Entrepreneur | 6 Thunder Moves for Collecting Accounts Receivable

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Drivers, we are back. We are here with the US Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark. Many people know him as Claytron. You can check out the Thrive Time podcast with Dr. Zellner. It’s up on iTunes. Yeah, that thing’s starting to catch on quite a bit. Also, a lot of people know me as the White Moose. That’s also a thing. Thrivers, we are here today talking about the six thunder moves for collecting accounts receivables. It is pumped. I’m pumped. You’re pumped. It’s so pumped, it’s become its own life force. The thing about this, though, seriously, is we’re going to talk about this. We’re going to talk about how to collect money, and we’re going to make it exciting because a lot of people, they really just, they do, they kind of put their head in the sand, and they kind of hide away from accounting money. It’s not something we want to talk about. You don’t want to tell your family people owe you money. You don’t want to think about people owing you money. It’s frustrating that people owe you money. We’re going to bring it to the forefront, and every time we unveil a thunder move, we’re going to play this sound right here. So get ready. We’re going to play this sound. That’s exciting. That’s the kind of excitement, that edutainment we’re bringing to you. Marshall, let’s do this thing. Okay, so Clay, from your experience, how common of a problem is not collecting fast enough in business today? Nine out of ten business owners. Nine out of ten business owners watching this right now have a problem with this. For some of you, it’s a huge problem. It’s spreading. It’s becoming a viral thing that’s eating away your profits. For somebody, it’s hurting your reputation too because you’re not collecting enough money. So now you’re bouncing checks for payroll, you’re bouncing checks to vendors, you’re having problems. It’s a huge thing for some people. And for other people, it’s a problem because you only operated a 20 or 30% profit and you’re not collecting from 20 or 30% of your customers. So you’re really hurting yourself. So this is a huge thing for a lot of people. Let’s teach the Thunder Moves. Okay, so Clay, what would you say to some of the thrivers that may say, well, or not our thrivers, but other people in business that aren’t on the site. But what would you say to them who say, that’s just, it’s not my thing. It’s not my thing that I want to really be doing. You know, it’s not my personality. Let me talk to you. Let me give you an example. Victoria’s Secret is not my thing. Okay. You know what I mean? I know if you’re a woman, you probably feel better that I’m not in Victoria’s Secret, too. That makes you feel comfortable. I get it. But here’s the deal. I’m married, so I have to go there once a year. It’s like our main man Moses. He allegedly was walking in the desert for what, 30 years, 40 years? It was more than an hour. So he’s walking. Well, if he was like, hey, God, God, I’m not really into that whole walking in the desert deal. I’m more of a stander. I’m more of a strategic guy. I’m more of a manager. I’m more of a manager. I don’t really want to do the whole walking deal. As a husband, you’ve got to go to Victoria’s Secret. If you’re a husband and you’re a decent guy, you’ve got to go there once a year. Why? Because it’s a thing. It’s like the 11th commandment. If you’re Moses, you’ve got to go through the desert. If you’re a business owner, you have to collect money, otherwise you’re not going to be self-employed. You’ll be self-check it, check it, check it, unemployed. There it is. And so there’s this notable quotable. It’s from W. Clement Stone. Big deal. Okay. And he says, try, try, try, and keep on trying is the rule that must be followed to become an expert in anything. Yeah. So, again, I use this example a lot, but I want to help you. Somebody here watching has a baby. You have a little baby, cute little baby. Imagine that baby, just a cute little baby. And that cute little baby, every time it tries to walk, it falls down. And you’re not going, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, the baby can’t even walk. What a stupid baby. What a dumb baby. I can’t, look at that baby. It’s so pathetic, the baby can’t even walk. It’s been like alive for like, you know, several weeks and it won’t even run. Dumb. And no, but that’s how some people are treating yourself. That’s the self-talk you’re doing for yourself. You’re trying to collect money for the first time, and your self-talk, you’re going, Whoa, what an idiot. He can’t even collect the money. What kind of business owner are you? You’re an idiot. That self-talk. If people talked to you the way you’re talking to yourself, you wouldn’t like yourself so much. You wouldn’t do it. So just work with us there. We’re going to teach you the force. We’re going to teach you the thunder moves. We’re going to teach you. This is huge. This is like Darth Vader teaching you the dark side and Luke Skywalker teaching you the positive, like Yoda’s teaching you the light side, the good team. And then you have the moral moves. You have the morality to handle both the dark and the light side of the force. You know what I mean? It’s unbelievable. This is the unicorn of collecting money. Okay, so we’re going to cover the six Thunder Moves here, and I’m going to read them all off, we’ll get into each one. Yeah, awesome. Okay, Thunder Move number one, get paid in advance. True. Okay, Thunder Move number two, incentivize early payment. Yep. Thunder Move number three, cash on delivery, collect at the time of delivery. Thunder Move number four, add in a financing charge into your agreements and contracts. Thunder move number five, dramatically increase your fulfillment or product delivery and creation cycle. And thunder move number six, make it easy to do the right thing. Credit cards, debit cards, bank draft, PayPal, cash, whatever it is, okay? And thunder move number seven, if for some reason you have a hard time collecting cash and you’ve let yourself down, I want you to listen to Careless Whisper by Wham. I want you to cue that up and listen to it in your mind. Every time you fail to collect money, I want you to cue this song up as punishment for failing to do it. I want you to cue this song up, I want you to listen to it, I want you to look into the mirror and realize that you’ve let yourself down and you have to hear this song again. That’s what’s going to happen. So just get ready. If you let yourself down, you’ve got to do it. Thunder Move number one, get paid in advance. Okay, so Clay, what are we talking about? Get paid in advance. Why is this such a hard thing to do for business owners? In the service industry, I’ve worked with a dentist. I’ve worked with orthodontists, you know, dentists, orthodontists, plural. I’ve worked with roopers. I’ve worked with fence companies. I’ve worked with mechanics. I’ve worked with carpet cleaners. I’ve worked with flooring installers. I’ve worked with plumbers. I’ve worked with builders. Why am I making this list? Because every one of them was helped dramatically by doing this move. So when you answer your phone, thank you for calling Clay’s Construction. How can I help you? When you go out there and you give the person a bid or a quote, before you start the project, tell them the payment terms and make sure that the payment terms don’t involve you lending them money. So you want to say to that person, you’ll say, hey, will we require a 50% down payment to get started and the remaining balance is due when we’re done? Or something along those lines. But that’s how you do it. Okay, so get paid in advance. That’s this first thunder move here. Yeah. That’s it. So that right there, I’m telling you, somebody right now, think about the implications. One business owner I worked with, he literally was able to check this out. He had a person who, their full-time job was collecting payment from customers after he did the job. That was their full-time, his full-time job. That was like $50,000 a year being spent just collecting money. So what we did is that person’s job no longer existed because we didn’t have to collect the money. We collected money on site. So what we did is we took those hours, that $50,000 a year we were spending on that position, and we kept the person employed, but now we put them on proactive stuff like marketing and now that same $50,000 salary instead of being on the defense and collecting money that became on the Offense that person’s full-time job was doing search engine and online marketing and it changed the business That’s how you win. This is how we do you know I’m saying just Unbelievable shameless game gangster rap references there. I’m just giving you all sorts of lyrical miracles today guys thunder move number two, incentivize early payment. Clay, incentivize early payment. Why is this a thunder move for our thrivers? What you do when a person signs up to hire you, we’re sticking on that analogy of being the person who builds houses or does some kind of construction. You’ll say, hey, it’s 50% down to start, 50% due at the end. If for some reason your card gets declined or you bounce a check, it’s a 10% fee every single month. You go, 10% a month? Well, guess what? On your credit cards, how much is a credit card if you don’t pay it? A lot of them are 24%, 28%, 19%. Someone goes, they’re awful companies. They’re taking advantage of people like me and I just, that’s not right. They’re charging 28%. How do they sleep at night? Well, you shouldn’t be able to sleep at night if you’re bouncing checks and not paying stuff. So the credit card company says, hey, because we’re a bank and because we’re financing something, if your failure to pay in full or on time or whatever the terms are, we’re going to whack your credit card for 28% interest. That’s how it works. If you’re a business owner, do the same thing. I would literally, I’m not, I’m not, I’m empowering you to do this. Tell your customers it’s a half down to start or whatever your deposit is going to be. Remaining balance when you’re done and failure to pay on time will result in a 25% service charge monthly compound interest. Try that. Guess what? That incentivizes people to pay on time. I would not do, hey, and if you pay in full and on time, you get 3% off. I would not do that. But so there is business owners that I know that do that, and so that’s the deal. And so for clients that want to pay you early, what can you do for them? Clients that do want to pay early, you could say, hey, if you pay for 12 months, you know, so you pay in advance, we’ll give you 10 months for the price of 12. Hey, the remodeling for the flooring would be this much, but if you pay in full, it’s this much. Hey, if you buy the insurance, the insurance is normally this much, but if you pay in full, it’s this much. A lot of companies incentivize paying early, but you have to incentivize paying early and penalize the heck out of people that pay late. I have to get passionate because people are watching this right now with their heads buried. Not you. Someone is looking over your shoulder, stealing your account, without your permission. I know that it’s kind of creepy. But somebody here needs to get excited about this. Can I have some air horn, please? Oh, you’re going to give me some of that gospel kind of funk. You’re trying to sneak that in there? I didn’t know how passionate you were getting there. That’s why I’m pretty passionate. If you want to give it to me now, I’m ready for you. I’m excited like that. that then you cut it off. Drivers, let me tell you something. You need to collect the money. You need to incentivize getting the money as soon as possible. And if people pay you on time, and they’re going to pay you on time. Oh, yes, they are. Look at somebody and say, they’re going to pay us on time. They’re going to pay on time. Look at somebody and say, they’re going to pay on time. And when they pay on time, what are you going to do? You’re going to incentivize them doing it why because this is going to be your best year Can I get a witness can I get a witness can I get a So so thriving it is not funny this is not this is serious we are collecting money we’re talking about monetizing Monetizing collecting the money because it ain’t funny when people owe you money. You know what I’m saying? Ha! You are just lyrical miracle just to the top today. One of the things I did last night is I went to bed and I just waited to wake up this morning to talk about this. Because we have Thrivers, I’m not exaggerating. Hundreds of Thrivers I’ve spoken to about this same subject. And we are here to help you. Back to you, Airhorn. Can we get some Airhorn real quick? Can we get some Airhorn please? Thunder Move number three, cash on delivery, collect at the time of delivery. So Clay, why is this important? Why is this a Thunder Move for all of our thrivers? Because there’s no reason to extend credit to unreasonable people. I mean, you just can’t do it. I’m a beaten to dead horse. I’m going to keep saying it over and over and over, but you just have to insist on getting payment when the person gets the stuff. If we go out for groceries today, guess what’s going to happen? When you go there, you’re going to get your lettuce, you’re going to get your meat, you’re going to get your Angus beef, whatever you’re going to buy, you’re going to get your organic farm-raised shrimp, and they’re going to say, hey, you want to do debit card, credit card check? They’re not going to sit there and negotiate with you and give you an invoice and allow Yeah, woohoo! And then they’re not going to call you a month later and go, hey, do you want to pay for your shrimp? I mean, no, it’s dumb. Quit doing it. Stop doing it. If you’re working with the government, somebody here is listening going, I work with the government and I have to extend them credit. Then that’s a unique situation. But that’s a unicorn. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a, that’s like a horn in the middle of a, in the middle of a, it’s a horse with one horn. Very uncommon they fly hmm I mean, that’s my horse sounds there kind of and that’s what that’s what that is That’s kind of like the white moose. Can you make any leprechaun noises? That’s like a leprechaun. That’s riding the white unicorn horse. That’s like a You know I mean, I can’t I can’t do a good leprechaun voice They’re after me lucky charms. They’re after me lucky charms. For all of the Thrivers, I want to just role play through this because I know that a lot of them are going to have to transfer over maybe some of their clients that are used to this 30-day invoicing process. True that. So I want to go through this with you just briefly to transfer them onto a cash-on-delivery system. Yeah. Now real quick, real quick, for Thrivers. You know, Thrivers, you know I have five kids, and I have a couple kids I bring into the studio occasionally. So if you hear any background noises right now, if you Google my name and then Fast Company, we talk about this, and we bring people in, bring my kids into work there. So I’m going to just kind of look at one of my kids here and just go kind of in like shh, shh, shh mode, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, and back to you, Marshall. Okay, so we’re going to role play through this real quick. So Clay, I want to be the client here, and I want you to show all the Thrivers how to specifically ask for the payment at the time of delivery. I’m a basketball coach. Okay, you’re a basketball coach. Hey, so Marshall, did your kid have fun today at practice? Yeah, it was really good. I feel like he’s learning a lot. Awesome. Well, hey man, I just wanted to square up with you as far as payment goes. I just need to get a debit card or a credit card and we’ll knock it out. Okay. Well, can I do that online? Well, what we did is we actually set up a system where we can go ahead and pay right now debit card or credit card, and I’ll give you a receipt right now. Okay, well, I left my checkbook at my house, so maybe I can. Here’s kind of the deal, and I hate to be that guy, but right now, in order to keep our prices low, we had so many customers that have been bouncing us checks and not paying on time, that kind of thing. We had to get, my partner wants me to set it up, my partner. And always refer to a higher power. My partner wants me to do this, I just have to do it. So kind of debit card or credit card. Okay, well, I mean, I have this card that, you know, I go to the store with, so is that going to be okay? Yeah, we can do debit card or credit card, you know? Okay. And that’s how you do it! That’s how you do it! That’s an air horn. They’re after me lucky charms. Okay, Thunder Move number four. Add in a financing charge into your agreements and contracts. Like we talked about earlier and just talking about putting it officially on the paperwork. Put it on there. Failure to pay in full upon completion or rendering of services shall result in a finance charge of or of a penalty of or a charge of, you can work with your attorney to do this, but just put it right there in the contract. Put it in the agreement. Put it in there. Otherwise, you’re going to end up living in a van down by the river. So a lot of Thrivers might be asking, hey, how do I begin putting that together? Do they go to their attorney? What’s the right way to go about doing that? We have template documents that Thrivers, they just email info at thrive15.com and our elite team, it’s almost like the Marines of customer service. We shall get that back to you with an unbelievable alacrity and a vivaciousness. Alacrity is like an excitement to learn. We’re going to bring a vivaciousness and an alacrity and excitement and a joy to getting you this document that you’re not going to believe. It’s going to blow your mind. Okay, so adding in the financing charge, and so when we talk about this financing charge, that’s the penalty, or hey, if you want to use us as a bank, we are going to charge you the highest bank fees known to man. I mean, banks, credit cards do it. They charge you 27%, 28% if you don’t pay. There’s somebody watching right now who’s like, I know, that didn’t happen to me, but it happened to a friend of mine. A friend of mine wants to know what happens when you don’t make your credit card payments. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve done it before. So the thing is, they’re going to hit you with a finance fee. Don’t feel bad. The IRS, the guy’s urs from the government, do they sit there and go, hey, we just want to let you know that you’re a little behind on your taxes and it’s okay. Because it’s okay. Because just it is okay. Nowadays, wacky with late fees and penalties and all that because they don’t want you to do it. So you got to get serious, man. They’re after me, Lucky Charms. Can I get the air horn? Kind of like two different voices mixed together. I’m not really sure what’s happening but I know it’s kind of that unicorn that. The white moose. Yeah, they’re after me, Lucky Charms. Thunder move number five, dramatically increase your fulfillment arms. Thunder Move number five, dramatically increase your fulfillment or product delivery and creation cycle. What do you mean by this, Clay? There’s trainings we will have, more trainings on this called Just In Time. Dell computers is probably the best example of that. Dell doesn’t like make the computer that you’re going to buy years in advance and then just have it sitting on the shelf and waiting for you to buy it. They make it when you order it. Does that make sense? So they’re not sitting there with massive amounts of inventory. Well, I know a lot of companies right now, I can think specifically in the construction business. This is the industry that makes me insane. But what they’ll do is you’ll order something right now. A customer’s calling you right now to place an order, and you’re going, yeah, we should be able to start like this next month, kind of around that time. You know what I mean? Around that time, the customer’s going, so when will you start? And they’re kind of that Yabro culture where it’s like, yeah, we’ll just probably around later in the month, probably soon. I’ll just come by whenever and we’ll give you a quote. Well, you’re killing yourself because the time from the time the customer orders it to the time they pay you and the time you deliver is way too long, and you’re going, no, we’d have to get a permit, you know? And then we’d have to, bro, I’d have to get back with you, because we just got to get you a quote. And that slow speed will just eat your finances. You’ve got to collect money faster. No offense to any muscle heads who might or might not own a business in the construction industry. So Thunder Move number five is dramatically increase your fulfillment or product delivery and creation cycle. Go faster. Now real quick, if you fail to execute these systems, if you don’t, what happens? You have to listen to George Michael. Can we cue it up? Because this song will get stuck into your accreditment. Pretty soon you’re going to be in a band down by the river all by yourself in that band and that we’re going in the band by the river the band’s a brown band it’s got a door missing if you go to youtube you have in brown van you can kind of see what i’m talking about you got a brand brown band there and you’re kind of just listening to careless whisper going i should have done this i should have done that you know and then your internet connection will be cut off it’ll be forever cut off from the thrive nation and and uh you’ll end up, you know, it’ll be a bad deal. Thunder Move number six, make it easy to do the right thing. So be able to take payments from credit cards, debit cards, bank drafts, PayPal, cash. Clay, how, why is this a Thunder Move? Why are you so passionate about this particular Thunder Move? I feel like what I’m about ready to say is so negative and so intense right now that I’m just getting myself kind of geared up for it. But here’s the deal. Who’s ever gone to the DMV before? Marsh, you ever go to the DMV? Yeah. So you go there and they have a little handmade sign where it’s like this. It looks like this. And they have someone who says, except visa only. And they put it out like this. It’s ridiculous, like half laminated or taped to the desk or something. And you’re like, yeah, I want to go ahead and pay for my license. Like, we only accept visa. Is that sign right next to the should be back soon? Yeah. And it’s like, why are you doing that? Just accept visa. American Express, Discover, accept everything. And it’s OK. I mean, here’s a secret. Raise your prices to cover the cost of a credit card fee. Just raise your prices 5% and make it easy for people to pay you. And if someone wants to pay cash, then give them a discount. Unbelievable, but why are you making it so difficult for people to pay you? Someone else says, I just don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in accepting credit. Why? What is your deal? Like embrace the fact that people use computers. You don’t need to ride a horse to work anymore. You don’t need to handwrite your own Bible. Just stop using quill pens and start taking credit cards. Just come on, man. Are you aware that you don’t have to have the cable TV where there’s the button where you click the buttons, you know, the cable box, there’s a cord that comes out to your couch and you have to hit the buttons. There’s a thing called the remote. You just don’t have to have a cell phone that’s the size of a refrigerator that you wind up and it’s in the back of your trunk. You don’t have to use 8-tracks anymore, man. Just stop using 8-track. There’s CDs and then beyond that there’s digital audio files. There’s ways to do things. You don’t need to have a business that doesn’t accept credit cards. Stop making your Amish slow churn butter. Just start accepting credit cards. Wow. How do you feel? Stop making your own soap. Stop making your own pants. Stop writing your own, you know, your own like, oh, we’re gonna, we’re gonna write our contracts by hand or we’re gonna use a typewriter. That’s right, Sharon. Let’s use a typewriter. Stop it. Just take credit cards. All right, Clay, thank you for getting into these specific Thunder Moves. I want to go ahead and make sure that we recap them and get some action steps for the Thrivers. If Thrivers need help setting up PayPal, guess what? We have trainings coming for you. If you need help on setting up Square, guess what? We have trainings coming for you. If you don’t know what to do, click the info at thrive15.com. Ask us a question. We’ll help you out. We do anything for our thrivers, okay? If you want to come to a physical workshop and have our elite team of web geniuses show you on the big screen how to do it, we will do it. But don’t have an excuse. You’re going, it’s too expensive to fly out to Tulsa. I realize it’s a tourism hotbed, but I can’t afford it. Unplug your cable. Just get here. We’ll help you. You’ve got to stop it that’s you if you’re not if you’re not getting collected money quickly we’re here to help you ok so let’s go through these thunder moves thunder move number one get paid in advance ok so collect payment in full get deposits collect half and then get some cash coming in for the business for the deposit to do the business and here’s a nugget on this ok a large percentage of your customers your customers will pay you in advance to be asked him to large percentage will say if you want to go ahead and pay in advance for the year? I mean, how many people watching this right now have paid in advance for your insurance to get a discount? Or you paid in advance for something, season tickets or whatever, you did it to get a discount? A lot of people do that. I mean, not everybody, but a lot of them will do it. Even the government. Would you like to pay your taxes in advance? I would prefer if you didn’t mention that again. Thunder Move number two, incentivize early payment. Offer a discount or promotional item for early paying customers. A large percentage of customers, I’m not going to make up a statistic and go, yeah, 22% of customers will pay. Now, I don’t have a statistic for this, but I’m just saying from my personal experience, if you said, hey, just so you know, if you pay in advance, you can go ahead and get a home builder. If you go ahead and pay in advance, we also include a flat screen TV a lot of people do it So just figure it out do the math incentivize it make the incentivize good behavior Thunder move number three cash on delivery collect at the time of delivery You have the most negotiating power folks you have the most negotiating power and the leverage Just before you deliver at the time up so as an example back in the day when I had my DJ company You had to pay a deposit And you had to pay the remaining balance before we started DJing for your wedding. Why? Because if you didn’t pay, right, we would just go, hey, we can’t DJ tonight. And guess what? People always pay. After the wedding, though, after you’ve already DJed and delivered the entertainment services, the excellent entertainment sound and lights and the hosting, guess what? People don’t feel the need to pay you. So you have the leverage right before you deliver the service. Real talk. Thunder Move number four, add in financing charges into your agreements and contracts. Yeah, charge for all the work you do. You’ve got to charge for all the work you do, even the financing. If you’re doing financing, that is work. If you’re going to finance somebody, you’re managing that. You’ve got to charge for it. If you’re hiring somebody, if you hire Doug and you’re going, hey Doug, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to collect the money from the people. And Doug goes, well what else do you want me to do man? Doug, I want you to collect money from the people, people who owe us money, accounts receivable. Well man, anything else you want me to do man? Because I’m good with my hands, I can make a bird feeder out of like a coffee cup, you know what I mean? I can make a bird feeder out of, you know, I mean I currently live in a bird feeder, you know what I’m saying man? Like I can do anything with a bird feeder. You’re going, no I just want you to collect money, that’s all you do, accounts receivable. Well man, that’s like, that’s only two words. That’s all I’m gonna do is to, I mean, if that’s a job that you have, then you need to charge for it, because Doug’s got to get paid something, right? Hey man, you want me to do anything else while I’m here? Because I could make a bird feeder, man. I could make like a whole planet out of like foil, man. You know what I’m saying? I can do, I’m good with my hands, you know what I mean? Okay, and then Thunder Move number five, dramatically increase your fulfillment or product delivery and creation cycle. Yeah, I mean, delivering the product or service faster means you’re gonna get paid quicker, okay? But if you’ve got that muscle head culture going on, we’re, bro, like we would totally like do your wood floors, but tonight, I’m doing some carb loading because I got a big competition, and like, I gotta cut next month, but I’m carb loading right now because like I’m just like, right, I’m up almost at 220, how much you bench, bro? I just wanna know when you’re going to get started. Oh, so, well you want to stack your proteins, you know what I mean? If that’s your culture, you’ve got to fix it. You’ve got to focus on collecting money. I’m just telling you, I just happen for some reason to know a lot of muscle heads in the construction industry. And then Thunder Move number six, make it easy to do the right thing. Offer credit card payment, debit card payment, bank draft, PayPal, cash. If you’re a doctor, reach out to Care Credit. If you’re a business, you can reach out to Synchrony. That’s a company that does finance items. Many jewelry stores have multiple financial options. You can do PayPal. You can do credit card. You can do automatic recurred billing. There’s ways to do it, but figure it out. You have to figure it out. And if you don’t, you, cue it up, will live in a van down by the river. And you’ll be in your sweet, sweet van, all by yourself. Your internet’s disconnected, but for some reason you have the 8-track to this song. And you put it in there, and you sit back there, your van’s got a door that’s missing. Another homeless man has now climbed inside the van, he wanted to know if he could live there with you and you said, because I couldn’t collect the money, seems like a reasonable plan. Let’s split expenses and listen to Wham together, just careless whisper. And I regret having not applied these principles. That’s what’s going to happen. Clay, thank you for sharing with us today, helping all of the thrivers that are on the site get on the right track for collecting their accounts receivables and really ultimately helping them optimize their business. And all sincerity Thrivers, get out to a workshop. Just email info at thrive15.com and do me a favor. We’re just a couple thousand, I can’t tell you the number because we’re doing good stuff happening. We have a lot of investors. I can’t tell them all the secrets. But we’re just a couple, a few people, a few thousand people away from me wearing a jersey on every single training. I will never wear a suit and tie again, ever, ever. Just a few, all you can do, do your part. It’s like the Jerry Lewis telethon. Tell a friend, get him on the site, only you can convince me, or help me. Because what I’m saying, Dr. Zellner, you notice he always wears a soccer jersey? I’m that close to just dropping the mic and wearing a jersey every day. Not even kidding. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, Terminix. They’re both 1.3 billion dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has. By being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. We, it was a system that we, that we followed with Thrive and in the refining process, and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that, that that system works. Yeah. So here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those and that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut. And we didn’t know. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, and they taught us those systems. They taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year. But we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we’re in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So, we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. Overall, our average is running about 40% to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, or Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours, where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time, a coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run and the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. help navigate anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right? This is where we used to live years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you times a thousand. Whoa! The Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system when you do that research You will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business Come to Tulsa book a ticket and I guarantee you it’s going to the best business workshop ever wouldn’t give you your money back You don’t love it We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.