Entrepreneur | 5 Keys to Unlock Fast and Sustained Growth – Part 2

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! Welcome back and Josh Merrill here with these two amazing business coaches. Hey, Clay, we’re talking about the five keys to unlocking your company’s fast and sustainable growth. Will you reset the keys real quick that we’ve done so far? Yeah, and I will say this, Josh. If you’re listening to this, so much of why we do this program, like the whole reason why we make The Thrive Time Show is to help you change your life. This isn’t, I mean, we’re going to have some fun, but the idea is that you can apply these action items in your life, and as you apply them, you’re going to run into a few road blocks along the way. And when you do, all you’ve got to do is email us, info at thrive15.com. Again that’s info at thrive15.com and we will answer those. But key number one, okay, key number one is you want to start the process by simply, you want to survey your customers, okay. So step number one is you want to survey your customers. But you start this whole process by surveying your customers, okay. Now step number two, key number two, the key number two. You’ve got to identify your ideal and likely buyers, find their needs and sell them solutions. Absolutely. Now, step number three here, again, folks at home here, step number three is you want to identify the quick-paying, ideal, and likely buyers. The quick-paying ones. You don’t want to be dealing with somebody who’s not going to buy during your adult lifetime. You want to be able to sell some things quickly. Here’s the big question. How does everyone out there, how do they identify these people? What you do is we have a little checklist we made for you. We’re going to have the entire checklist available for you at the Thrive Time Show. You just go to the Thrive Time Show or you email us info at thrive15.com. We’ll make this available for you. But one, you want to ask yourself, what gender are these people? I know we’re in this gender confusion thing right now where it’s, what bathroom do I go in? Can I go in that bathroom? Let’s put the politics aside, but seriously, figure out what bathroom you’re supposed to go to. But anyway, think about that. But the thing is, is that you are in a situation where you have to ask yourself, are men or women more likely to buy my product? So as an example, if you’re a realtor, who is going to call you more often, the men or the women, as a general rule, for residential real estate? Men, women. Women, almost every time. One, um, nah. They’ll usually say, I want to talk to my husband, which is code for, I’m going to tell my husband what house we’re buying. Sure, yes. Now the next one is the age. The age of your ideal and likely buyers. So let’s think about that for a second. The age. You’re ageist. Yeah, but some of this is going to force you to be a little bit prejudiced. You have to prejudge. You have to say, you know what, I don’t have enough money to market to everybody, okay? And even though, even though, even though communist countries might be mad that we’re not treating everyone equal, you do have to focus on your ideal and likely buyers. And that’s going to force you to make hard decisions like men or women. Well, both. Well, choose, okay? The age of your ideal and likely buyer. What publications does your ideal and likely buyer read? Josh, what is the website that you go to to buy a bunch of video equipment? Where’s the place that you go to buy super awesome headphones and video gear? Where do you buy that nerdery? I tell you where I go first, okay? Sure. Amazon.com. It’s a great place. I’ve never heard of it. But then if you want like the real legit stuff, it’s B&H Photo. B&H Photo? B&H Photo. B&H Photo. Are you paid to endorse them or is that where you really go? That’s where I really go. Okay. So now Z, what’s a place that you go to to buy like frames and glasses? Where’s kind of a place that an optometrist like you might go to buy some of these things wholesale? Where do you go? Well, there’s different conventions, and then once you find the people that sell those companies, then you just go right to their website, you build a relationship. So a lot of it is like doctor conventions, and they have the big room set up, and little booths, and then you go by, and everybody’s pitching their stuff. Where’s the hot sauce convention? Where’s one of your favorite cities to go to for the best conventions? There’s several, but probably Las Vegas and New York are probably the two biggest ones. Have you ever found yourself as an optometrist going to a convention where you realized, this is a waste of my time? No. Never? No. I mean, you go and you’re going there. Usually, if I don’t have to go, I don’t go. But if there’s a purpose for me going, then I’m going. Then, kind of like you getting on the website. I mean, if you need a piece of equipment, you’re going to get on there. Yeah. I’m going to give you an example of what not to do. You’re probably smarter than I am. With the DJ business, I got pitched by people who said, hey, if you want to buy a booth at this trade show, it’s awesome. There are humans there. Yeah, that helps. There are thousands of humans. My favorite thing, my favorite show that I should not have ever gone to, is I bought a booth at the State Fair. It’s like 500 bucks a day. Have you ever been to the State Fair, Josh? Yeah. Ze, have you ever been there? I love the State Fair. So you go there, do you get like a deep pride? One year I took all my staff as a little thank you, you know, a little how’s your father little thank you. So I take them there and I say, okay, here’s a contest. I’m going to give a cash award for the person who can turn in the best photograph of a fair goer. Holy cow! A fair goer? Yeah, but you know, you can’t just walk up to someone and say, may I take your picture, because that outfit you have on is like out of this world, right? And so they would be kind of sneaky. They’d be like their friend would be there and they’d really kind of slide it over and take a picture. And I said, okay, if someone sends me the same picture of the winning person, the one that time stamped in soon, the quickest, wins, we had a lot of fun with that. Were you the ultimate judge? Yes, I was the one giving the money, so I had to be. Does it beat those Wal-Mart photos? My point is, there’s a lot of good people watching at the fair. Come on. All I’m saying is, I bought a booth there, and I was there for five, what was it, six days? How long is the fair? I can’t remember. I should have blocked it out of my memory. How long is that thing? I don’t know. It’s like a week or two. Yeah, it’s horrible on businesses. I know. It’s just really long. It was $500 a day. Now, about 10 minutes into the first day, I’m going, I’m going to get a corn dog. I’m going to rip off the corn dog off the stick and jab it in my eye and kill myself. I hate this place. It’s hot. Everyone keeps going, hey man, what kind of speakers do you have there? Everyone is a former DJ by the way. The barrier of entry is so low as a DJ. If you’ve ever owned a piece of equipment, you were a former DJ. Every man is like, hey man, how many ohms is that? How many watts? You know, that dual disc? Oh, nice. Is that another JBL? You never used Sir Winn Vega? And you’re just there the whole day. I’m like, what am I doing? It’s hot. There’s no brides there. There’s no ideal and likely buyers there, because you know who spends $20,000 on average on a wedding? Who? My ideal and likely buyers. And I found out over time that the ideal and likely buyer for DJ Connection was a bride whose average wedding budget, according to The Knot.com, was over $20,000. He resurrected that place, fixed it, polished it, made it. It’s awesome. He restored that thing. I’m at the Renaissance Hotel. I’m starting to notice I’m at places that I almost feel like I’ve tricked somebody to get in. You probably did. But I’m at country clubs and I’m realizing this is, people of all races and incomes and backgrounds all go to the fair, but it’s not the ideal and likely buyer treasure trove like a wedding show. And so by not being pig-headed about defining that, though, I went to a lot of the wrong things. You also want to ask yourself, geographical locations. Like, where do they live? What zip codes? For the elephant in the room, our men’s grooming lounge. If you’re listening, by the way, if you’ve never been there before and you’re a dude, your first haircut’s a dollar. Okay? And we do mailers that announce this all the time. We just pound that 91st and Yale area. We just pound you with mailers saying, if you’ve never been to the old… Relentless. Relentless. We will not… Buy, buy, or die. We’re going to keep mailing you every month. It’s a dollar. We’re telling you, the first haircut’s a dollar. But I’m telling you, we know where they live, our ideal and likely buyers. We know the job title of our ideal and likely buyers. We know the connections, the networks, the social circle. We know the schools that their kids go to. We know what they’re most likely going to name their child. So I want to get into this. Your wife, does your wife ever go to Whole Foods? Yes, of course. This is what my wife did. This is audio. This is live audio from my wife last weekend. Hey, do you want to go to Whole Foods and get some kale? And then this is audio from the week before. Hey, do you want to go to Whole Foods and get some kale? And then the week before. Do you want to go to Whole Foods and get some kale and some organic chicken? That’s what my wife… You got chicken that week. That’s a little different. A little sneak. Yeah, that’s sweet. But when you go to Whole Foods, how much is an avocado at Whole Foods? $872. I have no idea. Right about there. Let’s just say this. It is expensive. And growing up where we didn’t have a lot of disposable income, I can tell you, we went to Walmart, baby. We went to Walmart. Nope. There’s no shame in the game. Went to Walmart, and you go in there, and things are a little bit cheaper. Organic or not? I don’t think Walmart even had an organic section. I didn’t care. And you eat at Taco Bell because it’s cheap and you go in and I had chicken panini the 96 cents. It was like 80% sodium and it was just on sale. So now my wife wants to go to Whole Foods and every time we go in I’m going, that’s so expensive. But they know they’re ideal and likely buyers. Yes, it is your wife. And they have those people there who talk about the food as though they’re in love with it. Have you met these people? It’s almost like a religion. Oh yeah. They’ll go, we got some fresh kale in today. Ms. Clark, do you ever try our fresh kale? It’s just awesome stuff, you know. We got the fresh fish in this stuff. It’s mercury free. It’s locally harvested. It’s, well it’s really sustainable. It’s resourced. It’s fresh. And uh… Now Josh, does your wife go to Whole Foods? Yes. Yeah, are you aware that it’s more than other places? You know, I just say do what you need to do. You do what makes you happy happy wife. Happy life That’s what that’s what I’m all about now But I’m just telling you that Whole Foods knows what we want as ideal and likely buyers They take the time to invest in that but they also know who their ideal and likely buyers aren’t they’re not trying to compete on price Right. So the market would be a Jackie Cooper where I bought my one of my vehicles, you go there, they’re not trying to beat the Honda dealership with the lowest prices. They’re saying, if you want to drive a Mercedes, this is what it costs. But you’re going to have a premium experience when you go there. So I’m just asking you right now, take the time to identify who your ideal and likely buyers are. Now I want to ask you, Z, with your optometry clinic, who are your ideal and likely buyers? Who’s listening right now? My sweet spot, my, the center bullseye target. Oh yes. The one that I’m, the goal, the one that I’m looking for, the one that I’m desperate to get. Tell us, Z, tell us. The one, the one, the one. Tell us the secret. I climbed the mountain to get the one that’s right there at the top of the pinnacle, top of the food chain. Tell us the secret, we won’t tell any of the 40,000 people listening right now. Tell us. Is my soccer mom. Oh, wow. That’s a lovely person. Brother Robert. They control health care in their family. They take their children where they’re going to go. They tell their husband where to go or their boyfriend. Brother Robert has shared the secrets. It’s the soccer mom that drives the I world. And once I unlock that key, I have the key to optometry. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to the world. I have the key to optometry. Soccer moms. Soccer moms. Write that down, Brother Hezekiah. Write that down. Soccer moms. Beautiful. So let me ask you this. That’s what it all comes down to is if you’re going to identify your ideal and likely buyer, you must invest the time to figure out who they are. We’re going to talk more about it next. Josh Merrill here with Clay Clark and Dr. Z. Dr. Z, you got a shout out? I got a shout out every week. I mean every show I like to shout out to the great listeners that listen to us. Because that’s what we’re here for. In Pittsburgh, I just wanted to tell you, hey, we love you. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tom Brady here. Tom Brady. I’m going to tell you what. I hate black and yellow. I hate Pittsburgh. I hate the Steelers. Do you realize how many balls we’ve had to deflate? I mean, how many hours of practice we’ve had to invest in our team to beat you guys. Tom, Tom, Tom, it’s Pittsburgh, Kansas. I’m not deflating a ball, that was just a ball that was coming out naturally. It’s not Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In all sincerity, people ask themselves a lot of times, they say, after this training, what should I do? What you need to do is you need to go buy a new T-shirt that says, Free Tom Brady Again. I own one of those shirts, it’s a beautiful thing. Everyone needs to invest in America and buy that shirt, Josh. You know, we almost make it through a show without a Tom Brady show up appearance. Yeah. You know, we almost, we almost, we almost made it today. He’s America’s quarterback. At least we’re not talking about like Tony Romo or something. Oh, no, don’t, don’t, don’t you go there. Don’t you do that. Do not. Speaking of, speaking of batting 500, back to you, Josh. Dr. Z, he’s thrown him your way. He’s just hurting me with accuracy. That’s just mean, these facts. Quit that. It’s the Thrive Time show today. We’re talking about the five keys to unlocking your company’s fast and sustainable growth. Right now we’re on number four, Clay. I got to say number four is one of my favorites. This is absolutely, totally my favorite. This one here, I mean, just this one here is a totally, this is absolutely from the mouth of Bill Belichick himself. Josh, go ahead and unload it. Number four, identify your main competitors and then take the food out of their mouth. Oh, this is Belichick right here. Boom, it’s a move. It’s wicked awesome. I’m going to get me a hoodie with cut off the sleeves because this is Belichick. Let me tell you this. Now, Bill Belichick, what he does right now, and by the way, we’re getting into the football season so they’re in mini camp. I’m listening to all the updates and reports. I can’t get enough of it. What he’s doing, this is what he’s doing. Bill Belichick, every game watches the opponent and he says, what weakness do they have that we can expose? So if you’ve ever watched the Patriots for a sustainable amount of time, they basically, every game, have a different approach. You’ll probably remember, there’s a guy named Jonas Gray. You remember Jonas Gray? Oh yeah. He was the big, lumbering running back that they picked up off of waivers. And they were playing against the team, and he goes, they can’t stop the run. So this is a Tom Brady quarterbacked team. This was in the past two years. And they just handed the ball off to the guy, I think like 35 times in the game. And he just keeps running and running and running. And he racked up like 200 yards or something, Josh. And they ended up just dominating. But there’s other games where they never throw over like a five yard pass. It’s just these little small passes. Little dunks. Diggity dunks. But they’re looking at their competition every week and not having their head in the sand. They’re looking at them. And so as relates to business you have to identify who your main competitors are and you have to take the food out of Their mouths you know why why because they will not give it to you Very Ellison, this is what I read this from Mary Ellison I used to think he’s a horrible person because he doesn’t understand I used to think there’s enough business and Tulsa to go around the pies big enough for us all. The pie is big enough for everybody. We just share the pie. I don’t think I ever thought that the people would give me the business, but I just thought they wouldn’t take the business. I remember I set up for a bridal show, and I set up like I normally do, and right there next to me at the show is a guy who I had trained every day up until that day. He DJ’d for me for years. And literally right across the hall, there he is. Oh, dirty moves. Didn’t say, hey, I’m going to start my own company. He just was. Wow. I walked up to him and I said, what are you doing? And he goes, started my own business, bro. Yeah, bro. Now, I see that stuff all the time. I call that, you know, all that nefarious activity. You’re intentionally trying to harm the business. I see it all the time now. But back in the day, my alarms weren’t up, my radar wasn’t up, I wasn’t looking for that kind of thing. And this guy literally took my sales package, Josh, all my packages, all my literature, and just slapped a different logo on it and went for it. That’s not good. Dirty pool. It was a dirty move. And so what I discovered right then, Larry Ellison, he has this quote, he says, it’s not sufficient that I succeed, everyone else must fail.” Crushed him. And that’s the guy who has started Oracle. Now I’m not saying that has to be your mindset, but what I am saying is your competition might have that mindset. So if you’re not careful, you might be competing against somebody who has that mindset that they just want you to fail. And so what you need to do is you need to ask yourself right now, who is your biggest competitor? So I’m going to give you some examples. Right now, for Elephant in the Room, it’s our men’s grooming lounge. We cut men’s hair. Josh, who do you think our biggest competitors are? If you had to speculate. I would say maybe Sports Clips. Yeah, and it’s kind of tough because a friend of mine owns a bunch of Sports Clips. Not in Tulsa, but he owns Sports Clips. And we’ve joked about how I’m really happy that you’re not located here because I would crush you. Nice, nice. And then we go back and forth threatening each other. But the thing is, is that Sports Clips is a big, big, and they’re a great company. They’re good people. I believe that we’re four times better. But I appreciate them finishing second or third. And then we have Great Clips, who I believe is like fifth place. And these are great people. Some of them are listening. Some of them are irate right now. But the thing is that I believe that I’m the best, and you have to believe that you’re the best if you’re my competitor right now. And what we have to do is we have to try to beat the crap out of each other with price and package and service because you know who wins? The customer wins. Which is what makes capitalism possible. But communist China right now is having a fit. They are marching in the street. They are irate. Everybody should be treated everybody. Everybody gets the same piece of pie, same slice of pie, right? Not to get political, but let’s pretend that this was my political platform this season. What we’re going to do is the people who get up early and work late and build businesses starting from nothing By the way, 8 out of 10 of America’s millionaires, according to the Millionaire Next Door book, started their own business. But let’s take the people who are making the most money. In fact, let’s take the basketball players who are the best. Let’s find Steph Curry. Because he’s so good and because he wins so much, let’s put ankle weights on him. That way it will be more fair. Let’s put ankle weights on him. And let’s raise the taxes on the people who earn the most. And what we’ll do is we’ll just do that and we’ll see if it demotivates people. And I’ll just tell you what, even though the taxation program we have in our country right now is kind of insane and it de-incentivizes you, the more that you earn, the more you pay, which is stupid, I think you should actually pay less the more you earn. That way you would be more motivated to get ahead of the barely survival zone. Having grown up around people that struggle perpetually financially, I will tell you, when you build a business and you get to that $100,000 club and you realize, holy crap, I just spent a lot of money funding my local library, you start to realize that taxation is a big thing. And I’m just saying this right now, is right now when you own your business, you’ve got to be competitive because taxes are going up, your competition’s going up, everybody’s coming for you, and you’ve got to have that mindset that you are going to dominate. If you don’t have that mindset, Z, you’re just going to lose. Well that takes me back to my number one business book. Love this book. It has six principles in it that I read, absorbed, loved, and it really kind of helped stamp my, this number four in our five step process here. This one I’ve kind of built around it. Do you guys want to know about it? I want to know about it so bad. Are you sure? Is it the book about how wham was formed? Here we go, wake me up before you go. Is that what the book is? Six Tips to Building a Boy Band? No, no it’s not that one. Josh you want to guess? Ah, let’s see. I like the wham. The George Michael autobiography? Is that what it was? Is that what it was? Well… Keep going. Keep going. I’m going to get cheap on you. Why just… I just… I didn’t want to steal your thunder. Well, since you both went there, you know, I’ve got to be completely honest. That’s not it. But after this commercial break, I’m going to deep dive into this and this book will change. If you get this mindset wrapped around your business I’m telling you what, you will be like laser focused. I hate whenever they cut off George Michael to put in the Rocky theme. That really frustrates me. We’re going to talk about that after the break. Hey, welcome back. It’s Josh Murrow with Clay Clark and Dr. Z. We’re talking about the five keys to unlocking your company’s fast and sustainable growth. Right now we’re on number four identify your main competitors and then take the food out of their mouths now when we last left off dr. Z you were about to give us the ultimate book the ultimate principles we gotta hear it well give me a little give me a little dojo mojo give me a little that step into my dojo and I’m gonna give you a little mojo right now. One of the first books I read that just really got me captivated was the Art of War. You know that book’s like, Shun Zhu, it’s like, thousands of years old. And the principles got barreled down to six of them. And these business principles go something like this. Number one, capture your market without destroying it. Very important. Avoid your competitors’ strength and attack their weakness. Use knowledge and deception to maximize the power of business intelligence. Use speed and preparation to swiftly overcome the competition. Use alliances and strategic control points in the industry to shape your opponents and make them conform to your will. will and the sixth one which is very important develop your character as a leader to maximize the potential of your employees so good Josh you you uh you’ve you’ve seen the movie Conan the Barbarian yes yes there’s a line in there that just kind of sums this up would you play that for me well you have a cute I got it I got it hit it Conan what is best in life to crush your enemies see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women. Is that allowed? Is that allowed? Where does the lamentation come from? Really, we’ll skip over that part. I want to ask you, seriously, when you read that book and it inspired you, which one of those six inspired you the most, or what got you going? I mean, how did you apply that into the business world? Well, you’ve got to look at this is that whenever you finally put your flag in the ground, we say, listen, I’m going to open up a pizza store. I’m going to open up a donut shop. I’m going to open up a realty company. I’m going to open up a tire store, whatever. There’s very few businesses that aren’t being, the people aren’t being taken care of right now. In other words, if I shut down my optometry clinics, for example, people will still get eye care in this town. They won’t say, oh my gosh, there’s nowhere to go. You mean people don’t cold call you every morning begging for you to stay open? No, I’m just telling you. So there’s competition out there and you really have to get your mindset wrapped around of it is like war and you have to approach it like that. So you have to get a game plan. You have to have good leadership. You have to find out what their strengths and what their weaknesses are so that you can attack them and you have to kind of look at them a little bit as the enemy. I know that’s strong. Okay, that’s a little bit harsh though. I mean, looking at them as the enemy, that’s, I don’t know. Well I’ll tell you this, there’s a- Well you want to be a hero or a zero in business? Okay, okay. I’m just asking questions. Why do you always have to attack the co-host? Let me bring this up though, seriously. I have been asked, and I’m not going to tell you the name of the organization, I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to hint and talk around it and if you guess, I’m just going to make a straight poker face, and you won’t know what it is. But there are many of these organizations. They are organized, and many people come together in the morning time around certain caffeinated beverages, and they talk about their visions, and they talk about their transformative app and their community and their thing they’re trying to do. And you know the common denominator of these entrepreneurs who gather at these said coffee shops? Do you know what the common denominator of these people is? Who they are? They like coffee? No. They are happy hopers, and they’re not diligent doers. And there’s a difference, because once you become a diligent doer, you don’t have time to sit around in the middle of a work day and sit there and talk about, well, what’s the way we can all work together for the benefit of downtown Tulsa and the ITL? Let me tell you what. If you have a bunch of money, you have a lot of time to sit around and talk about the development of the interdispersal loop. If that’s something you have a lot of time, that’s great for you. But if you’re a startup entrepreneur, you’re listening to this right now, and nine out of 10 entrepreneurs have 10 employees or less. When we’re talking about most entrepreneurs out there, you have very limited resources. There’s a lot of very little money. You’ve maybe got some time, but not a lot of money. You’ve got to understand that right now your competition is outworking you, and you’ve got to find a way to beat them, and you can’t put your head in your sand. Because I literally, I try to train all my employees and work with them and coach them and mentor them. And when my competitor ended up being one of my former employees who literally, an employee, an existing employee of mine at the time, set up a competitive booth right across the row from me at the bridal show, it occurred to me, whoa, that’s how it’s going to be. And it kept happening. Yeah, it’s on. Game on. And I kept training my competition. All my competition were guys that I trained. Literally in Tulsa right now, the landscape of all the DJs, and I know you’re listening, and I know that you hate you’re still losing, but the thing is, is that they all are people that I trained. And that’s just, unfortunately, that’s how it is. And you can’t, you got to understand, it is like competitive football out there. It’s very aggressive. You’ve got to win. Josh, if you want to find the radio show that’s going to give out the participation medals, little participation trophies, this is not that show. This is not that show. We’re looking for people, like in the Olympics, that want to win the gold medal, right? I finished fourth place on my third grade soccer team. Can I get ice cream? Just switch the dial. This isn’t for you then. Really? Okay. We’re trying to train up people to be winners in business. Because it’s crazy. Eight out of ten businesses fail. They fail. I’m going to read you a statistic that blew my mind from Forbes. There’s an article called Five Reasons Eight Out of Ten Businesses Fail. And do you know what the stat is they said? Dr. Z just said it. I’m saying it again for more emphasis, okay? Eight out of ten businesses fail. So if you want to fail, guess what you have to do? You have to run around looking for participation trophies and community involvement awards, but if you want to win you’ve got to focus on the three P’s. Okay? You got to make a great product, you got to have great people, and you got to make a profit. That’s what you have to do, and we’re going to talk to you more about this coming up after the break, my friend. That’s right. It’s the Thrive Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. Hey, right today we’ve been talking about the five keys to unlocking your company’s fast and sustainable growth. We’ve done four keys so far, Dr. Z. Alright? And we’ve got the fifth left. And we’ve got the fifth one coming up after this break and I’m excited to unpack it. And I’m just looking for guys out there that want to be winners. Boom! It’s the fifth key. When we come back, talk radio 1170. Josh Merrill here with Dr. Z and Clay Clark. We’re talking about the five keys to unlocking your company’s fast and sustainable growth. Right now we are on key number five, Clay. It’s the key that unlocks all the other keys, really. Well, this is what you do, okay? Key number five is you want to find the market’s need, okay? You want to find the market’s need. And what you want to do is you want to fill it in a memorable and differentiated way. So what you want to do is it has to be both memorable, okay, people have to remember it, and it has to be different, differentiated. And for those of you that are just tuning in, and you might be saying to yourself, oh my gosh, I missed the first four steps. What do I do? Well you go to the thrivetimeshow.com, so thrivetimeshow.com to replay this beast. Now if you want to watch the video version, and a lot of people do, and they want to get the downloadables and access to the exclusive notes. So they can see how sharp you look in your tie? If you want to see that, now I have a face that has been built by God for radio. Me too. So you really want to get there and kind of put your hand over the screen and not look at it. But the thing is, you go, if you want to do that, you can sign up and be a premium subscriber for Thrive 15, and for 19 bucks a month, you can have the world’s best business coaching and business school experience. It’s awesome. And Josh, what were those first four steps? Okay, number one, you’ve got to survey your current customers. Number two, you’ve got to identify your ideal and likely buyers, find their needs, and sell them solutions. Number three, identify the quick paying ideal and likely buyers. Number four, identify your main competitors and then take the food out of their mouth. Like Conan. And then number five, find the market’s need and fill it in a memorable, differentiated way. So let me just give you the A, B, the C, and the D of how to do this, okay? One is you want to go out there and you want to find your company’s biggest strengths, okay? And you want to identify your competitor’s biggest weaknesses, your competition’s biggest weaknesses. Then what you want to do is you want to go out there and you want to fill out your, you want to figure out what are my target market’s needs, and then what’s my core competency. I know it’s a lot of stuff I just gave you, but I’m going to give you a very specific example. When we opened up Elephant in the room, we’re competing against Sports Clips, a big, big company. And what we decided is Sports Clips does a very good job. They have very good people. They’re competitively priced. They get it right. Their website’s clean. It’s sharp. But you know what we can do? We can build a place, an experience that the man who’s looking for an experience and not just a haircut is going to love. And so we got that historic barn wood. My brother-in-law, as we’ve discussed in previous episodes, he drove out to Hevener. Hevener, big shout out to Hevener. He went out there, got this historic barn wood. He got this decor. It smells great. It’s just this wonderful atmosphere And it kind of feels like that place where every dude just wants to go and they do paraffin hand dips and hot towel treatments But you know one part we screwed up at first. What’d you do? We didn’t take the phones out of this atmosphere So here you’re paying a premium price and the phone rings. So the hair stylist like excuse me I need to get that phone real quick. So they run up front and then they go think we’re going elephant in the room Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I’ll make sure I call you back in just a moment. I’m keeping some dude’s hand in paraffin right now, yeah. Exactly, and then they come back to you and go, now what were you talking about? And they go, well, I was… Josh, I’m sorry, we’re going to get this phone. Elephant in the Room, this is Clay, how can I help you? And pretty soon, it’s just you realize, this isn’t going to work. And so we had to take the phone out of that building. So you take the phone out, and all of a sudden, it’s this calm, soothing atmosphere. We realized, wow, that’s something we can do that the competition won’t do. Then we thought about, what if we have memberships and we price it higher so that our ideal and likely buyer never has to wait for an appointment? There’s no walk-ins. Never waiting. You just go in, and if your appointment’s at 10.30, you set it for 10. Everyone’s a VIP. Yeah, and it just has that premium atmosphere. And then we thought, what if we started offering straight razor shaves? And what if we just came up with this big list of things that are ideal and likely buyers wanted and we began to offer it to them. And so that’s the big takeaway I want you to have right now is if you’re competing against Walmart or you’re competing against some big, big company, think about how you can win, but it has to be memorable. So why is it called Elephant in the Room, Josh, do you know? Because it’s a crazy sounding name? Yeah, I mean, people feel like they’ve heard that name before. It gets stuck in your head. And the elephant in the room is we all know a man, and if it’s me, don’t look at me, but we all know a man who has a third… I can’t take my eyes off you now. We all know somebody who has the haircut of like a third grade boy, and they’re in the office and you’re like, and he goes, hey guys, I just got my haircut, how are you guys? Or he usually won’t even say it. He’ll just go, hey guys, how are you? And you’re looking and the inner dialogue is, what is going on with this lettuce? What? What’s going on with this melon? What happened? Oh, look at that gourd. And you want to give them a tip like, bro town, you need to quit going to the bowl cut specialty shop. The Dutch looking, working for you, little Dutch cut. A dumber and dumber kind of look. But the thing is, is that the elephant in the room is a bad haircut really is not a great thing, you know? And also the elephant in the room is as a culture, we have a lot of fatherless homes. We have a lot of kids out there that don’t have dads. And so every time that somebody comes in for their first haircut, we donate a dollar back to the boys’ home, and it’s a way to give back and sponsor something we believe in. And it’s kind of a dual meaning thing. And so all I’m asking right now, as you’re listening, what is your purple cow? What is your core… Moo. Wait, well, so, Z, you have a ranch. Yes. And what kind of… I don’t have any purple cows on it, though. Well, what kind of horses do you have out there? Thoroughbreds. How many do you have out there roughly? 30-ish, well maybe 40. If there was one that was painted purple tomorrow morning, you get out there and you show up and it’s painted purple, would you notice it at all? It would stand out, yes, in the field. So again, if you’re listening to this right now and you can’t think of an idea, I’m just telling you, if you’re a dentist right now and you’re listening, if you own a photography business, if you own an auto dealership, here’s my little tip. Just paint everything purple and call it Josh’s Purple Cow Coffee. Wow. And people would remember it. Now, it might not be the right kind of way to remember you, but at least it’s memorable. And if you’re not memorable, you’re going to be forgotten. So I just cannot overstress the importance of making sure that you don’t get forgotten in the great sea of commerce. But when you talk about purple, you know what, it just makes me… it just makes me want to bring up the purple one. You know, when you’re talking purple, you can’t not think of a great musician that passed this year. Big loss to the music industry. Prince. Now let’s talk about Prince, though, as an example. Because Prince… how tall was he? He’s pretty short. He’s like 5’2″. I ran into him one time at the Mall of America. True story. I saw the guy and ran right into him. He walks by with this entourage of guys and he wears platform shoes. He used to wear heels and stuff. I don’t know how tall he was, but he wasn’t much over 5’2″. But you know what he did? His whole style was memorable. Everything. The way he sang. A lot of people can sing good, but the way he sang, the way he performed, his decor, the way he dressed, the ambiance, the way he delivered notes, his whole… He was literally the Purple Cow in the field. I think he’s the originator of Purple Cow marketing. I know Seth Godin wrote a book and coined the phrase, but really… He was thinking about Prince. Yeah, and let’s think about all the people we remember in music. Do you remember the guy who doesn’t have that magic one glove he wears. No, you remember the Michael Jackson one glove. You remember Prince. You remember… I’m asking you right now, you don’t have to be a diva. You don’t have to invent the moonwalk, but you have to be differentiated. And Josh, you make videos for companies. That’s true. And how hard is it for you to sit down with an entrepreneur or a business owner and to help them find their purple cow? How hard is it for people to help an entrepreneur find these things? Well, it’s hard. You want to stick out. You want people to notice you. And it’s not easy to create that purple cow, so it’s something that you actually have to think about. You have to come up with it, for sure. Why do you feel like a lot of entrepreneurs have that mental block? When they sit down with you, they say, hey, we want to make a memorable commercial, because you’re known for making these awesome, memorable commercials. Why is it that so many of them struggle to come up with… In your mind, is it just they’re super humble, and they don’t want to… Or they never thought about themselves, and maybe they don’t want to be weird. I mean, what’s the big mental block? Probably the thing I run into a lot is they have so much to say that they’re not saying one thing loud enough. So again, I’m just asking as an action step right now, this is straight from our videographer, our producer, our music, this guy, Josh is very talented. You make films and short films and commercials for companies, but I’m just telling you, the reason why they work is because they’re memorable. You help these entrepreneurs find that memorable aspect of their business. You do a very good job at it. Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Yeah. So I want to ask you something, Clay. So I’m wanting to start a business. I’m out here, I’m listening to this, I’m driving, I’ve got a job, but I want to own my own thing. I want to do my own thing. I want to be my own thing. I want to make a purple cow. You want to be Conan. I want to make a purple cow. And I don’t have thousands of dollars to hire Josh over here to make me a video. I don’t have thousands of dollars to hire you to be my personal hand-holding business coach. Thousands of dollars. Thousands. He’s expensive. He’s expensive, man. What do I, what’s the move? What do I do? Well, what you do is you and I both built the businesses from nothing. And so when you and I sat down and we built Thrive15.com with our team of people, Dan McKinnon was there at the beginning. We’ve had some really neat people there building this thing. We’ve all sat down and we said, what if we could build the world’s best business coaching, the world’s best business school experience, but instead of having a ton of prerequisites and it costing you $60,000, what if it could be less money than you’re spending on French fries or less money than you’re spending on discretionary stuff you buy at Quick Trip? What if it could be $19 a month?” Then we said, you know what? What if we included best practice like downloadables? What if we included templates? What if we had in-person workshops? Well, we’d have to get a big building. We’d have to put it up next to the Riverwalk there in Jinx. We’d have to be 20,000 square feet. We’d have to hire a team of videographers. We’d have to hire designers. We’d have to code out millions of dollars on a website. That would be something that we’re going to do. Yeah. And we did it. And that’s what Thrive15.com is. And I’m telling you, it is irrefutably the world’s best business coaching and business school experience, and it’s just $19 a month. You got to check it out, or you might be suffering from some sort of mild delirium. You got to check it. It’s a game changer. Boom. I want to thank Dr. Z. I want to thank Clay Clark. I want to thank our producers, Marshall Morris, all our camera guys, camera dudes, thanks so much for listening to the Thrive Time Show on talk radio 1170. You have any questions for us, email us at info at thrive15.com. We’ll see you next time. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessimon company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411 percent over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411 percent. So 411 percent we’re up with 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 of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success, but that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives, and also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten the success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Okay, 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 and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, the 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 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 multimillionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, an amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like a 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 doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, 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 how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live 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 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 1000. Whoa, the Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because, as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars with no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to 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’ve 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 tickets and if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you.