Trading Up for Success | The Mark Penka Story (The Owner of ReNew-It Power Washing)

Audio Transcription

So once you have that in your mind that you are going to go all out full bore into whatever you’re doing, there’s a lot of things that have to change. Um, you have to start, we had just kind of started looking at our friends circle and deciding, you know, not to be, you know, mean or anything like that, but you know, who are we going to start, you know, to voting a lot of our time and stuff too. And so we can streamline the time that we need to get this business and stuff up and running. I mean, there’s been a lot of trade offs or trade up.

Yes, yes, yes. And DayQuil. DayQuil Quill.

Josh, can you share with listeners why, uh, why you believe maybe, uh, maybe this, the story behind the, the, the DayQuil chance here, why you think the DayQuil may be part of today’s intro? Uh, I would believe that it’s because, uh, you have been, uh, consuming it on a tremendous level in order that it’s the sip method. Yeah, well that’s a sip. Okay. So not a, not a tremendous level. Just continue to sip Rooskie sip. Therefore, because there’s, there’s no days off. There is no sick days. There’s no sick days. You didn’t. The thing is do they say that you shouldn’t operate a motor vehicle if you had too much to this. Right. Uh, and, and you’re certainly, you certainly shouldn’t do a podcast. So I’m slurring my words. Surely we’ll make our way through this. So Josh, you can kind of help keep us on the rails here. We just need to stay away from the S H starting words and we have a guest on today’s show. Uh, who’s, who’s a great man, he’ll help help. He’ll help us stay on the path as well. Um, Mark with renewal, power washing. How are you sir?

I’m doing great. How are you doing CLI,

man, I am so excited to talk to you. We haven’t talked really, uh, connected for, for a long time. Can you share with the listeners how you first had the misfortune of, of hearing about me and what we do over here and just kinda share the Genesis of the relationship that you don’t want?

Well, yeah, absolutely. So, um, I was kind of stuck in a dead end job. Um, so I’ve always been wanting to get out of that. Um, started listening to, uh, your podcasts and stuff like that. Um, reached out, uh, went to my first conference in, I believe it was February of 2018 and, uh, ever since then I was hooked.

Now, um, when you said you were stuck at a dead end job and in Devin, I think a lot of listeners want to know this and I’m assuming I who, who am I to skip over the deep questions, right? Um, how big of a room where you stuck it?

Well, um, pretty big room to tell you the truth. Um, we are a single income family. Got it. Um, so my wife stayed home and was homeschooling our children. Got it. Um, so the rut just kind of got bigger and deeper. Um, when you’re a single income family, um, you don’t really have any options but you, uh, keep grinding and uh, I was in the oil industry and as everybody knows it kinda took a downturn. Um, I was caught up unfortunately in some layoffs over there and that, that’s what really sparked me into wanting to pursue, um, my own business.

So what’s been the hardest part about implementing the things that you’ve learned along the way? Cause again, I mean, ideas are easy. Guy Kawasaki says ideas are easy, execution is hard. Well, who’s guy Kawasaki? That’s the big marketing [inaudible] who’s a key Apple employee turned venture capitalist who’s written several books, bestselling author. He’s been on the show a once guy Kawasaki says again, ideas are easy. It’s the implementation. That’s hard. Can you talk to me? What was, what’s been the hardest part for you to implement?

Well, probably just taking that first step and that’s kind of what led me into going to the business conferences. I figured that if I had, um, some good people in my corner and started surrounding myself with like minded people that I would probably have a lot better chance of uh, uh, accomplishing my goals.

Now you’ve had some success and I think success, it’s very, very important that everybody out there today takes a moment to actually engage with this idea and write this down. What does success look like for you? Again, I guy Kawasaki says, ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. Um, so if you’re going to go through the work of implementing, um, I’m going to go around the horn here and I’m going to ask, uh, Devin, then I’m going to ask Josh and then I’m going to let, um, our, our guest Mark, uh, you know, chime in here. That way you can one up everybody. But what does success look like? I mean, Josh, for you, what does it look like?

So for me, so my big why when we first met a couple years ago, my big, why is my wife to quit her job. Uh, I want to go to the masters every year and I want to give away 1 million bucks a year. I mean, that’s it. That’s success to me. I don’t, I don’t have some huge pie in the sky thing beyond that. Uh, that’s it. To be able to spend time with family and friends to, to hit a golf ball around every once in a while, maybe more times than I should someday, maybe somewhere to the 70s. But, uh, and just truly enjoy life and relationships.

Um, do you remember Josh

the Beatles? I, I do. I can’t say that I know a lot of their music, so I’m sure this is a setup, but go right ahead, sir. You don’t remember the Beatles? I do remember the beaters. Yes. Yes. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr and I live in, and I ask you, I show the forecasts

no matter what you do, you fall into my trap here. I challenge you to name the Beatles song.

Imagine, imagine. Is that a song in it? Okay.

Juggling. Imagine all, this is beautiful. That was right on key to let it be. Oh, let it be. Okay. I apologize, listeners, I apologize.

I’m just saying to you, think about this for a second. Paul McCartney is not dead and was the biggest artist of his time. He introduced rock and roll to America and most people can’t name a song and most people under the age of 25 don’t know who he is. So I see a lot of men in their fifties working every single hour of every single day to leave this legacy that’s going to wash away off from the shores of where, I mean, come on, make a sand castle for 50 years, then watch it wash away. I mean, so again, the legacy, I think you can live as you leave as your family, right? You could have a great family, you have a great faith, family, finance, fitness, friendship, fun. But I encourage you because somebody out there, you do want to leave a legacy. Well, I mean, I would challenge you to, I would challenge listeners who was John D Rockefeller.

Please explain to me the origin of his wealth, how he got started and give me one quote, just give me anything he started. Most people don’t know. And he was the world’s wealthiest man. So I think a lot of times, um, it’s hard to leave a legacy if you have a goal that’s not attainable. It can be depressing. Absolutely. Your goal though is to do what again, Josh. So I won’t mind my wife to quit her job, uh, and which she is there but won’t do. I don’t know. It’s kind of a funny thing. Is your, does your wife, uh, work in a dead end job? Um, I wouldn’t say it’s a dead end job. She worked in open ended job.

It is a, it’s a, it’s a bigger room than the room that Mark was in. So does your wife work in an opportunity festival? No. Why does she like her job? She doesn’t, she just likes the security. She’s an accountant, so everything is numbers. So she, she’s still there. I mean he’s very soon we will convince her. Okay. That just deuces and enrollment’s going to one up, you know, cause you, you appear, some of the listeners are saying those were weak goals than Mark. We didn’t get interrupted. We, everybody. Okay. So Devin, what are your goals? Um, my big goals are actually, some of them are very similar to Josh. I, I want to be able to play golf every day, um, or pretty close to it. Um, I know whenever I first joined up with the thrive time show and in our team, uh, one my big goals was to have my wife at home, homeschooling, um, our kids. And I’m raising them at least while while she can. And, um, thankfully we’ve been able to, to hit that goal already. So that’s been a, a big win for us. Um, further down the line, uh, I know that, that we want to have, you know, two houses

do houses who houses, what are you a baller? What do you, what do you listen to? Bling, bling on the way to work?

Uh, no, we actually, uh, just love the weather and Arizona during the winter. A lot. Yeah.

More than the weather here in Oklahoma during the week. I don’t like you, you have bad goals. I like Josh tears. This is what happens. So when you share your goals, sure. People are going, well, what? I mean, just just today a guy called me and he said, do you want to speak at the Christians men’s breakfast or whatever? And I said, I would not, but I appreciate you asking why. He says, because I have my three PS, I have a goal to make a consistent profit to be around people. I like [inaudible] and to make a product, I’m proud to share with my mother to make a product. I’m proud to share with my mother, to work with people I like, and to make a profit. And I do all those things. So I would rather hang out with my wife or do anything than to go speak at that.

But if you want to come to my conference, you can, but I appreciate you. Thank you. And he wouldn’t drop it. He just will not stop it. And one of our employees saw me having this conversation. I’m like, just stop. Just your goals aren’t my goals. And he’s like, yeah, but we’re going on a missions trip to Brazil and you need to go with me or wherever. I know I’m not going with you. I don’t want to go. I think it’s so important though, Mark, that you have your goals. Devin has his, Josh has his, I think God gave us our goals. Um, Mark told us maybe, maybe, sure. This a goal that you could share on the air.

Yeah, I mean, my goals are really pretty simple. I just want to be able to take care of my family the best that I possibly can. Uh, provide them opportunities that, you know, maybe I didn’t have or, you know, my wife didn’t have, um, keep them in the a school system that they’re in currently and, you know, invest as much as my time and effort into helping the school that they’re in grow and, uh, you know, just to be able to be free to tell you the truth. Um, that’s why we come in and started this business is just based on freedom. Uh, I know that kind of sounds kind of contradictory, but

it’s that it’s, when you say free, we live in a very troubled world where a lot of political correctness is, this is not a nude power washing business. Right. When you say free, I mean we’re, where are we? What are we talking about here?

No, definitely not that free.

Okay, sure. I’m like, I wasn’t sure. I a lot of times when I’m around Devin enough I start to, things can have double meanings.

Yeah, no, definitely not that free. I don’t think our power washing.

Oh. Oh well now what is the name of your company? The listeners out there one. Want to know the name of your company?

It’s renew it. Power washing. And where are you located? Uh, we are located in the greater Tulsa area. Uh, we are based out of broken arrow, Oklahoma.

And what I want to do is I’m going to cue up this audio real quick. And Devin, do I know what you do not look at this image. Don’t look at, I want you to, I’m going to keep the audio. Devin, I want you to guess what you think this is. Okay? Okay. I’m going to keep the audio. I want you to tell me what you think is, and then I’ll let you look after you take a guess. All right, so let’s go ahead. Let me queue it up. Let me get the, let me get the audio clip here. Okay, let me, let me

let the audio on. What is it? Devin? Devin, I want you to,

yes, cause Devin and the listeners. This is Devon. This is a podcast. And when there is no audio from you, dead air is a bad thing. So tell me, what do you think that is? Hm, I have no clue.

Come see. Come see. Come see what is, Oh no. Oh yes. That’s what

the nude bicycle ride in Oregon. The world. Now I’m, I’m, I’m saying this to you because we, for a while our show was carried in Oregon and I thought, I’m going to look up a bunch of things about Oregon. And one of the things I discovered was they had the Portland trailblazers got a big gardens. It’s very hard to get permits to build things. It’s very left of center. Rainbows are everywhere and people are free to smoke a lot of pot. You’re allowed to do assisted suicide and they have a nude bicycle ride. Now how is that legal Mark? Will you explain to me you’re a, you’re a power washer. Explain to me how is that possible?

I have no idea how that is possible.

Could you, I mean, see I’m asking you though. Mark, could you live in a city where you knew that once a year your family, cause this is right through the heart of the city. Could you imagine driving your kids to school and explaining that is a bunch of naked people on a bike cause it’s allowed. Could you live in a city like that?

I could not.

Devin, can you live in a city like that? No. Really? Do you find it to be a, does it bother you? Yeah, but it doesn’t bother that. Have you guys ever been to Oregon? Have you been Mark, have you been to Oregon?

You know I have not been to Oregon.

Josh, could you live in a city or are you a big fan of Newt bicycle rides? I can’t say that I’ve ever, ever had an inkling to do so. Well, let me, let me share this with you. It says for the uninitiated, the world naked bike ride is officially a protest for a cycle of safety against oil dependency and in support of body positivity, but it’s best known for its colorful, colorful carnival like atmosphere and for filling city streets with throngs of naked bodies. This just adds from Oregon live.com and I’m saying this to say that if you’re out there today and you are the a sick freak and you’re like, Hey buddy buddy, I love nude bicycle riding. You’re, it is possible that your goals could be the opposite of mine and therefore we don’t need to spend a lot of time together. That’s, that’s the thing.

We don’t all have to coexist and agree on everything. You don’t have to, you can see, I don’t want to live in Oregon. So I’m going to ask you a Mark about this and I want to paint Josh into a corner first and I’ll come to you. What are some of the tradeoffs you’ve had to make to achieve your goals? I mean, you think about it. I’m going to ask Devin the same thing, but we’re talking about, we’re talking about real tangible trade offs or trade ups. My wife calls him trade ups. My wife loves to, every time I say tradeoff CEOs trade up, she looks cause and trade up is a better word but what are some of the trade ups? We had a trait, something for the success because Joshua and you’re having some great sales weeks. Uh, we, we’ve been

trending very, very, very well. Your biggest sales week of the year. So far, biggest one ever. Um, our biggest week of the year was $134,000.

Oh

yeah, there was a July. We had a really good month and we were just talking this morning, CLI September so far for being September. And we’re really out of season, quote unquote September so far is pretty darn impressive. For some reason I have audio of Josh in the bathroom at thrive

counting his money. I don’t know why you go to the bathroom to count your money, but this is the audio file that Devin said.

You’re, you’re, you’re excited about the money there, but no, seriously, what kind of trade offs did you make to, so, uh, first and foremost would be sleep. So I realized that if I wanted to achieve something that if I wanted to go after something that I couldn’t use the excuse of not having enough time. So it was just get up earlier, go to bed earlier. And uh, so sleep would be one. Another one would be a time of family. You know, 2017, when we got this party started, there was a whole lot of 80, 90, a hundred hour weeks. I’m very fortunate now that the, the systems and the processes are working. Uh, the other thing was, you know, dates with my wife. I can remember it like it was yesterday, driving to dinner and a concert and got a call and I asked my wife, honey, do you want me to drop you off or do you want to go with me? And we went and fixed a sprinkler system instead of going to dinner and go into a concert audio of you fixing the sprinkler system.

So consistent. Like I just sound this

same all the time. It’s amazing what you enjoy, you enjoyed yourself. There’s all those things that you and you look at and you determine. You know, I liked the trade up that Vanessa said, I’d never heard her said that, but that, I think that’s wonderful. You know, my wife and I, we sat down and decided, Hey, we’re going down this path and we’re willing to sacrifice everything besides our morals and values. So if

it’s some time and it’s a couple of dinners, then we’re willing to sacrifice that to get from where we were to where we are and where we want to be. So what kind of trade offs did you make, Mark? What are some of the trade offs that you made?

Well, I mean, kind of basically like what Josh is saying. Um, I mean once you, once you decide to commit to something to that level, there is no turning back. So once you have that in your mind that you are going to go all out full bore into whatever you’re doing, there’s a lot of things that have to change. Um, you have to start, we had to kind of start looking at our friends circle and deciding, you know, not to be, you know, meet or anything like that, but you know, who are we going to start, you know, devoting a lot of our time and stuff too. And so we can streamline the time that we need to get this business and stuff up and running. Uh, I mean there’s been a lot of trade offs, uh, or trade ups. Um, just from a financial standpoint, we’ve had to really, really streamline, you know, what is, what’s going out.

Um, you know, to make sure that we have, you know, the, the money that set aside to keep this business up and running a to buy backup equipment and stuff like that. So I mean there’s been, we’re still experiencing a lot of those. Um, we’re pretty pretty new company so we’re still going through a lot of that. But, um, really the commitment level, um, waking up early, I mean, there’s been many nights I’ve been up till, you know, midnight, one o’clock in the morning on the weekends when everybody else is out, you know, galley van and have a good time. But, um, you know, it’s definitely worth, it’s definitely worth the trade off.

No, I have audio of me this morning when I woke up at three 29, uh, you said kind of, you know, when you go full bore, this was me boring around at, at a M when I woke up this morning, whichever one was 2:59 AM for some reason, my alarm is set for two 59. Who sets an alarm for two 59. Now three is normal, but two 59. It’s kind of weird. This is audio of me this morning at two 59 Devin, I’ll cue it up here. This is me.

Okay,

now I’ve got an hour and 46 minutes of this queued up

that

well. So again, when I wake up at two 59 I don’t want to get up

[inaudible]

what does Vanessa think about that every morning. Plain to you? How I wake up. Seriously, my alarm goes off and I’m like, who’s sat down?

[inaudible]

I don’t want to do it. But then when it is noon and I have my to do list done, I go, well done. Well done. And then you get confidence as a result of that. It’s a consequence. Confidence is a con as a consequence of doing what you said you’re going to do. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a thing. It’s a process. But I want to, I want to get into your company here, this, this renew power washing. When did you first have the idea for power washing? Where you, we out one day just, uh, cleaning your neighbor’s house for free, and then you’re like, Whoa, I should charge him for this, or what, what, where did the idea come from?

Well, I think it’s unbeknownst to me if it came about, um, that my wife is pretty allergic to the mold. Um, so the siding of our house, like most people’s houses on the North side would get mold every year. And I found myself out there cleaning it up all the time. And so we kind of started sparking my interest on what, what else could you do around this, you know, around this industry. And once I started looking into it, it was such a wide open industry. There were so many things that you could do. And so I just kinda started looking into it and doing some research. And some time went by, I was still working my full time job. And, um, I just kind of did, just kept grinding and researching and looking up and, and uh, that’s just kinda how it came about.

No, you, um, I don’t know if you know this, but I, I will, uh, try not to make it mellow, dramatic, but this is what happened is, um, a couple of weeks ago, um, a series of very bad events began to occur in a row and it always happens like in groups of threes or sevens or tens. It’s a lot. Well, my partner is somebody threw a brick through the window of one of his businesses. That’s not exciting. Then, uh, they proceeded to steal a lot of glasses and that kind of thing. And that’s not a win for America. But it happened. And then we had a longterm employee who decided to get very irate that they were not promoted and they shouldn’t be promoted because one should typically be you to work. You know, if you can’t string together five days in a row being on time, then you probably shouldn’t ask for a promotion.

But after five years working somewhere and you decide that you’d want to get bitter instead of getting better and you ask, why can’t I get promoted when you’ve been told repeatedly that you can’t be promoted if you don’t actually show up on time consistently, there was a dramatic quit and a dramatic, I can’t believe I work here, that kind of thing. So five year relationship down the toilet, boom, brick through the windshield, boom or a brick through the window, boom. A lot of that kind of stuff going on. Um, and you know, those are not positive things. Um, we’ve also been asked to be on some great podcasts. That’s a, when my kids are healthy, that’s a win. My wife’s healthy. That’s a win. Making money, that’s a win. Um, financial freedom to do what I want. That’s a win time by and large to do what I want. That’s a win. Have a great pool. That’s a win. Anytime the Patriots play, that’s a win. Win. What a winning. Um, but at the same time, your email was really encouraging to me. You what? You to send us a little thank you email because that was like, I wrote that high. I mean, I, I some could say it’s the DayQuil, but I’ve been riding that high for about a week now, maybe two weeks.

Well, um, I was just, we, we’ve been doing, we’ve been doing very good. Um, I know in terms of other businesses and stuff, you know, we got a lot of growth and everything to do. Um, but I, I was sitting here going through some emails and, uh, sending out some estimates and it just dawned on me that without, without your help and without your team’s help, I would’ve had a very, very difficult time getting to where I am in this short amount of time. So that’s, that’s kind of what, that’s kind of what sparked that. Um, I just wanted to let you know how much we’ve appreciated it and, uh, it gave us the confidence. If someone like you in our corner, it gave us the confidence to go ahead and jump into this knowing that we had your support and your backing and it just took a lot of stress. Um, was your processes and implementing, I mean you guys did tons for us. Um, from everything. Uh, we had nothing when we started with you guys. Um, and everything that we have and everything that we’ve implemented came from, uh, that thrive time. So I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated it.

Well, I could you could you share the kind of of things that the team did for you?

Oh man.

Hey, by the way, I told, I told my partner, I said, Hey, cause we got this new scheduled demand cave has been flooded for a long time. The man cave has been flooded. We just moved in. And so you’re on the books ahead of time. So dr Z’s now joining us because he’s here right on time. Dr Z, how are you sir? I’m fantastic. We have a listener who claims that we’ve helped him with his business and he’s making more money than ever before, which is why we do this. Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Do we have any verification of this claim or is this just some Willy nilly thing thrown out there? Mark tells your websites, we can prove that you’re a thing.

It’s Tulsa power washing.com.

Oh, there we go. Tell us a little about them. Sure. Oh wow. Let’s see. To find it. If you want to find his website, just Google nude bicycle rides Oregon and you’ll just find the website there to get, what was your website domain there again, Mark?

It’s a Tulsa power washing.com.

Yeah, just Google. Completely, totally nude Oregon bicycle rides. And you’ll find his websites. He just trusted. It doesn’t look like tire washing at all. What you turned the safe search off to do a search it up. You’ll find it. Okay. Now, seriously, can you explain the kind of things that you’ve learned from us or you’ve implemented just so that dr Z and I can, um, know that you are in fact a real person?

Well, uh, like I said, I mean everything, um, from like this was, this was very brand new. Um, it was just an idea when I came to one of those first business conferences, uh, when I first met with your, uh, business coaching staff, uh, we started getting, uh, the content and some of the stuff written, uh, you guys built our website. Um, all of our Karl scripts you guys did. Um, all of our, all of our, the three legs, the three legged stool, the marketing, everything, everything that we have today was because of you guys.

It’s super cool. And you’re making money now.

Yes, yes, we are definitely making money.

And your wife, can she now stay home? Is that, is that a thing? Is that a goal that has been achieved?

Yeah. She, she stays home. That is correct.

Is he? I got this guy’s email and you know what I do and I have to do and man tears that, you know what I do? I go to Atwood’s. You’re gonna have woods. That’s what I do. And that was, there’s very few people there. Usually I’ve been talking about it a lot and I’m running into more Thrivers there their day. I ran into two Thrivers there. So it’s, it’s becoming a thing. But I go there and that’s where you go. This Z in the parking lot of a Atwood’s. If you see a man crying in a Hummer, that’s normal. You know, because that was his, where men go into Matt woods is a man’s man. So are you going to buy chicken feed hammers, nails, tools, and a lot of men might hit their thumb and you know, and that’s normal for them to have little man tear in the pattern.

See, where do you go to do your man tears? Do you go to Atwoods? I usually go to my man cave to do my man tears brilliantly. When you cry, walk us through the form of how you cry. Do you, are you a different kinds of cries? Let’s go into the, Oh, I think we need to know him. He is it. Is it a lot? There’s a lot of heaving. Is it heavy? Is it light? Is it, I think what we want to know. Well, I mean there’s, there’s that deep cry. There’s, there’s the, there’s the D call. I cry. The deep cry that that you get, you snot, you produce not, you produce fluids out of, out of your various orifices. Yes. And that’s, that’s the deep cry. That’s the one that, you know, you can’t hardly control it. And then you have the show cry, the shit that’s the one where you are supposed to cry. Yeah. Someone’s talking about something very sad and they look at you and you don’t want to cry, but you have to force it here. You’ve got to kind of, it’s almost like it’s almost stage acting, crying almost. I mean, somebody, you know that you’re related to or you know someone a distant relative. Now you’re a fan of other people’s families, other people. So they got fired again and you knew it was coming. Yeah.

And they’re like, Hey dude, got fired.

I know you can barely hear the phrase fired. Right?

Did you say fire? And then you, they’re like, eh.

Yes. Is that when you’ll go? What’s your move? I mean, do you use like a sprinkler system? How do you do it? What do you think? You got to think of something really sad. Something that would make you cry if it happened and then, you know, then you could kind of, you can kind of get there emotionally. Do you sip on water wall crying to make sure the dehydration doesn’t become an issue? I don’t really find that necessary personally. Oh really? Wow. There’s, there’s a soft cry. There’s the medium cry, which we’re going to go over. And then the, the deep cry, which I talked about in the medium cries when you really, you don’t get to the real deep cry, but yet something sad, you

know, like they call and, and uh, you know, someone calls it says their dad died, you know, or someone calls and says something, something that really, really well, you knew them, know something that we’re really gonna rock you, but you don’t, you don’t really just process it to the deep, deep, deep, you know, said the deepest that’s, you don’t get that very often. You know, you’re mostly the shadow kind of show cry and then every now and then you have the real kind of man, you know? And then, and then if someone else was crying around you, that’s like the hiccup. I mean that’s like Yani.

So talk to me about the Browns game you just watched and when you watched their opening game and you watched your team get decimated, was it a full cry medium? Was it would talk to us. This is, these are things listeners want to know. How do you process that?

It was as bad as shmedium cry. It was a, it was a little bit more than the forced and yet not quite the intensity of like losing of a loved one.

Did you say I gotta get myself a beer or what did you say? Did you, did you turn to prayer or beer when you’re, when a team gets shellacked I prayed that I had a beer so that the boat, okay, so now, so now Mark, we’re talking about your business. How did you go out there and get your first 10 customers? Cause now you’re doing good. And a lot of listeners are out there on the outside XE. A lot of people, according to Forbes, 67% of people want to start their own thing. And a lot of people are on the outside. Mark. They want to start a business, but they haven’t dove in. They haven’t come to a conference. You came to a conference. How did you get your first 10 customers?

Well, um, since the business obviously it was very new. I just, I just hit the streets. Uh, just started talking to people. Uh, just started going from the, from business to business, uh, handing out some, uh, Barbies cookies and just trying to, uh, kind of get the word out there, uh, as the website and stuff was getting developed. And as they started to launch, um, that really getting the Google stuff going and the SEO, it really started kind of driving some, some awareness and um, really just hitting, hitting the ground. Um, face to face is how we kinda got,

see, I’ve got audio of Mark here hitting the streets,Z and then that night I have to do this. I want him to read.

He’s hitting the street. Wow. Let me cutting through the street.

What’s happening? Let me queue it up. That’s intense. I think we got it. I think we got hitting the streets here. I think that sounds more like signs. Oh, Whoa. Whoops. Oh Z. Look at this. Look at this video real quick. And this is, this is Mark hitting the streets here. Look at this. This is a guy hired to come cut down someone’s tree here. Looks, does it look like Mark? Oh, it looks like it’s not. Looks like it was, wasn’t Mark it all my bed. Wrong. Wrong audio call. Got too much. DayQuil Mark, what

did, would you really hit the streets? What did you say? Did you have a script already for that or were you just kind of, you know, from the hip?

Well at first it was just kind of from the hip. Um, cause it was still early on we didn’t have the scripts and stuff going that all that stuff was kind of in the process. So my, my main approach was just kind of letting people know that we’re here. Um,

and what would you say, what would you say separates us from the typical, uh, can we role play? Can we role play this role, this role? Let’s have market knock on your door for a second. Okay. Knock on my door, Mark. What I’ll do is I’ll hit the knock sound and inZ you open the door. I’ll make the, I’ll make the door opening sound. You get to make all the sounds all like, there you go. Yup. Okay. That’s a good, that’s a good knock. This is a good knock. You start with a,

okay.

Oh yeah. Or you could go, but a lot of options. A lot of options. Yeah. Did you knock typically Mark? I want to get that right.

It was just a good three from Knox. Okay.

Hey,

um, hello. Hey, what can I do for you?

Hey, I just wanted to [inaudible]. My name is Mark with a redo, a power washing. Uh, we’re a power washing company here in the Tulsa area. We’re based out of a broken arrow. Um, and I just was one introduced myself to see if there’s anything that we might be able to help you with. Um, if you’ve used power washing companies in the past, um, I kinda liked to tell you what kind of separates us a little bit. If you’ve got a few minutes,

what a, what do you got there in your hand? What is that

in my hand? Yeah, this is a, um,

I thought she did Barbara cookies. I thought you had Barbee cookies. I’m sorry. Z. Are you pony or gets into a corner? I did. I paid him to a corner. Sick. Sick. No, I do not have any Barbies cookies today. Oh, that’s unfortunate. But you knocked on the door that was here.

Say I would say. Okay. Power washing. What, what all do you, what all do you power wash?

Well, uh, we pretty much take care of any exterior surface, uh, of your house, uh, from the top to the bottom, whether that be your roof, the siding, uh, pool decks, patios, driveways, sidewalks, um, any of that type of stuff. We take care of that for you.

Alright. Any call to action? Anything, any scene, anything super sexy, anything, anything kind of gave me a little, a little urgency or is it just a meet and greet, knock, knock and meet and walk on?

Well, our early on we were offering a free, uh, driveway service with any exterior service. So, um, you know, if you wanted to get your house cleaned, um, we would go ahead and throw in your driveway and your front entry way from free.

And how did you price out of what, how, how much are, so if I said, okay, give me a bit for my house. What, yeah, what, uh, what do you do? I guess you just look at how big the walls are, I would imagine or you kind of have a good rough feel. I mean, what, what’s the typical house go for?

Yeah, so I mean, typically we go kind of off of square footage. Um, so if, if it’s just a, if it’s just the exterior of the house, we kind of go off of the square foot. Um, if it’s a, it’s if it’s a full two story, um, that’s obviously adding a little bit of a, a cost to it. If it’s a parcel, two-story. Um, some of that kind of is just case by case basis, but typically we go by the square foot.

Okay.

Do you have to have a square foot to do business with you?

I would hope

Z. The guy who did C E the a work at elephant in the room, male has a triangle shaped foot die. I’ve heard about it on a plumbing job or something. Right? Yeah. I only, I only laugh because I, somebody went after me and ended up losing, but there was a guy that we had hired a guy to do some plumbing and Z. How long has the statute of limitations on things? It’s seven years. Five years to Allen. When somebody truck homes after you for money and then they lose how long before you can talk about it? Is it five years? Seven years, 10 years? That’s a very good question. When we have West on next time, I’ll have to ask, I’ll talk about it and I’ll ask for forgiveness later. But the point is, so we’re out there a put doing construction elephant in the room and I hire a guy to do some construction and the city comes in and says, Hey, you can’t, you know, do this or that.

You gotta drill out, you gotta you gotta dig a ditch from a to B to bring in plumbing. You gotta dig up the concrete all the way down to the dirt man, you know, get that down. So we dig all the way down to the dirt, man. There’s a guy down there to dig all the way down to the dirt man. And um, anyway, he’s cutting through. Um, he’s cutting through the concrete with this big circular saw. Josh, would you ever use one of those big circular saws to cut to the cocktails? Quickies hauls are fun and he’s down there and the plumbers down there cutting through the concrete, all of a sudden I hear a, ah, you know, it just so stupid. I’m like, what in the world? Go down there. It’s a, it’s a laser show of blood. It’s like a sprinkler system of just shooting blood all over the walls and a guy has cut his foot and a guy has cut his foot into a triangular shape.

It’s not funny. No one should laugh if you’re out there listening. Listen, I want you to be mature about that. I don’t want anybody out there funny, no laughing. But then the guy lied about having workman’s comp and tried to go come after me saying, you know, anyway, well they dismissed it. It’s all good now. But Oh I’m not the foot. No. So I just want to be clear cause some people out there do have a triangle that I’m sure that guy listen to this show a lot to the triangle. The triangle foot guy just wants to clear him though. I mean cause it could have been somebody else in your backyard that did that. I’m just asking. I mean, so it’s more than one. We’re not gonna get hung up on the whole square foot thing, right?

No, I don’t think so at all. What would you do if someone, if you look at a house, it’s obviously a pretty good size house and they don’t tell you the truth about their square footage cause you just take it on. What they say was 2,400, what would you say Mark? And you know, if you come to my house, it’s this huge house. I say, Oh it’s about 2000 square feet. And you’re like,

okay,

what would you say?

Well, um,

the price per square foot just went up. That’s it. That’s one approach.

Uh, typically we don’t run into any of that. Typically people were fairly honest. Um, but we do, we do offer free onside estimates and we’d like to meet with the customer onsite and we take all the measurements and uh, we get, we get our own information and we usually go, we usually go that route rather than just a ballpark figure and you know, 2000 square foot or something like that. Yeah.

Z, I have an audio clip of what people think sales is. And then I want Joshua, want you to break down what you think sales is, because I think a lot of people like Mark, who are our new entrepreneurs, they get hung up on sales sales. You know, you don’t, you know what I mean? Mark, you don’t wanna like pressure people. And I want to make sure we get this. If you get back into the Hebrew, you look at the Bible, the word money according to rabbi Lapin, uh, who we had on the show means a certificate of appreciation. That’s what it means. All right? So your pay people are paying you to solve a problem. And if they appreciate you, they pay you. You shouldn’t feel bad asking for money in exchange for goods and services. But a lot of people, when they think of salesy, this is what they think about.

And, and Z, are you emotionally ready to hear this, this, uh, this commercial? I’m not sure I give it. This is a video we shot, uh, three, four years ago. And this is a FIC fictitious scenario that I scripted based upon the sales techniques of a man in a mattress store. What he tried to do to me. Now I want everyone to know this. I still today use the same mattress that I, my wife and I got when we were 20. Okay, so this, we went into a mattress store to buy a mattress in. This is the kind of sales techniques he tried. Let me queue it up here.

[inaudible]

I’m going to beat all of their competitors. Prices are, I’ll give you the mashes for free.

How’s that sound looking one salsa mattresses,

sales for me. You know, it’s what makes the world go round. Um, and it’s my life. You know, when I step out onto this showroom floor, it’s my time to shine. It’s my time to nominate. This is my Coliseum and I’m the gladiator. So look out. Hi. Hi coats. Nice to meet you over taken care of today. Mary. Yes, I have great name. That’s beautiful. And you are such a vision. Oh Woah, okay. Oh Mary, what do I got to do to get you in a bed today? You know, really, I just want to serve the people. I want to use my knowledge to better mankind. This is a hundred percent memory foam mattress. Okay. With a circle knit top, it comes from our King Arthur collection and we call it Excalibur.

Hello.

I’ll it up, Mary. Oh no, that’s not necessary. A lot of these guys out there, they’re dishonest. You know the, I believe in truth in sales, this is a limited edition, which means it’s a collector’s item, which means that it will appreciate in value. So really think of this mattress as an investment into your financial future. I just love making people smile. You know, if at the end of the day I’ve made at least one customer smile, then I’ve done my job, I’ve succeeded and I need them to buy

something as well. Of course. Um, because they don’t pay me for smiles. But, um, I would be rich if they did know the, a lot of people though, they, they immediately, when you think of sales, they immediately get into that dirty high pressure sales. They have a date, but right away people get a vision of like high pressure. How did you get over the phobia of sales or Mark, have you gotten over the phobia of sales? Cause a lot of people wouldn’t knock on doors. They just would not do it.

Yeah. Um, if, uh, to tell you the truth, it was very difficult, um, that of course we all have people come up through our doors and where we’ve always all been on the other end of that. And um, so I just tried to take some of that into account. Um, we just, we basically just wanted to offer a service to such a high level that it spoke for itself, if that makes any sense. So as long as we could get, um, in front of somebody and explain to somebody kind of what we’ve got going on and what separates us, uh, the sales part of it started to come fairly easy. Uh, once we kinda got into the groove and started to learn what, you know, people were really after.

I think if you’re out there today, um, you have two options. One Z, you say, you know what, I have big dreams. So is everybody else. I don’t want to attend a workshop. I don’t want to implement what I’m learning. Or you could be Mark, you can be the Mark pink a show here. Mark, what is it with, if somebody is a curious enough, um, courageous enough, uh, to buy a ticket to a workshop, what are they gonna experience at the workshop? What’s your, what was your experience like at the workshop? What did, what did you learn? Talk to us about your experience at the workshop?

Well, I came into it, you know, just very honest. I came to it fairly skeptical, a few other business conferences and stuff in the past. Yep. And, um, it’s just, you know, the same old thing over and over and over again. So when I came into your conference, I just tried to stay as open minded as possible. And just from the very, very beginning, you could tell that this was not the environment that you were typically used to going into other conferences. So it was very inviting. Um, you know, everyone was kind of talking and hanging out. The vibe was, was really cool. And, um, I learned, uh, the amount of information that was coming across to me, um, since I didn’t have a business at that time was pretty overwhelming. Uh, but once it kinda got, kinda got into it and got going, I mean, my notepad just kept filling up. I mean, it was just unbelievable. How much common sense, um, information was in the conference.

Mark what w you talked about, you heard about it on that, was it the radio show or the podcast?

Well, it was

the radio show at first, and then I couldn’t get enough, so I just listened to podcasts over and over and over again. But the radio show originally is where, um, uh, I heard about it. Can you think of one thing specifically or one thing that comes to mind, I should say that you heard and you said, I’ve got to come to this conference. I have to come to this conference. I’m, I’m gonna die if I don’t make it to, I can’t handle it. If I don’t come to this conference, my brain’s gonna explode. I’ve got to cough.

Well that pretty much what just happened in the last five seconds is exactly why I came to the first conference. Um, cause it, you know, you could just, just like I said, the vibe, so you just, I just got the impression that this was going to be fun. Um, and you could definitely tell that, you know, clay and USC were in it to truly help people. And um, that’s, that’s kind of what really, really got me heading in the right direction.

You know, one thing that’s really weird about our conference is we had 26 people reach out to buy a ticket in the past. Isn’t devotee or the meeting? I think the number was 26. Was it a, I think she said it was number 26 people reached out and just this past week. And I think I only allowed for people to buy a ticket. And it’s because like we don’t teach click funnels, we don’t teach get rich quick and we don’t teach that. And that’s what they want. A lot of people want that. And if you’re hearing the words coming out of my mouth right now and you have a real business and you want to grow a real business or start one, we’re the fit. But you’ve talked, explain to the listeners the other conferences cause I have been to those before where I’m the one guy in the conference who actually has a business and everybody else is like, what are your steps for getting rich?

And they’re like a week. Can you walk me through the other business conferences Mark? Because that’s been my heart. That’s been the hardest thing for me because man, there’s a temptation when someone says I wanna pay you. Yeah. And then you see and they show up at the conference. And I can tell you so far I only know of two people who’ve attended the business workshops, who are psychologically impaired, two people so far who were just out of their freaking mind. And man, nothing’s worse than having somebody at a conference asking stupid questions such as I just want to automate my, my wealth. What’s the best way to make wealth without working? I hate those kinds of questions. What kind of co, I’m not asking you to name the business conferences, but talk to me about the flavor of the other conferences and maybe contrast, cause maybe some of our listeners have only been to the bad conferences or maybe they haven’t been to a bet. I just want to tap into your wisdom there.

Well I’m very uncomfortable, I’ll tell you that cause so what I was looking for legitimate information, you know, implement something that you could actually implement and the conferences and stuff that I have gone to with other employers and stuff like that. It was just stuff and scenarios and all this and it just, it just didn’t get down to the nitty gritty of anything practical. So your conference was night and day difference when it came to actually something you could actually implement and some a process that you could actually follow. And that’s, that’s what I was really looking for. You know, I didn’t need, I didn’t need anybody to tell me, you know, go get ’em, go get them tiger. I needed, I needed someone to help me funnel my energy and my drive into the right into the right area.

You needed to learn how to, how to get the tiger right. Not, not the encouragement to go do it, but the actual steps to get the time. Yeah. So you, you were sufficiently motivated and now you just needed to know what to do. Josh, can you relate to that? Is that, is that you’ve been your experience or did you, because we do have elements of motivation. I would say it’s probably 5% of the conversation. Sure. Maybe more than what I want to do. Because what happens is if I fight, if I go into motivational mode, man, I pack it out and it’s weird. People who are not my people, they’re like, woo. I’m like, no, no, no. You cannot leave my conference being fired up. And then not, I hate when people leave a church service or a conference and they go, woo. And you go, now what are you going to do as a result of that? That’s called a movie. Go watch a movie. I’m not a movie. You know what I mean? You’re not, Hey, you provide the action items. You provide the steps and the proven path of which, Hey Mark, one thing you didn’t mention at the conference, at what point did a, they upsell you the masterclass for the $50,000 coaching my magic. What was the, what was the click funnel for 18 grand or when did that happen? When did that happen? When did we do that?

Well, I’ve been to three conferences up to this point and that has never happened.

Oh, Oh. So I’ll let the thrive conference there is not a big upsell. How many times have you been asked this Josh, about me? People that you know who’ve asked me what’s his, what’s his catch, what’s it’s, what’s your play or what’s your, what, what’s his, what’s he, what’s he really trying to do and so really long scam C, it’s the long game. Let’s see. But I’m not aware of, is that a year four, year four? He’s going to hit me with the, okay. Josh, I know I have none of your financial information and I know that I don’t know your social, but now you owe me four point $7 million. So I think that’s the move you’re for. That’s here for, it’s called the four year, right? The four year moves. It’s a thing. I’m taking notes here guys. I start doing the flipped all the time. People come up to me and be like, Oh, well he’s, he’s just a snake oil salesman or he’s just trying to steal your company or, or, Oh, he’s not true. It doesn’t work. And I’m like, well look, look at where we’re at. I don’t, I don’t know what else I’m telling you. It’s getting you to share on the show Mark how much money you’re making now, but are you making more than when you came to the conference

significantly more yet?

Yes. Can I ask you, let me just ask you this, if you could, and I’m not asking for this, it’s a hard number, but you bought a ticket. Did you do a, did you leave a review and buy a ticket for 37 or did you pay two 50 or 500? How much did pay for the ticket? Do you remember?

Well actually my first conference was on you actually. Um, uh, when I, when I did the re you were doing a thing at that time that if, if, uh, uh, I don’t exactly remember how, yeah, I think is if you did the review, uh, on the positive,

so probably a Paul Hood sponsorship.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s how it got into my first one.

So you, you came to the thing and a D. so you’re telling me w if, if, let’s say you bought a ticket for $1,000, have you got a 10 time return on that? On that ticket? So let’s just say you did buy a ticket for 10 for $1,000. Did you get a 10 time return?

Yes.

Let’s say you bought a ticket cause it’s either tickets or two 50. Yeah. Could you say you got a 25 times return on that ticket? Just math. Yeah. 50 maybe a hundred.

What not quite. I’m not quite to a hundred yeah, I would say I would almost, no, we’re not quite to a hundred

there’s a guy at the conference who pulled me aside who told me that he got a 1000 time return on his ticket and he laid out how and it’s crazy. True story guy from new Orleans. I love that thousand to time return. He goes, I bought the gun for two 50 that’s it. He goes, I’ve literally cleared two and a half million dollars of profit as a result of implementing what you taught me. True story. Wow. That’s awesome. Yeah. I mean, so I’m just telling you, if you’re out there Z, you own real businesses. We own real businesses.

Why would we take time out of our schedule too? If you’re out there today, friends, let me say this. I’ll see if you’re out there today. If you’re out there today, Oh, here comes. Here comes our next guest. We’ve got Bucky joining us on this show here at Bucky. Welcome into the studio. I’m Devin. I’m going to have Bucky take your micro fast here. And Mark, how long do we have you by the way, cause I think I talked to you about a half hour interview. I think we’re about one hour into our half hour interview. So I just want to respect your time. Can we have you for a few more minutes or not so much?

No, absolutely. Yeah.

Okay. Well I have one final question for you because we’ve got Bucky here in bucket. Can you tell the thrive nation what you do for a living? Yes. Thanks clay. Hey, my name is Bucky Courtrai. I’m the founder of top dollar home offer. We buy properties across the Tulsa Metro. So you are a guy who, and by the way, that Mike is like a super sensitive Mike because he’s going to eat that thing. So you’re, you uh, people who are distressed and they need to sell their house. You buy those houses. That’s great, clay. We said we help distress sellers when they’re faced with foreclosure, where they’re faced with having to move out of state quickly. Whatever crisis situation they’re in, we can go in and help them get the top dollar for their home. Who’s kind of like you? Like is there another business in town that’s kinda like your business? Yeah, there’s, there’s several companies in town. There’s, we buy ugly houses. Uh, there’s some others that are out there that, uh, pop up every now and then, but they go away pretty quick. Now, Mark, you’re kind of, you’re, you’re a super success story and, um, you’re an entrepreneur. What time did you wake up there, Mark today?

Um, I was up at about four 45 this morning.

Bucky, what time are you waking up buddy? So I used to wake up at five, now I’ve figured out what’s the difference between four and five. So I’m waking up at four 30 now. And Josh, what time do you wake up? Oh, this morning it was four 30. No, actually it was a little bit, Ooh, I was like four 27. I beat the alarm clock this morning. No, Z. Do you remember the days where you used to have to burn the midnight oil and you remember you remember the days where you were working seven days a week? Boss, I remembered those days as if they were yes, yesterday. Can you share with us what it’s like to be on the other side where you’re not waking up at four I was waiting for you to ask me what I want. No, I want you to talk about that.

What time did you wake up there to never. I want to, but I mean, do you remember when, cause we used to have that. That that I didn’t see it. I heard about it. But you had a to do list with that nine point 10 point handwritten font right there. You were the czar of the details, the master of the followup seven days a week. Now you’re showing a little bit of sleep. Z. yeah, you’re getting a harvest. What the crap. You’re reaping a hundred. I was always kind of the night out. I know you’re the early morning you Clark. I was putting in your time. Obviously you’ve got to grind

what 16 hours a day is anyway, so you get to pick them. That’s the nice thing about being an right. You can take the 80 hours a week you work. Right. Um, and so uh, for me it was the, the grind and the sticktuitiveness and knowing that if I didn’t get it done, no one was going to, now it’s different because now I’ve hired, I’ve empowered, you know, at first I had a job

that I, I worked for myself but it’s still a job and now I owned a business where I make a lot of other people have jobs. So you’re telling me that you pay your managers very well to deal with the crap that you don’t want to deal with. Amen. Come on, come on. I know it sounds ridiculous, but you couldn’t, you couldn’t. You keep more profits if you did all the work yourself. Absolutely. Can I ask you what Josh, you can askZ any question you want? Yes. Mark, you can ask any question and then bucket you can as well. And then buck is going to be on our next show as well. So we’re going to open it up where everybody can interrogate dr Z. So what, we’ll start with you Mark, any question that you have for dr Z at all and uh, as equally do anything or are there certain area we can’t go here. We can say any, any question? All right. Any questions? Okay. If he doesn’t like the question, we’ll hang up on you. Okay, here we go. I’ll just throw any question but we’ll hang up on you if we don’t like it. Go for it there Mark.

So I guess my biggest question right now where I’m at in my business, at what point did you know that you needed to start bringing people on to kind of start getting some of that work load off of you?

Well, I’ll tell you what, there’s, there’s two ways to know that. One, are you working enough for yourself? And two, are there things you’re not getting done because you’re working so much for yourself? And what I mean by that is, is that there was a, there was a uh, a time frame when I was seven days a week and after about two years of that, I said, you know, Saturday would be kind of fun to watch college football and hang out and maybe a Sunday here or there. And so, um, I made the plus I was working, built up my business enough to where I could carve out some money, you know, and hire someone in for that day and then have a day. And so that’s what I did through every year or two I went back, I would buy another day back. And so I went for six days and I did that for a year or so. Then I went to five days. Did that for a couple of three years cause that felt kind of what was supposed to be normal.

When you bought your time back, what percentage is a pie chart? What percentage of your time did you spend doing calf raises? So you’ve got some great calves.

Oh, all day. I’m doing them right now. I mean that’s, I just cut out. She called me out on that so many times. I can’t go anywhere where someone’s on inspecting my cat.

I’m just saying, I mean they’re there. I actually, if it’s okay, um, I was actually, I shouldn’t do this, but there today I was, I was Mike and you and you’re walking by and this is actually your calves walking by. They were, it’s like a precedent

that what this is your bed, your calves.

It’s impressive that isn’t your, your calves make a count sound. It’s impressive. Well, a calf is a young cow that’s just in from our home office. Home office. Well, just like you, you can’t go anywhere. People staring at how large your brain, how I know when you have a 14 of the 14 size 14 hat, people ask questions. Are you a kids still scared by it? Let me tell you this, when I walk into rooms that we just finished the man cave here and get a test. It’s was a standard size door would work, but we had to widen it out. So my cranium Ford stores there, I know you’ve got fruit stores, it’s incredible crane. There’s, I’ve put all that knowledge in there. Z,

you’ve got to keep it somewhere so that it’s your question Mark. So what you do is this, is that when ever you wake up and you work for the day, if you could, if you didn’t get everything done you needed to then yes, you probably need to start bringing somebody on board. Uh, part time at first if you can as sometimes a family member is really good to kind of bring them on is cause I’ve worked for not a lot and a, and then they can be real flexible, but at some point you need to hire someone full time to come again,

she’s endorsing, by the way, what he’s really saying is hi, hire family slave labor. Is that what you’re saying? Are you kidding that? Is that what you’re doing? And put together tennis shoes and then you’d get child labor. They’re friends. You say, Hey Z, I’m seven and we’re going to have a tennis shoe party. You have invite all your friends over this weekend. Well, what’s that? How long does your seven year old cousin need to continue doing as roofing job? Okay. Now, Josh, you’re tired. I’d like it if I could describe this a Mark, just to get some context to you and the listeners. Josh is in the stupid repetitive tasks phase of his company where he’s in orbit. It’s, it’s like this when you want to go to space, I’ve never been to space, but this is how you go to space. They, they put the rocket, it’s, it’s a huge vehicle.

Huge vehicle. It’s, it’s, it’s stating vertically. Yes. And they go and dot. Ten nine eight your starts kind of a Nordic. Almost like 10, nine, eight. We go on Houston and then, and then again, it just tons of fire and fuel and it’s wild how much fuel and energy it takes. But then once you get up, it’s like we’re eating space, ice cream or floating around. There’s no maybe easier. Josh, you’re kind of in that phase where you’re up there now. Sure. And you gotta be [inaudible]. My clients always tell me this. They say, I’m getting bored. And I’m like, well, this, this happens every single time. I said, that could mean like, I’ll work with an orthodontist for eight years, seven years, a dentist, a doctor, a lawyer, and they’ll go, I’ve got to ask it. I’m bored. What do you do now? I’m like, what do you mean you’re bored?

Well, I just do the same thing and I make a ton of money and I have all the time freedom in the world. I got nothing. What am I, clients told me he went canoeing and I’m like, why? He’s like, I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know. You went canoeing during the middle of your Workday. Oh yeah. Down the Illinois. Like a, there you go. How was it? I dunno. I just, I feel like I should be working or something. I mean, seriously, I want to ask, you’re in that phase right now where you almost feel guilty almost about a certain level of financial freedom. Do you have any questions for Z about that? That’s the stupid, repetitive tasks. Maybe boredom, maybe. Maybe you’re not born. I don’t know. Sure. So, uh, my question for you is, and you kinda touched on it a minute ago, but I think it’s really good for a lot of listeners out there. I struggled with this horribly bad and it’s kind of sort of what Mark was asking. What is the difference between owning a job and owning a business? The working in the business and the working on the business?

Well, I think the two of it’s the attitude and you’re always going to be working on the higher level. If you own a business, you should always be inspecting what you expect and that’s work. And so you should always be long range dreaming, planning, that’s work. But you do that on your schedule. You did that on your time. You know, someone said, I told Tony of the day, I said, well, I finally took a job and they said, what? And I said, yeah, I have a job now. And they said, Oh my gosh. At a job is I defined it as you have to be somewhere at a certain time for a certain length of time doing a certain thing. And doing this radio show is my only job. This is true. I own, I own eight businesses now. Um,

can we, can you real quick, I know you don’t want to do this, but I would like for you, cause some of the listeners don’t know this. Could you please explain the businesses you own so people understand some sort of context for the businesses that you’re invested in and some kinds of people just can have a little context here.

Well my first one was [inaudible] optometry clinic. I’ve got eight doctors that worked for me and I have two locations. Courtney was amazing. Thank you very much. And your, your retinas look really, really good. I love your, I love your retina. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Pupils. Smith. Thank you. I’m, I’m blushing and I’m going to do a few more calf calf raises. Okay. Continue. Never to have an auto auction where we have to deal with only Ottawa called Z 66 you sold a used car dealers? Yes. Okay. Dealers only dealers only you have to have a dealer’s license to purchase you. Anybody could sell their car through my auction, but you have to have a dealer’s license to come and buy. Said cars clears it up. And we used to do about a thousand cars a week and about 600 plus or minus cables or a couple more businesses. Okay. Uh, then I have a sleep center diagnostic sleep center called dr Z’s sleep center. You get that and you actually, one

point a guy came to you and said, Hey, you know, would you like to deposit some money at my bank? I believe the bank was grand bank. Yeah. And I said, no, go buy a bank. So we did, we went and bought a bank. And sure you look, that makes sense. Learning, learning, all of that process. I know. Why would you not buy a bank? Right. And then the, and then what’s really fun is when you get some business, you can kind of vertically integrate with them. And what do I mean by that? Is with the sleep center, we were sitting a lot of patients out with sleep apnea to get a CPAP machine. So then we, we went and started up, I started up a a DME company, durable medical equipment company and have a seat pap machines. Is that enough? Do we want to keep going?

I just feel, I feel like the listeners out there now, we know we have some context. She got a lot going on. Yes. And I feel like there’s gotta be, cause Josh, you’re in that phase where we’re no longer worried about being able to make payroll and we’re not stressed out of our mind all the time. There’s a certain addiction to that. But do you ever feel bad, like your life’s not harder right now or do you ever find yourself feeling bad about having too much money in your bank account or do you ever feel, I mean, seriously, these are things I, uh, clients will tell me, they’re like, I feel bad.

So I honestly, uh, what gets me is the, I feel horrible for not picking up a shovel anymore. And I’m dead serious about this. It’s like there’s a lot of days when I’m out with the guys and it’s 115 and I just got out of the air conditioned truck and I’m like, man, I’ve got to get back in the air conditioned truck. So there are moments when I actually sincerely missed that the being muddy, the digging ditches. Sure. Um, and so that’s, that’s been the awkward transition for me. It’s been great to be working on the business to be spending my time on, Hey, what do we need to fix? What do we need to improve while we continue to day in, day out, make sure that we’re executing and doing well at. But there, there’s the days I feel bad when I see my guys come into the shop and I’m like, I’m not going to go roll around in the dirt real quick cause I’m completely spotlessly clean.

Well the good thing is, is that just like with me back in the day, I remember when I stopped seeing patients on a daily basis. Every now and then I’d just, with the wild hair pop into an exam room and it was fun. And I enjoyed it and I, I didn’t feel like I needed to or had to, but yet it was fun and I, I missed it at times. Um, as I’ve gotten further away from it, I don’t miss it as much, but, uh, it’s still, you know, it’s probably been years since I’ve done that and I was freaked out. My staff when I do that show up here in scrubs and they’re like,

Oh my God, what’s he doing?

Do you have an itch at all now to go do an eye exam?

No, I don’t. In fact, I had, what am I? Relatives are like, Hey, can I swing in for an eye exam? I’m like, dude, really? I do like one a year and these guys are doing, you know, a hundred a day. I mean, where do you w who are you going to? I’d get one from them before I get one from me, you know, so, but uh, no, it’s kind of fun. But you have the skill sets and every now and then I’ll you know, you just like with you if you want to, if you want to do what you can and that’s not the job. That’s just the ability to go and do that because you own the business. And so did I answer your question? Good.

I have a, I have a audio of the last optometry appointment you were in. Oh good. Now this could be the right file or it might not be. That’s not, that’s the thing. There’s a lot of miscommunication. A lot of recorded moments. Well, I asked Devin, I said, could you give me the audio file? And I it turns out he wasn’t there. Oh, so you don’t know. You know, it’s like he’s production assistants. They’re difficult. The detailed ones. Let me cue up what I think to be the audio clip that I grabbed off of his computer of your last appointment here. Let me call [inaudible] your brain scans here. I’m afraid they show no improvement. Temporal lobe was severely damaged in the accident. What we believe is scar tissue here is impairing your ability to convert short term memory Z. What was that meeting about?

Well, I, you know, I often will the eyes, the eyes are connected to the brain and so the, the head of the houses said eyes. And so you know, you gotta kind of be, sometimes you got to kind of work on some situations.

Okay. Now, Bucky, a, you here are your a guy. If anybody out there is listening right now and you have a house and you need to sell your house, that’s what you do.

Bucky, can I, may I ask you a personal question before we get started? May I ask you one? What, what is your given name? It’s Bucky. Bucky. Ray actually, is it really? I think you’re the first Bucky that I’ve actually met that was actually named Bucky.

That’s right. Really? Oh, I think so. How about you? Do you know any other buckies I do. Oh, well, Johnny buckies sincerely say this is the, uh, the first one for me. Devin. How many Buc-ee’s you’ve no, none. Okay, well, okay, there we go. You. Now. Now you mashed your [inaudible]. You just had a moment. Let me tell y’all smoke for a second. He does a lot of men to bottle relo. A Bucky went through the Truckstop. Whoa. Okay. So now Bucky, what question do you have for doctors on any question at all? And I’ll go back to Mark one last time. All right, dr Z, I have a great question for you. You’ve got a lot of different businesses, right? And part of that business growing a business is networking. What’s the first question you ask somebody that you want to get to know when you’re networking? [inaudible]

what’s your name? No, I think a lot of times when you’re, when you’re out networking in your, your networking as a business building modality, you have to be ready. I think it’s very important for you to be ready, um, to answer the questions you’re getting ready to ask. Because that’s human nature, right? When you’re asking somebody, what do you do? You respectfully want them to ask you back, what do you do? Right? So one of the things that you need to do when you’re playing that game is what questions do you want to answer? Because typically they come back with whatever you’re asking them. Okay? And you need to make sure you have your elevator pitch really, really spot on here. In other words, I knew a guy wants it sold life insurance and so he’d be networking and Hey, how are you? How are you doing?

What’s your name? What do you do? Uh, you from around here? What do you do? Oh yeah, yeah. Well w what do I do? Well, I, I make people’s dreams come true. You know, so what you’re doing an elevator pitch. You don’t just start off with, I buy, I buy, I buy ugly homes. You know, you, you, I help, I help people out that are, that are [inaudible] we can work on your elevator pitch. And I’m not sure if you have one, but you know what I’m saying to you, take them to the next level of curiosity. They’re like, well, what does that mean? What do you mean? Like for him it was, what do you mean you secure dreams? Well, you know,

well, and I’m going to tell you the moves for networking that are really specific and really powerful. Um, step one is bio Lamborghini. Um, Currington did that move, I mean seriously, he was unemployed. He was unemployed and ah, his mortgage guy and he said, I want to buy a Lamborghini. And I can tell you when he pulls up to a networking event, let’s just say you went out and got a car payment for a Lamborghini. I don’t know what that costs, but everybody wants to talk to the Lamborghini guy. It’s crazy. Z. It, Steve will tell you. Yeah. Everybody’s like, man, what do you do for a living? Every time I feel like there should be a disclaimer there that says the thrive time show does not support everyone buying a Lamborghini. I’m just saying, let’s do it. When you make a Mark, you make it, you make your show, you come in with the loud colored shirt on and you come in with, with the big fancy car, you come in with something.

There you go. No, you stand out, you stand out in the crowd in these networking deals. But the first question I would ask if I’m, if I’m wanting to build my business, I’ve tried to gather them up cause I want to, you always want to listen and be curious about them. You want to make sure that you show interest in them and you want to talk about them. You want to repeat their name to them. You know, several times did they, you get that. It’s the most annoying thing in the world for somebody to ask you their name, you tell them and then they, they never use it and they forget it right then. So repeat that name, you know, it’s quite as much as you can and build that rapport with them and, and act genuinely interested in whatever they tell you and whatever they’re doing.

So step one, go there and be memorable in some capacity. Find some way, whether it’s dressing uniquely or having a bizarre car or sponsoring the table. Do something so you stand out. Correct to think through the questions ahead of time. So when I ran the DJ business, I would send all my guys to the chamber events with me and this, and we did it because we couldn’t afford any other kind of advertising. Right. But the question was, um, so what do you do for a living? And they would say, I’m, I’m a realtor and this might sound harsh, but this is what we would do. Okay, great. And then they’d say, what do you do? So we’re disc jockeys. We take your events from ordinary to, you know, awesome. That’s extraordinary. Um, do you know of anybody getting married? Are you getting married? Do you have a big party coming up?

And if they said, no, we’d ghost. No, I, that’s not a life camp. But it was very effective. Great room of like 500 people. There’s usually three to five people getting married or planning a party. So he’d say, are you getting married? And I planted a party and they’d say, yeah, yeah, seriously. About three out of 500 people would say yes. And I had enough guys there that we would book them. But I used my first when I would have like very thoughtful conversations with a guy who’s like 85, like father time and I are talking. Oh yeah. And he’s like, you know, sunny, the actual, the federal reserve. It’s not federal and there’s no reserve. And I’m like, wow, 40 minutes go by. I got no bookings, I’ve got nothing. I think it’s important to sort to have that elevator pitch and sort. Um, Mark, I want to ask you because I want to let you go and go back to doing awesome, great things. I appreciate you so much for telling us the impact the business conferences have had on your life. It means the world to Z and I um, is there a final question you have for dr Z? You can ask him about his rash, his calves. Here’s a workout routine for just the calves only. Any, any, any body questions that you’re really into the [inaudible]

and as a body, any body questions to the body. I didn’t realize I was doing to my body orifices for 500. Alex, what questions do you have there, Mark?

Well. Um,

okay,

well I asked earlier as far as windy, you know, to hire anybody. Um, I guess my, my second question would be, um, is there, is there a certain percentage of money you should have sent back before you started looking to hire somebody? Or do you, do you base it on, you know, if I, if I put another rig together and I hired a couple of guys that they could generate X amount of dollars that it’d be worth it or, I mean, is there any more insight? Oh, along those lines you might be able to give.

So let’s talk about that. Saving money is the, I think the question is how much money should we save? But before we start hiring, yeah, you should always be building your war chest, always build your war chest. And what I mean by that is going to Wars, hiring people to going to Wars, doing a marketing campaign, going towards getting a new truck, going to war is getting, spinning that money on something that helped your business. And so if your war chest is at zero, you ain’t there to, you’re, you’re at zero chance of hiring somebody else and you take, well gosh, I’ll make it up because now there’ll be on the streets. You don’t want to stress your business. You want to make sure if you’re rolling and you’re making money, you should be saving. Oh, you’re not saving. That means you’re not living below your means.

No, this G is audio of me as a young man trying to lead my young DJ army into war without a war chest yet. Oh, I was like 19 years old. That worked out. I’ll let me do it. Let me cue it up real quick. This is what happened. Was, is we had, we didn’t have a lot of winds going yet. No. Yeah, we were, this is a true, true part of our business. Mark. I couldn’t get the guys to make cold calls. I have pictures of it on the wall at the office. But I said every time you get a rejection I’ll give you a beer.

[inaudible]

I mean they were like, alright, alright. Cause we couldn’t get them on the phone and they’d say like, yes I am. So they, we get hung up on like, I swear I got hung up on, listen to this call baby. Oh, so we’re drunk as a skunk before 11 every day. I mean every day. But this was me trying to fire up the guys that did get, it could be the wrong file. I don’t know. Z. Sometimes I get confused. There’s just so many good auto moms so far. I’m like, Oh for 12 today. But let me queue it up here. Here we go.

Hey Gore’s over man. Wormer dropped a big one. What did you say over nothing is over until we decided this drive-ins bond partner. [inaudible] he’s rolling. There it is. Forget it. You know what happens? No one’s going to follow you when you don’t have any money. So you want to make sure you’re saving some money and if you’re not saving money, you need to take a really good hard look at that. And sometimes, you know, some people when they start making a little bit of money, they go out and they spit. And that’s natural, natural, natural. But, but realize this, that’s

going to slow down your growth. I’m not saying to not go out there and, uh, have yourself a nice steak dinner for $3,658 a month. You too can have a Lamborghini Huracan a $203,000 vehicle at a 3.11 interest rate, 60 low payments, 60 low payments. Step one, step one. I got to do some businesses conference stuff. Okay. Does that answer your question Mark? So you want to make sure you have some money in your, and you’re dealing on a strength.

And I think so many people stress their business early on. I think that’s why a lot of them or some of them failed. You know, there’s Forbes reports that somewhere between eight and nine out of 10 businesses fail rough. And that’s just horrible. And I think a lot of it, people try to grow maybe too fast and they try to, like you’re saying, hire somebody. You know, I, uh, there, there’s a young man that started a high end clothing, men’s clothing store and pretty swanky invited me over. I was like, Oh, this is pretty nice. Pretty cool. Yeah, it was hot, you know, and we talked and whatnot and this and that and this and that. And then next thing you know, I see him a few months later and go, Hey, how’s, how’s if they go into, I’m gonna have to shut it down, shut it down, I’m going to show them to shut it down. And I’m like, shut up. I’m like, well, why? Why are you having to shut it down? He goes, well, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s hard to find people and I can’t really afford them on the weekend. And so I really, and then, you know, I found out that, you know, had some of them kind of stealing from me and I had this and that and this, and then I go, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. What, what are you doing on the weekends? Oh, hi. I go into the Lake.

I won’t go into on the Lake guns or like tie baby, you know that and you said, well, Hey, so you’ve got to hit party Cove baby. So you’re saying that to tip for success, tips to fail in business. Tip one would be don’t put in the work and we’ve got a lot of tips. Let’s skip the tip eight to make your business fail. Let me, let me queue it up and this is your tip eight. Do you always share it at conferences? Credible. It’s integrity. If you want to fail. This is tip eight. This is only my best tip is tip number eight. Always keep bags of your own poop collected throughout your stay and just have it ready. Have it ready man. Just have it ready. All right. Hey Z, I appreciate you allowing me to harass you on today’s show. It’s great to be back in the cave. It is. It feels like we never left Mark. It feels so different in here too. It feels like Mark’s on the phone. It feels like. Mark, I appreciate you being here man. I really do appreciate you. Hopefully had a good time today.

Yes, I did. Thank you very much for having me, clay. I appreciate it. In

Bucky, what’s your website? Where can people learn more about your website? Buggy top dollar home offer.com. Do you need to sell your house quick? Check it out again, the website is what? Top dollar home offer.com you’re not going to give a ranger homes you buy or do you buy any range? Any range. Really. Cool. Okay. Freeze a free range home buyer. He’s organic. He’s organic. He’s taking over with Jennifer. You’re gluten free too? No. Okay. He doesn’t look loot and free. He looks like he’s, you know he’s loaded up on gluten. He’s big into protein. Gluten. He’s an American. Okay. He likes weapons and guns and gold. We had a loaf of bread in his car. He’ll Mark. This is a shameless business show, so we shamelessly self promote. Mark, what’s your website? My friend?

It is Tulsa power. washing.com

XE. Is it okay if I give a harsh commercial for Tulsa power, washing.com like one of the commercials where people go, are you kidding me? They like to do that name. You need to do it like with an Arnold sports singer accent. Well, let me do this. I’m going to cue up. I’m going to, I’m going to cue up mine. This is the theme I wouldn’t, Mark hasn’t asked me to make a commercial for them, but this is, and again, the website. What’s the website again?

Tulsa power washing.com okay, here we go.

[inaudible]

unless you love Mussolini. Stalin, Tim Jong-un. Putin. You got to go Putin, you got to go check it. What’s the website again? They’re Mark. What’s the website?

Tulsa power. washing.com

yeah. If you hate kids and families and strong roads and schools, you don’t need to go to, what was that website again?

He helped us with power washing.com

yeah. If you want to have a horrible country and throw your life away and embrace the communist red flag and hang out with a dirty Chinese who are destroying our currency, then you do not need to go. What was the website? The power washing.com now again, if you hate your family, you don’t need to go to the website. If you hate your kids, if you believe in dirty roads and dirty schools and Z, if you want to cut funding from schools, you hate kids, you don’t need to go to that website. You don’t need to go to both the power washing.com because I will pump you up if you like a dirty house like you, like a dirty wife in a car and a dirty country and dirty schools and dirty kids, kids with dirty faces pour dirty dirtiness. You do not need to go to, what was that website again?

Help us power washing.com

there it is. See, there it is. I think that’s, I think we’ve solved that with called action, right? That’s a call that he better free up the internet around your house there with Mark. It’s going to give you guys go and get pop-in. Okay. Josh, living water irrigation. We appreciate you. It’s in this show with a boom. Here we go. Three, two, one. Oh

boom,

six. Thanks a lot, Mark. I appreciate chicks, not buddy.

Awesome. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Bye. Bye.