Success | Although You Cannot Control What Happens, But It’s What You Do About It That Changes Everything + How to Build a Successful Automotive Repair, Landscaping, Wood Flooring Business + 9 Clay Clark Success Stories

Audio Transcription

 

Transcribed with Cockatoo

It’s not what happens, but rather it’s what you do that changes everything. But it’s not the happenings. It’s what you do about it. Somebody says, yeah, but you don’t understand the disappointments I’ve had. Come on. Everybody’s had their share.

Disappointments are not special gifts reserved for the poor. Everybody has them. The difference is what you do about it. Some shows don’t need a celebrity to produce 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.

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 Zilner. Two men, eight kids, co -created by two different women. Thirteen multi -million dollar businesses.

We started from the bottom, now we’re at the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Colton Dixon’s on the hooks. I break down the seeds, bringing some wisdom and the goods. As the boss, why I’m so iffy, see my wisdom. Yes, yes, and yes, Thrive Nation, it’s a very special occasion because on today’s show we’re joined by a real Thriver.

He could be, you might say, this guy looks like a hologram. He looks like an idealized hologram. This guy could be a male model, but no, he is an actual entrepreneur, a real client, a wonderful man. We’ve had the opportunity to meet in person during multiple in -person workshops. He comes from the great state of Iowa. Josiah Ragsdale, welcome onto The Thrive Time Show.

How are you, sir? I’m doing great. So I got to ask you, how did you originally come in contact with us there, sir? Actually through Spotify, yeah. Through Spotify, OK. Do you remember what you were doing on Spotify?

Were you looking for business shows, or was it recommended? How did you find the Thrivetime Show? I think I was looking for business shows, because at the time, I was actually in school to build custom cars. And then I was working on a dragster, and so I was looking for some more. I’ve never liked listening to music, so I was looking for either an audio book or a podcast or something. Ran across your guys’ business show, because I always figured I’d open up a custom car shop.

So that’s kind of how I found you. Now, for anybody out there that wants to verify that you are a real person, the website is autoliftserve . com. Autolift and serve, S -E -R -V . com. Josiah, could you share with everybody out there who wants to verify you’re a real person, what’s your first and last name, and what’s the name of your company?

Yeah, it’s Josiah Ragsdale. And then the name of the company is Automotive Lift Services. And what kind of a service is it? solutions do you guys provide there? I think a lot of people are curious about that. What kind of services do you provide at autoliftserve .

com? Sure, sure. So kind of our main niche is obviously fixing lifts. Because we generally will prioritize speed of repair. So like we offer like 48 hour repair times guaranteed. But otherwise, as far as the rest of the equipment in the shop, if it’s in a shop, like in the mechanic side, you know, whether it be exhaust ventilation equipment or air compressor equipment, we service it and sell it as well.

But lifts are our main bread and butter. Now, what I wanted to do on today’s show is really brag on you and kind of go through some of the wins that we’ve been able to work on together. Because I think sometimes when people think about a business coach or a business consultant, they may think about a motivational guy. They may think about some sort of motivational, feelings -focused, almost like business therapist. But that’s not what we do at all. We focus on implementing a linear path to help real business owners grow their real companies.

So we’re going to go through all 14 steps today. So step number one. Revenue goals. I’m not asking you to share on today’s show what your yearly revenue goals are, but why is it important for you as a coaching client and a business owner, why was it important for you to figure out how much money you needed to do per week in sales to hit your goals and what your yearly goals actually were? Without knowing our yearly goal, there’s no way to break down into what you need to hit per week. Cause like, that’s a really important thing that we start with every single Monday morning, just between the, uh, my service manager here and myself is like figuring out, okay, this is how much cash we need to break even for this week.

And this is how much cash we need to break even or should need to break even next week. And then this is what we need to make a profit. Um, and, and the, here’s our goal for profit. So, uh, I mean, it’s, I don’t know how you would stay in business without knowing it. So let’s, let’s, let’s drill into that for a second. Are you coming to our workshop coming up here in March?

Are you coming to that? I will not be, unfortunately. Nope. We’ve got a, we’ve got a two month old baby, so he’s not moving yet. Okay. Well, let me pull this up real quick so people can see that you’ve been to a workshop though.

So you’ve been to a workshop. And I’m just going to throw out some ideas for anybody out there watching. You know, we have Eric Trump. That’s President Trump’s son will be there. Robert Kiyosaki, bestselling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Eric Trump obviously runs the Trump Organization.

They have thousands of employees. We have Robert Kiyosaki, the bestselling author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. We have Tom Wheelwright, one of the most respected wealth consultants on the planet. And people say to me, Clay, man, it’s got to be hard putting together an event like that. And I say, well, I don’t know. We could define hard, but I’ll just tell you this.

It’s about $175 ,000 for me to put on that event. And someone says, huh? Real numbers that you put out up front. You say, where does that go to? Well, you got the president’s son here, so you need security. You need great security.

We need all the police and all the law enforcement to keep him safe. You’ve got audio and visual people that work all weekend, and they set up for the event. We’ve got food. Anytime you try to feed a small army of people, which will be 400 people, think about it. Even if the average person, if we only invested in $20 over two days to feed them, that would quickly add up. But it’s not $20.

So you’re talking about $50 of food per person. You’ve got the security. Then you got the flights, the hotel, the accommodations for the various speakers. And I can go on and on boring people with details. But you end up spending quickly about $150 ,000 to put on the event. And so because we only sell 400 tickets, you kind of do the math and you go, OK, that’s what you need to do to break even.

And I think everybody out there needs to have clarity on that. You mentioned it. I want to go back to this workflow for a second. The break even point, box number two. Most people do not know how many customers they need to break even. Why is it absolutely essential for you and for any business owner especially at

auto lift serve .com? com? Why is it important for you to know how much you have to sell to break even? Yeah, I mean, if you don’t break even you’re, you’re going bankrupt. So that’s about as important as it gets. You know, I mean, I don’t know how else to break that down.

Well, I think a lot of business owners, though, don’t ever think about these things at all. I mean, I would say 99 % of the wonderful doctors and dentists and lawyers and clients and automotive repair shops I’ve worked with, I mean, of all the clients in our portfolio, I would say 99 % of them don’t know their breakeven point before they start coaching. And I think that’s so important for everybody out there to really dial into that idea. Now, the third step, we’ve got the third step, is you’ve got to know how many hours per week you’re willing to work. Now, you have a baby on the way. Is this baby number one or baby number 407?

How many kids do you have? This baby is baby number one. Yeah. And so I remember when I first met you, you were baby free. You might have even been girlfriend free. I think you came to the conference with a friend.

And I think one of the work vans stopped working, and you guys helped us fix the van or got it working. So a lot has changed in your life. Why is it important that you and your wife, you and your partner that you guys have, that you’re on the same page with defining your schedule? Oh, definitely. That’s huge. Because I mean, if like, we want to be happily married and have a good home for, you know, our future kids and whatnot, because we want to have more kids too.

But I mean, if I was just like always working, she would not. we probably wouldn’t be married for very long. So like my curfew moved up from like 6 30 p . m and being able to start as early as I wanted to like now I quit at five and then I don’t get to work all day and all night on Saturdays anymore. So my Saturdays start earlier and we’ve kind of changed when his bedtime is to kind of make it match too. But uh yeah I mean that’s that’s really important so.

So real stuff, divorce, do you lose 50 % of what you built? So number four, defining your unique value proposition, you know, what is it that makes your company unique? So that’s one thing we do with every client, we help you achieve that. But let’s talk about autoliftserve . com. What do you guys do differently autoliftserve .

com from your competition? What do you do to make sure unique in the world of business? Yeah. So we, uh, we guarantee that we’ll fix the lift within 48 hours or it’s free. Like we’ll try and get people over to our maintenance plan right away. Uh, that, that’s kind of our biggest thing.

Cause most people you go to, you’re going to go ahead and, uh, you’re going to call them. They’re going to come out and diagnose it, bill you for that. And then they’re going to order parts. You’re going to go through, it’s like a 30 to 60 day lead time on a lot of repairs. And kind of what we do is we’ll go ahead of that and we’ll go, okay. You know, Hey, for, uh, you know, let’s say $100 a month, whatever, we’ll cover your lift.

And then if anything breaks, we’ll come out and have it fixed within 48 hours where you don’t have to pay for it that long. So again, you’ve thought through this, and you have a coach that works with you every week. Let’s talk about this here. Moving on to box number five, branding. That’s the website, photography, video, logo, print pieces, video testimonials. How has improving your branding impacted your ability to go out there and sell in a competitive marketplace?

Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s impacted a whole lot. I mean, like, even when I was first showing up, like we were, like, right after starting up with you guys, like the difference between me going in and Dream 100 marketing beforehand and after it was huge, because, like, before I’d go in, they’d be like, Okay, this is just some guy off the street, clearly. But afterwards, I went in, like, we got into the Davis group here in Iowa. And, and I was talking to one of them there. And they thought we were part of like a franchise. They were like, Oh, wow, are you a franchisee for this company or whatever?

And I was like, that was the point that made me think like, Oh, wow. Our brand names like really jumped. quite a lot. And that’s helped a lot because now they weren’t as worried about like, Oh, do you know, specifically how you’re going to fix this or what you’re doing now? It’s more so like, okay, this is a legit company. We’re not worried about it.

Just book them. I’m telling you folks, people do judge a book by the cover. People do judge you based upon your branding. It’s so important you nail it down. Box number six, the three -legged marketing stool. There’s got to be a way that every business owner out there that you can stably, consistently, methodically market to your ideal and likely buyers.

There’s got to be a sustainable, proven way for you to market to your ideal and likely buyers. Can you talk about the impact that it’s had having someone like Andrew, one of our coaches working with you to make sure that you’re diligently implementing a three legged marketing stool? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, I mean, just having some accountability because one of ours is Dream 100 Marketing. So that’s pretty big where we like physically show up and keep dropping off doughnuts until they cry die or buy. But so that one’s that one’s big.

That’s more so just the accountability of making sure we’re doing it. And then obviously, like getting top of Google is our other main one. And then we’re kind of we run a lot of retargeting ads, stuff like that. We’re cranking that up. So like those are two boxes that I really know nothing about. And so Andrew kind of takes the whole takes everything from there.

Like we have Lucky Orange on the website. Him and I go through it on our coach calls every, every week. And we kind of scroll through and see if there’s stuff that could be, have people hanging up on or getting caught on and whatnot. But that’s pretty much, I mean, he’s pretty much taking on all that. Like we write some content too. You guys write a ton of content, but yeah, that’s, that’d be huge.

I would have no idea what the heck to do with that. without you guys, so. If you didn’t have a team helping you get to the top of the Google search results, A, could you do it? And then B, what kind of impact has it made on your business being top in the Google search results? Sure, sure. Yeah, could I do it?

I probably could it’d be it’d be horrible, though. It’d take me way longer, like way longer and cost a lot more money because I would have screwed it up royally many times. Um, And the impact is huge because obviously people find us on Google. We’ve got like several of our largest customers have came from a simple Google search. And they’re like people that we’ve been trying to dream and under market to before that for years. And they basically didn’t know who we are.

And then one of these days, you know, somebody’s just Googling at their company and finds us and they book us in that. That’s so much easier to when they find us on Google, and they call us to book it like it’s, it’s light years easier, because now it’s like they’re looking for us. It’s not we’re cold calling them and trying to get them to buy something. So it’s more so like order taking at that point instead of having to sell. So I mean, it’s a huge impact. Now, next area here.

And again, this is all people people always say to me, they always say Josiah, Josiah, people say to me, they’ll say, Clay, what is the most important thing I need to do to grow my company? And I would respond rhetorically, not in a difficult way. I’m just saying, what’s the most important ingredient that makes cookies? Is it butter? Is it eggs? Is it chocolate chips?

They say, what? I said, well, what’s the most important part of the house? I mean, is it the framing? Is it the tile? Is it the countertops? Could you skip the footings?

Could you skip the rebar? Could you skip the framing? Could you skip the shingles? It’s all of those things working together. And I think a lot of people really don’t think about business that way because of our educational system and the biases that are presented there. So box number seven, you’ve got to create a sales conversion system.

It’s a sales conversion system. You have to have a system that we’re talking about scripts, recorded calls. emails, lead trackers, tracking the results. How has tracking the results and having a turnkey system in place impacted your business? Yeah, tracking, tracking results is absolutely huge. The lead tracker is probably, that’s probably the biggest, most game changing thing we’ve done is with you guys is because now we’ve got like one spot, all of our notes are in and it’s nice and simple.

We went through with Andrew. So it’s just like, if it’s a white box, that just means we need to keep calling them. They haven’t booked. If it’s green, they’re booked. If it’s red, it’s, you know, they said no, but that simplified everything. Um, I mean, that’s that’s definitely the biggest one, the script.

That’s kind of always a work in progress. We go through that with Andrew relatively consistently, too, because there’s a lot of different a lot of different steps and a lot of different questions that customers have, depending on what they’re calling on. But it’s it’s huge without what we have now. And I would say our stuff right now is nowhere close to being done. Like it still needs a lot more revisions. But without having it right now, like we definitely would have sold the wrong equipment into many, many shops.

And that would have been a big problem. Now we move on here to the next box here, folks, going 90 miles an hour. This is how you do it. Box number eight. You have to determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs. What does it cost you to get a new customer?

You have to know what does it cost to obtain a new customer. Do you have a tracking sheet? Do you know how much you’re spending on advertisement? You have to know that. Box number nine. You’ve got to create repeatable systems, processes, and file organization.

Repeatable systems. processes, and file organization. Now, this is not a fitness advice to anybody out there, but I’m going to give you an example. One of my clients is unbelievably fit. I mean, this guy is looking incredible. And he made the comment to me years ago.

I said, you look great. And he said, thank you. I pay for it. And I remember he said it like he’d been thinking about it. And I said, man, you look great. And he goes, thank you.

I pay for it. And I was thinking, so he was ready for that response. And so I said, can I ask what that means? He’s like, oh, I pay for a trainer seven days a week. So seven days a week, I have a trainer, somebody who’s a coach, who puts me in a position And I said, you look great.

You’ve had a trainer. This is a guy in his mid 40s. I’m like, so you have a trainer seven days a week? He said, yeah. I said, can I ask why? And I kind of knew why, but it helps to hear it from somebody else.

And he said, because if I don’t, I’m going to go to the gym. I’m going to have the workout pants on, the workout shoes on. I’m going to be there. And I’m not going to work out. And if I do, I’m not going to push myself. And so I have a trainer that pushes me for 40 minutes a day and who pushes me.

And I said, what do you pay per session? True story. He said, $100 a session. I said, so you’re spending per week $700 a week. He said, no. Yeah, that’s why I look like I do.

I mean, that’s something I’ve invested in. Now, again, I hear that all the time with people that have a great lawyer. They say, man, your legal systems are dialed in. They go, yeah, I pay for it. I have a lawyer. I see people that are phenomenal in the game of investing.

And they go, yeah, I pay for it. I have a financial strategist. I think everybody in any area of our lives where we want to get better, we need to have a coach of some kind. Could you talk about the impact of having a coach, what that’s done for you? Having somebody like Andrew that actually gives a crap about your business, that actually is 100 % focused on how he meets you every week, knowing it’s a flat rate, but also knowing that you have somebody that each week is going to follow up with you and make sure that all these systems are being implemented. Can you talk about the impact of that?

Yeah, it’s huge. I’d say the biggest impact is probably every week kind of pulling me out of turtle view and back up into kind of looking further out. So like I’d commonly, so like for a long time, especially in the beginning, I was still doing a lot of technician work, not so much anymore, but I was doing a lot of technician work. So it was like every Wednesday was like, our call that’s like what got me back up to the point of thinking about oh okay you know i’m actually building a company you know eventually we’re gonna have somebody somebody in this role i’m not gonna have to do this forever you know that kind of deal uh but it’s big i’d say a lot of it just like, you know, of course, accountability and getting numbers in your tracking sheet and stuff like that, so you know where you are and if you’re gaining or not. But I’d say the bigger thing is like helping you get out of your own head and kind of see, at least for me, helping me get out of my own head and see that, oh, okay, I’m not trapped.

You know, and here’s the next step I can do to get us a little bit further down the road. And he really kind of pulls that out. Cause a lot of times I’ll feel like I have no idea what to do next to keep growing the company. But in our convert, in my conversation with him, a lot of times he can kind of pull that out just through us talking. And then it’s like a lot more clear on how to keep growing. I find it very interesting that all of the people I’ve met in my life who are very successful, they all have a coach.

an advisor, or somebody that pushes them. The guy that I meet that has the jacked up haircut is normally the guy that cuts his own hair. The guy that I meet that has a really, really nice car typically did not hand make the car. They typically reached out to someone who has proven to be an expert in car making, and they bought the car from the Ferrari dealership. from the Lamborghini dealership. The guy who has the great haircut typically has a professional they’re hiring.

And in business out there, if you feel stuck, you’ve got to implement all these systems. So box number 10 and 11, box number 10, you’ve got to learn how to manage people. And that’s not something that’s normal, managing people. Do the people on your team know what their jobs are? And are they being held accountable for doing those jobs? Do the people on your team know what they’re supposed to be doing?

And are they doing those things? Could you talk about the impact of having a coach, how much that’s made on your ability to manage people? Yeah, that’s, that’s another area that’s really helpful. Because, you know, I had no management experience prior to this. I, yeah, I don’t connect with a lot of people very well, either. So I don’t Yeah, it was like, basically, every single week, I just have a problem, we go over with Andrew, I’m like some kind of crazy thing that I didn’t think people did, which is probably the most common.

thing. And it’s like, why is this like, like, this is the job, this is all you got to do. Like, what’s, what’s the problem here. But Andrew’s very helpful in us helping us figure out, you know, how to manage people. I’d say a big part of helping me manage was helping me get the group interview going, enrolling properly, because that has probably been the biggest influence on, you know, helping me manage people better is maybe kind of moving some people out sooner and or moving some job shadows in which kind of speeds people up then a little bit too. Yeah, but like none of that I wouldn’t have figured out any of that without him.

Now, we move on here to the final couple of steps here. You have to create a repetitive weekly schedule. You have to schedule a time every week for the group interview, like we talked about, or your daily huddles. And that’s something we work with, teaching our clients how to time block and build a schedule that works for them. Box number 12, teaching you how to hire and recruit great people. How do you hire, inspire, train, retain great people?

Box number 13, step number 13, you’ve got to create an accounting system so you’re actually aware of your money. Where is it going? But all of this, the whole point of doing all this, box 14, is so that you can achieve success in the area of your faith, your family, your friendship, your fitness, your finances, your fun, your focus. And so I encourage everybody out there, make a list today. What are your goals for your faith, your family, your friendship, fitness, your finances, your fun? Your focus, what are your goals for faith, family, friendship, fitness, finances, fun, focus.

What are your goals? And then the business exists just to help you achieve those goals. And so my final two questions I’d have for you, the listeners out there know that we’ve helped you with accounting and branding and online ads and search engine optimization. But my final two questions for you would be this. If you could explain to somebody in 60 seconds or less -ish, what kind of an impact has weekly business coaching made on you and your business? Yeah.

It’s made a huge impact. I mean, like I said, I don’t think we would be anywhere close to where we are right now if even still in business without it. It’s like you guys have really helped just continue us, continue growing because like without you guys, we wouldn’t, we wouldn’t have our website cranking. We wouldn’t have a bunch of leads. We wouldn’t have, I’d probably be stuck in my own head.

I’d probably still be stuck as a self -employed technician and not have really figured out how to get out of that phase. Like I really think I’d be stuck there for, for many years without, without a weekly call. Final question, there’s somebody out there that is a big statistic guy. They want him to see stats. I’m not asking you for your private numbers. But as far as a percentage, how much have you grown since we met you?

Are you up like 2%, 7%, 10 %? What kind of a percentage? How would you quantify that? Yeah. When we met, we were probably at, I don’t know exactly what the percentage, but you could probably figure it out. When we met and first started with you guys, we probably had done like maybe $60 ,000 in a year.

And we probably now do more like $2 million to $2 .5 million in a year. Let’s just do some math here. So if I take $2 million and I divide that by $60 grand, we could say you’re up 33 times? Yep. I mean, that’s an accurate number. You guys have grown 33 times.

That’s powerful. So I encourage everybody, go to thrivetimeshow . com. I have two calls to action for everybody out there today. First off, I want everyone to go to autoliftserve . com.

And even if you don’t know why, share this link on your socials. Because what it does is it helps my wonderful client Josiah. It helps Josiah to rank higher in the search engine results. So if you just share. A link to autoliftserve . com, it does help him rank higher on the search results.

Second thing, if you want to come to one of our in -person workshops, you just go to thrivetimeshow . com. The tickets are always $250 or whatever price you can afford. So we’ve made it affordable for everybody. That’s thrivetimeshow . or whatever price you can afford. How

How would you describe the workshops? You’ve been to the workshops. You’ve done the 13 point assessment. How would you describe the free 13 point assessment and the workshops? Oh, the workshops are a blast. It’s like you’re in a room with a ton of other people who want to do the kind of the same thing.

It’s probably the most, I don’t know. It’s just excellent. Like you just got to go. Like you go in, there’s The whole thing is very different. I’ve never seen anything like it. You get to see a bunch of people who, like I said, are kind of in the same boat as you.

meet them. And they’re not normally just people who are kind of like, I you know, I’m just trying to sell insurance to this to this small group that you’re somehow a part of in your town. But no, this is like, these are like people who are like, really growing their companies. Like I can think of like Ryan Wells, for instance, grows like crazy, like he’s a ton of fun to talk to when we go down there. And I always get new ideas from it, too. So I’m like, wow, we’re really dropping the ball in this area.

And these guys are killing it. So it’s, it’s awesome. Well, congratulations on baby number one. Thank you for carving out time for us. I encourage everyone, one more time, folks, if you haven’t checked out that website, it does help our wonderful client, Josiah Ragsdale, to rank higher if you visit that website. So you might say, how do I do it?

All you got to do is just go on over there to Autolift. Let me pull it up again here. The domain is autoliftserv . com, A -T -O -L -I -F -T -S -E -R -V. RV. If you go there, what it does is it helps our client rank higher in the search results if you share today’s link, if you share a link to his website.

So make sure you do that, folks. Again, Josiah, thank you so much for your time, sir. And we’ll talk to you soon. Thanks. Bye -bye. This song goes out to my main man, Kevin Falcon.

Kevin Falcon. And kicking grass. Landscaping. Landscaping, baby. The other day, I was looking at my grass, thinking about ways to make the time pass. And I thought about prank calls.

Calling people I don’t know all morning So I called 918 -872 -0338 I put that call through When the phone rang, somebody picked the phone up They said hello, and then I said what up Next thing I know, I’m scheduling a professional To landscape my lawn and to mow that grow It was like a show, on the mow as they go Back and forth, whacking that grass like whack -a -mole It was total control, the way they roll A kick in grass It’s like the Superbowl of the Mo Show I was so impressed I gave a Mo Do I even offered a Mo to Mo Stow Wishing and hoping that I could prolong the show But they said no, and I said whoa I tried to film that thing on my video But my phone was full, almost overload Filled with videos from the Garden Show We kickin’ grass now We’re kickin’ grass now We kickin’ grass now. It’s like that now. It’s like that now. You better go and kick the grass up off the land now. You better go and kick the grass up off the land now. You better go and kick the grass up off the land now.

You better go and kick the grass up off the land now. You better go and kick the grass up off the land now. My name is Kevin Falcon. I’m the owner, operator of Kickin’ Grass and Takin’ Names Lawn Care. Overall, I mean, from when I first started to now, I’m like over 1 ,200%. It’s the energy that it brings.

It’s the revitalization in what you’re doing. I see what works. I’ve gone through the process, and it’s just a flood. Every spring and summer, it’s great. It works. It’s so much easier.

It’s like, if you enjoy the process, keep doing what you’re doing. But if you want to be successful, if you want to have that freedom, have that, I mean, it happens very quickly. It’s not like it’s, okay, in so many years, we’re gonna get you here. It’s if, when you implement your systems and your suggestions and your guidance, it happens, it goes, it takes off. Ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, ladies and gentlemen, on today’s show, we’re joined by a man who, had a job, and he says, you know what?

I want to keep my job, and then I want to build something for my family. I want to build some different income streams for my family. I think what today’s guest brings to the table is a really large slice of the American pie. Most people that I know, they have a job, and they’re looking to earn a little bit more money, time freedom, financial freedom. And so he started what I would call maybe a landscaping business or a lawn maintenance company. His name is Kevin Falcon.

Kevin Falcon, welcome onto The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I am great. How are you? Brother, I’m excited to be with you here. And I’m going to pull up your website real quick so you can verify that you are not a hologram.

Could you share with us that website is kickinggrasstulsa . com, kickinggrasstulsa . com. Yes, that is my website right there. Could you verify what your first and last name is and what the name of your company is, sir? My name is Kevin Falcon.

I’m the owner operator of Kicking Grass and Taking Names Lawn Care. Now, OK, I’m going to go through rapid fire, no trick questions, just rapid fire. So here we go. How long have you worked with us approximately? I think this is going to be my sixth year with you guys. And Andrew always brags on you because you’re just a low maintenance, hardworking guy.

I want to tap into your brain and just for anybody out there who’s watching this that, you know, maybe they have a job and they’re kind of looking to start a side gig or a side hustle or a side company. Could you tell us what were you doing before you started? kicking grass or maybe what were you doing while you’re starting to congress. So work for a local convenience store. The Tulsa area. We’re the we’re the just over 20 years, I’m actually just quote unquote retired from them so if you will.

But I’ve always kind of maintain a lawns on the side and it’s something that you know, I feel good at when I when I accomplish it. Now, what was your goal when you started Kickin’ Grass? Or where did the name… How did you come up with the name? How did you design that name, Kickin’ Grass? So, you guys came up with it.

There was a moment you guys had mentioned in one of the meetings or at your conference, where, have you ever spent eight hours working on your logo, moving it millimeter to the left, millimeter to the right, trying to perfect it? And, you know, in my early 20s, I was trying to, you know, do all that stuff, and all of it just really hit for me. And I’m like, it doesn’t matter. The name doesn’t matter. The logos don’t matter. So they asked me what I wanted, and I said, whatever you got.

And they gave me eight names, and I thought Kicking Grass was great, and I ran with it. I’m just curious, because I was part of that meeting. This is what happens a lot of times. Clients will reach out. We have 160 clients, and the coach will say, Clay, We’ve got a lawn care company that needs a name. We’ve got a restaurant that needs a name.

And so I’m just sort of long on ideas, but I’m not emotional about which idea you approve or which idea you go with. So you could say, step one, we sat down together. We came up with a name. And then the logo and the website, so many business owners get stuck there. As part of our business coaching program, we guide you through the entire path. And part of that, obviously, is building a website and the print piece and the graphic design.

How much has that impacted you, having all of that with one flat monthly bill? How has that helped you from a peace of mind perspective, knowing, hey, I’m going to pay these guys a flat rate of this, and not only are they going to do the coaching, but they’re going to provide photography, video, web, search engine, all those tools? It simplifies everything. Just like I said before, when I tried doing a lot of these things on my own, trying to remember everything, as far as the advertisement and things like that portion of it, that’s all handled and controlled, so to speak. I just have to worry about closing the deals and getting the jobs done. Now, this next area, whenever someone thinks about growing a company, they always say, people will come to me all the time.

And I’m sure you can imagine these situations. They’ll come to me and they’ll say, Clay, what’s the most important thing I need to do to grow a company? In fact, I was talking yesterday to a lady who’s looking to grow her dentistry practice. And she said, at the end of the day, what’s the most important thing I need to do to grow a successful company. And I said, it’s kind of like asking a baker, what’s the most important ingredient to make a dessert item? Or it’s like asking a landscaper, what’s the most important tool you have?

Is it the screwdriver? Is it the lawnmower? Is it the weed eater? Is it the leaf blower? And I would argue it’s all of those things working in concert. What’s your thoughts on that?

Because I get asked that question a lot. They say, so with business coaching, what’s the most important thing? I want to get your thoughts to that kind of question for somebody who’s on the outside right now. In particular, this lady’s a dentist, a wonderful dentist, sharp dentist. She has no leads, no real traction, but she’s got the degree, she’s got the overhead, and she’s got what’s the main thing that moves the needle for your clients? I would say the experience.

the experience of trying to do all that stuff yourself and realizing there’s only so many hats you can wear successfully. And knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, what to give up and who to delegate what to, just that is the most important thing, realizing your shortcomings and trying to have somebody else maximize that for you. So we’re going to pull this up here. I wrote a book here. I’ve written 30 -plus books. This particular book is called The Millionaire’s Guide.

And again, folks, if you might have missed it, that website is kickinggrasstulsa . com. That’s the website, kickinggrasstulsa . com. And by the way, if anybody shares today’s show, you’ll help Kevin boost up higher in the search engine. So please feel free to share that URL, kickinggrasstulsa .

com, no matter where in the world you’re watching from. But if you go to thrivetimeshow . com and you go to forward slash free resources, you can follow along. I’ve written 30 -plus books, and you can download for free one of my books, A Millionaire’s Guide. guide how to become sustainably rich. And if we turn here in that book to page five, we’re going to go through this 90 miles an hour, all the steps here.

So step number one, I’m not asking you to tell us your numbers, but why do you have to establish the revenue goals? Like, why is that important for you as a business owner to know what your revenue goals are and what your weekly revenue goals are? Why is that important for you as a business owner? That way you can judge how well you’re doing, where you can improve at. If you don’t have a benchmark, then you don’t know whether you’re meeting your full potential as a company. And again, you came from a world where you worked very successfully for a long time in the convenience store industry.

So you actually worked in a business where you had to know the numbers. You had to know the numbers for the store. You had to know inventory. So a lot of the things we taught are very applicable for your career as well. Box number two, you’ve got to know your break -even numbers. Whether it’s the convenience store you ran or the landscaping company, you have to know, how much crap do I have to sell to break even?

Or perhaps a more articulate way to say it is, how many customers do I need to break even? I need. Why is that important? Why do you think that most of our coaching clients don’t know that number before we start working with them? Because they’re just worried about trying to get their product out there and doing it.

They don’t realize that they may have a little bit of money to start with. And that’s going to be depleted real quick, unless they figure out, oh, if I don’t hit, you know, 10 customers a week, that’s my break even, let’s say, then I won’t be able to maintain this lifestyle or this business at all. Now, we talk about, number three, defining the number of work hours you’re willing to work. You are working full time at a job, having a lot of success in a career, while you are also growing a landscaping company. And one thing I never want to do for my clients is I never want my clients to try to feel the need to work the schedule I work, nor do I ever feel the need to work the schedule that my clients work. So clients always ask me, Clay, what hours do you keep?

And I say, well, I really like to work from 5 AM -ish to 6 PM -ish, six days a week. People say, what? I just personally enjoy the idea of going from five to six, pretty much six days a week. I get up around three. That’s what I like. Some of my clients work literally two hours a day.

One of my clients I just talked to today, he’s doing great, and he works less than four hours a day, and he’s a multi -multi -millionaire. Why was it important for you to figure out your schedule, your boundaries, and the hours that you were willing to work, and the hours that you weren’t willing to work? Because for me, it was about the family. We’ve got six kids. I, you know, in a blink of an eye, they’re moving out. They’re going to college, things like that.

We’re down to our last two, so I really wanted to make sure I had the time to spend with them. And then it’s those little moments to be there for those kids. So with the time I put in with my previous job and the experience I now have while doing my, my new career, so to speak. I’m able to have that fluctuation in that time and that availability for all my kids, wherever they are in their life. It’s powerful. It’s powerful, folks.

I think somebody out there, if you’re watching today’s show, it’s a little gut check for somebody out there. The whole purpose of a business is to create time and financial freedom so that we can pursue the goals that we believe God’s given us. And a lot of that has to do with family. We talk at the Thrive Time Show workshops about sitting down and very intentionally making a list of your goals for your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your friendship, and your fun. And all of us struggle in different areas.

I mean, some people are incredible family people. Maybe they struggle in finances. Some people are great at fitness. Maybe they struggle in business or whatever. But I encourage everybody out there to take the time to do that. Box number four, we’ve got to figure out how to make your company stand out in the clutter of commerce.

How do we define your unique value proposition? Who are your top three competitors? How do we compete versus that? And we try to help our clients do that. that through marketing and branding. And I want to kind of move on to box number five, which is branding.

We want to make sure your branding is incredible. I ask everybody out there watching today’s show, rate your website and your print pieces on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Rate your marketing on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. And ask yourself, how highly would you rank your own website versus your competition? And that’s the kind of stuff will help you bridge that gap and make your website, your photography, your video great. Box number six, you have to have a three -legged marketing stool.

And Kevin, as you know, there’s endless people reaching out to you trying to convince you that this is the best way to market. You should try this ClickFunnel. Do this magazine ad. Do this mailer. Do this thing. Join this chamber.

Go to this networking thing. do this trade out sort of, I mean, it’s like where you do bartering and trading, there’s a trade association. And if you’re not careful, I mean, you get pulled in multiple directions. How is it, from a peace of mind perspective, how has it impacted you knowing that generating leads is not a problem for you now? It’s good. It’s wonderful.

I’m very skeptical now of everything else, like you were mentioning, the mailers, the magazines. joiners, and all that stuff. I see what works. I’ve gone through the process. And it’s just a flood every spring and summer. It’s great.

So you would say you now know it’s wonderful. You’ve gone through the process. You now know what works and what doesn’t work. Is that accurate? Yes. I think it’s big, because I think somebody out there doesn’t know the process.

They haven’t gone through this process. They’re running around looking for leads, scavenging for leads. And you said a flood. You just have a flood that comes in every spring. You just know it’s going to happen now. Yeah.

OK, box number seven, having a sales conversion process. And some people adhere to this very fastidiously, some not as much. But you have to have sales scripts, recorded calls, print pieces that make sense. And at the end of the day, you have to track your results. Can you talk about the impact that tracking every week with a business coach has had on your life and business, where you weekly look at your numbers and you actually track those numbers every week? It’s mind -blowing to see how many leads we get.

We’ve even started tracking how much acreage we’ve mowed. I think we’re somewhere just shy of just under 1 ,200 acres that we mow for the season, things like that. It’s astonishing to see when you go back over these numbers just to see how much you’ve actually accomplished because when you’re in the moment, and you’re performing the task or the service that you have, you don’t really notice all those details until you can step back and look back at what you’ve done and accomplished. And one of the things that’s so great about working with you is I know you’re going to come in on Friday. There’s homework you have. There’s homework we have.

And it’s really fun to help somebody, because money is just a magnifier. And so if you’re out there today, and I’m telling you, if you’re struggling to get leads, you too can do it. Hey, by the way, do you know who Lou Fregno is? He’s the guy who played. He was the Incredible Hulk back in the day. Remember the Incredible Hulk?

Yeah. Did that resonate with you? Did you care about the Incredible Hulk? Was that a big thing in your life? This isn’t a trick question. I’m just curious.

Were you a big… I liked the Hulk a lot, yeah. I’m giving you an invitation right now. Check your calendar. Seriously. The Incredible Hulk just reached out.

He’s gonna be on my show on Friday at 1 p . m. He’s going to be in the studio. So if you want to be in the studio to interview the Incredible Hulk, I just found out he’s coming to Tulsa. He’s going to be in our studio. I just found this out.

So if you want to be there, open invitation to your friend. I know Friday’s the day you normally meet with Andrew, because most of our clients are not in Tulsa. So if you want to take advantage of that, you, me, Incredible Hulk, Friday. It’s Friday at 1 o ‘clock. OK. Now, next is box number eight.

You have to determine your sustainable customer acquisition costs. This might blow someone’s mind. This might blow someone’s mind. I’m going to give people some facts here. Folks, did you know from our upcoming business workshop that it’s going to cost me over $170 ,000 of cash to put that thing on? I don’t think people recognize that.

So when you talk about, let me just walk people through this. You’ve got Eric Trump. This is President Trump’s son. You know, this is the guy who runs the Trump Organization. You’ve got Robert Kiyosaki, the best -selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the top entrepreneurial author of all time. You have myself, and I work very cheap.

You have Tom Wheelwright, the financial planner for Robert Kiyosaki. I just got off the phone with the law enforcement community. I mean, we’ve got security. I mean, we’ve got a secret service detail. We’ve got lunch. We’ve got the dinner.

I mean, you get this because you ran a very successful convenience store. You know how costs can pile up. I’m not at all shocked that this just in, folks. If I’m spending over $150 ,000 to put this on, and there’s only 300 people in the room, How much am I spending per person on putting this together? Someone might say, you’re spending $500.

Yeah. So I’m just being real. The costs can creep up. And you say, man, why does it cost that much? Kevin, you’ve been to our workshops. I mean, we offer a workbook.

We serve lunch both days. We bring in first class talent and speakers. Could you explain the impact of attending the workshops and what that’s made on your life and or business? It’s the energy that it brings. It’s the revitalization in what you’re doing. You know, they talk about a lot of times in lawn care, how sometimes, you know, a lot of us are solo operators and you get alone and you’re out there and you’re by yourself.

It’s always good to get back, refreshed, see everyone else in whatever element that they’re in. They’re excited, they’re pumped, they’re hammering down the fundamentals of business with you and just making you kind of reevaluate, a self -reevaluation of what you’re doing and how you’re doing. I just concur. And did you ever laugh at the conferences? Do you laugh at all or not? OK, because it’s just so raw.

I absolutely love it. OK, so next area here, box number nine, you’ve got to create repeatable systems. And I won’t ask for the name of the convenience store you worked with, but I can say you were very successful in that field. And so that business is all about repeatable checklists and processes. And my dad had an opportunity to work for the same great organization that you did. So may my dad rest in peace.

But he worked there as well. And you talk about checklists. You talk about scripts. You talk about daily to -do lists. You talk about no bathroom goes uncleaned. You talk about greeting customers with a smile.

You talk about an expectation of excellence. You talk about no uncovered shifts. You talk about high and tight uniforms. You talk about mystery shoppers. You talk about merit -based pay. You talk about, I mean, there’s so much we could talk about from that business that’s applicable to this one.

But could you talk about what it’s like to build these systems and to have our team help you do that? build these systems for your own business? It’s a lot of trial and error. But it’s also, as the saying goes, it’s better to be a pirate than a pioneer. So having said that, I was able to mirror a lot of what I was already doing and just copying over and just kind of changing words here and there for my business. That way it could apply to what I do.

And just like I said, just taking those great ideas. I see that it already works and applying it for me. Love it so much. And again, folks, for anybody who’s scoring at home, if you’re scoring at home, if you’re scoring at home, that’s sort of an odd thing that you’d be scoring right now at home. But if you are scoring at home, that’s kickinggrasstulsa . com.

We’ll continue here, final four minutes together here. Box number 10, management systems. I mean, once you start generating leads, you got to manage a team of people. You have to manage a team of people, and we talk about that. Once you’re managing a team of people, you have to hire people. Box number 12, you’ve got to learn how to hire people.

How do you find people? How do you recruit people? Box number 11, you’ve got to have a repeatable, a repetitive weekly schedule, a schedule that’s sustainable for your family. You mentioned you have six kids. I’ve got five kids. You have me beat.

You win. There’s a competition. I just lost. You just won. You’ve got six kids. I’ve got five.

What I’m saying is, I’ve got five kids. All of this is what makes a successful company. It’s not just branding. It’s not just marketing. It’s not just videography. It’s all of it.

So if you had to describe to somebody the growth you’ve seen maybe as a percentage over the past six years, are you up 1 %? Are you up 10 %? Have you grown by one lawn, two lawns, 1 %? Is there some way to quantify the growth you’ve had over these years? From from last year I’m up by around 7 % from last year. Overall, I mean I’m from when I first started to now.

I’m like over 1200 % just within the first couple of years of when I was doing it to where you guys have gotten me. I mean, I was less, I mean, like I said, we started following how much acreage we mow. So when I first did this, the acreage was barely nothing. I’m up to almost 1200 acres a year now. that we’re doing. So there are some measurable points that we have. So just to be clear, and I want to make sure I’m hearing this correct, you’re saying, since working with us, that you’re up over 1 ,200 % in that time?

For my first year, yeah. That’s an incredible thing. I think somebody out there, because I know when I was starting my first company, djconnection . com, full disclosure, I haven’t owned it in years. But this is what would happen to me. Kevin, I would go to a conference, and they would say, you’ve got to build a world -class website.

And I would think to myself, I’m going to have to hire a guy. I called my web guy. I’m not complaining. I’m just being real. I called the web guy. And the web guy’s like, well, it’s going to be.

This is the web guy now, first class website guy. He had built the website for Garth Brooks and other leading people. He’d said, well, it’s going to be $6 ,000 a month for a year for the website to maintain it. I’m going. Okay. You know, again, I’m building America’s largest DJ company.

I don’t know it yet. We’re doing like two weddings a weekend. And this guy’s telling me $6 ,000 a month. And he says, however, for your website, Clay, you’re going to need a video for the website. And I’m going, yeah. So for clients like Colawfitness .

com, we build their website and we make a video for them. That’s included. But this guy said, you got to make a video. And I said, well, how much is that? He said, I don’t make videos, but you can call my video guy. I’ll never forget.

I called the video guy, 10 grand he wants for a great video. And I’m thinking, $4 ,000 a month for you, $10 ,000. I remember I was trying to figure out public relations and how that works. And so I’d heard about this cat named Michael Levine. And I thought, man, I need to get, because my web guide doesn’t work. My video guide is my video.

But nobody knows how to do public relations. I know what I’ll do. I’ll call this guy Michael Levine. I’ve read his books. And I paid $25 ,000 for three hours. of consulting, and this goes on and on.

Can you maybe articulate for anybody out there that’s on the fence, who’s thinking about scheduling a free consultation with our business coaching program? I mean, obviously, you’ve been a longtime client for a long time. Can you explain for anybody out there, if they go to thrivetimeshow . com and they schedule a free consultation, that part’s free, but can you kind of explain the monthly fee, what you’re paying versus what you’re getting in your mind as a business owner? you don’t know what you’re missing until you go and see what you can get. You know what you’re going through as a business and what you’re trying to accomplish and all the things you’ve gone through, but it’s a free consultation.

It’s simple. It’s easy. They’re very workable with you. They provide a very guided stepping stone. And if you’ve done any of it on your own, as soon as you see it laid out in front of you, you’re going to be like, oh, this is a much easier path. Final question I have here for you.

You’re stuck in an elevator with somebody. I know you’re a man. You didn’t say, Clay, please let me on your show. Different. You’re a guy who’s humble. You’re behind the scenes.

You’re raising your six kids. I think he’d probably rather be at the dentist than being on today’s show. And I appreciate you stepping out of your comfort zone. So you’re stuck in an elevator with some guy. You got five minutes until the rescue comes. And he’s like, so give me like a 60 second.

How has the business coaching program impacted you? And would you recommend it? I you just it’s for me it’s experience and I’ve been there and I’ve butt my head against the wall and and I’ve gone through what you guys have given me and it works so much easier. It’s like if you enjoy the pain. keep doing what you’re doing but if you want to be successful if you want to have that freedom have that I mean it happens very quickly it’s not like it’s okay and it’s so many years we’re going to get you here is if when you implement your systems and your suggestions and your guidance it happens it goes it takes off You know, I’m super excited to see you Friday morning. But also, if there’s any way I could see you for that Lou Fregno interview, I think that’d be awesome.

I think you’d have a lot of fun with that. We can harass him. I want it to be two on one, where it’s not just me versus him, because he’s a big man. He’s the intimidator. He’s the Hulk. So maybe if you show up, maybe I’m less nervous.

Maybe it’s a good fit. If you can’t, I get it. But open invitation this Friday. I’m not BSing you. I just found out the Hulkinator, the Incredible Hulk, Lou Fregno, is going to be in studio at this office, coming specifically for this interview at 1 o ‘clock on Friday. So if you want to be here, you’re in.

You are invited, my friend. Appreciate it. Thank you. Come on out, Baxter. What’s the matter? Can’t you handle it?

The ripple effects from you are good ripple effects. You know what I mean? People rave about what they learn from you. So congratulations. From expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to we’re at $400 ,000. Hi, I’m Kelsey with K &D’s Wooder Finishing.

I’m a 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. We’re expecting maybe $250 ,000 this year to, we’re at $400 ,000. That’s what we’re going to hit or exceed. So we’re pretty excited about that.

It’s been pretty much just listening to what they have to say. Their hiring process has just really been incredible as far as finding good quality help and just the accountability of meeting up with them weekly. like such good insight, the resources that 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.

Hi, I’m Amy Chaney. My husband and I are owners of Chaney Construction here in Tampa, Texas. And I was a little skeptical at first because my husband’s tried to do things like this before. But once I was able to speak with Clay myself, I thought, we need to give this a chance. So we were able to determine that the savings that we have from the decision that we made each month is gonna be roughly about $2 ,000 a week, so that’s about eight grand a month. Plus we also made the decision to get rid of a billboard that hadn’t really brought us any business, and that was another $475 a month.

It’s really gonna $8 ,500 a month, and that’s a really big deal. So my first thoughts when Clay introduced us to the weekly Know Your Numbers system was, No big deal. We don’t need to do that. We have a secretary that’s an amazing QuickBooks person. and so she enters all of that stuff and every single day for us so we don’t need to do that ourselves QuickBooks will pull a report. That’s all we need.

We don’t need anything else. There’s no sense in me double duty. You know, Clay, do you understand how many transactions are in our bank statement every single month? It would take me forever to do. And so very resistant because I thought we already know our numbers. We already have everything into QuickBooks and we already know what we need to know and we can pull a report to provide you with that information.

So some of the struggles and being able to complete this action item were getting the want to do it. And once I actually decided, okay, Clay, you can stop asking me. I’m actually going to sit down and do this every single week and actually got through it. And that was it. Like I’ve made that commitment. It takes me maybe 20 minutes on, you know, every Saturday morning to go in and do the previous weeks. And now that I’ve been doing it for a while, I’m kind of on a roll.

And so it makes it a lot easier. So one of the things we discovered when we started looking at the money this closely was that my husband doesn’t want to know the numbers, first of all. He pays good money to have someone do that for him because he just doesn’t want to know. It’s not his thing. And so I had worked for an accountant previous to this, so that’s kind of my thing. So for him to be able to sit down and take a look and see some of the things we’re spending money on that he probably didn’t even realize, or to realize how much we’ve been paying some employees that were not operating as A players.

And that was the big eye -opener for my husband. But when he saw the numbers of what we were paying in payroll expenses for two team members that were not operating as A players and hadn’t been for quite some time, that was a huge relief. eye -opener for him and he realized that he needed to take that emotion out of that decision and make it a business decision. It’s accountability for your secretary as well, or your bookkeeper, whoever does your books, especially if it’s not yourself, because if you’ve not ever had anybody embezzle money from you, then you’re very fortunate. So it’s really good to have that accountability. We’ve had that happen in the past to us, and so my secretary actually even came back to me and said, hey Amy, I really appreciate that you’re doing this now, because now at the end of the month, if there’s not any money, then you know exactly where the money’s went.

You and Jimmy have known exactly where the money’s gone, so we’re not coming to her going, where’s all our money? You know, because that’s not a good position for her to be in either. Like I said, just knowing where your doms are going is a huge deal, and being able to know where to cut back from, that’s a big deal, but also the accountability for everyone on your team. My name is Danielle Sprick, founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay -at -home mom for 12 years, and my three kids started school, and they were in school full -time, I was at a crossroads, and trying to decide what What do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education.

But after being a mom and staying home and all of that I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. 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 process. 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.

I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer to insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient, and that’s it. 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 invariable in starting your own business. 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. So I wanted to talk today about the success and growth I have achieved by implementing the Proven Path with Clay Clark’s team and my business coach, Luke, from Thrive Time. It has been insane, to say the least. I started working with them in mid -February of this year, so we’re about four months in of working together, and it has completely transformed my business in pretty much every way.

So I’m gonna check my notes here. So in four months, my leads have tripled. I was getting probably like two leads a week. Now I’m getting more in the like 10 to 15 leads a week. I have doubled my number of employees. I’m now hitting the highest revenue weeks in the history of the company, week to week it seems like.

We went from about six appointments today as our highest in February to now 14 to 15 appointments a day. 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 interviews.

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 mean, I’d pay him a million dollars a month if I can, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but I would just say go for it. If it seems like a good fit, just go for it. Do what they say, even if you think it’s stupid or ridiculous, just do what they say because it’ll work. You know, people, when they look at my business, you know, people in my town, they think I’m lucky. They think I’m just, you know, things 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 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 Monopoly in real life. So he was my coach. One of our accountants had said, you’ve got to meet this guy, Clay. So we ended up meeting with Clay. He’s helped us go from right before we opened the third location now to six locations. And so we’ve more than doubled our revenue.

And these are ground up buildings. And so it’s not, the barrier for entry is pretty high. It’s 20 plus staff at each location. So yeah, it’s been a lot as far as running systems, checklists, workflows, who does what, when and how, training us on that. Clay’s helped a ton. We would not be where we’re at without him.

So huge win. Charles, from an ROI perspective, if someone’s going to look at it and go, return on investment, I pay you $1 ,700 a month. Will I make more money than I’m paying you? How would you maybe tackle or how would you respond to what kind of return on investment have you seen for the $1 ,700 a month you’re paying? Well, for example, Clay has got, there’s no better business coach in the world that has the way he works, the way his mind works. But he’s also got a team of other business coaches that have worked in lots of different industries.

So he’s worked in every industry. His staff has worked in every industry. He’s got videographers, web designers. I mean, just for the fact of like, just the website alone is worth the $1 ,700. Just the ability to take any of their proven systems, whether that’s a marketing thing, or whether that’s a staffing thing, like one thing done in the month, it pays for itself. And then to understand this, there’s a part of where, you know, maybe some week you may be like, well, you know what, I’m not getting a whole lot out of this call.

But the bottom line is, it’s like when you read the Bible, there’s times you’re just reading it, and then you’re like, You know what I really and then you read it that one time and it’s like God really speaks to your heart. And the whole truth is it’s like there’s no way that you can get that kind of value for $1 ,700 to have a whole team of coaches. Graphic designers, web developers, anybody that has that type of knowledge in your back pocket. And the whole thing is run your business with being somewhat conservative. Make sure you don’t run it to the edge all the time. But by doing that, you have that skill set.

You have those tools on your tool belt. And I just think it’s just like it’s just like the cost of doing business. Like, just, just understand it. That’s a, that’s what you want to do. I think there’s a, there’s a, sometimes the payment we make, I feel like is peace of mind, even because there have been multiple times throughout the years that we will, we will either be butting heads on something.

Um, we’re super confused about something. We’re fearful about something, something in the markets changed and it’s a quick call to clay. Well, Thrive Nation, it’s a very special occasion because a lot of times on The Thrive Time Show, I get to interview people that I am friendly with or have an acquaintance with, that kind of thing, and I enjoy that. But it’s really an honor whenever I get to interview someone who I consider to be a friend or people that I consider to be friends of our family. And it’s awesome when we can celebrate a success story because it’s a life -giving thing. And for somebody watching today’s show, if you feel you need like a checkup from the neck up, if you feel stuck, if you feel like you don’t have the resources to get started but you You have the resourcefulness.

Maybe today’s show is the show you need to hear, because this is a couple. They started this business together out of their house, and they’ve now grown it into a multimillion dollar, super successful company. And I’ve had the opportunity to work with them in a consulting or coaching capacity over these past five or six years. And I am so excited to have them on today’s show. With that being said, Amber and Charles Cola, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. Amber, how are you?

Great. Thanks, Clay. It’s awesome to be on here with you. Yes, we are excited. OK, so I got to ask this real quick, because people think you’re a hologram. How long have we had the opportunity to work with you, or how long have we worked with you guys together from kind of a coaching relationship?

We probably started back in 2017. 2017, yeah. So yeah, we’re looking at seven, eight years. Yeah. It’s coming. It’s coming up on eight probably.

It’s a little over seven. And from that time, I mean, you guys have experienced tremendous personal growth. and business growth. I mean, could you, Charles, maybe talk about, I’m not looking for your specific financials, but could you maybe talk about maybe the size you guys have grown over these past seven or eight years at colawfitness . com? Absolutely.

Yeah, we started off, we were getting ready to open our third location, and one of our accountants had said, you’ve got to meet this guy, Clay. So we ended up meeting with Clay, and he’s helped us go from, right before we opened the third location now to six locations. And so we’ve more than doubled our revenue. And these are ground up build gyms. And so it’s not the barrier for entry is pretty high. It’s 20 plus staff at each location.

So yeah, it’s been a lot as far as running systems, checklists, workflows, who does what, when and how, training us on that. Clay’s helped a ton. We would not be where we’re at without him. So huge win. The Thrivetime Show two -day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13 -point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies.

We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two -day, 15 -hour workshop.

It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down. real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything.

It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. 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 it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it.

Transcribed with Cockatoo