Business Podcasts | Why Running a Business Is Like Growing a Garden (It Requires Daily Diligence & Weed Pulling) + The Daily Mindset Required to Grow a Super Successful Business + The Platinum Pest Case Study & Success Story

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. Catching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I break down 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 3, 2, 1, here we go. Started from the bottom, now we here. Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get. Yeah. Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Thrive Nation, today is another day. And Carter, as a business owner, running a business, I always tell people running a business is like managing a garden. It’s like growing a garden. You’ve got to pull the weeds every week. Would you agree with that? Or do you have a different analogy? You’d say running a business is like a… Because I think a lot of people think of running a business is like an event. Like running a business is like buying a new gaming system for your home, or running a business is like…they picture it as an event when in fact it’s an ongoing process very similar to like growing a garden where you have to pull the weeds every week. But do you have a different analogy? If you had to describe it as a business consultant guy, any other analogy? I think some people they think it’s an event, but actually it’s a process. Running a business is like growing a garden. Yeah, I really like the garden analogy and I’m lacking weekly activity analogies right now, so I think that sums it up. Okay, so let’s talk about this for a second, and you can tell me if I’m BSing, if I’m making stuff up, okay? In this show, we don’t know when this show is recorded. I mean, people listening right now, this show could have been recorded today, or it could have been yesterday or in the past, we don’t know. Or maybe the day you listen to it now, it’s in the future. But today is a Monday. And today I have got an employee who has decided to ask his spouse, who works in the adult industry, to use their platform, if you call it that, to market one of my companies without my knowledge. And that’s a real thing. And so the question I have, is that shocking to you? Two years ago it would have been shocking to me, but not anymore. So again, just so we’re on the same page. I have an employee who works at one of my companies who tells his spouse, spouse listen, I need to really help market one of Clay’s companies. So if you could use your platform as an adult content producer to get the name out there, that would be great. I’m going, no, no, no. That’s not, but it’s a real thing. So then I have to have the conversation of, no, don’t do that. Another example, these are just all things. Every week running a business is like managing a garden. You gotta pull the weeds. Have an employee who does a great job in the morning is my understanding and then they go to lunch and they come back and it doesn’t go so well after that. So the question I would have for you is why? Carter, what could someone possibly do during their lunch that causes them to become emotionally erratic spastic after lunch and not before lunch? Well I would want to see what they’re eating, drinking, or ingesting in any other form during this lunch period. And is that shocking to you? That a guy running a company, I’m just trying to run a company, that I have to talk to an adult over the age of 40 and say, hey, what are you doing at lunch that’s causing you to act crazy when you come back? Is that shocking to you? It’s not shocking to me at all. Really? I mean, two years ago I wasn’t the weekly gardener, so there was probably things that I wouldn’t have caught. But now it’s like, I know the whole system is like, yes, weekly, I have to check in. So it’s like you find these things more often. Okay, another example. I have a kiosk right now in one of the malls. It’s a mall, it’s a shopping mall, high traffic area, there’s a kiosk in the mall. And in order to tell people about the products and services that we provide, there’s a person that we staff to be in the mall at the kiosk. Would it be shocking for you to discover that I’ve had to go through four people and four weeks to find a person who’s willing to actually physically be where they’re supposed to be during the day? Not shocking at all. Really? No. So let me brag on one person right now on Google for outside ink tree planting, she’s at the mall right now where she’s marketing the tree planting services. So the way it works is if you’re at the mall, you walk by the kiosk, she tells you about the tree planting services that the company provides. That’s her job. And I know she’s there because I’ve checked in on her. And she makes commission for certain things that she’s doing. And she’s there. And Carter, I can see that actual activity is occurring right now. You know that, you know, I can see things that are happening. But is it shocking to you that I had to go through four people recently to find one person who is willing to, the job is like that. This is the job requirement. Go to the mall, be there at 10, leave at 4. During the hours of 10 to 4, pass out brochures, you get a commission if somebody takes the action. Is it shocking you had to go through four people? No, I think that’s actually pretty good odds, to be honest with you. This Friday, I did an interview. We had 17 candidates that applied for the job and confirmed they would be at the job interview. So this Friday, I carved out time to interview 17 people. Would it be shocking to you that only four people showed up? Not at all. Really? No. Why? Because that’s usually how it goes. People don’t schedule things. People don’t put it on the calendar and then they forget. But I think there’s business owners out there that we work with, that you work with, that think that the business is much more like buying a gaming system. Running a business is like an event. It’s like buying a gaming system. It’s like whatever you can do one time. You know? It’s like flushing the toilet at a truck stop. You move on. You know what I’m saying? I think people think it’s going to work like that. I think there’s a gap there. I think there’s a problem where people think that they should be able to do something one time and then it will just continue happening. Let me do another example. Merit-based pay. Elephant in the room, one of our businesses is a haircut chain. Another business I work with called Morales Construction, a wonderful client down in Texas. Both businesses, one does construction, one does haircuts. Both businesses award people, reward people with merit-based pay. So if you do certain things correctly for the homebuilder guy, the home remodeler guy, Morales Construction, you get a bonus. For my business, Elephant in the Room, if you sell a membership or you gather an objective review, you get bonuses. And I think business owners think that if I set up the perfect merit-based pay program, it will work without me having to follow up with people every week to pull the weeds from the great garden of business life. Why can’t you just set up a system and let it just work itself? That’s just not how people operate. They need to be followed up on. They need to have some sort of public scoreboard, a daily huddle to where you’re just going over these items on a day-to-day basis. Weekly basis. Oh, daily huddle is day-to-day. Oh, yeah. Every day. The word daily implies day-to-day on the daily huddle, I think. Now, you played baseball. At the peak of your baseball dominance, how good were you at baseball? How hard could you throw a baseball? I mean I was in the 90s before I blew my shoulder out. 90s? 90 miles an hour. What pitches did you have? I had a curveball. I had a cutter. I had a two-seam and a four-seam fastball. So one goes straight, one kind of cuts in. And then I had a circle change up. Were you a starting pitcher? Yes. So you had five different pitches? Oh yeah. And you played in high school? Mm-hmm. And what was your ERA in high school, senior year? My senior year, it was like in the ones maybe. Really? So you’re pretty good? We’re high school, yeah. Did a lot of colleges look at you? Yes. Okay. And so what college did you go to? I ended up going to a small school in Kansas with my friend because that was my priority. So I went to Baker University. Okay, so you went there. Now before the injury, I mean, you could throw the ball much faster than the average person. Yes. But how often were you throwing a baseball? Every day. What? I mean, I may take a day off after I pitch. But I mean, how often were you throwing a baseball? Every day. Okay, now let’s talk about the gym. Were you a gym rat at that point? Were you hitting the gym? I was, yes. Okay, so you’re lifting the weights, throwing the ball? Yes. So, if you, as an adult now who’s not playing baseball, if you wanted to, let’s say, get in great shape, would you just get a gym membership or would you have to go every day? Yeah, that is the unfortunate part, is you have to go every day, yeah. And I think that’s the issue that I’m talking about here. I think that people want to believe they can build a system that will just automate itself. I think people want to have the relationship with their business that they have with Amazon where you go on Amazon you buy a thing and then you’re done. You sign up for the account whenever you want to watch a movie it’s there but it doesn’t work that way. That’s because humans on the planet Earth do bizarre things like convince their spouse to use their body to promote your business like like that. There are certain people in My life and my in our businesses that claim to have an automotive accident often You know often I mean four times a year Now, I don’t know for you. I don’t know about you. I have not this week. I had this year And while I haven’t had an automotive issue that has kept me from getting to multiple meetings. There are certain people, though, that’s what they do. They just have automotive problems. They say. Our Monday morning meeting, our staff meeting, let’s say one of our staff meetings, it’s always Monday at 8. Have you noticed there are certain people that act like 8 a.m. is the earliest, most unreasonable time you’ve ever been at, they’ve ever been asked to do anything ever? Oh, yeah, absolutely. And we used to have the staff meeting for that particular company at like 10. Before I met you, the staff meeting was at 10. And you know how people looked at 10 a.m. back then? The earliest. Oh my gosh. Like, just, oh, wow. They were wearing their pajamas. I mean, adults are wearing their pajamas to the meeting. And it starts at 10! One more of these 10 a.m. days and I’m just not going to make it. Right, right. And so the employees, though, because there’s more employees than there are of self-employed people. They always say, what do you think they say when I say, guys, I need you to be here on time for the 10 a.m. meeting. What do you think that the employees, their recommendation is, their solution is, because people can’t make the 10 a.m. meeting. What do you think their solution is? I think if you moved it back to like 12, maybe more people would show up. Right, and that’s what they do because they don’t want to have the confrontation. So I’m going to leave everybody with this stat, and then we’re going to have an incredible client testimonial here so you can hear about a client that’s really doing well and implementing everything. In America today, folks, there are 330 million people in this country that we know about. And if you go on to usdebtclock.org, it’s a website that does a great job keeping up with all the stats related to the United States of America. They’re reporting right now that 8.797 million Americans, 8.7% of, 8.7 million Americans are self-employed. So they are reporting, just let me make sure I’m being clear here. They are reporting there’s 8.7 million self-employed people in America. And there are 330 million Americans that live here. Which means, if 8.7% or 8.7 million Americans are self-employed, that means there are 322 million-ish that are not self-employed. Again, just being clear, there are 330 million Americans that live in our country, and there are 8.7 million self-employed people that live here. So according to Inc. Magazine, 96% of businesses fail according to Inc. Magazine. Carter, that means that just one out of 1,000 people, or.001% of our population is a self-employed successful person. So why can’t you just ask by default random people on the street for business advice? Because they’re in the 99.9% Right? And so if you were to ask your office secretary man, secretary woman, your office assistant, well hey what what are your what what advice would you have for how we can make the company more successful? They would tell advice, which is probably sincere but sincerely wrong, because again, in a country of 330 million Americans, we only have 8.7 million self-employed people here. 96% of self-employed people will not make it, which means you have a 1 out of 1,000% chance of getting advice. Let’s do another example. Let’s say you’re going to the gym, okay? We’re going back to the gym. Or you’re planting a garden, a physical garden. What percentage of Americans are jacked, physically fit? I mean, if you’re going into the gym, what percentage of Americans are like, man, you go, man, that guy’s jacked. I’m going to go with the 0.001%. It’s like one out of a thousand people are jacked. Some people are thin. Some people are more thin, more physically. I mean, they’re jacked. I don’t know the number, but it’s got to be it’s very rare Right like one out of a thousand. Yeah, I would feel safe. You look at someone you know when you’re You’re jacked. I mean it is a man. You’re a totally straight man. You look at another man you go wow That’s like one out of a thousand, right? I’d say that’s accurate now what percentage of the average Americans know how to plant a tree I mean really plant the heck out of a tree. You know, where they plant the tree, the trees they plant, they don’t die, they know what kind of trees need to be planted with other trees so they pollinate properly. You know, because I’m in the process of planting a lot of trees and I’m gonna use Paul Sullins with Outside Inc. to plant my trees as I always do. And when he plants trees, they don’t die. But when average people plant my trees, they die. What percentage of people that you know are tree planting experts? I’m gonna feel safe with that one out of one thousand again. You think so? So I got three big things I want to cover on today’s show. One, growing a business is like growing a garden. That’s what it’s like. Two, don’t take advice from the random person because the average person has no idea what the hell they’re talking about, about most things most the time. But they’re willing to give you advice. And three is don’t get super emotional when one of your key employees goes out there and has their spouse use their adult platform to promote your business. That’s just gonna happen over time. It’s just it’s gonna, it’s part of the thing. Don’t get super emotional when you have an employee that pretends to have a car problem every four or five weeks. You don’t don’t act like that’s a shocker. You know? Carter, a couple weeks ago we had a guy that turned a completely bogus sales statistics, they turned a completely bogus sales numbers. I went, was I super shocked about it? No, not at all. Yeah, I’m like, probably. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. But if you’re, what would you say to your clients so they’re listening right now and that crap bothers them all week and they are just, and they get so pissed. Yeah, I mean, just being proactive and just kind of expecting those things to happen and then, you know, that’s what the group interview is for, too. But I mean, you can’t get, like, cynical where you say, well, there’s no good people. I mean, I would just say, statistically, there’s probably, you know, 40 people that are going to come to the interview this week, and one of which is hireable. Yeah. I don’t know if that’s negative. It’s just factual. Yeah. Right? If I’m going to sift for gold, I’m going to go through a lot of sand. But I mean, if you’re not careful, you can become cynical. Am I correct? You could come across, there’s no good people. Yeah. I mean, I’m not cynical about the people who have been working for me in the mall. I’m just saying what the reality is. We’ve hired four people, three of which are completely moronic people that can’t understand the idea of showing up to the job. Yeah, yeah, like when you said 10 o’clock, I thought you meant like, you know, 10, 15. Oh, 10 p.m., 10 p.m., oh, not 10 a.m., oh, 10 a.m. Oh, not 10 p.m., oh, okay. I thought you meant just the month of October. That’s what I thought you meant was October 10 and then at night 10 p.m. I thought the whole month of October you wanted to know if I was available at 10 p.m. That’s what I thought when you said be there every day at 10. Right. Okay, so that’s the stuff people will say, right? Oh, it happens. Any other thoughts you want to share? Because I know there’s a listener out there who has a business who they’re just, they’re trying to view their business like it’s an event, and not like it’s a process, and their head’s gonna explode. Love to get your thoughts. Yeah, just taking a proactive approach and expecting things to happen so you can get out in front of it, as opposed to being in reactive mode to where you’re like, oh, this happened, now I gotta figure some stuff out. Oh, Carter, you’re an American legend, American icon. You’re gonna hop in a van here in a little bit and drive, how many hours, 17 hours? 17 hours, I’m stoked. Oh, okay, have fun with that, and hopefully your co-pilot doesn’t kill you. Okay, we’ll see. All right, take care. Bye. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. Have a business question? Email us today at info at thrive timeshow.com. And Clay and Dr. Z will answer your business questions live on the air. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the conversation. We’re talking about creating checklists for everything. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former USSBA Entrepreneur of the Year, and we’re talking about creating checklists for everything. So what we’re going to do, this is going to be a lot of fun here, we’re going to do kind of a round table. Eric Chopp, the business coach, is going to read the notable quotable, and then Wes Carter is going to break down an example. Wes Carter is the legal eagle with Winters and King. He’s represented top clients all over the region. His firm has represented T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, Craig Rochelle, the big names. I mean, Joyce Meyers. I mean, there’s a lot of big names here. So he’s going to tell us an example of where you’ve seen something go bad in a business. Just bad. Now, again, attorney-client privilege, no specifics. Just one time. Name has never been changed. So you’re going to read the checklist here, Chuck. The notable court will tell the checklist. This is from the head of the Harvard at the time, the head of the Harvard Medical School. He’s a leading professor at the Harvard Medical School. He is an American surgeon. He’s the New York Times best-selling author of the Checklist Manifesto. His name is Atul Gawande. G-A-W-A-N-D-E. This is one of my favorite books ever. I love the book. Okay, here we go, Chip. All right, he says, we don’t like checklists. They can be painstaking. They’re not much fun. But I don’t think the issue here is mere laziness. There’s something deeper, more visceral going on when people walk away not only from saving lives but from making money. It somehow feels beneath us to use a checklist, an embarrassment. It runs counter to deeply held beliefs about how the truly great among us, those we aspire to be, handle situations of high stakes and complexity. The truly great and daring, they improvise. They do not have protocols and checklists. Maybe our idea of heroism needs a little bit of updating. Have you ever seen, Wes, where a really good person made a massive mistake that that caused profound legal ramifications. Yeah, and I’m going to stay away from clients, and I’m going to go a little closer to home and talk about attorneys. Oh, there you go. I think exactly what the quote was hits home so well that it’s, I’m going to paraphrase, it’s ego. It’s, I’m an attorney, I have a doctorate, I’ve been doing this, I don’t need a checklist. I need my mental capabilities and my experience. And I’ve seen attorneys that forget to do something very simple. So let’s say, I’m thinking of one specific instance where you’re buying a business. So I have a client that’s buying another business. Part of that business is a whole bunch of inventory. So five, six, seven, $800,000 worth of inventory. You pay some for the name and things, but so we buy the business. But you know, we close a month later, someone calls us and they’re like, hey, you bought that inventory, but that was collateral on our loan. And you owe us now, we’re going to foreclose on all the inventory you bought and take it to pay us because just by the act of selling it, you breached the loan document. And what would have prevented that? A search that would have taken about five seconds to search something called the UCC, because anybody that puts collateral liens on those things has to register those. And it was public records, publicly available, online. You didn’t have to get out of your chair to look for. And I have seen those things happen where it costs someone half a million, three-quarters of a million dollars for something that literally would have taken me 15 seconds to do, but I just, I didn’t personally. But someone forgot. So let’s say that I’m sold on, okay, I need to have a checklist, Chuck. What’s the next notable quotable? All right, the next notable quotable here is, there are good checklists and bad. Borman explained, bad checklists are vague and imprecise. They are too long, they are hard to use, they are impractical. They are made by desk jockeys with no awareness of the situation in which they are to be deployed. They treat the people using the tools as dumb and try to spell out every single step. They turn people’s brains off rather than turn them on. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They are efficient, to the point, and easy to use, even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything. A checklist cannot fly a plane. Listen to that. A checklist cannot fly a plane. Instead, they provide reminders of only the most critical and important steps. The ones that even the highly skilled professionals using them could miss. Good checklists are, above all, practical. So this, these are the action steps that you need to take, Thrive Nation, right now, as a result of hearing this. You need to create a daily checklist for the opening of your business. You need to create a daily checklist for the closing of your business. You need to create a checklist for all the marketing activities of your business. You got to create a weekly checklist for the training of your team. Jeff, well, to add this to the show notes, you got to create a checklist for your accounting, you know, verifying that two people have signed off on all the deposits that go into the bank. You just have to create a checklist for everything in your business that you want to be affected. But Marshall, I think there’s somebody listening, not our listeners, it’s like a listener who’s listening to the show right now, they’re sharing this with their friend and their friend is fighting. Not you, the listener. Your friend is fighting wanting to use a checklist. You say, my industry is different. I know it works good for surgeons, I know it works great for lawyers and builders of homes, but for me, because I’m a landscaper or I’m an insurance salesman or I’m a… Just like by the seat of my pants. I don’t need to use a checklist. Well, Atul Gawande, like I said, this is one of my favorite books. What he says is it gets the silly stuff out of the way so it allows the masters of a specific skill to perform. It gets out of, hey, are we making sure we’re making the right incision on the right arm, you know, versus the wrong arm? Are we amputating the right leg versus the wrong leg? The left hand. You got really graphic there. I know. I think you can make it more like not medical body. That almost happened to me. They almost operated on the wrong knee. I tore my ACL in high school and they almost operated on the wrong one. These are the things that are a part of the checklist that allows the surgeons, the lawyers, the pilots to perform their skill at the highest level. Give us a checklist that has to do with bricks and mortar. I got one. Don’t get into the body. When running the concrete business, I had to implement a pre-pour checklist because before I came on and we started to scale, my father was in charge of every concrete pour that we did and he never forgot anything. Now when we scaled that out and had other lead guys doing it, oh they forgot the troweling machines, like the main equipment that we need to finish the slab, stuff like that. So I had to make a pre-pour and a pour day checklist. So when you don’t follow the checklist, the issue, and it’s in concrete and not surgery, you’re not cutting off the wrong leg, you’re just spending three hours going back and getting the actual machine. Or that, or you don’t realize you don’t have them and you have to tear out the entire slab. Then you get sued by an attorney. Then you get sued. Because the slab cracks and two months later you’re in litigation. Exactly. Or you don’t follow a checklist and you do cut off the wrong leg. And then my personal injury attorney has a very good case for that poor patient. Or in the haircut business, you don’t check the client’s hair notes and they said to you six months ago, I would like to have a faux hawk. And now they’re growing out their hair, doing a different style, and you didn’t check the hair notes, and you went ahead and did what you remembered them telling you you thought six months ago, and then they send me a hateful email talking about how I’ve hired a bunch of more. Come on, we can’t have that people. Now they have a side spike. There we go. And so I’m just telling you this, whether it’s the haircut business or carpet cleaning or photography or videography, you’ve got to make sure that you have a checklist for everything. You not having a checklist is not an excuse. Even if it is an excuse, the customer votes with their dollars. If they’re happy, they come back and they bring friends. If they’re not happy, they don’t come back and they tell their friends not to use either because that’s how business works. Don’t be lazy. Now, Chep, when we come back, we’re talking about how to create a linear workflow. Chep, are we talking about the next… We’re going to be talking about how to create a linear workflow. And the linear workflow is how do you create a duplicatable process, a system, how do you create the system? So many people say, I want to create business systems. Well, how do you go about creating step-by-step business systems that scale? Stay tuned. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. They started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zunder. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women, 13 multimillion dollar businesses. 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. 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 get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good look as a father of five. That’s what I’m about So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them how I see and see up on your radio Oh and now three two one here we go Sarah I gotta ask you a question here. You sell tickets to the reawaken America tour you help us in the office You’re a manager here. What in your mind is the purpose of owning a business? Like if somebody goes out and owns a business, what is the purpose of owning a business as opposed to having? Let’s say like what’s the difference between being a manager and you’ve been a manager you’ve been a very successful manager both here and other places what’s the difference between owning a business and Having a job in your opinion. Well having a job Of course you make some money, but of course owning a business you’re solving problems along with making the money. So what would be the purpose of owning a business? If somebody reaches out, because you’re what I would call an entrepreneur, you do a great job working within the company, but you’re entrepreneurial within that, I mean you help solve problems, but what would be like the main draw, the main benefit of owning your own business, in your opinion, if you were going to buy one? Well owning a business, one perk is you get to be your own boss. So I mean you could be as poor as you want to be. Yeah, exactly. But you can also be successful, right? Yeah. Okay, so a lot of people, they say, I want to grow a successful company, but they don’t know how. And so on today’s show, we’re going to talk about workflows and how to build a workflow that works. A workflow that works. A business plan that allows you to become successful. And we’re joined here with the founder of The Extensionist, Kendra. Welcome on to The Thrive Time Show. How are you? I’m good. How are you? I’m fired up that you’re here. I’ve got to ask you, a lot of people want to know, and we’ve got to rise above the confusion here. How do we pronounce your last name? A lot of confusion. Zipanski. What is that again? Zipanski. The C is silent. Did she say Rauschendorfer? Get up close. Okay. So, Candra, and it’s just Spanski. And the website, if people want to go to your website to learn more, we’ve got the extensionist918.com is that right? Yes. Okay. And what is the core business that you provide? This is the workflow, but what’s the core business that you provide? Eyelash extensions. Eyelash extensions. Now, how long have I known you approximately? Since 2019. And from that time until now as a percentage, how much have you grown do you think? Um, a hundred percent, so doubled. And I mean, you already knew how to apply eyelashes, eyelash extensions in a way that was first class. You already figured that out. You already knew how to provide products and services that women want. Why do you think, like what have we done with you that’s allowed you to scale in your mind? Everything that I sucked at. So systems, numbers, tracking, all of that, which was so important to scaling. And I think what happens is a lot of people, I think that they have an idea, but they don’t know how to scale their business. And so what I want to talk about is your system specifically, and you’re in a unique situation because you’re going to be licensing your business. Now, what does that mean? That means that you’re going to be selling locations to people that would like to buy them. People are going to pay you a fee for the opportunity to use the Flutter name and brand. So let’s talk about this for a second. If I were to license a Flutter, if I open up my own, how much money am I talking about up front to open my own eyelash extension shop? In between $50,000 to $100,000. So you can completely open. So what are your thoughts on that? Is that outrageous? Is that insane to spend $50,000 to $100,000 to open your own location? Not at all. I think that’s pretty fair. I think you seem pretty upset about it. Are you upset about it? You carry the bitterness all day? I’m angry at how fair it is. Okay, so it would cost $50,000 to $100,000. So let’s just say that you and your husband were to open up one of these things. How quickly would you want to be able to make your money back, Sarah, if you were to open up a Flutter? I’d want to make it back pretty quick. I mean, it’s not like a small amount of money, but of course I’d want to double it. So you would want to make your money back in a year or ten years or thirty years? What would be your game plan? If you put up that kind of money up front, when would you want to make your money back? I’d hope to make it back in about two years. Okay. And that’s being generous, I think. No, Kandra, somebody puts in $50,000 to $100,000. It’s not a lottery. It’s not a slot machine. It’s not an investment mutual fund. I mean, you could lose everything. You could make money back. You might not. If somebody opens up their own location, they spend $50,000 to $100,000 to open. What are your thoughts on that? Is that a really good estimate of what you think it will cost? Will it cost any more than that? It could cost more than that if they put more into the build-out and bought more expensive furniture and decor and things like that. But the $100,000 high-end has a lot of the more expensive stuff factored into that. So I think if you were going over $100,000, it would be because you’re doing quite a bit extra. Where can we go to see an example of the build-out inside your store? Is there like a Google map we can go to? Where can we go to see a picture of the inside of one of your stores? Yeah, go to the Glow Up location on 80 Prister Memorial. You say Glow Up? G-L-O-U-P. Glow Up, and we’ll put eye extensions, eyelash extensions, and that’s going to be in… Pulse It. Pulse It. Okay, and I go there? Is this it right here? Yep, that is it. Oh, I know where this is. You know, I drive by this often on the way to taking my son to church. I never stop in because I have eyelashes that are already naturally elongated. So that’s just something I never stop in. I don’t need it. Just drive on by going, nope, I already have the natural look there, folks. You don’t want the rainbow ones? You can get rainbow eyelashes. Hey, stop it. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. I’m not going to stop in. Nope, I already have the natural look there, folks. You don’t want the rainbow ones? You can get rainbow eyelashes. Hey, stop it! You’re sick! Okay, so we go here, these are real people that go into the business. This is the build out inside. Who are these people? Are they loiterers? Do you know these people? They’re my clients. Yeah, they blurt out their faces. Okay. And then they have inside, this is the atmosphere, this is the decor. Good job having the fire extinguisher four feet off the ground because that’s what stops fires. It’s so funny when the fire department comes by. I’m serious, the fire department always comes by my stores and they always say, sir, you’ll need to get that four feet off the ground. It’s three feet, six inches off the ground. And if it’s not four feet exactly, and if you have fire, you won’t be able to get out of the building. It’s a rectangular shape with a massive entrance and exit. You’ll need to get that four feet. You’ve gone through all that. You’ve gone through all the zoning. You’ve gone through all that. We’re walking around inside here. What do you need to have inside this place? You gotta have a, did you build out all this? Is this you? Yeah, the place was a dentist in like the 90s. So there was like a dark green carpet and the yellow stained wood almost. And it was bad, but yeah, so we completely redid all of that. So there’s seven rooms in there, and then we have the little laundry room, two bathrooms. And so most of it is just, you know, the floors, the paint is gonna be big, and then the furniture. But there’s no plumbing, which is a bonus. Like with hair, you don’t have any plumbing. What’s going on here? What are you doing here? What’s this area? That’s a little checkout area. So the, and of course, I didn’t build this out. That was already there. We just redid it, but that’s like where we check people out and then around the corner in the lobby is where we check people in, so. Okay, and then what are all the services that you provide there? Do you provide, is it eyelash extensions and tacos? What’s the main? Eyelash extensions has always been the main gig, but we are adding permanent makeup. We do brow threading, brow laminations, eyelash lifts, and tints. We have teeth whitening, a bunch of things. Tints? Tints like camping gear? Yeah, T-I-N-T, so dyeing the eyelashes. If you have really good eyelashes, and you don’t want an extension, you just dye it black. I think Clay’s interested. I didn’t know if that was a thing where people say, wow, this is, this place has got eyelash extensions and they have tents and camping gear. Woo! To quote Ric Flair. Okay, now Sarah, are you familiar with these services? Are you, she says these words, these words make sense? I am, I am familiar with these services. Okay, and are you, are these, who’s your ideal and likely buyer, Kandra? Women. Okay. So we’re going to go here to back to the workflow back to the workflow for the device. Here we go So if you own a location that you get the stuff in green you have to do The stuff in green you have to do. I don’t want to do this stuff in green. I want to do other things Well, that’s one stop talking like that But second, I mean you’re gonna have to the green stuff So you got to get the Google reviews you have to gather objective reviews from actual customers You have to do you know why because this just in humans on the planet want to read reviews. What? They do? Do you read reviews, Sarah, before you buy things? I do. I used to be an avid Yelp reader. No, come on! Oh, come on! Okay, so again, people do read reviews. They do that. So you have to, as a local person, you say, what do I have to do? If you buy one, you build out. Once the excitement’s done, you cut the ribbon. Woo! To quote Ric Flair. You cut the red ribbon. Whoa to quote Rick Ric Flair So it’s a great player. Whoa, okay, look it up. So once you’ve opened your store, you have to get Google reviews every day Now well another thing with the reviews is that if you don’t get them Most of the people that are gonna leave them are people that are unhappy So I was example when I went in I was like so you guys don’t carry tents You guys provided tents. I’m a little frustrated. Okay, whatever, one star. Okay, so we move on. Search engine optimization. We will do that for you. If you open a location, we as a corporate entity, as a corporate body, we’ll do that for you. Next, Facebook advertising, online social media advertising, we do that for you. Retargeting advertisement, we do that for you. Now, the next thing that you have to do for yourself is you’re gonna have to get a hold of the potential people. If you’re talking to somebody at the front desk and they say, excuse me, I’m here for a service, you’re going to have to talk to them. You can’t go, we don’t do that here. You’re going to have to handle those interactions with customers. You’re going to have to gather video testimonials. Now, when the leads come in, Kendra, if it happens through the call center, you’re going to contact, your call center answers the phone, right? And you book, you schedule appointments for the local location? Yes. And what’s the no-brainer offer that you guys offer there? What’s the hot deal that you guys offer at the extensionist that other people aren’t willing to offer? So we give them a full aftercare kit. Most people charge for that. And then that’s really, that’s our no-brainer right now. So your no-brainer is a free aftercare kit. Okay, so if I’m looking around, I go and I say, why should I check it out? You’re saying because you got a free aftercare kit, got it. And then after that, you teach the local. So again, the green stuff is what you have to do as a location. The gray stuff is what corporate’s gonna do, okay? The stuff that’s not super green, got it, cool. So then the leads come in, corporate’s gonna call the lead, text the lead, email the lead, book an appointment, the calls are recorded for quality assurance. Next thing you know, real customers are showing up at your real location, you have to provide real service for them. Kendra, do you teach the real local owner how to provide real services for real clients? Yes. But you don’t teach people how to sell tents because that’s the wrong kind of tents. You see that? Correct. So a lot of confusion, it arises above it. Yeah, I get it. You can’t see it right there. And then you sign up people for memberships, that’s something that you have to do as a local person. You have to go over the sales sheets, the one sheets, the brochures. You have to handle the job posts. You have to handle the ongoing training. You have to basically manage people. And Sarah, you’ve managed people at a massive pizza place. They sell massive pizza. It was incredible. I’m not gonna ask for the name of it. It was a great opportunity. What’s the problem with managing people? I mean, really the main problem is, you know, really just trying to get people to focus on your goal, being able to execute your vision on how you want things to go. I mean, how often though when you managed a staff of 40 people, as a percentage, what percentage of people were just high? Seriously. So, honestly, I think, I mean, per shift, maybe one. Out of 40? Out of 40, though, collectively, it was about 10, 15%. And what percentage of people are just late every day? Like they’re supposed to be there for some blasty blast kid’s birthday party that starts at noon, and they’re rolling in at 2 o’clock going, what happened was I did not know what time I was scheduled for my CF, because what had happened was, I got to be honest with you, I was high, but I am sober now, because I was getting high, but now I am sober. What percentage of the time would that happen? I mean, employee-wise, about 20%. For those customers, it’s a different story. Yeah, so you have to manage people. That’s going to be the biggest challenge, is managing people. So if you’re up to the task of managing people, and you’re up to the task of spending about $50,000 to $100,000 to open a location, I highly recommend that you reach out to Kandra. And this is how we’re gonna do it. You go to the extensionist918.com. You look around, you look around, you look around, you click around, you seek for, you look for, you try to find the place on the website to open a location. Here we go. Go on the floor, working it, looking around, found it. Here we go. So it’s the extensionist918.com forward slash open a location. You go right there. And if somebody fills out the form, what happens next? I get an email with their contact info and then I reach out. And when you reach out, what kind of questions are you fielding right now when people reach out? Because I know you’re getting a lot of people reaching out to you. What kind of questions are the most most commonly asked questions? A lot, just for the details. So how it would work, what my role would be, what their responsibilities would be, how the training works. So there’s a lot. Probably takes like 30 minutes to go over the initial details with someone. Okay, and you’ll do that for free, correct? Yeah. Okay, and then the way that you would make money moving forward, just so that we’re clear, because everybody needs to know the win-win that happens here. Kandra will then charge you a flat fee per month as a percentage of your sales. So if you bring in a dollar, 6% goes back to the corporate office, and then she also provides ongoing training for you. And then we charge you a monthly fee of $750 to make sure all your ads are running, to make sure your website is optimized in the search engines, to make sure that your advertisements are working, and to hold you accountable to following the systems. And there’s a few other fees there and she’ll disclose all of those with you and go over those with you. So if you want to learn more today, again, I’ll put a link in the show notes. Kandra, I’ll give you the final word for anybody out there that, you know, has a question about a flutter. What would you say to them? Call me, fill out the form and I’ll be in touch. And then final question for you as it relates to coaching. I mean, I am so glad that we’ve had a chance to work together over these past couple years. For anybody out there that’s kind of on the fence about looking for a coach, how has the coaching program impacted your business, and what do you think everybody should maybe, what would you say to anybody thinking about reaching out for a coach? I think that every business should have a coach, so if you’re on the fence about it, you shouldn’t be. It’s the most valuable thing I’ve done. Besides opening a business, obviously. Yeah, well I appreciate you carving out time there. Thank you so much, Kendra. We’ll talk to you next week. Have a great day. Thank you. All right, you take care. 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, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys, uh, that we’ve had by working with Thrive. Um, first of all, um, we’re on the top page of Google now. Okay. Um, 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 two to 3000 pages of content, um, 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 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% 111% were 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 the first We booked more deals last week Then 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 that when 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 is of the diligence and consistency and 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 Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Oh, sorry. 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, I just wanna 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 percent 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 turnkey 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 and Clay’s 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 like 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, and 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 6 to 8 weeks, he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every 6 to 8 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. 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 the 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, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. So, he’s impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time 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 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 10 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 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 you’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, and 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 love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. 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 to make it affordable for you.