Jeremie Kubicek | How to Unlock the Potential of Your Team + How to Hear, Value & Maximize Every Voice on Your Team w/ Co-Founder of GiANT Who Has Worked w/ John Maxwell, Google, Chick-fil-A, & America’s Top Leaders

Audio Transcription

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I’m going to be honest with you guys. We’re not executing. Okay.

We’re not getting things done.

All right. So I went to the library. I found this. Okay. It’s a seminar on how to execute. I think it’s going to help you guys a lot.

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So take some notes.

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All right. Here we go. All right, guys, I’ve been to the mountaintop and I got something to say. All right.

I’m unveiling the new long term profit goal.

Are you guys ready for this?

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This is going to blow your mind.

Okay.

This is what This is good. $30 million? There’s only two of us. We made $63 ,000 in gross sales last year. That’s everything.

Okay, look, I’m a visionary.

Okay, what you’re witnessing right here, this is leadership. I’m looking at where we’re gonna be 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now. Did Henry Fonda, when he invented the Model T, were they sitting around going, how are we gonna build this car? No, okay, they got their hands dirty, they grabbed the bull by the horns, and then they killed it. Okay, so what’s the plan?

Step one, okay, we’re going to maximize efficiency. Number two, write this down. Number two, step three, emulsification. Listen, you guys follow those steps, we’re gonna hit our goal by the winter of 2032. Okay, what an incredible Christmas that’ll be. 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 their careers

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. They 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 Zuckner.

Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women, 13 multi -million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom and now we’re at the top. Teaching systems to get what we got. Colton Dixon’s on the hooks. I break down the books. Seeds bring in some wisdom and the good looks.

So if you see my wife and kids, click on your right D. And on today’s show, we’re interviewing an author by the name of Jeremy Kubicek.

Yes, Jeremy Kubicek, that’s spelled K -U -B -I -C -E -K.

We’re talking about the voice -driven leader, how to hear, value, and maximize every voice on your team. If you’re watching this show and you have a team, you work on a team, you manage a team, you are employed, you want to be employed, you know someone who is employed, you’re going to benefit from today’s show.

With that being said, Jeremy, welcome onto the Thrivecast. Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing great, man.

Good to be with you, Clay. Excited. Well, first off, thank you for carving out time to be on the show. And I always like to ask our guests if you can tell us, at some point you were born, and then some point you lowered your standard, and now you’re on this show. So walk us through your background a little bit, just so anybody can maybe Google you and find out a little bit more about you. Yeah, I’ve had a crazy life.

I started in Moscow, Russia, starting businesses in the early 90s. I lived above a mafia group. I had a client assassinated, was in a coup attempt. I moved back to America and went into private equity. And I watched good and bad leadership. I watched it in Russia.

I watched what happens with 70 years of communism and what it did with people.

Then I watched it in private equity. And the group that I was with, We rolled up 17 cultures and killed them, basically. There’s some good private equity for sure, but I’m just telling you what I experienced. And I basically have been working on some of the biggest brands and events in the United States for the last 20 years, building unbelievable cultures. And I figured out how to do it. You know, I think a lot of people, we say abbreviations and we say words and we don’t really know what the words mean.

As an example, two people might see each other at church. One guy says, what’s up? And the other guy says, What is up? And then that’s the greeting.

Neither person answered the question, what’s up? So when people say private equity, I think sometimes what people hear is money stuff. Can you tell us what is private equity? If you could break it down for anybody out there that’s familiar with the idea a little bit. But what does that mean? And maybe give an example of how that works.

Well, the idea is basically economies of scale, you roll up a number of companies and you build something bigger. And it’s usually a three year flip, meaning that you buy, let’s buy 70 % in HVAC or let’s buy seven sales distribution businesses, mash them all together.

We get the economies of scale, but let’s build it to a bigger buyer in three years. So in doing that, it’s a transaction.

And that transaction typically has a system to it. And it’s not necessarily about building cultures. It’s not about developing people as much as it’s about hitting a window to be able to have a sell and benefit. Now, you’ve worked with some major organizations throughout your career. Could you name drop a few of them just so people know that you’ve actually done some things at a certain level so people can go, OK, I might be familiar with that brand or that company? Well, I used to own John Maxwell’s assets.

And so I built, I turned his leadership brand and kind of helped him expand. We used to work with Ford, Chick -fil -A, worked with Delta, US Air Force, Pfizer.

We worked with Google. We work in about a hundred countries right now.

And I’ve been basically creating content and then scaling that content because it’s really simple enough for a 13 -year -old to get.

So it scales really well inside organizations. And so those are some examples. So when you say you’ve worked with, how would you describe what you, what you do? You’re like the private equity guy for John Maxwell and in Google, or is there a more technical term for that? No. When I said private equity, I worked for private equity and then I no longer did because I saw that there was a better way to do it.

So I started a company called Giant and we basically started licensing and creating content.

for companies to license for people development so the whole idea of the voice driven leader is if you know who you are and you know who they are meeting with their personality wiring is you can. effectively develop and lead people way better than just command and control style of leadership. And so that’s what I do. So I basically create books like the five voices, the five gears, 100x leader, blah, blah, blah, all these different books, I have seven books. I take those books, I then create content, and I license that content to be for coaches, consultants, or inside companies, and then they use it to develop their people. So let’s break down this book here, The Voice Driven Leader, how to hear value and maximize every voice on your team.

Let’s say that someone’s watching this show. They’re a dentist, they’re a doctor, they’re a lawyer, they’re a plumber.

They sell something to people in exchange for a profit.

They’re a contractor.

They’re a home builder. They sell something. They’re a real small business. How can what you teach benefit our listeners? Yeah. So have you ever had an employee and you keep trying to tell them to do something and they don’t do it and you get so frustrated and you’re like, why don’t you listen?

Why won’t you do it? Like I do it. And the reality is like, they’re not wired like you are. So if you know, like if you’re in France and you order it at a coffee shop, you order coffee with a Texas accent and just, and don’t even try to use French. you’re not going to get what you want.

So the idea is if you can learn the five voices of people and personality and know and understand, who am I on the other side of? Am I on the other side of a nurturer or a guardian or a creative or a connector?

Who is it I’m on the other side of? And what if I speak their language versus forcing them to speak mine? So if you understand it, you become a people whisperer and then you become a person that people want to follow, not have to follow. You talked about these five different voices. What are these five different voices? So we boiled down what Carl Young’s work and the Big Five, which is where Myers -Briggs came from, Carl Young.

And we basically found that 43 % of the population are nurturers. They care about people, and they just always are about people. 30 % are guardians, and they are logic, black and white. So that’s 73 % of the population. are present -oriented.

They’re thinking about today, up until maybe the weekend. Well, that’s a big issue if you’re a future -oriented person. So the future -oriented voices are the creative, the connector, and the pioneer. And that’s where there’s a lot of tension that happens inside organizations. Because the future voices are, the present voices aren’t understanding the future voices. But most of the executive team are future voices.

I’m taking notes here.

So you got you got the nurturers, the guardians, the creative, the connected and the pioneer and the pioneer, the connective is connector, connector, connector. Okay, got in the pioneer. So can we kind of unpack those a little bit more there? So the nurturers? Who are these kinds of people? Yeah, 70 % are women.

They’re stay -at -home moms, they’re teachers, they are educated nurses, anyone to take care of people. And they’re like chicken soup for the soul. They want everyone to get along and they just love people.

30 % of the guardians, 70 % of them are men, so they would be more… logical, black and white.

These are your military accountants, lawyers at times, very detailed oriented, again, A, then B, then C. So that population group, they literally make up the majority of the population of the world.

So if you’re selling, you need to know who you’re selling to. side of. If you’re leading, you need to know because the way you lead a present -oriented voice and nurture and guardian is very different than the way you lead a future -oriented voice. Let’s talk about the creative and the connector. Who are these people? Creatives are future -oriented.

They see the future more than anyone, but they’re introverted. The connectors are like bumblebees. They all have pollinate. They always have a guy. So if you need something, they know someone, and they’re connecting people to ideas, and they’re translating for everybody else. And then the pioneers, they’re 7 % of the population, and they have the loudest voices, and they’re like a general.

They want to take that mountain. They allocate people and resources to get there. So that’s how the world works. So there’s five distinct voices in 16 variations of them, not to confuse anyone, but the five are the main five, but you might have a pioneer connector or pioneer creative or pioneer guardian. So what we’ve done is we’ve broken it down to just the basics. If you can understand your kids or your employees, who’s on your team, who are they, who are you, And then the book is now a development plan.

Where are they in the organization? Have they just started? Or are you apprenticing them right now?

Or are they fully empowered? Or are they multiplying? What stage are they in on the board? And most people don’t think of it this way. And all we’ve done is we’ve broken down development to be really, really practical. If I’m watching this show, and I’m thinking, you know, I kind of I don’t want to go to the gas station, kind of want to go to Buc -ee’s, buy, you know, I don’t know, I kind of just want to buy like $37 of crap.

I mean, you know, like an oversized hot dog and maybe some roasted nuts with a little bit of sugar, not too much. you know, and I’m thinking that’s $37. I could just spend that right there at Buc -ee’s.

Or I could invest, you know, these $16 or, you know, maybe let’s say $30 for a hard copy of your book. Why would somebody be better off, despite the health benefits of reading your book, as opposed to not reading your book? Why would that be a good investment? Because we know by default, people are going to find a way to put their money to use at Buc -ee’s if they don’t buy from you. So help wrestle a few dollars away from Buc -ee’s there, sir. If you lead people, if you’re a team leader, if you’re someone who leads other people and you don’t know how to do it, or you’re like, what is happening?

Why do I keep having problems with people? This is the most complete book. And I’ve written seven. I used to partner with thought leaders of all sizes and shapes. And this is the most thorough book on leadership I’ve ever seen.

And I’m biased, I know, because I wrote it, but it is practically, how do I take someone from day one and turn them into an all -star? It is a system for doing it. And it’s full of graphs because we know people don’t like to read anymore. It’s full of tools. It’s full of tables, everything to make it as simple as possible to move one person to the direction that you want them to go. I believe that and I happen to own companies and run them.

And so I’m involved in like the wood flooring industry, or I’m involved in haircuts, or I’m involved in home remodeling, just different businesses. And I choose to stay focused on I like to focus on small teams, you know, like 50 employees or less building something, haircuts, home remodeling, dentists, that’s kind of where I like to go. And I find that often, you know, once and once employees know what to do, Getting them to do it is the biggest challenge that managers have. Managers just, they’ll come to me every day, they say, Clay, I just cannot get this employee

follow the checklist to clean the bathrooms. I just cannot get this employee to follow the checklist to lay down the wood floor. I cannot get this employee to follow. And there’s a lot of that frustration going on there in the world of management.

What do you say to the entrepreneur out there, the business owner watching this, the manager saying, man, I’m frustrated by managing people.

And the definition of insanity is? Right, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. So the aha is, who are they and who are you? Speak their language and you may unlock them. That’s it. You can unlock employees.

You can unlock kids if you speak their language. And if you learn how to speak their language, you’ll be a people whisperer. The other idea I have is that companies are made of teams. Teams have team leaders. As the team leader goes, so goes the team, so goes the organization. So your team leaders are the most important people in your organization.

Whoever leads people, if that’s two, if that’s 10, if that’s 100, Those are the most important. Train them on being people whispers. Train them on knowing who the other person is versus forcing them to speak their boss’s language. Because when you force someone, most people leave not because of the company, they leave because of the boss.

And it’s usually the boss who’s so fixated on, they got to get stuff done and their people are a nuisance. And I go, no, actually your people, you’re an asset if you treat them like an asset. But you got to do the work. It’s like training a puppy.

It’s hard in the beginning, but it’s really good at the end.

What does your book say about why people development typically fails?

You know, some people, I think they go to a conference, they get fired up, they go there.

Man, I love this conference.

Dave Ramsey was awesome. John Maxwell. Yes. Uh, Tony Robbins was good. Wow.

It was just, man, I learned from him, man. And they come back kind of looking like they’ve seen some mystical encounter. They’ve seen a burning bush and they come back and they’re ready to go and they got their notebook. They got the notepad and then nothing gets done. What, what, what, what happens? Well, so a lot mostly is because we have to make the donuts.

Every one of your companies, they have to make the donuts. They got a customer issue. They got a report to you. You’re asking them for something and they need to give their report. So the people then become a nuisance. A lot of the stuff you hear on Tony Robbins, all these different gurus is they’re speaking to the personal.

And so people get all fired up because it’s personal.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it’s not practical to like, OK, but how do I lead my person? What do I do with this guy right now? I got a brand new employee. How do I do this? And that’s what I’ve tried to do.

I’m trying to break it down to go, look, growing a company is one, then two, then three, then four. Developing people, one, A, then B, then C, then D. So if you learn the system and you learn who they are, game over. You can build the best companies. I think that we have to make a decision. I know your book talks about it. We have to commit to become a leader.

At some point you have to decide, okay, all right, I don’t want to do it. Didn’t want to do it, just wanted to be an entrepreneur, making my doughnuts. Just making my doughnuts. And now all of a sudden, there’s five of us making doughnuts. And I don’t want to manage people. I just want to make a doughnut.

And then all of a sudden, we recognize I’m an owner. I’m a boss, maybe reluctant boss, owner. But there’s some point we have to transition from a technician to a leader. Talk to us about what your book has to teach us about just committing to the idea of becoming a leader. Yeah, so I call it the Sherpa. So on Mount Everest, the Sherpa have to climb while helping people climb.

That’s what leadership is. So the problem is that you get a high performance. climber who all of a sudden is asked to be a Sherpa. And they’re like, wait, all I know how to do is climb. You mean I gotta, yeah, you gotta learn how to do it. You gotta climb, yes, but you gotta learn how to help people climb.

And to your point, that’s a commitment. It’s a disciplined, intentional commitment to helping other people win.

And it’s really, really hard. So to your point, you gotta turn it on. It’s like a switch in the back. They go, Oh, I have to perform and help people at the lead.

Okay, got it. And when you turn that on, now you become intentional. Now you start being curious about the other person. Now you start looking for hacks of how do I get them to do what I want them to do? There’s an art and a science to it. Your book talks about how to build a performance system.

How to build a performance system.

I like the word system.

I think anybody out there that has scaled a company to any size, you like a system. You want a proven process. You want a turnkey system. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel.

No, no, no. You want to get in the car, and you want to put in the key, turn it on. You want to hit the button. You don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel.

What does your book teach us about the system of building a high -performing team? So we took the best of the five voices and the best of AI, put them together.

We have five voices AI.

We actually have a system that you can tell the system where it is the person like they’re brand new there.

They’ve just started an organization.

Got it. What’s their wiring?

Oh, they’re a nurturer. Got it. Who are you? You’re a pioneer. Got it. And five voices.

AI will tell you exactly how to move them to their front, to the next immersion stage. And it’ll tell you how to keep them out of what we call the pit of despair, which is where a lot of employees go when they’re when they’re insecure. And how do you get them empowered and how to get them to multiply by literally saying, remember, you’re a pioneer and a pioneer understands. will bulldoze a nurturer. And when a nurturer feels stress, they’ll withdraw and withhold care from people and they’ll get squashed. So here’s how not to do that.

And it’s hyper personalization inside leadership, but it’s done with AI. So it’s now a system. There’s somebody watching this show right now, and they’re thinking, this is woo -woo. This is woo -woo, two woos. This guy, he might have had success over here, but I’m a dentist, OK? And I just need a front desk guy to answer the phone and follow the system.

I just need my people to lay the wood floor. I just need my framers to frame.

This sounds like woo -woo. It sounds like hot coals. It sounds like a weird trust fall kind of thing. And I don’t like it. So what do you say to someone who’s a little bit skeptical? How’s that working for you right now?

How’s your plan working? And most people are like, okay, so how many receptionists have you had to replace? How many people have you run through your turnover factory?

And the reality is, you can be accidental and have a puppy and don’t train them, or you can be intentional and train the dog, train the employees.

By doing it well, training your leaders who train the employees, that’s a system. And you’re gonna love me in two years. Then you’re going to be calling me and going, Oh my gosh, why didn’t I meet you 20 years ago? Two years. That’s the, that’s the, you’re saying if you follow this system, when can we expect to see some results, Jeremy, if we get the book and we deal with it, you’ll see them in six to nine months. You’ll see something really, really shift.

It depends on how many people you have.

If you have under 10, uh, you can get it all done in six to nine months.

If you’re running 20 or plus more, it’s probably going to take you 12 months. If you’re in the hundreds. The culture change will take you three years to have a system where the entire culture is on board.

But if you’re systematic about it, we’ve been in Google for eight years now, I think, and it just works. So you work with Google, for anybody out there who might’ve missed that, you work with Google. We have our teams.

I don’t, but we, I have, I’ve spoken there, but we have 500 team members.

and a hundred countries. And you’ve worked with John Maxwell. Who else have you? Somebody just is now mentally tuning in. They were driving earlier and they’re on the shoulder of the road. I was partners with Pat Lencioni, partners with Henry Cloud, a lot of different thought leaders back in the day.

Andy Stanley, used to run the Catalyst conferences, built the LeaderCast brand. So I’ve done a lot of big things. But at the core, Alan Mulally at Ford Motor Company was awesome. It was so much fun. We turned the culture around when he was there for a period of time. And we get to be a part of that.

And then I got to do this summit with Ford and Chick -fil -A and bring the executives together. Had such an amazing experience. So I’ve worked with a lot of big companies, but you know what? Here’s what I tell you, Clay. I only want to work with people who are responsive, not resistant. It doesn’t matter if your brand is really big.

I mean, I love to work with people who really want to go for it. So if you’re Acme Corp, let’s go. It doesn’t matter. It’s who wants to move the needle and who really, really cares about transformation and people. That’s who I’m interested in. Why do you care about transformation and people?

Why don’t you just go to Chick -fil -A?

And use your connections there to get unlimited chicken sandwiches and just call it a day, just crushing the game of Chick -fil -A. Why don’t you use your connections to just go to Google, hang out there? What inspires you to keep going? In 2002, I was hit by a drunk driver in a hurricane in Mexico and was killed. I had the opportunity to have a near -death experience, changed the trajectory of my life. My wife was hurt.

We made it. We reset our life. It’s kind of like I get to live again. I already had one life. This is my second life.

And so for me, it’s really about when you see people get it and they turn on and they start serving people in a different way.

And it’s not just about them. It’s so fulfilling.

So for me, it’s just a fun business.

I have multiple companies like you. And I like to build those companies to raise up liberators, I call them people who fight for the highest possible good of others. Let’s go back to how you started again, for anybody out there that might have again, just mentally tuning in here. Um, you know, you did private equity, where did you where’d you go to college?

What was your college background? I went to a small liberal arts school in Oklahoma.

So I went to OBU, Oklahoma Baptist University, and I moved to Russia.

I moved back to Oklahoma because my father -in -law was in the Oklahoma City bombing and survived, but it was a real tense time.

So then I moved to Atlanta, moved to London, and we’ve moved back since. When you went to Russia, what possessed you to go to Russia? Did you did you know a guy? I mean, did you follow the Soviet Union? I’m old. So this was 1992, 91, 92.

So I had a professor who’s like, if I was you, if I was young, I would move to Moscow.

with your talent, and I’d go start businesses. So we started a private school, it’s the largest private school in Russia today, Moscow Economic School, we started a marketing company and accounting training business. And so yeah, it, that was the best experience ever.

I was 21 years old and clueless and man, you know, you grew up fast. So you went to Russia when you went to Russia. Did you know anybody?

Did you speak Russian? I mean, what was that like? I spoke a little bit of Russian to give a risk to that. Depend much yet.

Now, OK, you don’t speak Russian.

Clark, I thought Clark might be Russian.

Yeah, people ask me that sometimes when I’m Russian, but I’m not.

So you moved there.

How old were you at this point?

21.

Wow.

And then how old were you when you came back to the States, approximately?

24.

24? Yep. Wow. And when did you recognize this was the groove, this was the area you wanted to pursue? When did you recognize that this is what I want to do? I wanted to be global.

My grandmother took me on a ski trip to Europe. whenever I was in high school, and I move, you know, I was only child, extroverted only child on a large farm.

And I wanted to get away from the farm as far as I could. And so then I went to Russia, which is pretty much as far as you can go, and live there for a few years. And then again, since we’ve, we work all over the world, so I get to travel and experience things all over the globe. So I’m going to have three final questions for you. For someone watching this show that’s taking notes like I am, what is the main message you want to communicate to anybody out there that’s taking notes, maybe typing, maybe writing it down? What’s the message you want to leave our listeners with today?

If you want to be a truly effective leader, like truly effective, then you have to learn who’s on the other side of you.

You have to learn their voice and become a people whisperer. It’s a game changer. It changed my dynamics with my kids, because we learned all of our kids’ personalities and why we’re here. and we led them differently because of it. So if you want to be effective, then you’ve got to understand the system and implement it. That’s the only way that you’ll have true change.

Next question, what do you think it costs a business owner to not become a good leader? What does it cost somebody to be a terrible leader? I mean, look at your turnover. figure out, put it in AI and figure out what’s that worth. How much momentum, how many people do bad leaders drive off? How much drama do you bring at home?

What peace of mind? How much is peace of mind worth? How much is legacy? How much is referral work worth? It’s not hard to get to a really good number. And it’s really not that hard.

It takes dedicated discipline to want to almost humility to want to learn other people’s voice. Final question for you. I always find that whenever I’m interviewed, I think to myself, I wish I would have said this, or I wish the host would have asked me that. What’s a question that you wish I would have asked you on today’s show? You did a great job, Clay, honestly, because I’m talking about speed and energy. You win.

I’ve probably done 60 podcasts this year already.

Well, in the last six to nine months, probably 50 something. And you win for that. So for me, you actually have asked a plethora of great questions. You asked about motive. The only thing I’d say is like, you know, no, honestly, I can’t think of one, Clay. Well, let me pull up your website one more time so we can check it out there.

And I encourage everybody, if you’re out there today and you feel like you just cannot motivate your team to take action, you cannot get your team to be inspired. to take action. follow the proven systems and processes you have in place. Perhaps it’s time for a checkup from the neck up and you need a leadership overhaul. And if that is you, I encourage you to click on the link in the show notes.

I’ll put a link in the show notes where you can find a copy of the book there, The Voice Driven Leader, how to hear value and maximize every voice on your team.

Jeremy, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate you.

Again, your wisdom, your time, your energy, the whole thing.

I appreciate you. And we’d love to have you back on again.

You’re the man.

Take care.

Bye -bye. One of the gentlemen, his name is Bob Healy, came to our conference with a quasi -functional prototype.

He had terminal cancer, and Bob came to me and said, help me.

Entrepreneur Clay Clark has built several multi -million dollar businesses. Now, he helps budding entrepreneurs like Bob turbocharge their ideas with a 14 -step plan. and grillblazer .

com is now a massively successful company that’s becoming a household name in many American homes. This is American Thought Leaders, and I’m Jan Jekielek. 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. Sean, guess what’s happening? April 9th and 10th, 2026. We are probably going to have an amazing birthday party. business conference here at Tulsa Ruslim.

Yes, we’re joined by Tim Tebow.

Tim Tebow is going to be joining us right here at the Thrive Time Show World Headquarters, June 5th and 6th.

He’s a very successful football player, obviously a Heisman Award winner, but he’s also a very successful entrepreneur.

Now, when you work with real clients, Sean, real clients you really work with to help them grow their companies, do you ever hear a business owner tell you that they didn’t have time to get something done? Every day. How often? is is not having enough time a problem for business owners? All the time. It’s almost it’s like maybe 90 % of the issues as people are trying to grow their company.

Well Tim Tebow is going to come join us here at the in -person Thrive Time Show two -day interactive business workshop and he’s going to teach us time management and his approach to personal self -discipline and getting things done. Also at the workshop, I’ll put up on the website so people can see it here. Also at the two -day interactive workshop, Sean, we are going to be teaching accounting, systems creation, marketing, human resources, how to hire, inspire, train and retain great people, accounting, social media advertising, search engine optimization. Sean, what’s the area where most clients ask you for help the most? creating leads, is it hiring people? What’s the biggest issue that most business owners have by default before they come to one of our workshops?

Well, I think it’s management because time is the most valuable resource for these business owners and being able to manage their time is the first thing. Once they get that under control, then generally the numbers You know, being able to track their business and be able to make the best decisions based on numbers rather than emotions is a big area. And we teach all of this stuff at the business conference, particularly you, Clay. You love to hammer on time management. It’s my favorite part of the conference. Now, I’m going to pull this up real quick here, because we’re going to go through it.

If you’re not excited, I want to get you excited about what we’re going to cover at the workshop here, OK?

OK.

All right. The two -day interactive workshop.

This is my 20th year hosting workshops.

So I’m telling you folks, we’re in rare form here. So, one, is the idea of establishing your revenue goals. I think most entrepreneurs don’t know their revenue goals. Would you agree or am I off my rocker? No, that’s totally a very important point we do with every one of our new clients that come on board is we have to establish the revenue goals. And generally speaking, we have a vague idea, but not an exact idea that can be engineered down into like the daily goals for sales.

And so that’s a really big one. Now, next is the break even numbers. What kind of sales do you have to do to even break even? Yeah. Third is how many hours per week do you want to work? You know, what is your ideal schedule as an entrepreneur?

Box number four, how do you stand out in the clutter of commerce? What makes your How do you make your company unique from all the different businesses in a world of brown cows, herds of brown cows, proverbial brown cows, the analogy of brown cows? How can you be the purple cow that stands out? How can you be the squeaky wheel that gets the oil? Box number five, branding. How do you improve the perception that people have of you, your business, your brand?

Box number six, marketing, your three legged marketing stool. What is a turnkey way for you and your company to generate leads so you can succeed? Because if you don’t have any leads, Your business will bleed. If you can’t sell, your business will go to hell. You’ve got to generate leads. Sean, how often do business owners, by default, tell you they have a hard time generating leads?

It’s almost all of the time. It’s really a huge struggle. And many times, they may be creating leads, but just through word of mouth. So they get to a point where we’ve implemented systems, and then they need to create more leads. But they’ve never had to do it. So there’s a lot of different scenarios where business owners are like, how do you create leads?

Something we hammer on at the conference a lot. Box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Again, box number seven, create a sales conversion system. Sales scripts, recorded calls, one -sheets, pre -written emails, lead trackers, all of the sales tools, the sales print pieces, the one -sheets, the big screens that you see inside the business. Whether you’re a doctor, you’re a dentist, you’re a lawyer, you’ve got to have sales systems in place. We help you with that.

Box number eight. What does it cost you to get another customer? Step number eight, what does it cost? you to actually acquire a customer? Step number nine, it’s hard to build organization if you’re not organized. We’re going to teach you how to create repeatable systems, processes, file organization, Box number 10, we’re going to teach you how to manage people, real people, on the planet Earth.

This just in, we’re going to teach you how to manage real people on the planet Earth. Box number 11, how to create a sustainable schedule that works for you and your family. Step number 12, how to create human resources systems for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining great people. Box number 13, accounting. This just in, we have to cover accounting. It’s not how much you make, it’s how much you keep.

We’re going to cover all the accounting things you need to know. And step 14, finally, we’re going What is the point of even achieving success? We’re going to go over what is the point of even achieving success, how to design a life that you’re excited about, how to design a life where you carve out enough time for your faith, your family, your finance, your fitness, your friendship, your fun, and where you’re going to spend your focused time. We’re going to go through that, all this and more. Now, the workshop, Sean, it’s April 9th and 10th. It’s a two -day interactive workshop.

And tickets, we always do it.

It’s $250 or whatever price that someone can afford.

Sean, why do we let people name their price? Why do we have scholarship tickets available? if somebody can’t afford the $250 general admission ticket? Well, we don’t want anybody to miss out on it. You could be at a startup phase, or you could be way along in your business. But we want to make it accessible for everybody.

I think it actually goes back, too, to a story of your dad. And it goes all the way back to how you’ve always done this as a business coach, trying to make sure that your average people out there have access to the things that work. Now, 7 AM to 5, Sean, why don’t we go from 7 to 5 both days? I mean, it’s 10 hours a day. 20 hours of training over two days. Why do we do 10 hours a day, Sean, of back -to -back workshops?

We do a 30 -minute teaching session, we do a 15 -minute question -and -answer session, and then we take a break.

30 minutes of teaching, 15 minutes of question -and -answer, then we take a break.

Why do we do that format, Sean? That format is so that we can keep people engaged and not just sitting there listening, but also getting involved. We really encourage people to ask questions. And that’s really where the juiciness of the conference comes out, is you can put your personal situation and your questions on the board, and Clay will tee off and give you direct advice. Even without being in our coaching program, you can get direct coaching from Clay.

It’s really a very engaging format. I enjoyed a lot. is April 9th and 10th, 2026. Get those tickets at thrivetimeshow .

com.

Once again, that’s thrivetimeshow . com. Who’s our keynote speaker coming to the conference there, Sean? Tim Tebow is our keynote speaker. Sean, question number three, how much does it cost to come to our in -person two -day interactive business workshop right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma?

I think it’s, did you say it’s $250 or whatever you can afford?

That’s right, $250 or whatever you can afford.

Sean, how do you spell Eric Trump backwards?

P. M -U -R -T -C -I -R -E.

Ooh, that took a long time. I’ll have to listen to this. All right, again, that’s Shawn Lohman. I’m Clay Clark, inviting you to come join us at the in -person Thrive Time Show two -day interactive workshop. This event is April 9th and 10th, 2026. Get those tickets at thrivetimeshow .

com.

Once again, that’s thrivetimeshow . com.

Right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tim Tebow, baby. It’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Russia.

Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay? Clay’s the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens.

I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy.

I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. My name is Kevin Thomas and the name of our company is MultiClean. We are a commercial janitorial service and we serve the entire state of Oklahoma. and Kansas and soon to be Arkansas.

We have probably grown probably five times.

We’ve added, I think when we first started with you, we had 60 to 65 employees and now we have a little over 300 employees. Before we got involved with Thrive Time, we didn’t really have any systems or processes in place. I’ve probably been to Oh, in six, seven years, I’ve probably been to 12 to 13 business conferences, and I’ve each time I go, I learn something new and I’m so excited to bring it back and show the team. 4 ,000 % from February to February. Now I can better that.

Okay, Clay, I don’t think you know this. I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself and if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have have bettered our entire month of February. in the last two and a half days. I heard about it on the podcast, started listening to the podcast, became a fan and then figured out about the workshop.

I own an insurance and financial services agency, and I was hoping to learn from the workshop systems and processes. I’m big on systems and processes and always learning better ways to run a business more efficiently. The atmosphere is second to none. none. It’s a high energy really cool atmosphere to be around. Contagious I would say just something every entrepreneur I think would appreciate and love.

I’d say humorous high energy and full of substance which I think is the key. A lot of business coaches or seminars Maybe you’re high on motivation and making you feel good, but don’t have a lot of substance that you could take back and implement, you know, the following Monday, where his does. Man, there’s a lot of valuable things. I’m gonna say, like, I came to, this is my second workshop. The first workshop I took back really the importance of a group interview. I used to spend hours and hours interviewing people, screening resumes, and that saving my time on that part is valuable.

It was that and then the sales scripting that have been two major things. just so far. Man, I think they’re missing out on, you know, expert advice from somebody who’s been there, done that, built companies, has learned a lot of lessons.

You know, that’s what I’m always looking for is somebody that I can learn from that’s ahead of where I am. And I think if you choose not to come, you’re missing out on a lot of good advice that could help your business. Hi, this is Charles and Amber Kolaw. We’re the owners of Kolaw Fitness. We heard about Clayclark through Paul Hood, our CPA.

We’ve worked with Clayclark for the last two years. Clayclark has helped us take our three locations in three different states and create checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks for every employee. He’s helped us with creating systems and audits for every department, quantitative scorecards for each department and every position so that everybody has a number. He’s been able to give us a lot of time freedom and financial freedom and peace of mind to know that everything’s running efficiently. And he’s been helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google and pretty much every area of the business.

It’s been very, very helpful.

We would describe the experience of working with Clay as very energetic.

He’s full of energy. He’s very encouraging, very motivating, but also accountable. So he keeps us accountable, and we love that accountability. It keeps our drive in the right direction, so we’re not chasing things that aren’t worth spending our time on. Yeah, he’s a great coach. He helps push us.

on certain areas, helps coaches in certain areas. You know, we’re all emotional creatures and we go up and down and he actually will tell us kind of where we’re at, how we can get from there. And even like emotionally, like when we’re stressed about something, he’ll have a story to relate to and really helps us in every area of our business. It’s been very, very helpful. I think Clay’s ability to have a whole team behind him that helped him with all of his clients, all his coaching clients, is that it allows Clay to do what he’s really good at, and that’s working one -on -one with the client and coaching them, and then he can have his amazing staff come in and help you accomplish all these goals that you’re setting. And of course he has all these resources, whether it’s videographers or whether it’s web developers, that they can quickly jump on your project, knock things out.

He can quickly give you the right coaching. He’s just got a whole team of people that whatever area you’re lacking in, in your own company, he’s got resources from like video, web design, search engine guys who are just knowledgeable in that. Even though he knows a lot of that stuff, he’s got these capable lieutenants that are ready to just take off and help you get that stuff done. More stuff gets done on a weekly basis than you would on like probably most individual or some other company. We’ve worked with several companies before and it just not as many things get done on a weekly basis.

It’s been very helpful. Well, the conferences for me, I’m a slow learner, so I have to learn like over and over again, hear things over and over again. I’ve been to like, I think, eight different conferences, and each time you come, I learn a few new components. Some things are repetitive, but a lot of the stuff just resettles, and I get a little bit more depth into each component.

So, I mean, I’ve been to eight of them. They’re all super entertaining. He’s very funny, very encouraging. You get to kind of self -reflect a lot. A lot of the stuff is really polarizing. You do a personal inventory of yourself and you’ll think like, hey, I’ve really got to work on this, really got to work on that.

So every time you come, I still get a lot of value out of it. And as much as every conference is the same, it’s totally different. So, I think we’ll hear stories we haven’t heard before, they’ll have entertainment, or he’ll have speakers he didn’t have before. And you, like you said, you just always catch a different part of the material that maybe you didn’t catch before. It’s worded differently. And it’s really cool, because some people that you’ve seen like a year ago at a conference, now they’re being showcased as a success story.

And you get to see their website. You get to see how their stats and all their metrics have improved and the revenue improved. So it’s really cool to see people that just a year ago that, of course, we’ve been here two years, that just came, that I met, is now being successful. It’s really encouraging to see other people accomplish that stuff. Clay has helped us optimize our website and helped with really topping the right search engines that we need to make sure that we are very, very competitive with all of our other competitors. He’s done Basically, he outlines exactly what you need to be accomplishing and he creates tasks that we have to accomplish and his team has to accomplish.

I would say over the last two years, we’ve totally ramped our website. We’re topping Google in every one of our markets. I would say just doing really, really good. I feel very, very confident in all of our future locations and making sure that we’re in front of the ideal and likely buyer. It’s very encouraging. It’s important to me that to know when I’m working with Clay, you know, I’ve been in business for a while and met with him even when I already had three businesses in three different states and to know that what I share with him is staying private.

He’s not sending that out to anybody else. to know that when he’s working with me, he’s only working with one other, no other gyms that are in direct competition with me. It’s very encouraging to have somebody you can trust and rely on, that he isn’t going to like somehow tell your trade secrets or give information away.

Just really awesome that he’s a trustworthy guy, really cares about

about you as a client. For us, it’s been a complete mind freedom, because Clay has helped us create a lot of different documents and one sheets for every department, put quantitative scorecards to each department. And so for us, it’s been very encouraging. It gives us peace. Like as an entrepreneur, it’s stressful. You go to bed at night, you’re worried, like, did we cover this?

Did we cover that? So he helps extract everything out of your brain, everything from your business, put it into document creation, put it into checklists and workflows for every person in each department, and make sure that everything’s getting done every week, every month. and funnel that all into KPIs or key performance indicators as you can see on a weekly basis to make sure you’re moving the needle in the right area of your company. It’s very encouraging and gives you a complete mind, freedom, and peace to know that that stuff’s created so you’re easy to duplicate and scale your company. Right, and then we can spend time doing what we’re really good at and just trust the system. I honestly believe everybody needs a coach.

I think we’re all inherently lazy and selfish and carnal. I truly believe that humans are humans. We’d rather, if we’re standing, we’d rather sit. If we’re sitting, we’d rather lay down. And if we’re laying down, we’d rather be asleep. So to have somebody that challenges you, have real active candor, and be honest with you on every aspect of your company is Really, really encouraging to me because I want to know, I want to work on what we’re weak at.

I want to see any areas that we’re not doing well in and see his perspective from a third party because you can look at your own business and just see the good. It’s good to have somebody who’s done this with hundreds of companies.

You’ll really look at your company, reflect on your company, and see like little cheeks in the armor to make sure you cover that up so your competition can’t get to you and that you’re successful overall in the big picture. Yes, I would recommend Clay Clark because he is a great friend, great encourager. To me, he’s been a wonderful friend. He’s also, you can tell he cares. And he also, he has this 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 perspective on, you know, as a part of your team and your own company is huge, super valuable. So I would definitely encourage people to use him. But one thing is you got to be coachable, you got to be wanting to get feedback, you got to be wanting to really 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. Hi, I’m Dennis with Shaw Homes.

I first heard about Clay, mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them and actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden. So I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over 800 million dollars in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and 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 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 1 ,800 % 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 Clayclark 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 gonna regret it, because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick, and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full -time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide, what 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 the building relationships. But one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things, the processes and the advertising and marketing. I knew that I did not have what I needed to be successful. 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.

I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself.

I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve.

Within the first six months of opening my clinic, 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 impossible. in starting your own business. I am 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. with K &D’s Wooder Finishing, business owner at 23.

So I’ve been working this K &D’s company for about five years now.

Expecting maybe $200 ,000 this year to, we’re at $400 ,000 exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that. Pretty much just listening to what they have to say, their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help. Just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly and such good insight, the resources they have for specific business questions. It’s all been really incredible. It’s been a great experience.

So I’d recommend it to anybody. 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 Blackbird Falls Cleaning Services. We opened in April of 2019 and it is now mid June of 2020. So I wanted to talk today about, um, the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the proven path, uh, with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke. from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid -February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together and it has completely transformed my 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 I don’t waste as much time on low -quality candidates anymore and your coach will hold you accountable I mean which I love again the tough love is really great you know looks like a 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 mean I pay him a million dollars a month if I can and maybe someday I’ll be able to but I would just say

go for it if it seems like a good fit just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things 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 until you cry sometimes.

That’s just being an entrepreneur, which if you’re a business owner, you understand that.

But it’s having these systems in place of, 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 my own game. in real life. So he was my coach.

Transcribed with Cockatoo