Entrepreneur | Accounting Defined, Accounts Payable, and Accounts Receivable Defined

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! Good look as a father of five, that’s what I’m a 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. All right, Clay, we’re here talking about some accounting and financial issues. I would rather be here right now with you than to not be here with you. I mean, I really enjoy being with you. I love being with you, it’s beautiful. And what we’re gonna be talking about today is just that is what gets me out of bed. You know, specifically defining the account. Okay. Okay. And the reason we’re doing these in five minute bursts is for you to understand these definitions. It’s important for everybody to understand. Real quick. They say that knowledge is power. Yeah. You know, knowledge is power. I would say that knowledge is only potential power. And we need to have a mastery of these words. Okay? Just the other day I was at church and my pastor was talking about the firmament, which is this water dome that surrounds the planet. Allegedly, back in the time, you know, of like the creation of the planet, like the flood time, the time of Noah and the flood, apparently there was this water dome called the firmament. What am I talking about? The point is, he’s using the word firmament in service and I’m going, permanent? Is he saying permanent? Is he saying perm? Who gets a perm? Nobody. I’m getting all upset. He’s talking about a perm? Yeah. Well, I end up looking up fermament, and I’m thinking, is he talking about like fermenting grapes? Fermenting grapes? He’s talking about Noah. What’s he talking about? Yeah. I look it up. Boom. It’s a water dome that people believe surrounded the Earth’s atmosphere back in the day. OK. I’m saying a lot of times people hear the word account, and they’re like, account. Ah, ah, ah. I mean, they don’t know what it means. So we’re going to get into what does this word mean. And that way you have power. It’s not potential power, you have power. So you’re in your next meeting and someone’s trying to bully you and trying to take advantage of you in a business deal, you’ll know what they’re saying. We need to know these terms, master them. Good. So this definition is a collection of financial information grouped according to customer or purpose. For example, if you have a regular customer, the collection of information regarding that customer’s purchases, payments, and debts would be called his or her account. This is a written record of an account. It’s called a statement, by the way, which we will explain in a later episode. So go ahead and break that down for us a little bit more here. OK, let’s just say that for my first business, it was called a DJ connection. Right. I had this lady named Jamie Jackson. Jamie Jackson if you’re watching, hee hee, jam out. Wow, that was wonderful. Did you guys communicate that way? That’s how it was. Hee hee, jam out. Was it a whale call? Ow! That’s what we’d do. She’s a cheerleading coach. What would happen is I would mix music for Jamie Jackson. Well, Jamie Jackson, I put her into a system I called Paint, Microsoft Paint, because I didn’t know about this word account. I didn’t have a database, didn’t have any software, had this thing called Microsoft Paint. So I would type her phone number into Microsoft Paint and print her a receipt, take it on the man. Well then every about year, I would discover that Jamie Jackson was coaching another team and sometimes I would remember and sometimes I wouldn’t remember to call her again. Well, so sometimes I would get the business and sometimes I wouldn’t. Right. Well, now, today, though, if you buy something from me one time, one time, to quote Wyclef Jean, one time, if you hear from me, if you buy something from me one time, then I am going to market to you consistently throughout the year and keep record of the account of all of the transactions that you’ve ever done with me in the past. And so it’s keeping track of that is what creates the account. That’s the definition of an account? Yeah, I’m keeping track of all the payments, all the purchases, all the debts, and I’m able to say, Jamie Jackson, hey, it’s been about six months since we talked to you last. I saw that your team purchased this cheerleading mix, and I was curious if you were going to go ahead and use this again this year for the spring tournament like you did last year for the spring tournament. So is that the main reason why this is important and worth our time? Yeah. I mean, why is it that we’ve got to understand this definition. There’s a guy who’s about 60, late 60s, he’s a doctor, and he wanted to sell his medical practice. And if you’re in the medical business, there’s a thing called the electronic medical records, and you’re not allowed to share these with people because of certain laws. Sure. But the point is, so he was like, well, I know all that information’s in my EMR, in my electronic medical records system. So someone’s trying to buy his business, and he’s saying, I don’t have an account, I don’t have a database, or I don’t have the accounts of everybody, what I do have is the EMR. Well the guy is wanting to buy his business is going who buys from you, how often do they buy from you, how much do they owe you, I want to know that, I want to see the accounts. And he says I don’t have that. And I’m not kidding you, this guy at a later age in life, he was not able to sell his business. He missed a one and a half million dollar windfall because he could not produce accounts. And I kid you not, the purchaser, who I know closely, decided not to buy his business because he could not find any of the accounts, which is, again, for the record, the customer’s purchases, the record of their purchases, their payments, and their debts. That’s the account. You have to have that, you have to understand what the account means, and you have to keep these accounts. I mean, that’s a great story. I mean, it’s practical. It could cost you a million and a half dollars. You don’t want that. Clay, thank you for your knowledge and your beauty. We appreciate you sharing both. I appreciate you, and I want to say that when I look at you, I realize that that’s what America’s all about. Let’s jump right into it. Bam. We want Thrive to be a place that answers your questions simply. So we’re going to attack this topic of defining accounting. So if you have any questions about accounting, you know, you stumbled upon this episode, but go ahead and search for any of these terms, we’ll define them all for you. But this time, let’s define accounting. So I know most entrepreneurs, I would say most, I think I’ve heard you say, most entrepreneurs can’t necessarily define a lot of these terms that we’re going to dive into. What happens is you go and you meet with your bookkeeper or your accountant, or for me you don’t meet with anybody, and then you just find yourself at two in the morning on April 14th trying to figure out how turbo tax works. Please, sweet mother, just work! You’re trying to figure out your taxes, what you owe. You’re so worried that you’re going to get a penalty or a fine and you don’t know what these words mean. So we’re just going to get into it. Well, the definition of accounting that we have is a general term that refers to the overall process of tracking your business’s income and expenses and then using these numbers in various calculations and formulas in order to answer specific questions about financial and tax status of that business. Alright Clay, I think I understand but break this down for me a little bit more this this definition of accounting. Anytime I have an excuse to go to my board I’m gonna do that. You love that board. It’s drawing you like a magnet just drawing your body closer. Okay so here we go. As far as accounting goes, yeah basically what you have to deal with is you’re talking about your income and your expenses okay. Okay. And I’m just trying to make this happen. This is gonna be your taxes okay and this is gonna be your profits okay. These are basically the areas that you, when you do accounting, this is what you want to know. You want to know how much money comes in. So I’m making up a number. Let’s say $100,000 is coming in and then we know our expenses are at 50k and we know that our taxes are at 40k and we know that our profits are at 10k. That lets us know, that’s kind of our dashboard to run our business. I would argue that probably 8 out of 10 business owners watching this right now know what their income is. They know how much gross revenue, they know how much total revenue is coming in, they know how much money is coming in. They say things like, we just sold a $12,000 deal. One young man I met with, he goes, I just sold a $14,000 deal. I’m so excited. And then I said, what are your expenses on that? I don’t know. Well, you didn’t make $14,000. How much are your expenses? I don’t know. Well, you need to know. We found out he only makes about 20% on every dollar. So that $14,000 was really about $2,800. Make sense? And that’s a big difference if you’re budgeting off that full number. This dude is getting married. And so he was actually trying to buy an item using this money. And this happens all the time. I wish I could say, oh, it never happened to me. Oh, it happened to me. Yeah, then we have to know our taxes. Okay, then we have to know our profits. Now we’ve got a whole episode on taxes. So if you’ve got the questions about it, visit those episodes. The thing is when we, this is all accounting, right? But what the action step that everyone can take is, you know, you have to know this. This is your financial dashboard. Okay, you have to know this. Just like when you’re driving your car, you have to know when your car is on E. Yeah, that’s a good thing to know. You have to know how fast you’re driving. You have to know those basic gauges. We have to have these gauges in order to drive our vehicle without crashing. So if you don’t know these, hire an accountant. You have to know this. Right. I don’t want to take away from this topic. I just think it’s funny that you use the analogy of driving, because you’re one of the worst drivers I’ve ever met. I don’t think you’re being accurate. But you’re great at this. Well, I think I’m actually the worst driver ever. OK. Yeah. And now that I’m about ready to auto-wrap it, it’s going to be awesome. Because we’re going to get a lot of calls. We’re going to get more visits to the website ever when I’m driving. He’s wrapping his car completely with his face and a few other faces of the mentors here. And his goal is to rile some people up. That’s not my goal, but that will happen. A lot of traction on the website. I love it. OK, so again, you said the action step is to know this. How exactly do I go about knowing this? What’s the next step that I take? If you’re watching this right now and you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa, bro town, I have no idea what my income is, what my expenses are. Most entrepreneurs only know their income. They don’t know their expenses, they don’t know their taxes, they don’t know their profits. If that’s you, go hire an accountant. How do you find an accountant? Use a little phone book technology and call three people. That’s what I do. Phone book technology, call three people. Then I’m gonna use some friend technology. Call a friend, say, hey friend, what are three people I can call? Have those six people meet with them? Do the smell test? Do they smell good? Do I like them? Right. Make a decision. Hire an accountant. You need to do this. Don’t be like me and not hire an accountant to get audited. When I get audited me. Thank you. That’s good. I mean, there’s no shame in hiring an accountant and when you do, it lets you freeze up more time to focus on growing your business. Or if you don’t want to hire an accountant, you can have a, basically schedule, you don’t even have to call her, but you, Jene, or a member of the IRS will come and find you and they will schedule a dream date. Have you had interactions with Janay? I’ve interacted with her. Her name is Eugenie. Oh, Eugenie. I did interact with the United States Internal Revenue Service for a little over a year. Wow. They would come to my office. They wouldn’t call. They would just show up. And, you know, we just have good interactions. Auditing sounds fun. It’s a fun deal. It’s like going to Disney World without the rides and the food and the fun and the weather and the good stuff. Perfect. Well, I love that you were able to break down this and define this topic of accounting in five minutes. Break it down like fractions. All right, Clay. Let’s talk about accounting, financial planning. Specifically, let’s go ahead and define the accounts payable because I can’t think of anything that I’d rather do with you. I could think of some things. Well, I don’t care. I’m leading this. I’m leading this right now. We’ll take it outside. Okay, we’re doing accounts payable. Just accounts payable. We’ll work through it. Here we go. The definition that we have for accounts payable are the amounts that your business owes. For example, unpaid utility bills and purchases your business has made on a credit card that would be included in this accounts payable. Yeah. So hypothetically, a lot of people watching this, they own a business or you want to own a business. According to the Small Business Administration, 13% of our population is self-employed. Why am I telling you that? Well, over 90% of all jobs that have been created over the past 10 years, over 90, nine out of 10 jobs that have been created in the past 10 years are created by small business owners. And in small business ownership, guess what exists? Usually a husband and a woman. They’re a wife, husband and wife. It’s a team. They’re working together. What happens is the husband, let’s say he’s out spinning like he’s a… The husband’s out there spinning like he’s a drunk sailor. He’s just like, I’ll buy it. I’ll get it. Let’s buy it. I’ll go get it. He’s going to the state fair. And the guy’s selling those glasses and the picture knives. He’s like, I’ll just get it. I’ll buy it. I’ll just get it. But he puts it on a credit card. So now he has next month, in about 30 days, he will have a big bill that comes due. Now his wife is going, well, I probably shouldn’t, but I think the company needs a new couch, you know, for the office. Really though, or the company needs new business cards. The company needs an auto-wrap. So she’s like, calls him, it goes directly to voicemail, because he’s like, I’ll just buy as much stuff at the fair as I can get. You guys are great friends, let’s do this. So he’s trying to buy stuff at the fair. Sir drunks a lot, he’s drinking, he’s buying stuff at the fair. She’s over here trying to dutifully go, well I think we have, and she looks at the bank account and says, we have $10,000 in our account, I guess I could go ahead and buy these business cards and this auto rent. So she buys. I see what’s happening. He is buying. Right. All of a sudden the two bills meet at the end of the month and boom! Quickly we discover accounts payable. Right. So what has to happen is one person, one person needs to be responsible for all expenses. Not two. One person. One person. If you go into a business, you’re going to find there’s a chief operating officer in big business. A chief operating officer. A chief… Not cheap? Cheap would be good too. But a chief financial officer. A financial officer who does his whole job is to run the financial side. There’s a chief executive officer. What I’m saying is people have specific roles, and you have to know your specific role. And in a small business, because a lot of these husbands and wives, mom and pop shops, you’ve heard mom and pop shops, the mom and the pop maybe don’t talk about things. Accounts receivable. Yeah, they don’t. They’re just like, you know, having dinner, like, hey, you know, what do we have for dinner? Did you buy anything at the fair? No, I didn’t buy anything at the fair. And that’s what happens. That’s how it gets crazy. And so that’s what we’re doing here, right? Whether it’s accounts receivable, accounts payable, any of these different accounting terms that you might not know, you just type it in here on thrive15.com and we’ll define it with these five minutes. And as you saw here, we give you the action steps. So your action step is that you’ve got to have one person overseeing all the finances so there’s no confusion. So Liz is our basic controller right now. And so Liz told me, she says, hey, I just want you to know we have an invoice that came due for this person. Do you want me to pay this or that?” It all goes through Liz. It’s not because Liz is a financial genius. It’s because she’s honest. She has high integrity. Now, here’s the thing. The person who’s in charge of your finances needs to be that honest, high-integrity person. Liz couldn’t even formulate the words needed to lie. She just has unbelievable, impeccable integrity, and that’s why we have her there. You can’t train that. You can train the numbers and the accounting, type in the data, but you can’t train it. You need a one-person charge who has impeccable, unquestionable integrity. Good. So what do I do? Is there a way if I feel like I’ve fallen behind? Do I just start tomorrow? Well, here’s a real talk. This is probably not something that you want to hear, but I’m going to tell it to you. Credit card companies don’t want to hear this. So this segment ends up being sponsored by MasterCard or something. I apologize. Credit card companies cannot collect debt from you. So don’t pay your credit cards. If you’re way behind, just don’t pay your credit cards. I mean, I’d pay my minimum balance so I don’t hurt my credit score, but I mean, just don’t pay them. They can’t take anything. Now your house, they can foreclose on your house. A credit card company can just yell at you and lower your credit score. If you’re in a totally bad, end-of-time scenario, just pay the very minimum balance on your credit card. Or, transfer funds, get a brand new credit card on creditcards.com and transfer funds from one card to the next. I know one guy who lasted almost three years just transferring cards to cards until he had enough cash to pay it off. Or if you’re in a total end times and you cannot afford the minimum balance, just don’t pay the credit cards. This is the advice that you will not find many other places, but it’s real. I mean, this is why we go to you for advice. You’re a real person. You’ve been through these difficult times, and you’ve made it to where you are now, and we want to help you get there, too. I want to say this real quick. A lot of people are like, are you a financial planner? Are you an accountant? No, I’m better than one, because I’m actually an entrepreneur who’s done this. And if you’ve dealt with this, and there’s an accountant that’s probably watching this right now, and we have some ones on our Thrive team that they will feel maybe financially like I shouldn’t tell someone not to pay their credit cards because I’m an accountant I’m a professional I’m just talking about if you’re watching this yeah way behind in times you’re in a bad situation pay that mortgage please yeah because they can take your car they can take your house they can’t take anything away from you if you don’t pay your credit cards. There you go. Thank you, Clay. I appreciate it. You’re the man. You are. All right, Clay. It’s wonderful to see you back here again. I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that. Meet love. Okay. That’s good. Good. On that note, actually, let’s talk about accounting. Yeah. Okay? And the financial planning. And then we’re going to specifically dive into this topic of defining the accounts receivable. And as you guys have seen, I think what we’re doing is we’re defining a lot of these terms in a quick five minute burst Okay, and we’re doing that to make sure you understand these terms You’ve actually shared a story on another one of these episodes about a lady who did not know some of these terms And how that was embarrassing for her and ultimately led to the failure of a business deal Well, if you’re a pastor or you’re a counselor and you watch this, you’ll see that like, you know, half of marriages are destroyed Through financial issues, through infidelity, through whatever and you become almost, if you’re not careful, numb To marital problems because you see it so much. As a business coach, I see this all the time This is, I see this, I see people have no idea about these financial terms They’re an absolute expert in their skill, whether it be dentistry or roof building or whatever, and they don’t know anything about these accounting terms. So we’re going to get into this. We’re going to define these things so you can have a mastery over it and a power. And when you have a mastery over a word, that gives you power. So you can now meet with a banker and confidently lead the way. Sometimes just learning a new word can open up a whole new, it’s like a golden key to unlock all these possibilities. Just one new word. It’s unbelievable. So we want to make sure we learn these words, master these words, that we can have success and live at our peak. We’re trying to give you that golden key. So here it is. The definition that we’re talking about is accounts receivable. And accounts receivable are amounts owed to your business that you expect to receive. Accounts receivable include the sales of your business made on credit as well. Now, Clay, go ahead and define that for us and make that really simple for us to understand. If you own a business and people owe you money and you’ve already given them service and they owe you money, you’ve already given them the product, but they owe you money, that is an accounts receivable. And I will tell you the biggest, the biggest, I’m kind of a biggest or the worst. Right. Everything’s the extreme. I’m the kind of extreme. But let me try to keep it moderated for a minute, kind of in the middle of the road. Most businesses that I see that go out of business go out of business because their accounts receivable is out of control. You can’t be like your Uncle Daryl can’t come in and he’s like, hey, can I get some cake? And you’re like, yeah, Uncle Daryl, do you have any cash? Why don’t I have any cash? Well, we’ll put it on your tab. You do that a lot, you’ll go out of business. And it literally happens all the time. I see manufacturing companies that literally are like shipping products and then the customer says, well we’ll pay you in 60 days. And they’re waiting and waiting and waiting. I’ve had people that I know very, very closely who’ve been waiting on checks from the government and they never came in. And the government decided to cancel that contract and say, well we’re not going to pay that thing anymore because we’ve changed our mind. This stuff happens. So you have to become clear, like you have to understand this topic really well to apply it to your business, right? I would like our producers to take the word fastidious and put that word on the screen right now, the word fastidious, because they put the definition of it on the screen. Put that up there because the word, you have to be very, very detailed with how you manage your dollars. You gotta know how much money is owed to you at all times or you’re in a rut But what if I don’t enjoy doing that? What if I just want to make the cakes and that’s it I said I sat down with a guy just about seven months ago I don’t want to throw under the bus here, but he’s seven months ago is the guy’s working with all changes gender Let’s say it was a lady. I’ll change the state. Let’s say that’s now. I think it’s I’m working with a woman in Wyoming and her hair was purple. Anyway, we found out that she had not collected her accounts receivable for over a year. She was $60,000 of money owed to her, which meant… By the way, I set up a ridiculous marketing program. And so this lady in Wyoming was getting a ton of business, and every time she would get a new client, she would go farther in debt. She only found out that she was out of cash when she overdrew on one of her accounts Understanding the accounts receivable is important and you got to apply that to your business today Yeah, absolutely in you know just a quote to Millie Vanilli. Hmm girl. You know it’s true All right JT so hypothetically in your mind. What is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals, so it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah because if you have a 15 million dollar business but you have 15 million dollars of expenses it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! Alright so the question I would have here for you if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save $3,000 a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10-minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. That’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save? $3,000 or more on credit card fees. Maybe they think it is a waste of time and then it won’t it’s not possible There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes, and they’re like nah, that’s not worth my time We gettin’ that right money. We gettin’ that right money. There’s probably some, someone out there. Okay. They would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today, and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to thronetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. It, because you can compare rates, you can save money, and, you know, the big, the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. Well let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS, it’s Integrated Payment Services and I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical, I just thought whatever, I’ll take ten minutes, I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell you can tell me I’m a doctor No, I mean, I’m just not sure but can’t you take a guess? well not for another two hours You can’t take a guess for another two hours and in my case in my in my case my particular case I save over $20,000 a year Wow, which is uh, you know like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great, okay. Oh God. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod. Do we have it? The brand name of the clock. It’s an elegant from Ridgeway. It’s from Ridgeway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrive time show dot com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation request information. A member of our team will call you. They’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less. And they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, 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, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent 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 Pessimon 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%. 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. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process, and that has obviously, the 411% shows 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 is 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 in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives, and also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten the 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. They implemented those systems, 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 that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And 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 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. And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like 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 Crockrell, 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, 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. So 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. So 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 of 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. 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 you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was 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. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, he doesn’t, 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. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company, or 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 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. This is where we used to live a few 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 14. 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 10 locations in only a year. In October, 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Uh, 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. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When 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. 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 system 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 be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t loan it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their calls. Okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s an up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s a hundred percent growth every year I’ve worked with. Now so, I’m looking, we’ve been good friends seven, eight years and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing but when you do it repeatedly yeah I mean that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. That’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results. You lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads. It turns into sales. Well I tell you, you know, it’s, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system then every day is a whole new creation You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out. What are you going to do? Right and the best executives Peter Drucker is a father of Modern management. He said the most effective executives make one decision a year What you do is you make a decision what is your system and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. That’s really what it’s all about. With a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there is having a hard time. Follow that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. Whoa. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems, and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011, maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. OK, so 2012. And at that time, I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing that… Oh there it was! So it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help, you know, direct my life to get some mentorship. But I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn. I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall, in the group interview, talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship, that as we pursue our goals, and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I’d say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people, and in short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay. I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around, and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning something new, be open to challenging yourself, be open to learning and adjusting parts about you be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.