Why 96% of Businesses Fail By Default & What You Can Do to Grow a Thriving Business + “Why 96% of Businesses Fail.” – Inc. Mag+ Join Eric Trump At Clay Clark’s Dec. 4-5 ThrivetimeShow.com Business Conference (Anaheim, CA)

Audio Transcription

Transcribed with Cockatoo

(Speaker 2)
I always had coaches and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to build my business without having somebody that knew how to avoid all the pitfalls that business throws at you. And so it was well worth the thousands of dollars that we spent a month to get this thing done. And now here we are. I mean, like I said, we’re franchised out, we’ve scaled it, everything. I mean, I’m a success story from the coaching. There’s always that time when you want to go out and have fun.

(Speaker 2)
Maybe you want to go hang out with your, with, with, with, you got a lunch date that calls, you know, maybe guys, friends of yours. Hey, Gabe, let’s go. Let’s go watch the NCAA tournament. It’s Friday.

(Speaker 36)
Come on, man.

(Speaker 2)
You can come out with us at 12 o ‘clock and we’ll have some beers and some, some burgers and we’ll watch the basketball game.

(Speaker 31)
No.

(Speaker 2)
And you have to be very disciplined.

(Speaker 19)
No.

(Speaker 2)
And and so they’re like, what’s wrong with you? It’s like, I’m working. I’ve got I’ve got goals. I’ve got things I got to do. My business needs me today. And I want to scale my business.

(Speaker 2)
And that was important to me. And it was important to my family. And so they were like, yeah, they ain’t going to do anything until he gets to a point where he’s happy and he’s satisfied and he feels like he can then turn things over because he’s systemized things. He understands things and then he can teach somebody else how to do that. So it really didn’t take me that long. But once I learned how to get things done, and then I started learning how to, we were building these playbooks, Clay and I were building these playbooks.

(Speaker 2)
And so when we built those, and I would give them to an employee, I’d be like, all right, cool. Now this is your job. This is how you do your job. This is everything you need right here. Got any questions? Uh, no.

(Speaker 2)
Okay, great. Now go. And so then we would check over it and, okay, great. You did a good job. Cool. Just do more of that.

(Speaker 23)
Um, so that’s when the time freedom really started, started showing up is once those playbooks and everything was built and we were able to bring on somebody as an employee and say, okay, Hey, here’s what you do.

(Speaker 2)
Right.

(Speaker 38)
And that’s all you have to do.

(Speaker 2)
Okay. And then off they went. That freed me up. And so, yeah. But in the beginning, man, we had to build playbooks. I had to do the SEO.

(Speaker 2)
I had to make the videos. I mean, I did a lot of stuff. And yeah, it was fun. Typically, most of the time when you ask somebody that one key question, what is it costing you not to do this? They can actually reflect and they can start to figure out and visualize in their mind what their life looks like now. and what they really want it to be.

(Speaker 1)
And then they will, that light bulb will go off in their head and man, they’ll just be like, I got to do this. I write books, and in those books, I lay out specifically the proven path and how we do it. And at our workshops, we teach the proven path. And so box number one, we establish revenue goals. You did that. Box number two, we determine your breakeven numbers.

(Speaker 1)
We did that. You did that. Box number three, we determine how many hours per week you were willing to work. I remember you saying, I’m willing to do whatever it takes so I can get there as fast as possible. And you did it. Box number four, we figure out your unique value proposition.

(Speaker 1)
What is it that makes your business unique? And you did it. Box number five, improve the branding we optimize to get The website you already had an incredible logo a branding idea window ninjas comm we did it box number three implementing a three -legged marketing stool That’s a turnkey way in which you will generate leads you did it box number seven I would say almost everybody fights me about this one, but you didn’t that’s where you install call recording and call scripts call scripts and call recording and, you know, systems for sales, a sales process with call recording and sales scripts. And, um, we never had to have a big woo woo moment. You just said, okay, what program should I use? Uh, okay.

(Speaker 1)
How do I record my calls? Okay. What call script do you recommend? Okay. Uh, what sales tools do I need? And we, we did it.

(Speaker 1)
and you implemented it. Box number eight, tracking the results. Most people fight about that. You never did. Box number nine, nomenclature, how you name files and organize files. It turns out you have to build an organization, you have to be organized.

(Speaker 1)
You never fought me on that. Box number 10, firing C players and hiring A players, you never fought me on that. You were totally willing to implement the group interview process for hiring inspiring, training and retaining great people. You quickly replaced C players with A players. You built a great team.

(Speaker 1)
Box number 11, creating a schedule for your team they can count on. You had no problem, no pushback on building a schedule. Box number 12, learning how to train, retain, hire, and inspire great people. No pushback on that. Box number 13, the accounting. You were 100 % focused on knocking out, knowing your numbers.

(Speaker 1)
You were focused on measuring what you treasure. You knew that you would slack where you didn’t track. You did it. And box number 14, you’ve always had clarity of your goals, your faith, and your family, finance and your fitness and your friendship and your fun. And now that you have all those systems in place, you can offer that as a turnkey solution at window ninjas . com.

(Speaker 1)
Folks, on today’s show, we’re going to talk about plowing through the proven path. And we’re going to focus on the windowninjas . com success story. And I’m going to do a lot of questions, rapid fire, for today’s guest. And I’m also joined with two members of my team that are not on camera, but they’re on mic. And so we’re going to have Macy and Rihanna also asking some questions.

(Speaker 29)
So Gabe Salinas, windowninjas .

(Speaker 2)
com. How are you, sir?

(Speaker 1)
I am great, Clay. Thanks for having me today. So we’re going to go back memory lane, going back four or five years ago. Okay. Uh, before the world became hyper politicized about everything, uh, and, uh, you and I, and you, you reached out to us at thrive. Time show .

(Speaker 1)
com. You said, Hey, I’ve got this business window ninjas . com. I want everyone to go to that website real quick window ninjas . com. And you said, look, I want to franchise this thing.

(Speaker 2)
And you wanted to go down a proven path. You knew where you wanted to go. Let’s talk. Let’s let’s kind of start right there. When did you decide that you wanted to be a guy who would open up multiple super successful locations of a brand that cleaned windows? Well, I’ve been in the industry for 30 years clay.

(Speaker 2)
So I kind of grew up with a squeegee in my hand. a company that was basically, how can I say, not very organized.

(Speaker 1)
And so when I decided to go out on my own, I brought my squeegee with me. My, my help wanted sign and I called you guys up and I said, um, I got this tool. I know how to utilize it, but I need your help so I can grow my business. And, um, but I think that was like six, seven years ago, man. And so since that point, man, we’ve been rocking and rolling and we’ve been scaling ever since. So I’m going to hyper focus it on your business and Rhianna, I’m going to have you follow along what I’m doing here.

(Speaker 1)
I’m going to do a search for window ninjas. I’m doing a search for window ninjas and I’m doing it on Google window ninjas dot just window ninjas, not .

(Speaker 2)
com, but just window ninjas. And when I do that.

(Speaker 35)
I find, I believe you have 11 locations that are open.

(Speaker 1)
Am I getting that wrong there, Gabe? Do you guys have 11 locations open? Something like that. Yep. Yep. We do.

(Speaker 1)
That’s correct. Okay. So 11 locations. If we Google search window ninjas, you got 11 locations. And for every client that we work with, anybody watching this show, the first thing we have to do is we have to optimize your website.

(Speaker 2)
And with working with you, I remember like it was yesterday, there was zero pushback. From you, you just said, show me what to do, and I’ll do it. Can you talk about that mindset you had? Because it was super easy working with you, because you said, look, I’m not a website expert. I am an expert of cleaning windows on a commercial level. Can you talk about the mindset you had?

(Speaker 2)
Because the mindset that you had when working with us is the mindset someone will need to have when working with you as a franchise owner. Can you talk about that mindset of just going, hey, show me what to do, and I’ll do it? Yeah, well, my mindset was pretty clear. I was tired of being flat. And I don’t know if anybody’s had a business that’s been flat, but if it’s flat and you definitely want to ask for help, you know, you know, throw me a lifeline. Right.

(Speaker 2)
So, yeah, I was super motivated. I knew we were missing something. I didn’t know exactly what it was. I remember going to one of your conferences, and I came back, and I was like, man, okay, I got the tools that I need here. I’d listened to your podcast. I was like, I got that.

(Speaker 2)
We reached out to you, and you guys started coaching us, and I was just like, man, we went from flat to really good.

(Speaker 1)
increasing our revenue. I can’t remember what growth we had in that first year after working with you guys, man. But it was freaking awesome.

(Speaker 37)
And it just like the wheels just kept going faster and faster and faster.

(Speaker 34)
And we just kept scaling up, man. And it was awesome.

(Speaker 2)
So I didn’t like the fact that we were flat. And if any other business owner is out there and they don’t like being stuck or at a revenue point where they just can’t get past it, man, you got to you got to reach out for some help. You need to find some professional help.

(Speaker 1)
So Rhianna, you work with actual business owners every day. What pushback do you have from people or what questions do business owners have when you’re like, okay, step one, we need to optimize your website and we need to optimize your Google map. Do you get any pushback or any questions you might have for Gabe?

(Speaker 2)
Yeah. What would you say was the most difficult thing for you to get over? What was the hurdle that was the largest for you when it came to optimizing your website and your Google map? Man, that’s a great question. Clay, I think she’s got your beat on the questions now. She threw a good one out there.

(Speaker 2)
All I know is you were super coachable, so you were going, hey, just show me what to do. But was there a difficult part? Because all I saw was the person who said, let’s do it. You know, I think the most difficult part was actually getting everybody on my team moving in the same direction. And it was a come to Jesus moment. I think that’s typically businesses will have.

(Speaker 2)
I remember walking in the office one morning, I said, all right, give me every single human that is part of this system in my face right now. And I basically broke it down to them. I told them that they needed to go get Google reviews every single day.

(Speaker 1)
We needed to go create content. so that we can optimize it for our website. We needed to, you know, all the steps, the things that you said to do right off the bat, bang, do these three things first. And man, I just, I just ordered the troops to get it done. And I basically told them, man, I like, this is, this is our livelihood. And this is if we want this thing to work and scale, then we all need to get in the boat and move in the same direction.

(Speaker 1)
And I guess that was motivating enough for them because man, next thing I know, we’ve gotten, you know, we started getting so many different Google reviews. We started getting pictures and videos, and we started sending them over to you guys so you could help us upload those to the website. And man, we just started gaining a lot more traction. Now, again, for anybody out there who’s wanting to know what we’re talking about here, again, we’re going to guide you down this process, the proven path. And if you buy a windowninjas . com franchise, Gabe and his team are going to coach you down the path.

(Speaker 1)
So I use one more example, Koloff Fitness. So Rhianna, when I started working with Charles Koloff, we had to write 1 ,000 words of content per page. We had to optimize their website, 1 ,000 words of content per page. Optimize the website, 1 ,000 words of content per page. We could probably do a 1 ,000 -hour show about what that process is. But again, the owner of the business needed to write 1 ,000 words of content per page.

(Speaker 1)
And then once we launched the site and optimized the site and submitted the site to the Google Search Engine Console, at that point, Gabe, the homework that Gabe had, the homework that Charles Kola had, the homework that everybody as a business owner has, is you have to do V -I -S -M.

(Speaker 37)
So video reviews, images, search engine content, more Google reviews.

(Speaker 34)
Every single week, video reviews, images, search engine content, more Google reviews.

(Speaker 2)
So if you do a search right now for Joplin gyms, Charles Kola has 12 ,000 objective Google reviews at this point. His website comes up top in the search results. Any other question you have for Gabe about the website optimization process? Because Gabe, if you had to grade a student as being like the best student of all time or the worst student of all time, Gabe is like the top of his class. I mean, Gabe knocks it out of the park. and was super great to work with.

(Speaker 2)
Any questions you have for Gabe about the website optimization process? Yeah. Um, how did you manage your time for knocking out all the action items? Man, I tell this story a lot. It’s super easy. I didn’t like it, but.

(Speaker 2)
I had to go into my office, I had to shut the door, I had to tell everybody, leave me alone, don’t call me, don’t text me, don’t knock on my door, don’t look through the little glass and say, you know, wave at me. I just literally stuck myself in an office, shut the windows, closed the drapes, put my head down, and I got to work.

(Speaker 11)
And I would do that for eight hours a day, just working on that for like weeks.

(Speaker 1)
you know, while I’m also running a business, while I’m also, you know, trying to make sure that, you know, my managers and my leadership team are doing what they were supposed to be doing. But I knew that it was a priority. And I knew exactly that, that Clay was correct, and his team was correct. And so when you’re motivated, and you you know that what you’re missing with that piece of the puzzle that you’re missing, and all you got to do is just do that thing, man, I just I just embraced it. And I just did it. And I just kept doing it until I could start seeing the results.

(Speaker 1)
And then I started having other members of my team start producing the things that I was producing. So yeah, I mean, for me, it wasn’t hard, man. It wasn’t. It was now you have time, you have time, freedom and financial freedom. I mean, now with window ninjas . com, I mean, you and your wife are able to freely travel if I’m if I’m correct, right?

(Speaker 2)
You can travel what you want. You’re actually free. Could you explain your lifestyle now? Because now you’re at the other end of that process. Someone’s watching this right now. They’re just starting.

(Speaker 2)
How would you describe the lifestyle you’re able to live now? Again, because you put in the work, you put in the work, you put on the blinders, you did it. But how would you describe maybe the lifestyle you have now? Man, I pretty much have the life that I want. I go into the office when I want to go into the office. I get to spend time with my eldest son, who’s our COO.

(Speaker 2)
He’s been in this industry for the past 15 years now. I got a wonderful wife who heads all of our accounting. So, I mean, I get to work with my kids and my wife. My younger son, he’s off to college. We’re happy that we can send him to a private university out of state, right? And we’re not worried about it because we have the financial means to do that.

(Speaker 2)
And man, I get a chance to talk to our franchisees. I get to see our employees over on the call center. I get to meet and talk to our our service members that are working in our Wilmington location where I’m at. And I just have a great day. I get up in the morning. I get to go run around.

(Speaker 2)
I can go exercise. I can go get lunch with my friends. I mean, I just pretty much can design my day -to -day the way that I want to now. I don’t have to lock myself in a dungeon anymore and write content because I have people that are doing that stuff for us. And so, yeah, if you really want time freedom and financial freedom, to me, that looks like What does your calendar look like?

(Speaker 20)
Are you doing the things that you want to do, right?

(Speaker 1)
And are you living the life that you want to live?

(Speaker 2)
It’s not always about money. Granted, we definitely have more means with revenue now.

(Speaker 1)
But yeah, man, that’s my day to day. That’s my life. I mean, I’m happy. I’m going to have dinner with my wife tonight.

(Speaker 11)
I got Dante sitting over here on my desk, hanging out with me while I’m talking to you.

(Speaker 1)
It’s great.

(Speaker 11)
Dante, your dog, Dante.

(Speaker 1)
little Dante, a little Pomeranian. He’s right here. Can Dante wave at us? Can he wave at us just so we can prove that this is a real? Oh, there he is. Oh, look at this.

(Speaker 10)
Look at this.

(Speaker 33)
Hello, Dante.

(Speaker 2)
Good to see you. Okay, so Macy, what question would you have? Because again, you’re working with clients, you’re going to coach clients down a proven path. And not everybody is as coachable I would say this. Not anybody is as approachable and coachable as, as Gabe, uh, was and is very few people have that mindset of like, just show me what to do and I’ll do it.

(Speaker 2)
Any questions you have for Gabe about that initial onboarding process there, Macy?

(Speaker 36)
Let’s see.

(Speaker 2)
So now you have that freedom, financial time freedom, but in the beginning, did you have to reprioritize or start saying no to things that maybe you did before, whenever you started taking on new tasks and thinking of things differently?

(Speaker 35)
Man, that’s a great question.

(Speaker 2)
And yeah, that absolutely, absolutely.

(Speaker 19)
Because, you know, there’s always that time when you want to go out and have fun.

(Speaker 2)
Maybe you want to go hang out with your with with with you got a lunch date that calls, you know, maybe guys, friends of yours. Hey, Gabe, let’s go. Let’s go watch the NCAA tournament. It’s Friday. Come on, man. You can come out with us at 12 o ‘clock and we’ll have some beers and some some burgers and we’ll watch the basketball game.

(Speaker 2)
No. And you have to be very disciplined. No. And and so they’re like, what’s wrong with you? It’s like, I’m working. I’ve got I’ve got goals.

(Speaker 2)
I’ve got things I got to do. My business needs me today and I want to scale my business. And that was important to me and it was important to my family.

(Speaker 25)
And so they were like, yeah, they ain’t going to do anything until he gets to a point where he’s happy and he’s satisfied and he feels like he can then turn things over because he’s systemized things.

(Speaker 22)
He understands things and then he can teach somebody else how to do that.

(Speaker 2)
So it really didn’t take me that long. But once I learned how to get things done, and then I started learning how to, we were building these playbooks, Clay and I were building these playbooks. And so when we built those, and I would give them to an employee, I’d be like, all right, cool.

(Speaker 25)
Now this is your job.

(Speaker 2)
This is how you do your job. This is everything you need right here. Got any questions? No. Okay, great. Now go.

(Speaker 2)
And so then we would check over it. And okay, great. You did a good job. Cool. Just do more of that.

(Speaker 1)
So that’s when the time freedom really started showing up is once those playbooks and everything was built and we were able to bring on somebody as an employee and say, okay, hey, here’s what you do. And that’s all you have to do. And then off they went. That freed me up. But in the beginning, man, we had to build the playbooks.

(Speaker 1)
I had to do the SEO. I had to make the videos. I mean, I had to do a lot of stuff. And yeah, it was fun. Now, we go on to this. I’m going to pull up a screenshot so people can see.

(Speaker 1)
I write books. And in those books, I lay out specifically the proven path and how we do it. And at our workshops, we teach the proven path.

(Speaker 11)
And so box number one, we establish revenue goals.

(Speaker 1)
You did that. Box number two, we determine your breakeven numbers. We did that. You did that. Box number three, we determine how many hours per week you were willing to work. And I remember you saying, I’m willing to do whatever it takes so I can get there as fast as possible.

(Speaker 1)
And you did it. Box number four, we figure out your unique value proposition. What is it that makes your business unique? And you did it. Box number five, improve the branding. We optimized together the website.

(Speaker 1)
You already had an incredible logo, a branding idea, windowninjas . com. We did it. Box number three, implementing a three -legged marketing stool. That’s a turnkey way in which you will generate leads. You did it.

(Speaker 1)
Box number seven, I would say almost everybody fights me about this one, but you didn’t. That’s where you install call recording and call scripts. call scripts and call recording and systems for sales, a sales process with call recording and sales scripts. And we never had to have a big woo -woo moment. You just said, OK, what program should I use? OK, how do I record my calls?

(Speaker 1)
OK, what call script do you recommend? OK, what sales tools do I need? And we did it. and you implemented it. Box number eight, tracking the results. Most people fight about that.

(Speaker 1)
You never did. Box number nine, nomenclature, how you name files and organize files. It turns out you have to build an organization. You have to be organized. You never fought me on that. Box number 10, firing C players and hiring A players.

(Speaker 1)
You never fought me on that. You were totally willing to implement the group interview process for hiring, inspiring, training and retaining great people. You quickly replaced C players with A players. You built a great team. Box number 11, creating a schedule for your team they can count on.

(Speaker 1)
You had no problem, no pushback on building a schedule. Box number 12, learning how to train, retain, hire, and inspire great people. No pushback on that. Box number 13, the accounting.

(Speaker 34)
You were 100 % focused on knocking out, knowing your numbers. You were focused on measuring what you treasure.

(Speaker 2)
You knew that you would slack where you didn’t track. You did it. And box number 14, you’ve always had clarity of your goals, your faith, and your family, finance and your fitness and your friendship and your fun. And now that you have all those systems in place, you can offer that as a turnkey solution at window ninjas . com. Anybody who wants to buy a franchise, they can buy one from you and they have the whole system ready to go.

(Speaker 2)
It’s a turnkey system. So back to you, Rhianna, any question that you have for Gabe on behalf of maybe a current client or a future client or somebody, because again, there’s very, very few people that are this coachable and Gabe is super coachable. He is approachable. And you’re talking to a guy who’s really at the head of his class. What would be your biggest piece of advice for someone who’s maybe just on the edge of saying yes to coaching, but they’re not for sure and they don’t fully trust it yet? What’s the piece of advice that you would give them?

(Speaker 2)
Well, before I get to the advice, this is what I would ask them. First thing I would ask them is, how much is it costing you not to do it? And then as far as the advice goes, if you just answer that question, how much is it costing you not to do this? and they can actually think and reflect on what their business is doing or what their business is not doing, what their life looks like and how it isn’t matching up with what they really want, then the answer should be pretty clear for them. And if you got to give them a nudge and you got to give them a little push, then you can take them out back and you can definitely do that one -on -one. But typically, most of the time, when you ask somebody that one key question, what does it cost?

(Speaker 1)
you not to do this? They can actually reflect and they can start to figure out and visualize in their mind what their life looks like now and what they really want it to be. And then they will, that light bulb will go off in their head and man, they’ll just be like, I got to do this. Right. But there’s, but Clay doesn’t charge enough for his services for anybody to even think that they don’t need to do that. do this, do his coaching plan.

(Speaker 1)
If you are stuck, if you’re in a rut, if you don’t, I mean, I grew up playing sports, so I always had coaches. So I always knew the value of coaches.

(Speaker 33)
So if somebody didn’t grow up, you know, I’m sure somebody grew up with a teacher that was a mentor of some sort that guided them, that helped them get that go from a B to an A or whatever the case may be, man. I always had coaches and I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to build my business without having somebody that knew how to avoid all the pitfalls that business throws at you. And so it was well worth the thousands of dollars that we spent a month to get this thing done.

(Speaker 2)
And now here we are. I mean, like I said, we’re franchised out, we’ve scaled it, everything. I mean, I’m a success story from the coaching. Macy, as you work with clients and as you work with current clients or potential clients, are there any other questions you would have for Gabe Salinas of windowninjas . com when it comes to implementing? Because again, you talk about hundreds of clients or thousands of clients.

(Speaker 2)
He’s at that top of the class. He’s super coachable, super approachable. He’s actually grown his business from one location to 11 locations. He’s continuing to scale. Any question that you might have on behalf of a current client or future client that you may be working with? Did you have any major growing pains when it came to your employees or was it all pretty, they were gung -ho about implementing new things to try new things?

(Speaker 2)
What did that look like? I think you’re always going to have a little bit of pushback on your employees. I don’t want to say that I didn’t, right? But I will say in the beginning, it was good pushback because they were behind me, right? They knew. Now, here we are seven, eight years later, and yeah, now we have different pushback from employees.

(Speaker 2)
And the cool thing is, They’re pushing back because they don’t want to call the leads.

(Speaker 1)
Maybe they’re pushing back because they don’t want to follow up. Maybe they’re pushing back because they don’t want to do the call -on -my -way guarantee service that we offer. So we just break out the scorecard, and when they fall below a level, boom, we jettison from the team. That means they’re not part of our team anymore. So they either have an option now, which is be part of the team, or you can go find a new team. Now, back then, we weren’t quite as large.

(Speaker 1)
We didn’t have as many employees. And the same rule followed. If you wanted to push back from me, I was willing to listen and hear what they had to say. And I would then make my point. And if they then wanted to keep pushing back and weren’t going to follow the system, I just knew immediately I just had to let them go. They had to go.

(Speaker 1)
They weren’t going to be part of our team because we weren’t going to bring in that that type of person that just couldn’t do what we were expecting them to do.

(Speaker 32)
And folks, if you’re watching this right now and you say, you know what, I want to buy a window ninjas .

(Speaker 2)
com franchise, simply head on over to window ninjas . com. That’s window ninjas . com. You can schedule a free consultation with Gabe and his team. If you’re looking to become a business coaching client, you can do that as well.

(Speaker 2)
But Gabe, I mean this sincerely, Gabe is and was one of the most coachable people out there. And Gabe, you knew what you knew where you wanted to go. And so I never had to battle you about call recording or gathering objective reviews or optimizing your website or coming up with a no -brainer that made sense or auto -wrapping your vehicles or coming up with a memorable logo. None of those areas were battle zones. What advice would you have for somebody watching this show right now, and they’re going, you know, I want to be successful. I just have a little part of me that wants to argue about following the proven path.

(Speaker 2)
What do you say? You got to let that stuff go. I mean, like I said, if you’re listening to this now, and all of what I’m talking about, and Clay’s talking about, resonates with you, and you know that your business is stuck. Why fight somebody who is giving you a handout? They’re reaching in their handout to lift you up. Why would you fight that?

(Speaker 2)
I mean, it doesn’t make any sense. Or why would you just not even consider making the phone call and saying, hey, can you really help me?

(Speaker 1)
Like, this is my problem. Can you really solve my problem? And just do those things, man.

(Speaker 30)
What’s it going to cost you?

(Speaker 1)
Like I said, what’s it costing them not to do it? You know, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink, right? And Clay has this nice big bowl of porridge right there in front of him. And if they don’t want to eat it, that’s cool. But you know, those are the ones that you probably don’t want to be working with at any rate. So if you’re a business owner and you’re a real savvy business owner who knows where they want to go, knows what kind of company they want, just needs some help understanding the how, the processes, what’s going to take place for them to be able to scale their business.

(Speaker 1)
You got to find a coach. You got to have somebody that can mentor you and you got to do the action items. Otherwise, you’re just going to be stuck in the same place you are now, probably with a whole lot less money. Folks, according to Inc Magazine, 96 % of business owners are likely to fail by default. Again, according to Inc Magazine, 96 % of business owners are likely to fail by default. You might say, well, that’s a large number.

(Speaker 1)
You look it up. 96 % of businesses are likely to fail, according to Inc.

(Speaker 2)
Magazine. That’s a huge number.

(Speaker 1)
So you might say, well, why is it that people in the world of franchising are so much less likely to fail? Well, it’s because in the world of franchising, in the world of franchising, there are systems and processes in place. So basically you’re using proven systems to achieve your goals. Thus, you’re minimizing risk. You’re less likely to run through the minefield of life and find accidents or errors or misguided action plans. You’re following a proven system.

(Speaker 1)
Here to talk about how he’s been able to grow his business from one location now to 11 locations.

(Speaker 2)
is the man, the myth, the legend, the longtime client, and the founder of WindowNinjas . com. Gabe Salinas, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show.

(Speaker 1)
How are you, sir?

(Speaker 22)
I’m great, Clay.

(Speaker 1)
Thanks for having me again today. So Gabe, let’s talk about these five reasons why everybody out there with a sound mind would do well to buy a franchise as opposed to starting from scratch. One, you guys have proven systems in place for everything. So for anybody who goes to windowninjas . com, you and I have worked together over the years to develop many of those systems, and you’ve also developed many systems on your own as well. Let’s talk about just the systems you have in place.

(Speaker 1)
If somebody buys a windowninjas .

(Speaker 2)
com franchise, what kind of systems do you have in place? Oh, Clay, we got a system for everything from how to answer the phone, how to schedule jobs, the proper way to use our CRM, to actually knowing how to properly clean a window, provide a wow service experience for the customer, even thank you calls. We have a system for that as well. So if you’re going to own a business and you’re going to scale it, you definitely want to have a system for every single thing that is going on within that business every single day. unique to your franchise. You actually have a schedule.

(Speaker 2)
center. So unique to your franchise, you actually have a scheduling center. So when the phone rings at windowninjas . com, your corporate call center answers the phone and books the appointments for the locations, for the local locations. Tell us about why you’ve decided to build a call center system. I know we’ve helped a lot of our clients to develop and build call center systems.

(Speaker 2)
Why have you elected to have a call center system in place over there at windowninjas . com?

(Speaker 1)
Well, the first reason was because I wanted to make sure that we had a customer service experience that was pretty much the same throughout the entire system.

(Speaker 30)
So like I said, when the way we answer our phone calls to the way we end our phone calls, it’s super important that we basically give that customer a unique experience, but that is very similar as well, right?

(Speaker 1)
So that was one of the reasons. And the other reason as well is because I knew when we were going to franchise out, that we wanted to have control of the call center because we didn’t want to have the franchisees to have to pay that heavy expense of having employees manning the phones at some facility in their backyard. It was going to cost a lot of money for them to be able to do that. And I figured it was just a win -win situation. It paid us a nominal fee of 8 % for the call center. And we just handle all of their calls, which means we do all of the scheduling for them.

(Speaker 1)
We do all of the follow -ups with customers that are requesting information. We make sure that all the quotes and things are getting done. We estimate jobs over the phone. We do thank you calls, reminder calls.

(Speaker 2)
We just take care of all that for them. And so it just ended up being a better deal for the franchisees as well as me as the franchisor. Next question for you, window ninjas . com. It’s affordable. A lot of people start a business, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars going in the wrong direction, only to discover that the only way to turn the business around is to start from scratch.

(Speaker 2)
You guys have a proven system here. So I see so many people. In fact, Inc. Magazine says 90 % of people fail when they start a successful company, en route to starting a successful company. 96 % of business owners fail en route to growing a successful company.

(Speaker 2)
Let’s talk about this for a second. How much money do you think you can save people or why is buying a franchise a way to save money? How does it help an entrepreneur reduce their chances of failure? Well, it’s because we’ve already handled all the pitfalls. I mean, the franchise franchisee doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel.

(Speaker 1)
I know when we first started before I met you, Clay, I mean, we really had a hard time with marketing. I thought I knew marketing, but for whatever reason, I didn’t know marketing as well as I thought I did. And so we struggled quite a bit and we spent quite a bit of money. We wasted a lot of money on things that that weren’t that didn’t work. And so. With your help and the coach’s help, we were able to start defining better systems for our marketing, which ended up becoming a much better avenue because we were driving more leads, customer acquisition costs were going down, the cost per leads were going down.

(Speaker 1)
And so it allowed us to really scale up at that point. But, um, but yeah, it’s just, that’s just one example of the pitfalls that, that, that, uh, that, uh, that a new young entrepreneur. Yeah.

(Speaker 2)
is going to go through. They’re literally trying to reinvent the wheel because they don’t know how the wheel was built. And so, the benefit of a franchise system is that all of those pitfalls have already been navigated for them. They don’t waste their money. They maximize their ad spend. They maximize their marketing spend.

(Speaker 2)
I mean, everything just gets maximized because I’ve already made the mistakes and I know what not to do. All right, again, folks, this is the founder of WindowNinjas . com. Question number four coming in hot. You offer your franchisees, and you mentioned it earlier, a turnkey marketing system. People don’t have to sit around looking for strategies and systems.

(Speaker 2)
come up with leads. You’ve already built a system.

(Speaker 1)
You already built the wheel. Let’s talk about the power of turnkey marketing. How is turnkey marketing effective for a franchisee versus trial -by -air marketing? It’s just a plug -and -play method.

(Speaker 11)
I would rather plug -and -play all day long than trying to reinvent the wheel every single day.

(Speaker 1)
Again, that’s the benefit of franchising. If you’re looking to scale – if you really want to start a business and you really want to scale it up, man, the best way to do it… right now is through franchising.

(Speaker 2)
There are so many different opportunities out there, whether you’re cleaning windows like I am, or maybe I see these guys that are running around with these trash trucks that are washing the trash machines, or even somebody like a Chick -fil -A. Hey, it’s just a turnkey deal. They give you the keys to the castle, they show you how the castle operates, and then you just follow the playbook. And man, if you just open up the playbook, just like any other coach, who’s running a football team or a basketball team, pro level sports, they just open up their playbook and they give their players a playbook and they just run the system. Next thing you know, they’re winning the World Series or they’re winning the Super Bowl or they’re being NBA champions, right? And so franchising is exactly the same way, man.

(Speaker 2)
You just got to look at it like we’re all on a team. I’ve got my coach over here. If I listen to the coach and follow what the coach is telling us to do, showing us the plays and we follow all that, we’re all going to win. And it’s just that simple. Final question for you, final question. If I’m watching right now and I say, you know what?

(Speaker 2)
I want to learn more about buying a window ninjas . com franchise, or I want to just explore the opportunity of buying a window ninjas .

(Speaker 1)
com franchise. What’s the first step someone needs to take? What’s the first step someone needs to take if they’re interested in buying a window ninjas . com franchise? Step number one, go to our website, window ninjas . com forward slash franchising, check us out.

(Speaker 1)
hop on the phone, give us a call and start the process of actually taking the first or the first two steps of getting to that next level. Most Most people, man, Clay, I don’t know what it is, but man, most people, they’ll take step one, they might take step two, but they typically start to fall off for whatever reason.

(Speaker 31)
They just, I don’t know, maybe they get nervous or whatever the case may be.

(Speaker 1)
And I get it. That’s typically what young entrepreneurs or people who have never been in the business, maybe they’ve been working for a company for 20 years and they decide, man, I kind of want to go out on my own. It’s scary.

(Speaker 2)
It’s really scary for them to be able to do that.

(Speaker 16)
But if you take that first and second step and then you continue to follow through, you’re going to be an absolute success.

(Speaker 1)
Most people fail at the follow through, Clay. I think you would agree with that.

(Speaker 30)
But if they just take that next step, that third follow through step, man, it’s night and day for them, man. I will say this too, you are absolutely kind.

(Speaker 1)
coachable, great to work with. It’s been an honor to work with you and watch you build this business. And I would just say, if you’re looking for a mentor that can help you down a proven path, that’s something you guys provide really at the next level at window ninjas . com. So I encourage everyone to check out window ninjas . com.

(Speaker 1)
If you just found out you don’t have a job because your job just disappeared or you’re worried your job’s going to disappear, maybe a layoff is in the future or a layoff is in the past. Maybe you’re looking for a career change. Check it out. It’s window ninjas . com. That’s my good friend.

(Speaker 21)
And now yours, Gabe Salinas.

(Speaker 1)
Gabe, thank you so much for your time today, sir. We’ll talk to you next time. week. Sounds great, Clay. Thanks for having me. Okay, Aaron Antis, guess who’s joining us for the December 4th and 5th, 2025 Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop?

(Speaker 1)
Santa Claus? No, we will not be joined by Santa Claus, but we will be joined by Eric Trump, the son of the 45th and now 47th president of these United States.

(Speaker 29)
And yes, Amanda Grace will be in the place.

(Speaker 1)
Dr. Stella Manuel will be there so you know it will go well.

(Speaker 19)
Yes, we have Mel K in the house.

(Speaker 28)
Pastor Phil and Tammy Hodson -Piller will be hosting this event at their beautiful church right there in sunny Anaheim, California.

(Speaker 27)
Yes, folks, make this a December to remember.

(Speaker 26)
Make this a December to remember and join us at the two -day interactive business growth workshops.

(Speaker 1)
For over 20 years, folks, I’ve been hosting business growth workshops where we’re going to teach you marketing, sales systems, human resources, accounting, social media marketing, branding, sales training, search engine optimization, accounting, workflow development, financial management, all this and more. How do you get tickets?

(Speaker 25)
Go to thrivetimeshow .

(Speaker 24)
com.

(Speaker 1)
Again, how do you get tickets?

(Speaker 23)
Go to thrivetimeshow .

(Speaker 1)
com. I’m Ron Burgundy. if if promoting from within, marketing, branding, quality control, sales systems, workflow design, workflow mapping, how to build. I mean, everything that you see, the Trump hotels, the Trump golf courses, all their products, the man who manages billions of dollars of real estate and thousands of employees is here to teach us how to do it. You are talking about one of the greatest on the planet from a business standpoint.

(Speaker 1)
I mean who else has been able to create a brand like the Trump brand? I mean look at it and this is the man behind the business for the last pretty much since 2015. He’s been the man behind it, so you’re talking, we’re into nine, going into 10 years of him running it, and we get to tap into that knowledge. That’s gonna be amazing. Now, think about this for a second. Nothing is over until we decide it is!

(Speaker 1)
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? German?

(Speaker 22)
Forget it, he’s rolling.

(Speaker 1)
And it’s $500 for a VIP ticket. Now, we only have limited seating here.

(Speaker 21)
Whoa!

(Speaker 9)
There’s a lot of togetherness and closeness, camaraderie. So again, if you want to get tickets for this event, all you have to do is go to thrivetimeshow . com.

(Speaker 1)
Go to thrivetimeshow . com. When you go to thrivetimeshow . com, you’ll go there. You’ll request a ticket. Boom.

(Speaker 20)
Or if you want to text me, if you want a little bit faster service, you say, I want you to call me right now.

(Speaker 1)
Just text my number. It’s my cell phone number.

(Speaker 18)
My personal cell phone number.

(Speaker 1)
We’ll keep that in mind. private between you, between you, me, everybody. We’ll keep that private. And anybody, don’t share that with anybody except for everybody. That’s my private cell phone number. It’s 918 -851 -0102.

(Speaker 1)
918 -851 -0102. I know we have a lot of Spanish -speaking people that attend these conferences. And so to be bilingually sensitive, my cell phone number is 918 -851 -0102. Zero tip. That is not actually bilingual. That’s just saying one for a one.

(Speaker 1)
It’s not the same thing. I think you’re attacking me. Now, let’s talk about this. Now, what kind of stuff will you learn at the Thrive Time Show Workshop? So, Aaron, you’ve been to many of these over the past seven, eight years. So let’s talk about it.

(Speaker 1)
I’ll tee up the thing and then you tell me what you’re going to learn here, OK? OK. You’re going to learn marketing, marketing and branding. What are we going to learn about marketing and branding? Oh, yeah. We’re going to dive into, you know, so many people say, oh, you know, I got to get my brand known out there like the Trump brand.

(Speaker 1)
Right. You want to get that brand. It’s like, how do I actually make people know what my business is and make it a household name? You’re going to learn some intricacies of how you can do that. You’re going to learn sales. So many people struggle to sell something.

(Speaker 1)
This just in, your business will go to hell if you can’t sell. So we’re going to teach you sales. We’re going to teach you search engine optimization, how to come up top in the search engine results. We’re going to teach you how to manage people. Aaron, you have managed, no exaggeration, hundreds of people. throughout your career and thousands of contractors.

(Speaker 1)
And most people struggle with managing people. Why does everybody have to learn how to manage people? Well, because first of all, people are either have great people or you have people who suck. So it could be a challenge. You know, learning how to work with a large group of people and get everybody pulling in the same direction can be a challenge. But if you have the right systems, you have the right processes and you’re really good at selecting great ones.

(Speaker 1)
And we have a process we teach about about how to find great people. When you start with the people who have a great attitude, they’re teachable, they’re driven, all of those things, then you can get those people all pulling in the same direction. So we’re going to teach you branding, marketing, sales, search engine optimization. We’re going to teach you accounting. We’re going to teach you personal finance, how to manage your finance. We’re going to teach you time management.

(Speaker 1)
How do you manage your time? How do you get more done during a typical day? How do you build an organization if you’re not organized? How do you do organization? How do you build an org chart? Everything that you need to know to start and grow a business will be taught during this two -day interactive business workshop.

(Speaker 1)
Now, let me tell you how the format is set up here. And again, folks, this is a two -day interactive 15. Think about this, folks. It’s two days. Each day, it starts at 7 AM, and it goes until 5 PM. So from 7 AM to 5 PM, two days.

(Speaker 1)
It’s a two -day interactive workshop. The way we do it is we do a 30 -minute teaching session, and then we break for 15 minutes for a question and answer session. So Aaron, what kind of great stuff stuff happens during that 15 minute question and answer session after every teaching session. I actually think it’s the best part about the workshops because here’s what happens. I’ve been to lots of these things over the years. I’ve paid many thousands of dollars to go to them.

(Speaker 1)
And you go in there and they talk in vague generalities and they’re constantly upselling you for something trying to get you to buy this thing or that thing or this program or this membership. And you don’t, you leave not getting your very specific questions answered about your business or your employees or what you’re doing on your marketing. And what’s awesome about this is we literally answer every single question that any person asks. And it’s very specific to what your business is. And what we do is we allow you as the attendee to write your questions on the whiteboard. And then we literally, as you mentioned, we answer every single question on the whiteboard.

(Speaker 1)
And then we take a 15 minute break to stretch. And this is also your opportunity to meet some of the great speakers like Pastor Dave Scarlett. You could meet Mel K. You could meet Amanda Grace. You could meet Dr. Stella Emanuel. You could just grab a coffee. You could find some alone time.

(Speaker 1)
You could get lost in the bathroom. You could try to go and get a photo with one of the speakers. You could try to photobomb a photo where someone else is getting lost. photo with the speakers. You could go attempt to find your phone, wallet, and your keys.

(Speaker 18)
That means you have less than 3 % of our population that’s even self -employed.

(Speaker 19)
So you only have 3 out of every 100 people in America that are self -employed to begin with.

(Speaker 18)
And when Inc.

(Speaker 1)
Magazine reports that 96 % of businesses fail by default, By default, you have a 1 out of 1 ,000 chance of succeeding in the game of business. But yet the average client that you and I work with, we can typically double the size. No hyperbole, no exaggeration.

(Speaker 17)
I have thousands of testimonials to back this up.

(Speaker 1)
We have thousands of testimonials to back it up. But when you work with a home builder, when I work with a business owner, we can typically double the size of the company within 24 months. And you say double? Yeah, there’s businesses that we have tripled. There’s businesses we’ve grown 8x. There’s so many examples you can see.

(Speaker 1)
see it thrive timeshow . com. But again, this is the most interactive best business workshop on the planet. This is objectively the highest rated and most reviewed business workshop on the planet. Add to that Eric Trump, the man that runs the Trump organization. You say Clay, I still I’m not going to get a ticket unless you give me more.

(Speaker 1)
Okay, fine. We’re going to serve you the same meal both days. True story. We have we cater in the food. And because it’s I keep it simple. I literally bring in the same food both days for lunch.

(Speaker 1)
Who’s with me? Let’s go!

(Speaker 16)
Come on!

(Speaker 1)
It’s an incredible Mexican restaurant. That’s going to happen. Someone says, I want more. This is not enough. Give me more. OK. I’m not going to mention their names right now because I’m working on it behind the scenes here.

(Speaker 1)
but we just continue to add more and more success stories. So if you’re out there today and you want to change your life, you want to give yourself an incredible gift, You want a life -changing experience.

(Speaker 15)
You want to learn how to start and grow a company.

(Speaker 1)
Go to Thrivetimeshow . com.

(Speaker 14)
Go there right now. Thrivetimeshow . com. Request a ticket for the two -day interactive event.

(Speaker 6)
Again, the event’s going to be on December 4th and 5th in sunny Anaheim, California. Great weather. Make this a December to remember. Eric Trump, the man who leads the Trump Organization.

(Speaker 8)
It’s going to be a blasty blast. There’s no upsells. Aaron, I could not be more excited about this event.

(Speaker 5)
I think it is incredible.

(Speaker 7)
And there’s somebody out there right now, you’re watching and you’re like, but I already signed up for this incredible other program called Smoke Your Way to Thin. You think that’s going to change your life?

(Speaker 5)
I promise you this will be 10 times better than that. It’s like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking. Don’t do the Smoke Your Way to Thin conference. That is, I’ve tried it, don’t do it. Yeah, chain smoking is not a viable, I mean, it is life changing. It is life -changing.

(Speaker 5)
If you become a jade smoker, it is life -changing.

(Speaker 7)
Not the best weight -loss program, though. Right, not really. So if you’re looking to have life -changing results in a way that won’t cause you to have a stoma, get your tickets at Thrivetimeshow .

(Speaker 5)
com. Again, that’s Aaron Antis.

(Speaker 13)
I’m Clay Clark, reminding you and inviting you to come out to the two -day interactive Thrivetimeshow workshop in beautiful Anaheim, California.

(Speaker 5)
I’m Vince Suzuki, also from Sarasota, Florida. You dragged me here. Yup.

(Speaker 12)
I was here in 2018 and it changed my business and I built another business and now I’m here to do it again with this business.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, I’m a brand strategist and it’s been really easy to go to a lot of events like this. and just leave really in your day. There’s the strategic, step -by -step, real -life implementation for our business, and I’m so grateful to be here. I’m very excited that Eric Trump is here, and that is going to be epic. My name is Erica, and it has been an amazing year. The conference, I’m learning so much.

(Speaker 4)
Everything is perfect for me.

(Speaker 11)
Clay Clark, man, he is one character. That’s a good word for him, character.

(Speaker 4)
Yeah, that is it. Good, driven, smart. And I’ve never met a guy who was so hyper all the time. He’s doing so much good. And then I met his mother, and she just lets him be Clay Clark. I mean, he’s endorsed by his mother, and he’s doing magnificent work.

(Speaker 10)
So it was great meeting you out there and all the people that he surrounds himself with.

(Speaker 4)
Clay Clark starts his days at 5 o ‘clock in the morning. Oh, it’s incredible.

(Speaker 3)
Yeah, he’s like, he’s a machine. He’s a machine. But his, you know, I have problems with my company starting at nine o ‘clock. He has hundreds of people showing up at 5 a . m. in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

(Speaker 3)
Man, he’s a leader of a leader. He’s a fantastic young man. No, he is. And the greatest thing that’ll come out of all of it, aside from winning the presidency of the United States, we’ll get to that in a second. Was an everlasting friendship between clay and I because I’m telling you there’s not too many people in the world that have this man’s backbone and his Tenaciousness and his perseverance and so buddy. I love you and to General Flynn.

(Speaker 5)
Thank you. You guys are incredible You guys are incredible warriors. You guys are incredible incredible warrior. thank you, my friend. Clay Clark is here somewhere. Where’s my buddy Clay?

Clay’s the greatest. I met his goats today. I met his dogs. I met his chickens. I saw his compound. He’s like the greatest guy.

I ran from his goats, his chickens, his dogs. So this guy’s like the greatest marketer you’ve ever seen, right? His entire life, Clay Clark, his entire life is marketing. 4 ,000 % from February to February. Now, I can better that. OK, Clay, I don’t think you know this.

I don’t think you know this. I’m pinching myself. And if I cry, forgive me. In the last two and a half days, we have bettered our entire month of February in the last two and a half days. And the phone’s blowing up. Everything’s just blowing up.

You’re right. It is like a rocket ship. So we’re pinching ourselves, actually. I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does. Not what they say.

Transcribed with Cockatoo