Tilman Fertitta’s (Owner of the Houston Rockets) 95:5 Rule | Most Moderately Successful Businesses Are Good at About 95% of What They Do

Audio Transcription

Xe on today’s show, we are breaking down Tilman Fertitta’s 95 five rule. Now, before we get into the 95 five rule, I want to point out there are many names you, there’s many ways you can mispronounce Tilman, Fertitta his name that will, there’s several you could say for Tada Frittata, for, for Teta, for Teta, for Tada for you. But you, but, but that wouldn’t be his name. Well you’re correct. But Tilman Fertitta a potato Tillman for Tata Tilman Fertitta Tilman Fertitta. Um, he is the owner of the Houston Rockets and he has a net worth of four point $4 billion. And his new book is called shut up and listen, and I’m just telling you this 95 five rule is hot, hot. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to shut up and listen.

Yes, yes, yes. And yes. Thrive nation. It is a special occasion because Dr Zellner is back in our location. Yes. It feels so good to be back home, sir. Welcome back. When you, when you consider, uh, what you went on here was it was a vacation, was it a, a business trip? How would you describe the nature of the trip that you are on

vacation? Seems to be business anymore, right? Oh yeah. You really just go and just check out and, and do just lounge. I mean, it seems like you’re always, it’s always some kind of business. You gotta take care of business.

So let me ask, let me ask you, I want you guys to compare. You went to, where did you just get back from Turkey?

Kaikos what Turks in Kaikos. It’s, it’s, it’s a thing.

Uh, you know what I mean? How do you spell that? Do you know?

T. H. A. T. Okay. That’s that. Yes, man, it’s spelled that.

Oh, oh no. Oh No. Ah, dub show. Yeah.

T. U. R. K. S and, and the cake goes to Cai CLS

now real quick for Caribbean island. Okay. Matt, you just got back from The Bahamas, right?

Yeah, yeah. It was, how do you spell that? Yes.

Real quick. I got some new sound effects here, Matt. And I want you, this is a, an ophthalmologist from Alabama. He’s from Alabama and he has this incredible laugh. His name’s Timothy Johnson. Z. You’re going to love this guy. Yeah. And so, uh, I had him on a show and on the show I queued up the audio clip from naked gun where, uh, Leslie Nielsen’s character. It goes into the bathroom after doing a public speaking event and he forgets that his Mike’s on his lavalier mic. Oh yeah. So he’s in there and her rip and the Mike Song. Oh yeah. And I, for some reason I played that son clip on the show and Timothy Johnson can’t stop laughing, but just listen. I’ll try not to laugh. Listen to the pure joy that this man is having this ophthalmologist listen to this

mean.

That’s good. That great. Isn’t that great, man? He loves it.

So good. Okay. Well, on today’s show we’re talking about shut up and listen hard business truths that will help you succeed from Tilman Fertitta we billionaire owner of the rockets who is going to be on the show, uh, I believe Z. I’m checking the calendar. Let me look here real quick here. Uh, again, I know this show gets released differently from when our listeners are going to hear it. Uh, from time to time. Let me look here. Uh, this would be so, uh, I think it’s, it’s the seventh yet. It’s the seventh. So Matt, put that on your calendar. That’s Wednesday the seventh. We’re interviewing Tilman Fertitta right here on the the thrive time show a billionaire, uh, worth four point $4 billion. The guy behind the rainforest cafe, Bubba Gump shrimp, the Houston Rockets obviously Landry’s, uh, salt grass, just incredible business person. And he has this thing called the the 95 five ratio.

Ooh, let’s hear about this. So the 95 five ratio, he says, and I’m gonna read, read, I’m reading the excerpt from the new book again called shut up and listen by Tilman Fertitta he writes, being in business can involve all sorts of formulas, but when it comes to what can make your business either a success or an ongoing struggle, I always use a simple ratio to make sure I’m paying attention to what really matters. I call this the 95 five rule. On the surface, the 95 five rule may seem completely out of balance. I’ve heard all I heard from all sorts of entrepreneurs, how can a measure of 5% really help or hurt my business so much? How can such a small part matter, especially when everything else is working so well, believe me, it can’t. So I want to, I want to tee up one example, then Z, you can one up me and then Matt can one up all of us.

Okay, perfect. The phones, it Oxi fresh when the phone rings at oxidation. If you buy an Oxi fresh franchise, and I’m a consumer and I type in let’s say, um, Jefferson city carpet cleaning quotes. So I type in Jefferson city carpet cleaning or maybe I just live in Jefferson city, Missouri and I just searched for carpet cleaning quotes. Either way I find Oxi fresh with 164,000 Google reviews ranked top in Google. And I say to myself, self, I’m going to, I’m going to call that business. I read those reviews and I call. That’s where most businesses get it wrong. When my wife and I had a flood in our house with the great flood, we had it at the man cave. There’s these companies that are called 24 seven disaster companies. It’s a disaster. 24 seven you call him [inaudible] 24 seven they’re supposed to be available to come out there as the and to fix whatever’s going on.

That would be implied by the name. I mean, I’m thinking, so I called the 24 seven and I’m not making up a number. I can say I did. I called more than two. I called more than four and I called more than seven. Maybe that’s what that means maybe, but I called all of the people in Google and I had two people dos that answered the phone and one was like, hello? Oh yeah, I’ll be there right away. Never and just like went back to bed. [inaudible] the other guy was like, thank you for calling, Yada Yada. How can help you? He’s on it. Oh yes, guys like sip and red bull. [inaudible] he’s on guard duty. He’s ready to go. That dude showed up and guess who I gave the business to? That guy. That guy. That’s just 5% of the business. Those answering the phone now oxi fresh.

If you call an oxi fresh Franchisee, you know what you’re going to do. You’re not going to get a voicemail where you, where you reach the voicemail because the the carpet cleaners cleaning carpets? No, no. Simultaneously. Why the Franchisee is cleaning carpet locally. The call center nationally answers the phone. Tricky. That’s the 5% Matt. That’s a, that’s a big thing though, right? Is that a big thing? A big benefit for Franchisees is that somebody answers the phone for the, someone’s answering the phone on behalf of the Franchisee. I mean that isn’t that a huge benefit?

Yes. I mean, I can tell you firsthand that someone that does this, I mean, I’m on this podcast right now. I have complete, uh, just complete a, what am I trying to say here? Confidence that no matter how long this conversation goes now, no matter how long we’re on the podcast, it doesn’t matter how many people call me at that time. Like I going to find people calling. I’d have 10 people come at 20 people call me in an hour span. I can be doing multiple things. I don’t have to be the person that’s really trying to focus on answering that business. Right? I can basically do the pay the necessary for my business and know that when the phones are ringing, some of answering them that is trained on the language of carpet cleaning, that is trained on the technology platform that can read my schedule, my specific price structure and put the jobs where they should be in my schedule. So that I can go complete them.

Z. That’s a huge, really important. Big, big, big, big. Now let’s talk about optometry. You’re the first guy to show up with the a seven day schedule, right? I mean, that’s mean, just that was a move. Every other optometrist was opened at four days and a lot of, a lot of doctors are closed on Fridays. Well, maybe a half day. Come on. I mean, you know, I’m being serious though. It seems like my kids get sick. A lot of professionals, dentists, chiropractors, I mean there’s a lot of professionals that, you know, choose to, they, they want to for everybody to come into their schedule instead of saying, hey, we’re going to be available for your schedule. And I’ve, I’ve told a lot of my kids, I tend, I have five kids. I’ve told him four of them. I’m like, Hey, listen, if you guys get sick, freaking get sick on like a Monday at 10 yeah. Because these doctors are, you know, off on Friday and they getting sick on Friday. And I said, no, no, no.

They are. That’s all. That’s the classic move would day you’re going to be closed 30 minutes before you closed. Some horrific, you know, something comes in the door and you’re like, oh, it’s always just, it’s Murphy’s law

was they’re going to happen. There’s a lot of variables in optometry, but you made the decision that little 5% change of changing your hours. I mean, that changed the game.

Jake’s a game, but what am I biggest 5% and if it’s not right, it just the whole engine, the whole train stops and just jumps the tracks and you know, dogs and cats living together. Acid rain. Yeah.

Let me get the audience ready to hear it. Let me get the audience room and get to an emotional state.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. There you go. There you okay? I’m getting ready. My, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. We’re ready now. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[inaudible] feel the five. We’re,

we’re ready. We’re ready for the 5%. Give us, give us the 5%

[inaudible] Shunda we can answer the phone. Great. We can greet people. Great. We can actually answer the phone. Knots are great and greet them. Not so great. I get reviews on that sometimes. Have you people smile more. But that’s not a deal breaker. I could have them walk them back and not tell them it’s going to be a tough fair and I’ll send, there’s a pup fair and they’re upset, but yet it’s on a deal breaker. I can go back at the room and get pretested and get locked and loaded in the room, cleaned and ready to go. And then the doctor comes in and messes up the prescription.

Oh.

Can’t mess up though. When the classes are made

rung, they got to come back. Dogs and cats living together. I mean it’s, it’s, so that five in my business, you know, you have to make sure that that prescription is done accurately because then all the other things, you know, kind of go off of that, your contact lens prescriptions and fitting your glasses, uh, that whether they’re bifocals or you know, everything. So when that gets wrong, to go back and fix that is just, ugh, such a pain in the whole system. So for me, my 5% that fits, not really rock them and the other stuff. Yeah, the other 95% in any business is important, but that’s the core essence. People want to come in and I know that sounds crazy, clay. Yup. Yup. And Matt, this sounds crazy, but people are to come in to an optometrist and be able to see clearly when they leave. I know that,

wait a minute, Dr. Timothy Johnson, the ophthalmologist, it’s crazy on the other line and I wanted to chime in response to that. We want it. Yeah. You wanted to chime in. He says, are you serious? Are you trying to say that the core function of an optometrist and ophthalmologist is to help people see clearly when they leave to that? He said,

nope,

not Tim Johnson on the other line. Let’s switch lines. Here’s Tim Johnson.

There he is.

Yeah. That’s what he has to say about that. I mean, Z, he’s, he’s, that’s funny.

Yeah. That’s one thing that you have to always remember that I think it’s very important. What is, what is the core function? Then all the other steps you still want to happen. Great, and like an Oxi Fresh, the first

step in your business. I mean people are going to call him to get something to come out and give them a quote to going to have that phone answer. That’s a core issue for them. For us, one of our core issues is making sure that prescription’s done correctly because when it’s done correctly, everything else just goes so much smoother. Well, it’s supposed to go smooth, but as Susie’s saying right now, if you’re out there listening right now and you’re not Tom Atrust, okay and you’re going, I got great signage, great location, I’m top and get a no brainer, no brainer. All down the door to people leave and they can’t see. That’s not a move. It’s not, well, it’s a move. It’s just not a sustainable move. But when people leave and they can see clearly z, I’ve got an audio, a soundbite where you are.

This is what happened inside your lobby. When a patient are really left, being able to see clearly this is you. This is the atmosphere. Oh, in the lobby. I have microphones everywhere. I know shotgun. Mike’s really nice ones from sure. Oh Nice. Put those in there. Really incredible. This is what the ambiance. It was credit person. They get the glasses, they get the prescription. They, they, they, they, they picked out the perfect frame. Oh, perfect frame. They got one pair for 99 I sit in and I to go back, I want to double it. I want to double. Can I get a double can get more. They get more and this is what they said.

Oh Wow. And then these [inaudible] got a feeling

incredible. It’s just incredible how the energy of the room change when they could see clearly. But no matter how well you do the 95% yeah. If you, if in my, in that one industry that I am, that I’m involved in, if that is done incorrectly, the other 95% it goes out the window. Now Matt tell us about a 5% something that would just irritate Tillman for Ted. Where he would say, listen here buddy, I own the freaking rockets. This is not going to go down in my business. Give us a 5% and an Oxi fresh where a franchisee can really make or break the deal if they do this right, they make it the money if they don’t do this right, things go bad.

Yeah. A good thing would be in terms of like I’m a very simple one for us, everything all the way through the call center and taking the call and, and I’m a big kind of secondary step that you can take as an owner is calling quotes back, right? Because sometimes with the quoting system, right, you have you gotten all the way through the process where you’ve got the customer to call you, you went through the system and may that customer may need something a little special and maybe your, your schedule is booked out a little bit too much, right? Just taking the extra step as an owner and calling that person, right? This is a small percentage, but think about if you can book five more jobs a month just by having a conversation and doing anything for that customer that maybe the scheduling center can’t, right. But you might be booked out a full, a full week, which is a great thing in terms of your schedule, but also you’re losing a lot of opportunity there, right? So being able to actually get go above and beyond that extra step for that customer would just, just calling quotes back, giving them something that maybe, you know, you as the owner can step out there that might change your business through a year by like 25 $30,000

now before.

Yeah. But if you never call them back, nothing will ever happen with them.

No. Before we came here,

a small percentage that had a huge impact

before we can move on. Um, and, and kind of wrap up today’s show about focusing on that 5%. Uh, I want, I want to just read this notable quotable from a, a Tilman Fertitta. Here he says, a culture of always being on the lookout. Z for, for the, for the, for the 5% is something that I’ve built at each and every one of my businesses. I urge you to do the same. You should aim for a culture that puts that 5% at the forefront of your thoughts, your decisions and actions. Don’t be shy or bashful about letting others know, just how critical that is. You got to get to create that culture. Z, I want to get your take on how you do that at your companies and I want to get Matt’s take on how they do that at oxi fresh and then we’re gonna let Matt get back to what he’s doing because he’s having a blast. He blast up. I’ve got audio. This is a, I’m Matt client earlier today.

Great tie up there. First of all, man, you guys hit it for 400 yet 400 locations. Can we celebrate 400 Jeff? Oh my goodness. Come on. Killing me smalls.

Celebrate with me, Laura. I can’t wait for it. Wait for, I want to hit 400, hit 400. We got to feel it. We know you’re going to do it. How’s going to feel? I need to work out on the crime. Here we go, dad. We go. All right. Everything. All right, come on now. How many do you have right now, man? Tell me in your hand right now.

We need about, uh, almost about 10, 15 more to get there. Uh, we had a pretty awesome week. We, um, basically closed on six new, two of them I’ve been working with for several months. I’m a Dallas Franchisee that, uh, purchased two territories. We have a Washington franchisee purchased two. We have a very good couple from Kansas that purchased one and we have a gentleman from Michigan that also is closing, uh, probably tomorrow, the next day. So a busy week. Operations guys are going to have a lot of training this week, so it’s great. Uh, that’s a very good week for us. That a lot of growth. Um,

a good green. This I is a little bit of a personal question just just between us though. I mean, nobody else. Um, the, the new franchisee owner down in Dallas and since there’s some contract disputes are some contract negotiations. His name isn’t Dak Prescott. Is it? Cause I’m thinking he may be hedging his bet. Maybe trying to kind of cover his, you know, I don’t know. You know,

we talked for a little bit, but I think he’s going to go back and maybe explain the football. Right.

Okay. Well I wasn’t sure, cause I know he’s in negotiations with Jerry, so. Okay, well that’s good. You know what Tim? Tim Johnson, the, the ophthalmologist thinks about [inaudible] to hit 400

patients. Right? I said, hey, would you, that Oxford fresh has failed to hit 400 locations and he says, oh, I, I can believe it. In fact, every time I hear that it’s good. So good. I love him. There’s some laughs that make you cringe. Some laughs to make you smile and some laughs you just gotta laugh. It makes me want to dive in and just listen to that all day. That laugh track. I wanted that in my life. It comes like about ringtone. God. So good. It’s, I missed that. That’s my ringtone. And just have him call me all the time. He’s really laughing. Oh yeah, no. And it’s like, it’s almost like I want to hear this.

And then this took angelic, Huh? Oh yeah. And then I want to hear on the overhead and then he steps to the Mike and he goes by what? I want that to happen.

Oh, I love it when you get a new sound effect. Z, take us home, guide us to the mother ship. How can we implement this 5% move?

Well, here’s the deal about it is as the leader, as the owner, as the boss, as the heft, a, um, wherever you want to call yourself, you set the tone. And so everybody’s looking at you in your business, corporate environment. And when you want a better environment,

you want to put in light on it. You bring a better environment to the table. You have to lead by example at your boy, your why. Nobody’s smiling. Look in the mirror. You’re probably not smiling if you guys don’t smile more. I’m gonna leave it in a horse head in the picture. If you buy know when people are working harder than they based the coach. You’re not shooting up on time and working hard yourself. They’re watching you. I tell you what, one of the things that I did that I do constantly,

it gets a comment from one of my employees does I pick up trash, pick up trash from the building, I pick up trash fights, he tries to pick it up. I don’t go and find someone.

Excuse me about who was supposed, I’m going to intercom who was supposed to pick up our trash dirty today. I think the fact that you run around carrying a uh, a lead pipe too and I think the fact that this music is always playing overhead and you’re,

I think we should pick up, I think it was a tick tickle the trash. What do you think? I’m not going to point fingers but my fingers are fall the trash. Matt, Claudia had the concrete, he got the duct tape and my lead pipe. Anyway, we were talking about trash. Well I’m just telling you, if you want a better culture, you’ve got to be

aw. If you show up in a bad mood, it’s surprising how many of your employees are just all of a sudden in a bad mood. If you show up in a great mood and you’re happy, you’re smiling, you’re calling people by their name and you’re encouraging, you’re edifying, lifted them up and then they, what happens is whenever you have that 5% that you need to kind of emphasize on one, you better know what it is, right? And then two, you better be checking it. You better. I know what you expect, but you better inspect what you expect. And so what I do every now and then I go through and I say, how many of my doctors, for example, how many of my doctors had to do a Redo on their prescription and I track that and then then that’s when all of a sudden now it’s time for raises for bonuses, for you know, extra little gumballs looking on gum balls. Then then that’s when things I look at,

you know, acorn had a song called us smack, that was Matt and thenZ , your, your, your new hit singles track. Then with track. Then there you go. The doctors [inaudible]. Yeah, we gotta do that. Oh yeah, that’s good. That’s a duo, right? Primetime. Do Matt Klein a, if I want to buy an oxi fresh out there, what’s the, what’s the next step as we wrap up today’s show, what’s the next step? What do I need to do?

Yup. Go to thrive time. show.com/oxi fresh. Fill out the form on myself or one of my team members. Mike will reach out and we’ll start the conversation. A lot of it is just discovery. I want to learn about you and what got you interested in what you’re currently doing with some of your goals are. We’ll talk about the franchise, how that may fit together. Through that process, we will get down to the bottom of whether a franchising in general is a good option for you, um, and how you want to run that. The variety of ways you can run this franchise and they just start you on a path to looking to franchising in general if it seems to be a good fit with Aki fresh. The last part of that stage, we’ll bring you out to Denver, go through the process of discovery and if everything lines out correctly, uh, you’ll be running this franchise pretty soon.

And when I heard when a doctor z,

he’s really kind of just reach out.

When doctor z first heard that the price of an oxi fresh was only $59,000 I happened to have been there and I, I’m sure you recorded it. Go, go gadget Mike. I turned, I hit the pit, the red button, that’s the button. Turns it on. I hit the, I hit the button and this is what Dr z said. Z says, Matt, how much is an Oxi fresh? And you’re like, well, Z, it’s only 59,000. He says,

but in fairness, you know, when we look at success rates of businesses, a startup that comes from our franchise world where all the heavy lifting is done, all the inner workings done, nine out of 10 startups fail and one at a 10 franchises fail. It’s like the inverse of the normal. It’s, yeah. So it’s kind of a no brainer. And we know that there’s so many people out there looking to better their life by being their own boss, right? You know, they’re tired of punching the clock worker for the man and all that kind of stuff. And so, you know, we’re our show. Our heart is entrepreneurship true, and we’re telling you right now, if you don’t have a rock solid idea, if you don’t have a great business plan, if you’re not just ready to go with the business, you ought to look into franchising. And oxi fresh is an absolute home run.

It is a winner, winner, chicken dinner, and every day of your life when you are the owner of an Oxi fresh you, you may or may not be thinking this. It all top of, you’re driving your car home after a great day of managing your team of carpet techs and you’re thinking to yourself,

I got to stop begging to stop that, but I just want to hit it home. I just want to hit you.

Yeah, you can get on the way out. Please do it one more time. Yes, one more. Okay, here we go. I’ll do it. It’s like a three to one and then I’ll be just hit it. Wait, here we go. That’s fair. Three, two, one.

Hello.

All right, take care, Matt. Bye Bailey.