James Mendelsohn | De-Mystifying Capital + Everything Small Business Owners Need to Know About Raising Capital w/ An Expert Whose Career Spans Experience Working w/ Capital One, McKinsey, Private Equity, Etc.

Audio Transcription

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Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show, but this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi -million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you, and they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, Now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U . S.

Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. Well, folks, many times as a business consultant, I meet with entrepreneurs who say, hey, I’m trying to raise capital. You’ll have a business that has 100 employees and they’re trying to raise capital. You have a business with 500 employees. they’re trying to raise capital.

A startup is trying to raise capital. So here to demystify the process of raising capital, what that looks like, the good, the bad, the ugly, everything related to capital is James Mendelsohn. Welcome onto the Thrivetime Show, sir. How are you? Hey, I’m great. Thanks for having me.

So James, real quick, with your background, I will put a link on the show notes so people can look you up. But for people who are not super familiar with your background, could you walk us through your career maybe over the past couple decades, what you’ve been doing? Because at a certain point you were born, and now you’re the Amazing Capital guy. Kind of walk us through your career if you can. Yeah, so I’m trained as a statistician. I joined Capital One when we were trying to figure out how to sell people credit cards and was there for a while in card marketing and corporate strategy.

After that, I was at the McKinsey consulting firm, focusing mostly on payments and lending. And then I spent five years in private equity. And then I got into this business because one of the things I learned along the way is how difficult it is for smaller companies, especially, to raise capital and access the capital markets. And that’s been our thesis from when we started almost eight years ago. So small business owners, let’s say a dentist, doctor watching this automotive repair shop, how do you help small business owners to raise capital? Yeah, well, let me clarify.

I mean, I think we can work with certainly a single dentist, but I think more often we’re working with a larger $5 to $50 million revenue operation. So it could be a network of dental offices, a chain of automotive repair shops, et cetera. But it really, even if you’re a single location or if you’re 20 locations, it’s going to start with the same two questions. What are you going to use the key for? capital for? And then how are you going to generate a return?

So whether it’s debt or equity, the questions are the same. If I want to open a second office, I want to buy new equipment, I want to buy another company. If I’m a dentist, I might want to acquire somebody else’s practice. And what’s the best way to do that? So it really starts with those two fundamental questions. Now, for people that want to maybe look you up, maybe go on Google or find you, where’s the best place people can go if they want to look into you more and maybe maybe connect with you offline?

Yeah, so go to our website, proximacapital . com. You can shoot us a contact form, talk to one of our folks, get on the phone with me. We can go through your situation and the kind of capital you’re trying to raise. And we’ll ask a lot of these types of questions. What are you trying to do?

What’s the use of the capital? How does it get deployed? If it’s debt, how does a lender get repaid? If it’s equity, how does that investor get a return? And a lot of the people we work with, they’ve never done this before. They’ve never worked with a structured finance lender or an equity investor.

And we’ll take the time to educate on how does this process work. We talk about generating a return on equity. A lot of times, no one’s really thought about that. Or they’ve watched something and they have some idea that their company should be worth $25 million. And that’s a great thing. aspiration, but that’s got to be backed up by some kind of narrative or numbers or preferably both.

And then we can help them approach the market and get the capital they’re looking for. I’m going to get very practical in three different silos of thought here. So one of our listeners right now is a franchise owner, and he has 550 franchises. So this man has sold over 550 franchises. They are in a certain space, a service space, 550 locations. And I know in this particular situation, this individual is looking to raise capital.

So for a guy like that watching today’s show who has 550 locations opened, he started the franchise, so he has revenue coming in from the franchisees, but he does not own each location, but there’s 550 locations. How could you help or not help someone like that? Yeah, so again, depends on what he’s going to do. And we’ve worked with master franchisors in a lot of situations. So it could be there’s another franchisor in the same category and he wants to acquire. It could be that he’s looking at his 550 units and saying, you know, some of these are aren’t up to snuff and I want to acquire them and make them company owned stores.

It could be that he wants a liquidity event. You know, he’s at it for a while and he wants to take some money off the table and he wants to sell a minority stake or a control stake or he wants to sell the whole thing and work out an exit strategy for him. So those are the kinds of things that we would want to explore. And there are all different solutions. It just really starts with you. You’ve got that kind of an operation that you’ve built.

you’ve got a lot of options. And depending if you want to keep growing, you want to take money off the table, you want to grow organically or inorganically, and we can help you figure that out. OK, so let’s do example number two. One of my clients, great person. I’m thinking of them right now. They’re heavily involved in the contracting industry.

They sell actual tangible goods that contractors, people that build bridges and roads, they need the stuff he sells in the concrete space. If a guy like that, again, one location, but he’s working with what appears to be more than $50 million of annual revenue flowing into his business, how could a guy like that connect with you? Just for clarity, he’s a concrete manufacturer? Yeah, I don’t want to mention the name of his company. Let me tell you what he does roughly, though. He has a business.

And what happens is people all over the country who need certain concrete products, they go to him. And he sells the products that people who build bridges, they build roads, people that build stadiums, they need the stuff he sells. OK, so again, it all depends on what is going on in his business that he needs. Does he want to improve his cash flow? And we need to figure out a way to generate cash more rapidly from his invoices. Trade finance solution, does he want to increase his capacity, either organic expansion or inorganic expansion?

And so we need to raise some capital, whether that’s equity or debt, so he can buy more supply, either deepen his own organic supply chain or buy a competitor and bring them under the fold. If it’s more of an expansion play, and he said, look, I’ve got all these clients that come to me, but I can get more. I can either buy one of my distribution companies, We did not in this industry, but we did this in another industry where the manufacturer we were working with acquired the company that did the sales and marketing in their industry. And they were their largest customer, and now they created 100 % captive. So that sales and marketing infrastructure is now all for them. So again, it’s a little bit of a combination of what’s the business strategy, and then how do we source the capital to make it a reality?

One more example, and then I’ll get into some more questions I have about capital. But I want to just get into three silos. One of my clients is a very, very, very successful person in his industry. He’s in the medical industry. And for whatever reason, he can go into an industry, go into a city, and dominate it.

You know, he’s a dentist. So he can just open a dental practice tomorrow and name the city and he can blow it out of the water because he has a system that works. For a guy like that that has a proven system that might want to just go from market to market dominating, how could somebody like that team up with you or work with you or maybe not? No, I mean, again, I would love to have the opportunity, because I think when we when we do these sort of roll ups, you’re going into a market and you got your dentist, he’s got two choices. He’s going to either open new offices and seal patients or he’s going to buy existing offices and convert them. Either way, he’s going to need that sort of pre -positioned acquisition capital so that when he’s negotiating, whether he wants to open a new office and equip it and outfit it, or he wants to buy a practice and convert it, it’s going to take capital.

And so we’ve done in the dental industry, we’ve done it in some other verticals, pre -positioning that capital. So he doesn’t have to worry when he’s at the negotiating table about, How is he going to consummate the deal? Like the capital is available. It’s on tap for him. Um, and so he can just focus on negotiating best terms, best price, best timing. Uh, and then he knows he’s doing the kind of the four corners of that pre -positioned agreement.

Um, and, uh, we can go to closing as fast as he wants. Now, uh, let’s get into my stack of stuff here. I’ve got a stack of stuff for anybody who says, what are you doing back here? As I’m doing this show, I got my stack of stuff. I want to get into my stack of stuff. So item number one on my stack of stuff is. why strong economics are no longer enough to secure funding.

I mean, you could have great numbers, your financials could look great, very impressive, very tight, very buttoned up, but that may no longer be enough to secure funding in today’s economy. Break that down for us, sir. Yeah, I mean, I think it comes in two ways. One is over a certain hurdle, everybody’s got good numbers. You don’t get into the conversation without good numbers.

It’s a bit like if you go to Harvard, everybody got a 4 .0 in high school. So it’s a table stakes to have good economics, to have this conversation about whether it’s a lender or an investment fund is going to put their money into your business. So now it becomes about the quality of execution and the quality of the management team. Because you can have a beautiful model, you can have a terrific forecast, But, you know, Mike Tyson always had a great line. Everyone has a plan until they punched in the face. So part of that evaluation is you can have a great track record, a great forecast, but what’s the quality of your operations and the competence of your management team so that when that hiccup happens, We’ve got confidence as either a lender or an investor that you’re going to be able to still deliver the returns that you’re promising in the investment.

And so that’s where I think it shifts from economics as a table stakes. And what’s differentiating now is really the ability to execute. Let’s talk about common mistakes that companies make when they’re structuring early stage A -round funding. So let’s say I’m watching this right now. I have a company, and we have some traction. We’re selling something at a profit.

We feel like, wow, we can really scale this thing. And you might call that an early stage company. We’ve sold something. We know how to sell it. The four steps that I always tell people before you look for funding is make sure you find a problem. Two, make sure you can solve the problem.

Step three, make sure you’re selling the solution and make sure you can nail it and scale it. And once you’ve got those four things nailed down, then you go get capital. But don’t be getting capital before you’ve figured out those four steps. But somebody who’s looking to get that early funding, maybe you call that A -round funding, what are common mistakes that you often see? Well, I’m smiling at your formula because that is the first common mistake that, you know, folks have a great idea and they have not figured out how to deliver it or sell it. And pre revenue is just it’s one of the toughest things to do.

And sometimes, you know, we see these and I’ll advise folks and say, look, you’re not ready for the sort of service that my firm delivers. You know, go sell some units, go raise some money from your friends and family, get some traction going. And then when you’ve got a million dollars of revenue, let’s have that conversation. But to the core of your question, I think there’s Two main things that trip people up, one, and they’re a little counterintuitive. One is people give away too much equity early. And the other is people aren’t realistic about the value of their company and what they can actually attract in terms of equity or debt capital.

So let me break that down. Giving away too much equity early, classic dilution issue. You’re a founder, you’re trying to attract capital. Early on, equity is always the most expensive form of capital. But founders will look at it and think, well, I don’t have to, air quotes, pay for it. It’s not like I’m taking out a loan where I’ve got to make a monthly payment.

So that sort of looks like equity can be almost free. But then they’ll give away 20, 30, 40 % in order to secure that early seed capital. And all of a sudden, it works, your company takes off, and you’ve given away a really substantial share. So my counsel to founders early on is always raise the smallest amount of money you can possibly get away with to achieve a milestone. So instead of getting a million dollars, 30 % equity, figure out what you can do with 500 ,000 and sell that for 10 % of the company. And then go back and get the next million because you have achieved milestones and raised the value of the company so that next round will be less dilutive.

So that’s the first thing is be stingy with your equity early. The second part is be realistic. Because in that same example, saying, you know, my company is worth $100 million. I haven’t sold any product. I haven’t manufactured anything. I have, it’s me and my investor presentation, but it’s my idea is worth $100 million.

And it, and it, it, it just isn’t right. And so that’s the reality check. How can you deliver the, the revenue and along this stream of start generating revenue, become cash flow positive, become profitable, and how do you achieve those milestones with the right amount of equity capital to support your early burn, and then to layer that with debt so that you’re still using third -party capital, but you’re not using your pure equity capital to get there. You know, one of the things I find a common issue or common denominator, I find working with entrepreneurs is entrepreneurs a lot of times read Forbes, not a prominent of self, but it read Forbes, every entrepreneur magazine, they read Inc magazine and they go, look, man, X, X, look at look at pre pre X pre Elon acquiring Twitter. Wow. This company’s worth a billion dollars and they don’t even make a profit.

And they go, hey, hey, hey, hey, no, but there’s more, Clay. Listen to me, Clay. You don’t understand my situation. Uber, baby. Uber wasn’t making any money. Look at Travis, the founder of that thing, wasn’t making any money, but it’s worth billions.

Look, Amazon. Man, Jeff Bezos went through a decade of losing money, but yet his company was worth a billion. And FedEx, I mean, Fred, the founder of FedEx, he was losing money for a decade. So my company’s worth a billion. And I go, I don’t think that your restaurant that’s pre -revenue and losing money is worth a billion. But I do find there is now more art than science when it comes to determining the value of a company.

So I want to get your thoughts on that. Because when you get past the headlines, there’s somebody watching the show. They have a franchise of some business that’s a service company. And they’re going, hey, we have 500 locations. As an example, this is a real example, a person I know very well, 500 locations. And each location is doing about a half a million dollars a year of revenue.

And he might be saying, what is my company actually worth? And what would you say, sir? Well, look, let me let me take it in turn. So first off, when I talk about that sequence of you’re going to first you’re going to generate revenue, then you’re going to get to be cash flow positive, and then you’re going to be profitable. And in between steps two and three, you can make some choices. So Amazon, Uber, I mean, these are these are businesses that were making choices.

cash flow positive, they’re making money from their operations, but they’re reinvesting in an expansion. That’s a different situation than you’re losing money in your operations. So if you can’t get to cash flow positive, you’re not going to get to profitable. And you’re not going to have the option to make that strategic choice. I mean Amazon’s a great example of saying and they were they signaled this in their in their earnings calls for years like we are consciously making the decision to not be even a profitable because we’re reinvesting in the growth of our platforms the growth of sellers the launch of prime with the launch of video.

I mean all these things they did. which have created a tremendous amount of enterprise value. But it’s not, you know, gap profit. And that’s a that’s a strategic choice. So that’s part one. Part two.

So we’re looking at this business, you know, 500 units. So what is that roughly, you know, 250 million in revenue, depending on the margin, that could be, you know, a $25 million, even a business. So how do you get to valuation? Well, sometimes I joke about East Coast versus West Coast. The East Coast approach historically is, well, let’s just figure out the right multiple. You got $25 million of EBITDA in that industry.

We’re going to slap a 5x on it. And it’s worth $125 million. And as long as we’re in the range of comps, that’s the answer. Now, EBITDA is not the only thing you could do a multiple of. You could do multiple of revenue. a multiple depending on the type of business of what’s the average revenue per customer, average revenue per store.

There’s lots of ways to slice it, but you’re still fundamentally getting down to that math of what’s the variable that I’m using to drive the valuation? What’s the multiple? And then and then I get a result. Now, West Coast, which is more art and narrative, says we’re going to value things like how many customers do I have? What’s the lifetime value of an average customer? How many customers can I attract?

This is where the tech stories and the SaaS stories, I think part of how I think Elon looked at Twitter and valued it differently was to recognize the potential value of all of those users. And how do you raise the lifetime value of a user while continuing to attract both eyeballs and subscribers? And so that becomes more of an art. And valuation is somewhere, usually somewhere in the middle, right? Because it’s like anything else. If something’s worth what two people will agree it’s worth, you have a buyer and a seller.

And, you know, if we take this example all the way down to, you know, single unit, you know, restaurant, guy wants to sell. He thinks his restaurant is worth $5 million. A guy is willing to buy it and he only wants to pay $1 million. Who’s right? They both are. But they’re going to come to some, if they want to make a deal, they’re probably going to have to come somewhere in the middle.

I’m not sure that’s exactly in the middle, whether they could make a deal at $3 million. But that tends to be, especially on these smaller scale transactions, where some of that artistry and negotiation comes through. And again, you’re an expert of this. I mean, this is what you do. There’s people out there, you’re watching the show, and you, man, you are great with hunting. You’re great with making meals for the family.

You’re a great doctor. You’re a great dentist. You’re a lawyer. You’re a muffler guy. You love the NBA, whatever it is you’re obsessed with. Our guest today, James, is obsessed with helping you raise capital, get the capital you need, preventing you from making dumb, dumb mistakes.

However, you have to make money. And so I want to ask you, James, What’s the win -win? How do you make money? If somebody watching this show reaches out to you and you help them secure the capital, the money they need, how do you make money? Kind of demystify or explain your business model so people understand the real win -win relationship that you’ve created over the years. Yeah, our business model is very simple.

We work for a success fee. So when you hire us, and you’re very clear, our agreements are fairly simple. We will raise the your debt, we will raise your equity. And when that money comes in, you will pay us a success fee. And the fee depends on the size and complexity of the deal. But it’s very clear up front what it is.

Part of the way we distinguish ourselves in this industry, that is all we charge. There are people that will charge big upfront fees. They’ll charge monthly retainers. We don’t do any of that. And sometimes we’ll have people, metaphorically, come through the door who have signed up with another company and paid them $50 ,000 upfront, $25 ,000 a month, and six months later, they don’t have any capital.

And they’ll say to me, what do I do? And I said, well, here’s where I think you went wrong. Here’s where I don’t think that other company presented your business to the market correctly, or they didn’t present it to the right people. We also use a very targeted approach. I’m not sending something out to everybody in the universe. I’m looking at our network of capital investors, and I’m saying, for your company, these are the 10 people we know that are actively seeking to invest in this type of business.

They want to make an equity investment in a medical practice in the Southwest, or whatever it is. But that’s part of our job. And that’s how we get our success rate. And that’s why I always feel comfortable. If we take on an assignment, we plan to be successful. But we don’t charge any other upfront or monthly expenses.

We just work for success. Where do people get it wrong in your world? When an entrepreneur reaches out to you, where do you see the most common pitfalls? I call this jackassery. That’s the technical term I see. Where’s the most common examples of jackassery, where you just see it every day?

And you’re just saying, hey, if you’re watching this show, and you own a business, and you don’t hate yourself, please avoid this jackassery. Yeah, I mean, top three. One is you want to use 100 % of other people’s money and you have no skin in the game. And that’s a tough one because you don’t want to put your money in. It’s really hard to get anybody to follow. a deal where the principal or the operator doesn’t have any contribution.

That’s probably number one. Number two is your financials either don’t exist or don’t make any sense. When we say we need simple financials, an income statement, a P &L, we need to see a balance sheet. If you’re trying to buy a company, we need to see the target financials. If you can’t get those, it’s not a conversation we can have. I think that’s number two.

And number three is well -meaning folks that want to get into the industry, they have no idea. You’re a dentist, that’s awesome. Be a dentist. No one’s going to give you a dentist money to buy a chain of Mexican restaurants. It’s too much to go. Find a restaurant operator and you want to be the capital backing.

That makes total sense to me. But you’re not going to get somebody to bet on that kind of a big leap. So your website, I’m going to pull it up here again for anybody who wants to check out that website on the screen here. Let’s pull it up here. I’m doing it. Folks, you shouldn’t be operating a screen share while doing a podcast, but that’s what I am doing.

That’s how we do it here. So proximocapitol . com, that’s the website, proximocapitol . com. I’ll give you the final word. I’d really do appreciate you carving out time from your busy day to join us today.

I’ll give you the final word, the final couple of minutes we have here. What’s on your heart, and what do you want to share with our listeners out there that at this point are taking notes? There’s never been a better time to raise capital in the private markets. There’s tons of capital available, both in the debt and the equity side. It’s also probably more complicated than everybody thinks to try and access it. And that is why we exist, especially for the smaller firms.

We’d love to have the opportunity to help you navigate this and get you what you need to grow. Folks, again, the man, the myth, the legend, James is on our show today. I pulled up the website, proximocapital . com. Sir, we really do appreciate you carving out time and energy to be here with us today and for sharing your wisdom. Hey, thanks, Clay.

Appreciate it very much. Clay Clark, man, he is one character. It’s a good word for character. Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart. And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time.

He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother. And she just says, she just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, so he’s endorsed by his mother. And he’s doing magnificent work. So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with.

His client Clark starts his days at five o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, it’s incredible. Yeah, he’s he’s like, he’s he’s a machine. He’s a machine. But his you know, I could I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. Yes.

Hundreds of people showing up at 5am in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man. No, he is. He is. He also has 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 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 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 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. 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 in real estate. 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 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 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 come from 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 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 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. 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 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. 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, 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 1800 % increase in our internet leads going from 10 a month to 180 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 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. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of DSprick 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 do I want to do? My degree and my background is in education. but after being a 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. I love 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. 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. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us 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.

I started a business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, 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 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 search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. 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. 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. 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. Kelsey with K &D’s Wood Refinishing, 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.

Expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to, we’re at $400 ,000. So we’re pretty excited about that. 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. Hi there, my name is Stephanie Pipkin.

I am 24 years old and I own Black River Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid -June of 2020. 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 really completely transformed my business in pretty much every facet.

So I’m going to 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 today 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. 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 interviewing every single week. It’s just been great and such a.

I don’t waste 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’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. So that’s just great. Worth every penny.

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 it. 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 just happen for me. And, you know, maybe I am lucky, but it has a lot to do with hard work and, you know, perseverance and, you know, working till you cry sometimes.

That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that. But it’s having this, these steps, in place of, you know, of course I’m going to be successful. It’s an absolute because I have all this stuff in the background happening. And I have Luke and Clay and everybody on their team 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 just, it’s the best thing ever. And I would suggest to anybody to work with them. 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 excited to continue to work with you for years to come. Thanks so much for watching.

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. 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.

I always wish that I had this and because there wasn’t anything like this I would go to these motivational seminars no money down real estate Ponzi scheme get motivated seminars and they would never teach me anything it was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny but inside of it it was a hollow nothingness and I wanted the knowledge they’re like oh but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop and the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying.

And I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’ll even give you your money back if you don’t loan.

We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it.

Transcribed with Cockatoo