’s, you just don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to be that person and you don’t, you want to be slow, very slow to anger. And I know that’s easy to say and particularly in this day and age. So I’ve got so many things out there that are kind of pulling and pushing and prodding on us and we’re under a lot of stress, you know, which is really, we gotta get something done in a certain amount of time. We’re busy, busy, busy. And someone cuts you off. Someone does this. I’m going to just, you could just feel your blood pressure rising. You get the red in your face and just rage. It’s a flight and fight or flight, right? I’m going to fight, but just take a deep breath and realize it’s going to be okay and you know, forgive yourself for being mad when you shouldn’t have been.

Forgive them for making you mad and just learned to go through life with this, with this thing of you know where you’re going to think about it and be calm, be calm and not be all worked up about something. Do you have still the call if people call at nine one eight four six oh that’s the official office number at nine 1846046146 (918) 461-2020 it’s home with the $99 you got your first pair of glasses, you’re exam $99 I go force it and I 1-846-ONE-2020 and do you still take calls where you can have audio of you doing a therapy session with a thriver recently? Yes. It’s going to cue that up here. Oh, absolutely. Please. Who stressed out? They called the help. Yes. Yes. Four six one 2020 I love doing this. Robert [inaudible] to get through the front desk. You, I usually just ask for Robert [inaudible]. Bob, Bob Potts for Bobby. And this was your last therapy session with a thriver good. Oh, perfect. Great. [inaudible] Pressure. You gotta rise your buffet. You got a harness in the good energy. Walk out the harness energy block, Bam.

Feel the flow happy, feel it. It’s circular. It’s like a carousel. You pay the quarter, you get on the horse, it goes up and down and the round circular circle, circle music, the flow. All good things. All good. All good. Thanks. Benghazi.

We’re going to ask Julia, Judy have any final question for Dr z before we give Wendy the Mike. Give Wendy. Oh, Wendy’s going to happen. Like now when the little commercial people are coming in hot.

Wendy has been working faithfully with elephant in the room for a couple of years and did a really, really good job at the store level. Managing a store. What does that mean? She has about 1200 members she has to manage and she’s managing all the employees and all the stylists and she has expressed an interest of wanting to move beyond a manager level and to eventually consult with clients. And

So she has begun the path she’s learning. The search engine moves because you can’t teach it if you can’t do it. Zonemail a windy welcome onto the thrive time show. How are you? I am fantastic. It’s great to be here. Thank you. All right. So Wendy, what questions do you have for Dr Robert h? Zellner and associates. All right, so now that you have so much that you’ve accomplished, I know you have so many businesses that you’re partners with, with clay and on your own and they’re all successful. They’re all doing great. Is there, what is your next goal? What else do you, Oh wow, that’s a hot question because he won’t get that question asked very much. Well, no, I’ve got a few businesses that are queued up. I’ll tell you off air what they are, but I’ve got, they’re there in the, what I call in Q. I just open up some new businesses.

Two months ago I got the second location opened up and you it very well and that has some vertical integration. I’m going to continue to kind of work in that, but then I’ve also got a, the next one lined up and quite possibly the next one after that line, just so I can continue to grow and develop more businesses. Instead of saying, okay, I’ve hit a point, I’m done, I’ve had enough, and now I’m going to go on, make an island fun for him. Oh No, I want to do both. I want to go start a new business and hang out on a Jamaican island. I mean, they’re not, and that’s the thing about, they’re not, you know they’re not, what’s the word I’m looking for? They’re not, I would say got mutually exclusive ideas. If I had to do,

This is my, let me give you a z 1.0 notable quotable from your head. We’ll stamp this as the first 10 years of business and then I’ll do z 2.0 next 10 years now. Z three point on my opinion. Okay. So first z 1.0 was I think z did, what ever it took. That’s, that’s one point. Oh, so at seven days a week for how many years, buddy? A couple. Three, yeah. Seven days a week. Working seven days a week. That’s like whatever it takes. And Z, I believe 2.0 was I’m going to do whatever it takes, but I am also going to have fun when I get in the enzyme. I think that was probably four or five years into business. You, you be very intentional about having fun and we’re doing whatever it took. Right. I mean during that, and I think z 3.0 is he wants to have a blast e-blast first and when at the same time they’re not mutually exclusive at all anymore. I think you have, I think now you’ve got to a place where it’s almost funny to you these certain things that would make a young od Dr Zelner potentially upset, you know, a the crazy things that happen in business. I think now it’s almost funny. I think it’s like a comedy. You

Look at it from a different level now or do you think, I mean, I think you’ve dealt, you’ve learned how to delegate and elevate and it’s almost like funny now. I mean, you’re right. And when a problem that you know, it’s like I tell people the analogy, I love analogies. It’s like when you have a, a two or three year old daughter and she can’t find her, her favorite Barbie doll or her favorite doll and the world is ending as we know it for her. Got The tee shirt. There you go. And so the, so find to, because that’s her perspective and no matter what you tell her, no matter what you do, short at producing said doll immediately to her because you as a parent know everything, right? You’re omnipotent when it comes as opposed to the household. And what’s so funny, through Miter, no matter what you can do, that’s the meltdowns are gonna happen and the world is ending as we know it.

And then you tack on a few years, it’s amazing. Then all of a sudden it’s like, remember when you had that tantrum about, couldn’t find your Barbie? And they’re like, yeah, that’s so silly. You know, we, our perspective changes as we get older and we understand that that’s not that big a deal. You know, what the world didn’t end and I found something else to play with and a life did go on. So it’s just that perspective of life and going through. And I guess for me, even though I’m 54 you know, it’s Kinda like, I feel like I’ve been through so many of these kinds of experiences in life. That example, an employee tries to extort money from you. [inaudible] Like as an example, as he has had multiple times where somebody knows they’re in a crisis situation where they’re short staffed and they will approach you with a demand for a ridiculous raise at the very moment when you need them to do their job.

Oh, absolutely. Happens a lot though. It’s trying to move. They smell weakness. They say go and he’ll say, look man, z’s one business coach manager short. So I’m going to go in there and I’m going to pretend like I’ll say, hey, I got another opportunity now, if I could double my wage or go by 40% or some crazy number, they know you can’t make money at that level. They’re going to say, I have to leave you there all the time. You’ve seen it. It’s like a move. Now you’ve seen the move, don’t you? I know the move. It’s coming now. How do you handle that move? How would you, what’s your, what’s your move to handle them? And I smile real big. And I said, well, absolutely yes. By giving you a raise. You’re the shark only tax efficient bleeding. You do know that, right? I mean, so, so when you’re bleeding, you can’t go down and say, why is the shark trying to beg my honor?

Because that’s what they do. So I smile and go, Oh, you bet. And you want that better schedule. We’ll chat on why you’re working on Saturdays either come on, well, you bed, you get your pay raise, you get your new schedule. Anything else I can do for you? Okay, let’s hug this thing out, hug it out. And then if you get a hug out, watch out. Oh, watch out now. And then I’d go promptly and hire somebody to replace that person and until they’re hired and trained and ready to go, then I don’t fire said earlier. So you have somebody working for you that you might not like for a week or two or a month or so. And you know why? Why? Because I don’t want to get down there and do the work that I’m paying them to do. That’s what it’s my choice.

I could put a younger, you might have let him go cause you were mad. Oh yeah. And then you’d be working in the gym, wrestling them. You get them down move. You had to teach me. I’m like, you are literally having someone who works for you right now that makes you crazy. You’ve told them about it, you’re at blind setting and told them it bothers you. Oh yeah. But now you’re going to literally give someone that you can’t stand a res app two weeks before you fire them. Absolutely. It’s impressive because there’s the super boob at your business. You get to make the decisions. Oh, the one that gets to decide whether they stay or leave, so he’s fine.

You Go, you know what I, two weeks ago when you came in and made her those ridiculous demands that I said yes to. Yeah, but you put your said yes to them. I said, well you bet I did because I wanted to keep your eye out for these two weeks, but that day

Fired you and you are a great poker player. You’re a great poker player. I W I wouldn’t go as far as great. Very good. You did it blow out. You do it. What’s the best card game? Let’s bet card game. You’re the best at the bet. The woman that I’m best at. Yeah, probably. I don’t know. Hold him or could you? When have you played enough? Like if you play enough, if you play long enough, are you gonna win more than half the time? I believe I’m, yes. I’m you have a poker face? I have, yes. I have a poker. I don’t know if it’s a very good poker face, I have a poker face but you could win more often than not. If you play long as I’m, I’m gonna help you with your, with your, with your story yet when you normally come out ahead, I always win. I never lose. I mean, I know you, I know your probably said when you, when you go to Vegas, do you usually come out ahead or breakeven?

It would depends. I mean, when you’re playing poker at the whole, that’s a whole different kind of mindset and a lot of times I like tournaments, which are a big win or you don’t say their all or nothing kind of thing. So so when I played like an a tournament, yeah,

Poker face is incredible. It. Thank you. You smell great today brother. You look like you smell great. I mean, I take my ear from where I’m sitting, but I wish I could, I can’t believe that you survived the cruise ship. I’m just glad you did. As am I as am I now Wendy, what other questions do you have for Dr Robert Zellner? The results of your question, by the way.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, fantastic. So the other question I have, is there anything that you were ever approached about business wise that you said no to that later on either became successful or you look back and you said, gosh, I really should have done that?

Yeah, about 30 years ago the guy by the name of gates called me up upon a meeting. Okay. He wanted me to come to this garage and helping with this electronic thing that he was working on. And I was like, yeah, that sounds stupid.

No Way. Get out here.

No, I’m thinking back on that and I, I’m, I get real estate, I get shark tank a lot. And yeah, there was probably some real estate deal that I could have or should have done back before when the dike downtown was blowing up. I had a buddy that had a building down there and it was almost like you’re just buying it for the land itself at the time. Crazy low prices to crazy low prices back in the day. And I probably should have played in that arena a little bit. Bought and sat on them for for a hot minute and then I’m gone and cleaned them up and done something with them. So I look back at some commercial real estate that I had. You need time. You’re, you’re investing your money, you’re building an asset. That’s a good thing. So many people invest their money in things that, that don’t appreciate or don’t, you know, they don’t become an asset and

It’s a tough boss. It’s a tough deal because you’re going to buy that property downtown. The summit property was, it was being sold after they bought it. They bought it for the price of the land, but to upkeep the maintenance to taxes and it did not turn around for what, like a decade. I mean seven years. I mean that’s a long play.

It is a long play. But you need to look back on, you say, you know, something that you know, now downtown is blowing up and doing great and those buildings are going for a premium and people are coming in and tearing them down or gutting them and doing all kinds of crazy cool things with them. And so, you know, then you look back on it now, now you’re paying the rate. Everybody’s paying for them. But you know, if you’d had that foresight to buy them and sit on them for a little bit, you know. But I, I would say that there’s, I’ve been shark tank quite a few times on businesses and there’ve been a few of them that people have gone on as a general thumb and done well with. But I still, I don’t look back on those and go, Gosh, I wish I was born vested in that. Any more. When people approached me with the business idea, usually the deal killer for me is, is that I can’t control it and, and I don’t want to invest in something that I’m just not a venture capitalist to go around and say, oh here’s your money. Yeah I get an extra point or two above with the banquet get because the bank has the cheapest money in town and z. Here’s some money for you to go do your dream and good luck. And these very well,

Very wise. I’d say wise it’s, it’s like he knows the right decisions to make. So I think it could be a burden to watch somebody make mistakes. Cause most people learn through mistakes or mentors. Right. And most people, for whatever reason, we prefer to learn from mistakes. I think. So when you watch a young man or young woman just making endless mistakes at your expense, you’re kind of like, it blows it because you can’t control it. I can’t control it. So if you’re out there and you’re thinking about having z invest in stuff that I was trying to tell ya, he, he’s doesn’t lose. But it’s cause you can make those decisions. And so that’s why that’s the difference between a you and an venture capitalist. A venture capitalist just throws money at an entrepreneur and says, hopefully it works out. Yeah, go get them.

Go get them buddy goop, GIM tiger venture capitalist. Even the most successful firms like sequoia, they talk about how they invest in 10 businesses and they hope that one of them makes it. That’s their business strategy. Right. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. But that’s how they make other money. It only takes one Facebook to make it all back. There are book a face or something. Look at the face and look at the phase Z. I want to have Andrew when he met Andrew, opportunity to ask you a question cause he’s got a lot of great clients he works with and he’s a young man who’s does the coding. He does the coaching, he does ad management. He just does a lot. He’s got a lot of clients and obviously not all of them could be here on today’s show. But Andrew, what’s a question that you think that your clients would love to ask z? Or maybe questions you’ve been asked today that you think they’d be a great question as Dr z? Absolutely. so I actually have a client right now who is actually going to meet with someone who would be a, a potential investor in the company and he’s trying to figure out if it’s a good move to go for the investment or to

Wait, grind it out or look for a more of a bank, a more of a, a loan as opposed to selling, you know, 15% of the company to the to the busienss coach or investor. He’s known this guy for about probably about eight months. But he’s worked with someone who’s known him basically all his life and they have a good connection. So he’s trying to figure out should he invest or should he take on an investor? Should he just wait, grinded out or should he look more towards like a bank?

The weight grinded out as number number one. Choice number two, choice is the bank number three. Number three choices, the investor, Justin, you said number one choice, grind it out. Number two, choice bank number three, investor. Why hub this last business that I was asked about just a little bit ago that I just started a couple of months ago. I had about a year ago when I was formulating it, maybe six to eight months ago, I couldn’t tell you exact amount. I had a dinner with some folks that wanted to invest and they were going to buy 10% of the business for a certain amount of money. Yeah. And so they had the money and they were brought to me by somebody else on the team and said, hey, listen, I know, I knew you’re thinking about, you know, raising all this money and here’s some folks who want to play with us one on one on a bike.

I’m like, okay, cool. So I’ll have dinner with them or I’ll visit with them for, I met with them and neat couple. And you know, they had, they had some resources, some money and you know, the 10%, the amount, we kinda got through all that and okay. Okay, okay. And then all dinner long I was probably asked, I dunno, a hundred questions and some of them were kind of almost to the point of like almost like silly, like, you know you know, like so are you going to have a landline phone? Yeah. Well you got that figured out yet. We’ll know. We’ll get that figured out. What the culture, oh, well that’s okay. I mean all these silly little questions about micro, I’ve just felt, I just felt like this micro managing thing was kind of cloud was coming on top of me, you know, and how often do we get the numbers and how often do we get reporting and can we come in and could we help with that?

Could we verify that? I mean, I mean I, by the time I got, by the time they’re asking for dessert, I was asking for a gun. I was going to shoot there for my sound. I said thank you for dinner. You just confirm the fact that I’m not going to have any investors in this business have a wonderful life. Thank you for your time and left. You know, so I think the investors with the investors do is that particularly with somebody who’s not very savvy and business and do, what happens is is that they’re a weight, they are a weight and they’re also just so annoying. Just Dhabi. Just you just want to say, listen, I got this. Just trust me. We’re doing what we need to do and here’s the reasons why. And they still aren’t happy. They still there. They’re still not happy with dates

Cause there’s a different, it’s a different, there’s three things that come with the investors. Either the three Cs, here’s the three Cs. You got the connections whether you like them or not. All of their buddies now somehow have a waiting waiting. Do you all want this cat that show up in your own all? They’re all the connections. Then the council, they’re like, go watch one episode of Shark tank and read one chapter of one self help book and now they come in with life advice for you. Yeah. Oh yeah. They’ve got a lot of the cash, which it’s better just to get money from a bank and you can’t.

Yeah. So that’s why number two choice was the bank. And if you could get money from a bank, that’s always the best, right? And they’re going to be very professional about it. They’re not going to call you every other day going, how’s your sales today? What’s going on? What’s your, where are you going to do? I mean, what are you going to hire that person you’ve hired this person, I think, I mean, I sent my cousin and you said you’re not going to hire him. Why is that? What’s going on with their, you know, but they’re going to be, hey, we need, we need the P and l statements. We need quarterly, we need whatever they set up as your base that you need to provide them. And then then it’s all business and then you provide them with that. And that’s good. That’s what you should be doing anyway.

And then the grinding apps the best, that’s the most rewarding because that is right there when you, when you have to, it’s kind of like the poker analogy where we had the clay was talking about earlier about the poker face and talking now fees, when you get short stack, we don’t have as many chips. Your decision making gets heightened and you is this hand, am I all in on this hand? I mean am I going to go to war in this hand? Is this the d? You know, so your, your thinking process, when you get a little whole lot of chips, you do a lot of lazy calls, a lazy this, Lazy that. But when you’re kind of short stacks, you’re little, you’re a little fool. And so I think when you’re in the grind, you’re, if you will, in the business, you’re short stacked, if you will.

And so, you know, hey, where are you buying paper and how much is important? You know, are you providing bottled water for everyone of your employees? 24, seven, they’d drink two sips out of it, leave it on the counter, which drives me crazy will, by the way. So in other words, you, you’re, you kind of make more decisions based upon that. You don’t have a fat account in a bank sitting there just waiting for you to blow through some cash. Right. You know I, I think it keeps you leaner. It keeps you meaner and it keeps you more on track with your business. I really do. So that grinding it out is very rewarding. Plus that also implies that you’re having to give it more, you know, you’re having to be in there, you’re having to, I don’t just have a think back account.

I just, I’m gonna hire a manager and go to Jamaica. Right. I mean, that’s your choice. Right? And so, you know, you’re the manager and you have to get in there and grind it down. When you finally build it up and it ramps off and your multiple locations, your franchise, and you’ve got it busy, you’ve got a, you know a bunch of employees, you’ve got it dialed in, your procedures, your your protocol, and that was telling. You can go, you know what? Now I can step away a little bit at a time and not have to be in the grind of it. So that’s why that’s always my first choice. Bank money, cheap money, second choice and investors edit third, especially if it’s your uncle Carl with an uncle Carl.

No, see we had a thriver out here who writes, he says, what are your thoughts about business plans? Obviously you don’t need a formal business plan to buy a lawn mower and cut grass. I’m wanting to know your thoughts in this. What I did to make your life easy is I broke down from the book called pitching hacks written by novel Ravi Con to the founder of Angel List on Deval has distilled the how to make a business plan into 13 steps. I’m putting a link to it so you guys can download the book for free, the PDF, and I’m going to read off the 13 points and then z you can fire off. Why? Okay. If you’re going to pitch somebody, why do you want to have a cover on there that has like a logo and a tagline? Why should they be cover of it? At least look professional.

Well, because it did, it exudes it. It shows that you are professional. I don’t know how many people look at a logo, look at branding and make up their mind right then and there. They look at the front page or the first half of the front page of a website and determine whether or not this is some hokey deal or not. Or try low kit. You know, it’s funny, it’s Kinda like with our thrive time business umbrella that we do here, how many people have called us over the years and now I guess three years, four years we’ve been doing this and say, aren’t you guys really legit? You guys really,

Dude, you know what’s crazy? If you’re out there listening right now, I wanna I wanna I want to help you. Help me on this. I’ve had Julia answers the phone call. She probably deals with it more than I do at this point. Abby does as well. People will ask that all the time, aren’t you guys legit or [inaudible]? And I always tell him, just come to Tulsa, book a ticket to the conference. Listen, I promise you I’ll upsell you nothing. If you leave us a review on what you’ve heard so far on the, on the sh on the show, I’ll give you a ticket for $37. Just come here. $37 zero that a lot of peaks, a lot of people. We’ve had people from Canada, we have people from Florida, we’ve had Australia, we’ve had cal [inaudible]. I’ve had people come here on like a Wednesday or a Thursday and they’ll just go to our companies trolling out, getting a haircut.

Oh yeah. Trolling around and read your new banner radio and bank you invested in is real. They’re over there looking for you. You know somebody who’s trolling out when they’re looking for durable medical equipment, supplies off the street. You know what I mean? For No, they’ll go spy on the bed. They want to know if your real companies are real and then once they know that we’re real, it changes the conversation. But that cover do not be rejected. Don’t allow your book to be rejected by the cover. Now move number two. You got to have a quick summary. Z and elevator pitch. One page or less. What’s the, what’s this thing? Why do you have to have a quick summary? If you’re going to pitch to a wealthy person to the point, come on baby, get to them.

Come on. How are we gonna make money with this? That too. Bottom line, z people don’t want to get to the point. They want to ramble on and on and no, no, no, you can’t ramp. You can’t ramp y. I’ll tell you what you may say, my cover, my book is not important because it’s what matters on the inside. But I tell you what, in life, every book, whether you like it or not, is judged by the cupboard. Preach. So you’ve got to have a good cover. Oh, and then on that first page, you got to get to the point point. You can’t do the daily business coach round. You gotta get to that point. You got to, how are we gonna make money? How are we gonna make that money? How are we going to continue to make money? How are we gonna continue to make that money?

What are we gonna do with that money? Write that down so much. Write that down. That’s good. Slides. You slept. Three friends, slept three slept three friends. Okay, so z summary. Now the team 0.3. Why do you want to list on your pitch deck, your business plan, your who’s on your team? Why do you want to list a specific people’s names? Here’s the deal. It’s so important that people you have gathered around you. I tell you this right now, Andrew. I could say, Hey, what are the five friends that are closest to you that around you the most, that gave you have told they have total access into your life and that would define you as a person. True. And the business, the people you have gathered on your team are going to help define that business when you’ve got rock stars and studs on there.

I give you, you have rock stars. You can make good music and what not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Why’s Darryl drunk? We can’t detail a car, but we can sing about it. Yeah, man. Okay. No. Hey Man. But the better quality team you have on there and you don’t just talk about, you talk about their credentials, you talk about their a little, a little bio little quick, you know who they are and why they’re on your team. And that is very powerful because now all of a sudden the person looks at and goes, Oh wow, that’s cool. You got a CPA on your team and that’s impressive. The 12 variables you gotta have here. So one you have to cover. Yup. Two summary. Yup. Three the team. Yep. Four. Why do you explain the problem? See the actual problem that you’re solving. Why is that so important?

Because here’s the deal. If there’s, if there’s no problem to solve then you’re just kinda having fun with some product. You have to find it. The more intense and the more life changing that frame, that problem is, the more likely you are. You’re going to have those emotional buys. You’re going to have that, that racket. Have I told you about the power washer business? Have I told you I was a power washer? I’m telling you there was this guy who called a I, but people on the outside of the website, I kind of envisioned them knocking on the door and then we opened the door and I don’t really know

What to expect and you probably don’t know what to expect. Hopefully you know what to expect about us. Cause you’ve read reviews, you’ve looked online, you’ve looked at photos, you look at videos. Sure. But this guy opens the door. One of our sales associates picks up the phone, talks to this guy for about a half hour. Wow. Eric. And I did the call together. It was beautiful, and I listened to the calls. I always listened to the calls to make sure we’re on the same page. And this guy has a power washing business. This is his model. He knocks on your door. Hey, is the owner of the hell home here? Is he in a yes, yes, yes. Okay. And imagine this actually happened at your house. Okay. Okay. I was in the air and power Washington houses and a, typically we charge $300 to power wash a house or whatever the number was.

It was $300. But if you’ll prepay for the year A, we’ll do it for half off. So today you’d be walking out, you’d be looking at a $900, you know, $900 up front to pray, to prepay for your power washing for the year. Or a hundred or 1,250 times 12 should be 200 if you hit a kid hitting a polished would be like 1600 bucks. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it’s like, it’s normally $300 a month per power wash, but with it 12 times a year, if you prepay, it’s $1,500 now this guy, every person he talked to said, now can you please, you’ve never met this man. You don’t know this story. Maybe he still listens to the show. Can you please explain door

Knocking on the homes of wealthy people and asking someone you just met to prepay $1,500 for a monthly power washing is the reverse of a no brainer. Can you please explain why he had zero sales in years? I know why. Why? Because everybody saw him as a scam artists, right? And nobody wanted to prepay for house cleaning around, tough to go wash. She talked the Guy, I said, so you’re telling me the biggest issue you have? I said, have you power washed in the past? He goes, yeah, people pay him like $300 one time and it’s always like a onetime deal. And people don’t ever call me, but like twice a year. And I’m like, so what do you want to do? He says, I want to do automatic automated recurring revenue revenue like your elephant in the room where it’s recurring revenue. It’s what I wanna do is I want it to, whether they pay upfront and it’s a monthly thing, and we, you could only get that after you get the golden look.

He has it backwards. He’s making the ask before he gives the president, he said, hey, is the owner there? Hi, I’m actually a power washer and I was power washing your neighbors house. And we do our first power washing for a dollar. Would you be okay if I power washed your home for a dollar? There you go. And then after I power washed your home, I show you that. Do a little quick inspection. Take Five, 10 minutes or are you happy Dr Zellner with the service? Absolutely did a great job, buddy. Well, Hey, if you want us to, how many times a year do you power wash your house? Once a year or twice. How often do you power wash? No. No, you don’t do. You don’t do it then you don’t do it then even, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don’t now don’t pre pen.

Come on. Come on. We have one. Availability can go [inaudible] now go talk to my manager because we have one availability. I’ll see you. I think we’re sold out. Where did he get it wrong? Right there. Why Q? Why can’t you go to the net close? We’re we’re, we’re, we get it wrong. Well, here’s the deal. No, what you do is you, is you booked them for their next power clean. Oh, you booked the next one. You booked the next power book. Okay. You book it. You say, listen your house to size the houses whenever. I mean, you know, would you ever, let’s say, let’s get you booklets. We’re booking up, but I come to this neighborhood, you know, we’re doing, I don’t know what he recommend every two months. Once a month. I don’t even know what does a power, you never got that far because he would come, he would not be willing to do the first service at any discount at all.

Yeah, that’s wrong. He said the first service would be like four 50 as opposed to 300 if you’re not going to sign up for his program. Yeah. Or the other booth is, what are you talking about? The other movies, just power wash a portion of the house and let them see what you can do. I’m saying this guy and this guy and I, and whenever you have something stat emotional and that poor, I’m like, Hey, I care. But I just have to know are you coachable at this appointment? Are you you and you’ve been power washing for a decade, right? Yeah. And you’re telling me in years no one’s ever done. And he’s like, that’s why I’m calling you. I helped with my branding, frack frack and Eric and I were like, Whoa, you just got to move on. You did and move on. You do.

But I mean the, the, the moves or the moves and the moves, you’ve got to get the golden look and the golden look is who wouldn’t? That homeowner says, yes, power wash my house. Oh, come on. And you need to do whatever you need to do to get that yes or no to get that. And you showed them that you are a rock star. Power Washer. Yes and that you do a good job. You can be trustworthy. Now you booked the next one [inaudible] and then at that point then at that point you could talk about when they talked about how much is it so then the next move is you see, so then they go, well how much? How much? How much is it? We got a couple of different options. We’ve got a couple options. We recommend you can pay as you go. Three bills, 300 300 days.

A lot of people, a lot of customers, 300 money bring paying a little discounts or you know, we can prepaid, we’ve got two packages. We’ve got the six-month package or we have the royal royal package, the royal homeowner package. This is a royal royal flush. We don’t, we don’t know. There’s limited number of these and 30 spots and you prepay for the for the year, but you get it almost. We can’t have power wash every house in Oklahoma. I mean we can’t be limited. I’m limited to how many I can do on this royal homeowners. And then you, you, you give him the options and now all of a sudden they see what you’ve done a great job. You’ve built a rapport with them and now all of a sudden they’ll be like, well let’s try it one more month and you know, so and it is a really bad that you’re booking and you’re making 300 set up a buck 50 and I’m purchasing.

So the business plan, okay, step four, you list the problem. Step five plus the solution, which we just talked about. Step six, you talk about the technology you’re going to use. Okay. Step seven, you talk about the marketing you’re going to use step eight, the sales system, you’re going to use eight the sales conversion system, you’re gonna use nine the competition, who’s out there competing with you? If you don’t know, by the way, that’s a problem. It’s a problem. 10 the milestones you want to hit to give the investors a return. 11 there’s a conclusion like, okay, in summary, this is what I’m asking for, and in 12 to financing how you’re going to structure the deal, and as soon as you define that and you give that to an investor and he invests, get ready for it to change up immediately. Like this is like you’re, the way I would look at a business plan is it’s like I’m going to drive from Oklahoma to Minnesota.

I know my destination. I know that I put in my gps, but there’s going to be traffic cones on the way. Sure. You don’t be a moron. We, you’re like, well, my plan said to stay on a highway 12 going westbound from now. I know that there was a gaping hole in the highway, but I went for it. Not sure. I mean, you got a detour. I mean, you got a big, these pivots and I lot of entrepreneurs are like, my business plan stated that this is what I’m going to do and I’m not going to change it because this is what I wrote on paper. It’s all fun and games. They get punched in the nose. Right, right, right. But the thing about it, I think it would a business plan does, is it’s so beautiful in that it, it forces a person to sit down and actually write down, come on what it is they’re actually thinking in their brain.

Because when you write it down, you really read it, or you have your buddy read it, or you have your friend read it. Or I’m like, Bro, how high were you when you wrote this? I don’t live sober. I was completely sober already. Meaning this doesn’t make sense. Furthermore, like you were changing fonts. Ah, have you read your own words and really do think that the, the, the, the, the problem is that there’s not enough chocolate chips and chocolate chip cookies. [inaudible] At one time a day, z shut me down. He said he shut me down. He shut, he shut. You shut me down. Like the Shawshank redemption shut. It was a sound like in like a door from star wars. Shush. Shush, Shush, Shush, shush. And none. And then I did a ton of wedding bookings with DJ connection. Yes. The largest entertainment company in the region.

Perhaps in the country some instead. Ted is like 4,000 weddings a year. And I was like, I’m gonna Open my own wedding chapel. Why wouldn’t you? And you seemed like a great idea. I remember you going, hey, how many referrals do you get from other wedding chapels? And I was like, a lot. You’re like doing any wedding channel’s going to refer you once they know you’re competing, probably not. Okay. And it’s going to cost you $1 million to build it. Maybe 2 million. I think it was at the time was like two and a half million. You had a swanky plaza? Oh yeah, it was, it was a, it’s an Italian themed. Yeah. Oh yeah. And you’re like, you’re going to drop two and a half million dollars on a house that will then cut off your referral lines. I’m like, palm passionate. And you’re like, I love you bro.

But I gotta I gotta piece out I gotta piece, I’m gonna get some Bobby devil double downing on this whole wedding industry. I mean I know that there’s a lot of emotions there and it’s, it’s one of those things you probably can overcharge most brides cause they just want it perfect cause they want to, hey come on, you paid for your weddings was at $50 a plate golf glove. Oklahoma’s at 50 bucks a pipe perks out of my memory is bliss. I don’t $50. You know what? There’s people that you barely know who invite a date. Who you don’t know and it’s $100 100 a hundred dollars right there. Hey I don’t know how much I spent in my backyard and I don’t want to know a hundred but I don’t to know at least a hundred bucks for somebody you barely know who brought someone you don’t know who then said can I bring a friend?

Cause they’re also from Michigan. Sure. Cause I was at your daughter’s wedding. There’s some great people there but you know, and I know there are people that you don’t know who are there. Well of course that’s how it works. That’s how words, when a wedding is a wedding, get together, up free, place to go and scam food and cake. Let’s all offer some reason. Return to the old English Times where we hand write things with calligraphy. We’re dropping about 20 bucks an invitation. Nobody even checks their mail anymore and it’s like, do I think I just go up on my mouth? Andrew and Manna, we would like to invite you to this hallowed occasion is requesting is check if our chicken or beef please. The bequeath would like to record or we, what words are these words? What do you say? Bequeathed? What the crap does that mean?

You’re like looking this up. You’re going, what’s the old English version of it? I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy. And again, all I’m saying is that z cared enough to go, nope, nope, we see you. You’ve got to get out there and pitch that thing. Once you have the business plan, you got to pitch that thing and when you get feedback, ask the person who says no, why? And each time it gets more and more refined. And then I found it after z rejected me. I thought, you know what, I can vertically integrate. I can buy a party rental company cause I don’t get referrals from party rental companies because they book the bride’s book, the party rentals. After the disc jockey, they get the ring, they get the gown, they get the cake, then they go out there and they get booked the DJ, then they get the partner rentals as an afterthought.

I should get that company and it saved me a lot of money. Made me a lot of money about chocolate fountains, about Margarita machines, dance floors. That made a lot of sense. But if you want to said, sure, let’s build a wedding chapel, I would have cut off all of my referral lines and maybe not all of them. And a lot of you might’ve. And then you know, you work those wedding conferences and whatnot. A little bit different. But you know, you could be one stop shop. It’s still, it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s a, at the time, the mind that you had to put into it, it wasn’t like, Hey, I’ve got a house here. I’ve got a venue in my backyard. I’m going to start using it. Kind of, you know, have a, have an option for somebody. I mean, you’re going to build some two and a half, a million-dollar, you know, Mega, mega wooding.

Jeff and I had the financing approved and I was ready to go. I was like, wow. Yeah. Cause you know, the banks want to lend you money if they know you always pay off your bills. Yes. Z, they don’t care if it’s a profitable thing. They’re like, as long as you’re going to pay us back, you look at them, you got to have cash flow. We’re here in this business. Even if it’s a, even if it sucks, right. This would still make the pain a certain point of wedding man or a banking, a banker could be like your hype man. Oh sure. They’re like, oh, this is a good move. Sure. This right here because it is state right. It’s an asset. Oh yeah. Oh, oh, you were a call. I won’t say that. I know, but I feel like you were called.

Oh, the bank who I just met told me who makes a commission feels like I was cold. Oh yeah. I’ve gotta do this. I gotta do it. So zero one final, one final question. Where are the plots and like it should have been. So the plots. Okay. Just got one final question. Oh, this is from a gentleman who asked him, he remained anonymous. He’s a doctor. Thosee okay. And You doctors, you guys are, you got you, you doctors are a unique type. Yeah. You’ve been to school for a long time. We can be a little squirly. Your smart guys. So your questions tend to be smart. However they could be too smart. This is a question he says he wants to provide a cash based medical service for patients who donate to a specific charity. So if a patient donates a certain amount to this specific charity, I guess then he will treat them at a discount. Maybe it says, I want to treat a cash based cause. I want to provide a cash based medical service for patients who donate to a specific charity. Specifically, I want to direct them direct to profit to a charity, but need them to pay for the cost of goods. Can I ask the patients to donate a specific amount to the charity then pay me for the costs? Or do I need to just click the full amount and donate the profit through my company z?

Like it’s choice B. I mean it’s just crazy. You have passions out there and you have organizations and you have five oh one c three companies that you feel great about and you want to help them. Don’t try to sell if you’re a doctor, sell being a doctor, but don’t try to the fact that you

Know you want to help orphans in Zimbabwe, which is a great thing to do, but, but don’t make that to where I’m only going to see patients that want to help orphans in Zimbabwe. I mean that’s really limiting your potential patient list. And if you feel strongly about orphans in Zimbabwe, God bless you. Make a bunch of money on patients that, whether they care about orphans or not, or even they care about Zimbabwe or they even know where Zimbabwe is. And then once you make a fat man of cash, you can go fly to Zimbabwe and say, hey orphans, here’s the money and you can help them because that’s your heart. Don’t try to, don’t try to get your, here’s the thing, your business is, your car is your tool for you to make money. Now what you make money you do with that, you’d be a good steward of it.

You do with that money. Would you feel like you’d need to do with that money? But don’t try to sale, sell your business. Don’t sell what you want to do with the money that you’re going to make off your business. So it’s an easy answer. Charge them said fees. If you want to tell them, hey, listen, if they want to feel good about it, it’s a move anymore. With this social media stuff right now with these young kids, it’s a move right now to let them know that you have some social aspect of your business. In other words, you’re saying, Hey, I’m going to help. My big thing is, are you still donating disease travel fund? Yes, I am. It’s a, it’s a worthy, it’s worthy fund. If anybody out there wants to go to Vegas, he’s been able to go to South America.

I think you have challenges he’s been able to go to all over. There’s one was one optometrist has done very well this year and it’s for as little as, what is it, a thousand a day. You can support your fire. You can patch it up. Tell us exactly a thousand a day. That’s all. You’re still good about it too and you might partner up with a buddy and he wants you. He doesn’t want it each. And that’s okay if he doesn’t go on Facebook post on linkedin occasionally, but usually you won’t even see what you’re getting. But it’s not about seeing that. It’s no easy. I’ve done the right thing. I try to, my point is, yes, have a charity, have something in your heart that you want to, you know, use your hard earned money to make the world a better place. Do that. But don’t make that rely.

Don’t make your business relying on people that also feel that way because that’s not what business is about. Business is not about trying to find, you know, people that want to help you know, orphans in Zimbabwe and everybody else you don’t care about. You’re not going to give you a services to give her services to everybody. And then you know, those that find out that you do it with that you might find a little tribe or some people that are interested in that or someone wants to try them and some Bob Bob way, you know, and try him. But, but just do it like that. And, and I get this from my favorite CEO of all times, Jack Welch, Jack Welch, who’s pictures behind me. So I always like to kind of give him a little point by Jack Welch music. Jackie big Jay is I sometimes call him j Debbie if we’re having a happy hour beverage that, you know what I mean? Jack and I will be having

Beverages here. Jack Wanted Jelly. I’ll be paying. Yeah. Okay. I’ll be paying because I get the [inaudible]

Privilege and hanging out with Jay Dab. Okay. It’s hard to make it awkward. It w he had some business coach employees approached him and said, hey, listen, we need to make a light bulb that screen. He goes, okay, tell me about that. It’s a good idea. We’ve got the design [inaudible] give me a look, Pete. Oh, thank you. We’ve got the design. We know it’s going to cost, but it’s going to be 10 times the cost of a regular light bulb, but it’s going to be green and therefore will make the world a better place.

My soldiers light bulb. Yes, yes, yes.

And CEO. Jack Welch says something to the effect of, that’s foolish. We’ll go out of business cause no one wants to pay 10 times more for a light bulb and they want to flip a switch and have a light come on. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to sell a lot.

I’ll be over here at the regular light bulbs and then all the money we make, what you could do with your portion of your profit that you make off of it, you could go and help make the world a greener place. Now somebody said though, but z, let’s try to sell the ones that are 10 times as much. And I have audio of you, cause you didn’t want Jack to lose his voice. So you hopped in and you educated. Oh yeah, the, the confusion. You got that recorded. I got that recorded. Oh Wow. This is from a really that early or later is, you would have been at that age, late eighties how old were you? 89 I was in my late twenties and you’re like, do we, so this, this could have been, you know, then you’re to see. Could not have been, I don’t know. I just know that I was nine years Cisco giants were playing. You record a lot of things around the world is they were playing and I got this audio.

How are you cancer? Probably saying to yourselves, Hey, I’m going to go out and I’m going to get the world by the tail and wrap it around and haunt down and burn it in my pocket. Well, I’m here to tell you that you’re probably gonna find out as you go out there that you’re not going to amount to Jack Squat.

That was good. I’m intense. It’s got about earlier you before, before you learned how to not fire off the cannon shots, but the kids got the message. They sure did that they got the message, hey and GE made it and they made profit.

They made a lot of profit. [inaudible] Increased the business by 4,000 with just the idea of what’s best for the business and then what you do is you don’t get your, the emotional, social thing that you want to do with the profit tied up in the business. Have Your Business to make your money and then go take your money and if you want to do whatever you want to do with do to want to do with it.

Yeah. I appreciate you letting us interrogate you today, my friend you had, you had some great, great answers to some great questions. The other rob, great questions. I’m going have to go back in and edit the show a little bit. A a take out a few voice, a few choice words. You know the word, it’s a few, a few a I think Adam Sandler clips. I said if you all got gotta go get some editing here. Pricing that you were having to edit. Adam Sandler had other stuff that’s not surprising at all by the way. Just goes into my tip poet. It just goes into my narrative of what I was saying earlier. What makes Adam Sandler in your mind better than Mel Gibson? Les Adam Sandler. Okay. Every show with a boom. I tried to bait him into it there. I just saw that. Yeah, that was a quick one. How that worked out for you. All right. Here we go. Three, two, one, boom.

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