Entrepreneurship Podcast | The Levi Gable & GEI-USA.com 500% Growth Success & Case Study + Why Marketing Is the Easy Part & Why Building a Team Is the Difficult Part for Most Business Owners + The WindowNinjas.com Case Study

Audio Transcription

Well, Thrive Nation, on the Thrive Time Show, we talk so much about producing success. If you go to claystairs.com, home of Sean Lohman and Claystairs, you go there, you go to the Thrive Time Show, and you see the consulting services that we offer. We talk a lot about how to build success, how to grow an organization, how to scale a company. But today, we have a unique opportunity to be joined with an actual long-time client that is having massive success, and he’s here to share with you kind of his path to success and his path as we continue to help him scale his company. So without any further ado, Sean, who do we have on today’s show? This is the incredible Levi Gable, and he owns a number of different companies. He is a model client when it comes to hiring, using the group interview. He’s actually got a unique challenge right now with a couple of big deals that could close. And he is now tapping into trying to be able to build people up from within rather than hire top level executives at exorbitant amounts of money. So that’s kind of hopefully today what we were going to dive into a little bit and talk about his success. Well Levi, let me ask you, sir, first off, what’s the website? Now people want to verify, is this guy a hologram? Is this a male model? What’s the website there, sir. Yeah, our website is www.gei-usa.com. gei-usa.com. It’s gei-usa.com. So when you go there to gei-usa.com, you’re going to see that you provide what? What are those services, sir? We do utility construction, primarily underground utilities, excavation, horizontal directional drilling. Typically, we provide services to public utility providers. I’m going to do this. I’m going to pull up a little document and go in here. I’m just going to see if I can kind of go through some path of some certain predictable things that we do with all of our clients. And I’d love to see if you’ve got to check the box if we’ve done that. Yeah. So, Levi, building a website, building slash optimizing the website, is that something that you and Sean have done together? That is, that was actually one of the very first things we did together, yeah. And has it produced some fruit? Have you ever got a lead or a call or a deal from the website? Or what sort of impact has that made or not made on your company? It’s definitely has produced some results for us. I think just having a website that looks professional professional. And I would say that’s probably one of the biggest things for our customers is just going online and saying, oh, these guys are legit. You know, we’ve got a nice looking website, everything works, the pictures are good, the content’s there. So, yeah, it’s certainly helped us gain some new customers for sure. Now, the next thing we want to do is we want to gather objective Google and video reviews because it’s so important that people find an online reputation that makes sense. Has Sean helped you with that at all? Has that been something you guys have worked together on? Yeah, absolutely. That was one of the things that he kind of beat me over the head with for the first several months about getting Google reviews. I’ve always thought, well, the type of business I do is different. We don’t have people going and buying from us just simply because of the reviews, but it certainly had a tremendous effect. Just people, when they call us now have a level of competence in us before they’ve ever even talked with us on the phone. Now, the next thing we do, and again, there’s a lot of other details that go into that, is we want to build a sales system. So when the phone rings, somebody who’s not you, uh, answers the phone. Uh, you know, so you have a, maybe inbound call scripts, you have a process for quoting jobs. Is that something that you and Sean have worked on together? It was, yeah. Call scripts is a huge thing that we worked on earlier on in the path. And it’s something that kind of helps us keep our people accountable and make sure we know what they’re saying and when they’re saying it. And it’s definitely been a game changer as far as our office. You know, we don’t have to have a high level person answering the phone every time. Now, as far as installing tracking, you have to measure what you treasure. You have to install tracking systems. And I feel like you guys have done a great job doing that. So you know where leads are coming from, where they’re not coming from, what marketing is fruitful, what marketing is not. Have you guys done that yet there with your business, sir? Yes, yeah, we have. We’ve done that a couple of years ago. So you’ve got these systems in place. Now, right about here, if you’re listening right now, right about here, this is where the problem happens. So now you gotta hire people and train the people because at that point now you’re having leads coming in, more sales. Have you grown at all since Sean has worked with you? I mean, how long have you guys been working together, Levi? And how much have you grown over that span of time? Sean, you might correct me here. I would say we’re somewhere three, four years in. Does that sound about right? Yep. Okay. So we’ve built the, we’ve optimized the website. We’ve gathered the online reputation. We’ve optimized the online reputation. We’ve installed a sales script. We’ve installed tracking systems. Now we’re hiring people and training people. And the word culture just means that which you allow to grow. What? So right now at this very second, I will deal with it later. This very second I’m dealing with Jack Asher. No, this very second, not in a different time, at this very second, right before, because I own companies, that’s what I do. A lot of my buddies who are best-selling authors, I ask them, I say, why did you become a consultant? They go, because I struggle to run a business. See, I’m a little unique in that I actually run a business. And so today I’m dealing with Jack Asher. Now Jack Asher, we have a person on the team that has been behaving emotionally, thus costing me a lot of money. And so when you make emotional decisions, it can cost a lot of money. And then if you react to the emotional decision, it can cost you a lot more money. And then all of a sudden, if you have an emotional manager, then the people on the team start acting emotional. So I have to sort of cut off the head of the snake, demote somebody who’s not up to the task and promote somebody else. Now, because I have hundreds of employees, this is sort of my normal. And about once every two weeks, I have to hire somebody or fire somebody. And by the way, just so you don’t think I’m a tyrant, when you have over a hundred people on your payroll, it would make sense if the average employee stays with you for a year and a half, that you would have to replace somebody once a week. So let’s talk about culture real quick. The culture, as you’re building this company, how important is it for you to keep the culture at GEI Utility Construction positive, upbeat? How important is that to you, sir? I would say that’s one of the most important things for being able to grow a business is having a good culture. You get a crew of guys that aren’t happy with their job or aren’t happy with the people they’re working for, and it doesn’t take long before everyone feels the same way and you’ve got mutiny. So yeah, culture, building culture, doing, having events to keep our guys engaged and keep them happy is hugely important for us. So you got to build and optimize the website. You have to gather objective Google and video reviews. You have to install a sales system that works. You have to install tracking systems and you got to hire people and train those people. So I want to get into the idea of training people today. Sean, how many times have you ever just shadowed me throughout the workday? Oh, too many to count. Okay. So step one, we do the group interview. You want to interview a lot of candidates every single week. And Sean, I actually met you at an interview, a group interview, what, six or seven years ago? In October, it would have been seven years. Seven years ago, baby. And so I met you at the interview. Step number two is we schedule a shadow. Why would I want to schedule a time for you to shadow before I ask you to commit your time and talents to this job? Well, first off, you want to make sure that your first impression of me actually holds up and if I showed up on time, that I show up on time the second time and that I’m there, I’m taking notes, but also so that I can have a chance to really see what would it be like for me to work in this position. Now when you shadowed, do you remember what your thoughts were? Yeah, I do actually, because I shadowed Clay Stairs. And I thought, wow, this is really intense. I definitely want to do this job. It was like a 12-hour shadow. He just couldn’t get rid of me. So again, this is how you do it, folks. You do the group interview. You schedule a shadow. You involve hands-on training, and you follow up. This is so important, and I recommend with daily huddles. Now I want to get your thoughts on this Levi. When you hire somebody at the interview, you have 45 candidates show up at the same time, you interview them all one-on-one or as a group, however you want to do it. Have you ever found that the work that someone displays in the actual workforce is different than the work that they claim to be able to do during the interview? Has that ever happened? I would say that almost happens every time. Yeah. It’s interesting how people don’t say, you know, typically my biggest struggle is being on time during the group interview or during the interview, the one-on-one, during any interviews they don’t say that. Right. On the resumes they don’t put, just to be honest, I get fired a lot. I mean, you don’t see it. So what you have to do, and this is just, you got to speed up the process. To quote Dr. Robert Zellner, who’s not here today, Dr. Robert Zellner, Dr. Z, you got to hire fast, fire fast. So step one, you schedule that group interview. Step two, you schedule a shadow. Step three, you involve hands-on training. And step four, you follow up with those daily huddles over and over and over. And then what you do is you have a weekly meeting with your leadership. So you have a weekly meeting, you schedule a weekly meeting with your leadership. Now this is a funny story, and I won’t tell you what person this involves, and don’t guess, but a buddy of mine is a doctor, okay? And I was shouting him one time, and he tells me, I said, he said, I believe, he too, like Dr. Zellner, believes in higher fast, higher fast, but he has to hire doctors who have to have seven or eight years of education. And I said, what’s your hiring process? I wanna know. He said, you wanna know? This is a very successful person. He says, oh, I hire everyone. And I said, everyone? He’s like, everyone that I ever interview, I always hire them. And I go, no, you don’t. He goes, Clay, there’s very few doctors at this skill level that are applying anyway. So no matter what the resume says, I say, I think you’re a great fit. Let’s go ahead and have you start today. And he’s like, usually that first day of shadowing, you know whether they’re in or not. And it just saves me the whole process of, you know, going back and forth, them trying to claim why they’re a good fit. And he’s like, usually five out of six people can’t show up on time. They can’t read the charts. They can’t do what they claim they can do. And he’s like, and then I fire fast. I mean, it’s like the same day kind of thing. So I just want to be very clear for everybody out there. I think these leadership books that are written, I’m not going to mention the authors, but I’ve met a lot of the authors and they all tell me, yeah, you know, the idea of like the inverted leadership pyramid thing. Yeah, yeah, it’s a great. Didn’t you write that? You know, that doesn’t actually work. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean these theories? And I go, yeah, that’s why I became an author because I struggled to manage people. I hear that all the time. So Levi, I mean, when you the management books collide with the actual workplace, where do you see entrepreneurs getting stuck in this process? Where does it get difficult? You know, for us, gaining work hasn’t really been the most difficult part. It’s keeping up with the personnel to complete the work. So that’s, that’s going to be our biggest challenge and has been, and I’m sure probably will be in perpetuity is finding the people to complete the work. Because if we go out and gain all these new customers and then can’t fulfill our contracts and we look even worse than if we would have just not done the job to begin with. This is so big. Why hiring, inspiring, training and retaining people is the hard part. Marketing is the easy part. In my mind, marketing is the easy part. Now that might be easy for me to say because I’m good at marketing, but I’ll tell you this, I meet people at conferences at every workshop we have and they come up to me, Sean, they go, man, if I could just grow my business with more leads, I would dominate. And every time, whether it’s Shawhomes.com, we help them grow from 15 million to 150 million in sales, or we help PMHOKC to grow from a million dollar business to a 20 million dollar business. At the end of the day, whether it’s OxyPresh helping them to grow from a handful of locations then to 500 plus locations. It always comes down to hiring, inspiring, training and retaining people. That’s the hard part. Levi, what questions would you have for me about that process? Because I’ve done this over and over and over and I feel like I could speak directly to any questions you’re dealing with. What would be your best advice whenever you do promote someone from within and you get them to that next spot and you say, uh-oh, this guy kind of sucks here. It just happened today. I mean, it just happened. Yeah, because for me, in the past, I’ve had a no demotions policy, because I just feel like at that point, that person’s going to be in their feelings. It’s never going to be a good relationship to move forward with. So what would you suggest to move people up if they’re not succeeding at the position that you move them to? Well, what I find is because people have such an emotional relationship with money and with managing people that most people when you promote them, you immediately see their ingrained emotional attitudes towards these things. So let me just give an example. We had an employee the other day, one of our companies, I’m trying to go back at least a month back, one of our companies, and they do a good job and they were doing a really good job at that core position shop. I thought they might be able to manage people. So I said, let’s do management for a day. They go, what? I go, I’m gonna have you manage, you’re gonna fill in for the manager for a day. Might just wanna see how that goes that day. And it was a total trade. I mean, it was bad. And people that were normally emotionally stable people began to get angry at this person. And it was like people were turning against the person. This is all within the course of a day. Like 15 people began to get angry against the person. I’m getting text messages from people going, I’m not sure if you’re aware but such-and-such is condescending and I recognized we have some work to do here. So if at all possible I try to just you know put you in the shallow end of the pool first. Now back to your no demotion policy. I like the theory of that. I just don’t want to lie or mislead people into thinking that I’ve never promoted someone to a level of incompetence and then had to go back and course correct. And to your point, I bet you 90% of the time the person can’t handle the demotion. But I find if I set the expectations going into it now, now that I’ve seen it a lot, I always tell someone, hey, I think you are at a point where you might be ready to play, let’s say, in the major leagues. You’re on the minor leagues now. I think you can do it, but I think it’s important that we go ahead and let you try and then let’s let you try within boundaries and if it doesn’t go well, then let’s go ahead, call a timeout, put you back in, know what we need to work on. So that’s kind of my path to promotion anyway. Um, another example today, I’ve got a young lady who I think will be a good member of our management team in one of our companies. So starting on Monday, we’re going to go ahead and let her get in that job for one day a week and see what happens. Sean, we had a guy that was working on online reputation management for one of our clients. I don’t want people to overthink this. We’re just calling the customers on behalf of a surgeon to ask their customers to leave reviews. And the person is doing a great job. And so they’re doing great. So I feel like I can expand their territory. But if they had done a bad job, then I wouldn’t keep putting them in that role. Right. That’s kind of the thing. Any other questions you have there? Because I feel like you guys are really scaling and the biggest limiting factor as we scale your company is gonna be that hiring, inspiring, training and retaining people. Any other follow-up questions you might have about that? Yeah, kind of back to the question I just posed to you. That’s actually something that Sean and I were kind of working through in our coaching call this week. And one of the ideas that I had was maybe we move that person instead of saying, okay, you’re going from foreman to project manager. We go, okay, you’re foreman now, we’re gonna move you up as a project manager in training. That doesn’t come with any increase in pay. It’s just to see if that’s gonna be a good fit and whether or not they thrive there. That way, if we do have to bump them back, you know, it might be a little bit of hurt feelings, but it’s not going to be going in their pocket and taking money back out that they probably had already spent over the next two, three to five years. Oh, and what you just said, you hit on a lot of things that are correct there. One is the idea of setting the expectation that this is an in-training process is big. But two is most people spend 100% or 103% of their income. What am I saying? So you’ll have somebody who’s always thought, man, if I get promoted, I’ll go buy that new car. Because they’ve done the math, they’ve been to the dealership and they know that if they make another $142 a month, they can afford to buy that thing. If they make another $550 a month, they can buy that new thing. If they make another $2,000 a month, they can really buy the thing. And so a lot of times you promote someone and they immediately go buy the house. They immediately go rent the bigger apartment. They immediately get the, so you’re dealing with that emotional blockage to it. So that’s a big component. That’s a lot of wisdom right there. You guys have worked together for years. And I want to see if I can kind of end this on a high point that would be of value to our listeners. Yeah. So I’m going to be driving to Tulare, California in a few weeks. And I really want to go to the event. I don’t want to drive, you know, shocking 23 hours. But if you drive from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Tulare, California, now imagine this was like a business plan, okay? You get the map, the guidance, and you go, well, that’s 21 hours. And you can look at it and go, 21 hours, 42 minutes, okay, where do I need to go? But unless you’re living in some sort of fantasy land, you’re going to have cones along the way, orange cones, construction, bathroom breaks, a vehicle’s going to go flat, something is going to go from Tulsa to Tulare, and I know it takes 21 hours. So there’s three things I do. One is I allow three times as long as it should take to get there. Second, is I’m okay to do some timeouts along the way and do a little coaching, like, hey, driver, are you tired? Do you want me to drive for a while? Hey, let’s refill. Hey, by the way, is that road shut for construction? It’s ongoing course correction. And I think that’s very analogous to growing a business. And so when we work with you every week, year after year after year, I always tell people, growing a business is like growing a garden. It’s not, growing a business is like growing a garden. It’s not like pouring a concrete slab. I mean, you have to constantly pull the weeds every week. What do you see as the main value when you and Sean get together every week as a consulting client? I mean, we charge people, you know, flat monthly fee to do it. And I don’t apologize for the fee that we charge, but it’s an ongoing thing. Can you kind of explain the value that you see working with Sean and Ruby? Because I see you guys aggressively working through issues and solving them, but can you maybe explain from your perspective the value of that? Yeah, I think one of the big values is just having someone that I’m consistently talking to every week, keeping me accountable, saying, hey, did we get this done? And I have to say, you know, this came up this last week, no, and he’s saying, well, why, what time are we going to schedule out of your calendar for the upcoming week so that we can make sure that we’re making progress? So just kind of having someone there that’s always trying to move the ball forward is, I think, pretty important. As entrepreneurs, you know, you get busy and drug down into the daily things. And so it’s nice to have someone there to say, hey, this is the more important thing that we should be working on. Understand that some of these things come up, but ultimately this is the direction we need to be moving. And a lot of times it’s easy to lose sight on that with the day to day. Can you, how much have you grown since you guys have worked together there, Gabe? What kind of growth have you seen there? I would say, I think we’re up somewhere around 500% or so? It just, I think that’s a big, big thing for people to know is that if you’re going out today, if you go to Thrivetimeshow.com and you schedule a consultation and you want to meet with Sean Lohman or Clay Stairs or myself and you schedule a consultation, what we’re going to do is we’re going to have this conversation. We’re going to say, where are you at versus where do you want to be? And then we’re going to make a plan for you. But it’s like driving to California. It’s like driving to Tulare. It’s maybe not super exciting. It’s not a 10-minute get-rich-quick plan. It involves planning. It involves diligence and follow-up. But if you do it, folks, I’m telling you, eventually the biggest problem you will have is hiring, inspiring, training, and retaining great people. Sean, I’ll give you the final word there, sir, before we have to wrap. What would be the final thoughts you have? Yeah, no, I just I’ve been really happy to see that Levi has not only applied the path in one company but we actually work with Levi in a whole other company as well and he’s acquired another company in the meantime and he stays on top of it and when things do come up he is, he doesn’t give me any pushback. He acknowledges he’s very humble and I appreciate that a lot. He’s a coachable guy. And Levi by the way is a guy who has multiple, I guess you said multiple businesses. Yeah. So these principles leave, I mean, they can be applied to, uh, these principles in the multiple businesses. Could you maybe share about that for a second, about those processes and how you can use the same processes in multiple businesses? Yeah, it’s, it’s been super helpful. You know, whenever we started coaching, uh, well, four or so years ago, I felt like I knew some of the things to do. I just didn’t exactly know how to do them or where to start. And now that we’ve been through that process with GEI, it’s really just, hey, I know what we need to do because I’ve already done this once. It’s, you know, setting up the systems and call scripts and accountability and, you know, that sort of thing. Group interviews, these are all things that we’ve implemented. And, you know, once you get to that point, it’s really just copying and pasting and changing a few words in your systems and scripts. And it’s certainly a lot easier to do the second time around, that’s for sure. But it’s been immensely helpful in the other businesses as well. And Levi, what would you say for anybody out there that’s pondering scheduling a consultation to potentially become a client? I mean, you’re sort of the model of what a coaching relationship should look like. What would you say to anybody out there thinking about scheduling a free 13-point assessment? I would and have told several people, I mean, you’ve got nothing to lose. You know, I hear the same complaints from other business owners all day, every day. And they come to me and they say, hey, this is happening. And I can’t find people or my cash flow, I can’t get all my cash flow or my systems are bad. We spend half our day looking for passwords. You know, it literally would take maybe an hour of your time and a phone call to have what I would think would be a fairly laid out plan of how you would attack growing and helping that business succeed. So at the end of the day, there’s really nothing to lose. But I think a lot of people that I’ve sent that way don’t do that because they don’t want to put in the work and don’t want to hold themselves accountable and don’t want to have someone who hasn’t done their exact profession tell them what they need to do to get better. Well folks I’ll tell you this so that’s the Levi Gable success story that website is gei-usa.com gei.u-usa.com and on part two of today’s show we’re going to be joined by Gabe Salinas his company’s called Window Ninjas. And these systems and processes that we built to help Window Ninjas scale are very similar to the systems that we’ve helped gei-usa.com to grow. So whether you’re somebody in Tulsa, Oklahoma, whether you’re somebody on the East Coast, in the case of Gabe Salinas, I’m telling you, you have the tenacity and capacity needed to grow a successful company, and we’d be honored to serve you. Again, thank you so much, Levi, for joining us. I really do appreciate you, sir. And we will talk to you soon. Absolutely. Thanks guys. Take care, brother. Thank you, Levi. Bye. Gabe Salinas, welcome to the Thrived Time Show. How are you, sir? I am wonderful, Clay. I’m glad to be here with you today. And just to give people a little context, how long have we worked with you in your business, sir? A little over three years, Clay. We’ve been together for a little bit of a journey now. And I think we picked the best of times and the worst of times to work together. I mean, it’s like right at the peak of the geopolitical craziness. That’s when we started working with you. But you’ve continued to grow. What kind of growth have you seen over these past three years? Just so the listeners know that you do have, in fact, a business that can navigate through difficult times. Well, we have over doubled our business here at Window Ninjas since working with you. I actually went back and looked through our numbers and I looked at some of our goals that we had set in the original conversation that I had with your team and we have surpassed my original number that I wanted to hit with you guys, and I was quite shocked at how Almost like easy, but systematic it was for us to be able to get to where we wanted to be 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, Terminix, they’re both 1.3 billion dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually 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% 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, 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 than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those 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. We were in a rut. 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 were 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 gonna 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, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with 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 Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like 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 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, critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And 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 of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing is when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down.” Because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. 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, because our clubs were all closed for. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. 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 systems 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 scape 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, 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 systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever. We’ll even 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. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey with Tip Top K9 and I’m the founder. I’m Rachel Wimpey and I am a co-founder. So we’ve been running Tip Top for about the last 14 years, franchising for the last 3-4 years. So someone that would be a good fit for Tip Top loves dogs, they’re high energy, they want to be able to own their own job, but they don’t want to worry about, you know, that high failure rate. They want to do that like bowling with bumper lanes. So you give us a call, reach out to us and we’ll call you, and then we’ll send you an FDD, look over that, read it, fall asleep to it, it’s very boring, and then we’ll book a discovery day and you come and you can spend a day or two with us, make sure that you actually like it, make sure that training dogs is something that you want to do. So an FDD is a Franchise Disclosure Document. It’s a federally regulated document that goes into all the nitty gritty details of what the franchise agreement entails. So who would be a good fit to buy a 6UP Canine would be somebody who loves dogs, who wants to work with dogs all day as their profession. You’ll make a lot of money, you’ll have a lot of fun, it’s very rewarding. And who would not be a good fit is a cat person. So the upfront cost for tip top is $43,000. And a lot of people say they’re generating doctor money, but on our disclosure, the numbers are anywhere from over a million dollars a year in dog training, what our Oklahoma City location did last year, to 25, 35 grand a month. To train and get trained by us for Tip Top Canine to run your own Tip Top Canine, you would be with us for six weeks here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So we’ve been married for seven years, eight years. So if you’re watching this video, you’re like, hey maybe I want to be a dog trainer, hey that one sounds super amazing. Go to our website, tiptopcanine.com, click on the yellow franchising tab, fill out the form, and Rachel and I will give you a call. Our Oklahoma City location last year, they did over a million dollars. He’s been running that shop for three years. Before he was a youth pastor, with zero sales experience, zero dog training experience before he ever met with us. So just call us, come spend a day with us, spend a couple days with us, make sure you like training dogs, and own your own business. Well the biggest reason to buy a Tip Top K9 is so you own your own job and you own your own future and you don’t hate your life you get an enjoyable job that brings a lot of income but it’s really rewarding. My name is Seth Flint and I had originally heard about Tip Top K9. They did a phenomenal job and became really good friends with Ryan and Rachel. I was working at a local church and it was a great experience. I ended up leaving there and working with Ryan and Tip Top K9. The biggest thing that I really, really enjoy about being self-employed is that I can create my own schedule. I have the ability to spend more time with my family, my wife and my daughter. So my very favorite thing about training dogs with Tip Top K9 is that I get to work with the people. Obviously, I love working with dogs, but it’s just so rewarding to be able to train a dog that had serious issues whether it’s behavioral or you know whatever and seeing a transformation taking that dog home and mom and dad are literally in tears because of how happy they are with the training. If somebody is interested, I’d say don’t hesitate. Make sure you like dogs, make sure that you enjoy working with people because we’re not just dog trainers, we are customer service people that help dogs. And so definitely, definitely don’t hesitate. Just come in and ask questions. Ask all the questions you have. Ask all the questions you have. Ask all the questions you have.