In this transcript, Deedra Determan (Award-winning publicist) and Clay Clark (U.S. Chamber National Blue Ribbon Quality Award Winner) discuss the importance of the prequisites of success on Thrive15.com, the best sales training program.
Clay: Point number 5: You must take action or nothing will happen.
Deedra: Um-hmm. (affirmative)
Clay: Famous business coach Chet Holmes once famously said, “The missing ingredient for nearly all of the 1000-plus clients that I worked with directly to improve their business, is pigheaded discipline and determination. We all get good ideas at seminars and from books, radio talk shows and business building gurus. The problem is that most companies do not know how to identify and adapt the best ideas to their business. Implementation, not ideas, is the real key to success.” What does that mean? How have you seen that work in your life?
Deedra: You have to execute. I meet people a lot that have great ideas but they can’t execute. Writing it down, exactly your business plan, what you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it and following the plan.
Clay: I have a confession to make. I at one point … a confession here… At one point I thought she was a big idea person which in my world is a bad thing. You came in with so many great ideas and in my mind because I’m so used to big idea people. They’re like, “What we’re going to do is we’re going to create a national campaign on a global scale that will help completely reinvent the industry step-by-step easy.” You want to do that? Well, I’ll teach everyone but you’ll need to …
With Deedra what I’ve found is you have a big idea but then you’re like, “Okay, step one, we need to do this, this …,” so you have a big idea and then you always broke it into those small tedious steps and that’s what’s impressed me most about the Deedra Determan … I’m a big fan of Deedra Determan. Can you talk to me about that though? Why is it with somebody with big ideas and they don’t think of the small things.
Deedra: Yeah. Execution is the hardest part of the plan. I think anybody can have an idea but getting it down on paper exactly what you want to do. I think that organization, that’s kind of the way my brain thinks is, this is what we’re going to do to the end result. How do we get there?
Clay: Do big idea people freak you out sometimes?
Deedra: Yeah. I’ve met people, really creative people but then it just never … the ball is always up in the air with these great ideas. It never gets put down and executed.
Clay: There’s a guy at a business building seminar I went to. He made a comment. He goes, “The book that I wrote today is better than the book that you haven’t finished because you’re still working on it or you’re trying to perfect it. He said this, “The book that I have done today even though it has some faults is better than the one …,” I won’t mention his name because I don’t have permission to do so … but he basically has like 15 books on amazon.com that all sell about 100 copies a week. He has that residual income coming in of that. His books, if you read them, they’re not bad but there’s some errors.
He’s like, “Hey, I have it done.” Whereas big idea guy who’s got a list of great ideas and never actually finishes. It’s that balance there.
Point number 6: What you need to know before you can grow is dreams don’t matter if you’re not a doer. Kind of piggybacking on the last one a little bit. It says Thomas Edison once famously wrote … Thomas Edison if you guys don’t know, he invented the light bulb. He invented recorded audio and recorded video. Really Thrive would not be possible without my main man, Thomas Edison. Thrive15.com provides the best sales training program.
Deedra: Yeah.
Clay: He says, “Vision without execution is hallucination.” Hallucination. What does that mean to you about this whole vision without execution? What does that mean?
Deedra: Where’s your business going, how’s your revenue going to come in if you just have the big idea but you don’t have the plan? I’ve met creative people that have this great idea and they get into their business and hire someone that is the doer. If you are creative, a lot of times that’s where your brain is. You’re the creator of the product. Well, you’ve got to have someone in that can be the doer.
Clay: I can point out what I maybe don’t do well so you may learn from it. My biggest flaw is that I am so into execution that I have very little patience for big ideas. I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, but who’s going to do it?” It’s a balance though. You have to let yourself dream …
Deedra: Right.
Clay: … and then also get back to the brass tacks. It’s that process. Point number 7: What you need to know to grow, thoughts, plans, actions. Famous success author Napoleon Hill once wrote, “First comes thought, then the organization of that thought into ideas and plans. Then the transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning as you will observe is in your imagination.” I remember, Deedra, when my wife and I, we decided to build a house. Did you guys build a dream house? Did you and your husband have an agreement upon what it would look like?
Deedra: A little bit.
Clay: Was it your dream house and he’s [crosstalk 00:04:58]
Deedra: It’s really my dream house and he lives in it.
Clay: Yeah. I remember I was driving on Riverside in Tulsa. It’s kind of the one area of Tulsa where there’s some parks and stuff and I’m driving. I’m like, “Babes, we’re going to build a house.” She’s like, “Build a house?” I went, “Yeah.” I in my mind, I’d never in my lifetime been around granite counter tops or wood floors. I’d seen some linoleum. Who can relate to that? I’d seen some linoleum.
Deedra: Oh, yeah.
Clay: I’d seen some Formica. I’d seen some imitation laminate wood flooring. She said, “I’ll let you choose the builder and I’ll choose the design.” I found these builders that would build you a lot of house for the dollar because much house …noticibly awesome house, but it’s much house. I was thinking like the quantity. My wife meets with the first builder and she’s like, “Uhhh.” The second builder, “Uhhh.” She’s like, “Honey, I think I want … I remember this vividly … I just want to put in wood floors.” I’m like, “Wood floors? Why would you want wood floors? Don’t they creak?” She’s like, “That’s kind of the romance of them.”
Deedra: Yeah.
Clay: “No one puts wood floors in a house. That’s stupid, what if you spill?” She’s like, “Honey, there are lots of people with wooden floors.” “Who are these people? Uh-huh. No, nobody.” Then I find out there’s a ton of people in the world with wood floors and granite counter tops. It was like this whole epiphany.
Deedra: Yeah.
Clay: I think right now as you’re watching this, if you are having a hard time with your imagination, I think some of you need to change your destination of where you go. Maybe you need to go on a trip. Maybe you need to read some new books.
Deedra: Yeah.
Clay: Is there anything you do to stimulate your imagination when you get in a rut?