Entrepreneur | 8 Principles For Creating Advertisements That Work

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! Look, look, as a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. Clay, it’s good to see you again. Hey, good to see you. When I got here today, and I thought, man, if he wasn’t here today, it could be special. When I saw you, I realized that it was special with you. It’s even more special. I mean, I’m not too close, but I can tell you’ve got some minty fresh breath. You’ve popped like six of those in? Yeah, well, I did have a delicious Altoids. You told me you just had one of those. Curiously strong mint. I had five of those. And I’m excited to be joining with you today to use my Wright Brothers Paper Mate pen, where I use it to take notes on my paper that I purchased from Office Depot. All right, well today we are talking about marketing. This is the Advertising 101, okay? It’s the eight principles for creating advertisements that work, which is the kind of advertisements you want. So specifically, these eight principles that we’re going to be diving into here, let’s just jump right into them. I’m excited to pick your brain here because you have a vast number of experiences and examples to draw on from a bunch of different companies and advertisements that work and probably ones that didn’t work. Exactly. So I’m excited to jump right in here. Let’s go to principle number one here for making an effective advertisement. It is to target ideal and likely buyers. So how do you attempt to target your advertisements when you’re reaching out to the ideal and likely buyers? Well, I’ll give you one example that sounds maybe like an extreme example, but I think it’s a pretty effective one. Years ago, I had an opportunity to work with a cosmetic surgeon, and his business is focused on, as a general rule, the people who are calling for his services were women between the ages of 30 and 55. It doesn’t mean that women who are 25 weren’t calling and it doesn’t mean that women who are 55 weren’t calling. It doesn’t mean that guys never called. But as a general rule, almost every call came from that niche. And so we looked for magazines that were read by that demographic. We looked for neighborhoods where that demographic lived. We looked for stores that demographic shopped. And we determined that we would be in a local high-end magazine. We would team up with a local luxury car dealership. We would be featured in the local publications that were consumed by that market. And in the organic, the high-end grocery stores, we’d make sure that we were also featured there and some of the local fitness businesses at a higher price point. Personal training, that kind of thing. And we did phenomenally well, spending almost 10 times less money. It was over 10 times less money than they’d spent in previous years. And we were able to do significantly better. So we decreased expenses on advertising by about 10 times. But yet we increased the actual return by about three times. I know a lot of people in that example, they were already spending money on advertising. But some of these viewers, you might have to convince that this is actually worth spending money on. I’ve heard many entrepreneurs say, well, listen, really, my business operates on word of mouth. And honestly, my product sells itself. Well, the one thing you have to look at in business, and can I use this incredible board here? Yeah, please do. OK. Absolutely. And just to show you, when you go out there and you acquire this first customer, the cost to get this customer, it doesn’t matter really what study you’re going to read, but most of them say it costs about five times more money. So five, the number five, so I was going to ask, five times more money to acquire this first customer than it does to get your word of mouth customers. Because if this customer is happy, they’ll tell other customers and these next customers that they bring on, in theory you didn’t have to buy ads for those people. So what you’ll find in business is that it’s always five times more expensive to get that original customer. So for companies that are saying, well, I rely on word of mouth, that’s great, but you have to get your core 1,000 customers, 500 customers, whatever. So if you’re an orthodontist and you’re sitting there with zero customers, you can’t sit there and say, well, I’m waiting on word of mouth. Or if you’re not growing at at least a 20% annual basis, then you need to be advertising. If you’re growing 20% or more every year and you’re not advertising, maybe you can get away without doing it. Sure. But I would say if you’re not growing at least 20% or more, then you really need to be advertising. Because you’ve got to get that core first. You’ve got to get that core. And that will cost money. And it will cost some money. There you go. Now tell me, before we keep going here, what are some examples of your most effective advertising, marketing? Well, quite a few actually. For the cosmetic surgeon, that was a particular ad that I enjoyed because it was really speaking to the women and it had sort of a shocking visual. I did not decide on the actual language, but it had sort of a shock and awe where it was borderline offensive to half the people reading it. But it was so shocking and it asked the question about a woman’s physique, whether they were happy with it, and if they weren’t happy, they can call this number to deal with it, and if not, they can… Anyway, it was very kind of shocking. We also did an event for a client I worked with. We actually gave away a Mercedes to one of the clients who referred the most clients. We did that. We’ve done bridal shows in the years past where we’ve actually sold, I know it’s hard to believe, but almost $100,000 of products and services we’ve sold at a one-day trade show in the wedding industry. That’s like typical weddings are about $600 a ticket, and we sold almost $100,000 at one show. Over the years, we’ve had quite a few effective marketing strategies and moves. My most favorite though is putting all of our DJs, taking their heads and enlarging their heads and putting big heads on small bodies and yellow pages because no one else was doing that. And we just stood out and it was very, very effective. It had a strong call to action and it worked great. I love it. So tell me, if I’m an entrepreneur watching this, what are some action steps here that go with this first principle of finding the ideal and likely buyer? You need to sit down right now and ask yourself five questions. Okay, five questions. One is, who is my customer? Is it man or woman? Like, what sex is it? Sure. Perhaps you have a transgender market, and that’s interesting. But is it man or woman? The second is, what zip code does your customer live in? You’re not laughing on the set. What zip code does your customer live in? Okay. What area? What zip code? Yeah. The third is, specifically, what are the hobbies and interests that your ideal and likely buyers have? Because if they’re interested in golf, then you should probably be marketing on golf courses. The fourth thing is what kind of experiences do they appreciate already? So like if you’re saying, well, I’m going to build a restaurant that caters to serving lunch to middle class machine shop employees, then you’re going to have a different decor probably than if you were going to do a high end steakhouse. So you want to ask yourself, what kind of experience are these people into? And the final thing I think that you really have to look at, because as you’re targeting your demographics, you want to make sure you don’t swing and miss. You need to meet these people. Meet your ideal and likely buyers and ask them what are they looking for. Actually, physically meet them. Talk to them. Because if you meet with even, let’s say, 25 of them, you can really learn a lot. You can quickly put into your business systems that you would not have thought of. Airbnb did that. Airbnb did it. A lot of these top companies. Paul Graham, he’s the guy who started Y Combinator, the incubator system that coached Airbnb. And he says it’s better to have a million people that, or better to have a hundred people that love you than a million people that sort of like you. And the whole idea is if you want to really be known and loved by your core customers, because when you’re marketing to them, they should be like, yes, that is exactly what I’ve been looking for. They shouldn’t be like, what is that? So even the language they use, and you don’t know until you meet these people. So a lot of times I’ve designed ads and I’ll sit down with the ideal and likely buyers and I show it to them and they’re like, what does that even mean? Because if you’re a doctor and you’re used to using a certain term, it doesn’t mean your customers are. Makes sense. So those are your action steps. Sit down ask yourself those five questions. Yeah. Determine what those are before you move forward. I’m gonna grab myself a little bit of this Perrier water. It’s so classy. It’s a Perrier water. It’s captured at the source. Good. Perrier. Perrier. Good. All right well let’s go to principle number two here. Grab the attention of your audience. Grab it. Grab that attention. So walk me through what the concept is, you know, this concept of grabbing the attention of the audience. Okay, the ad that I’m gonna tell you that I wasn’t gonna tell you, but I’m gonna tell you. No, tell me. It was a, it was for a cosmetic surgeon and the ad said, are you tired of that extra badonkadonk? No, that was the word. Yeah, and I did not use that word. That was not a word I came up with. I don’t even know what that word means really until I saw the ad. So you don’t use that word often? No, but the silhouette showed a woman with an enhanced derriere, or a very large, derriere, perriere, it’s all goes together, but very large butt. Wow. And it was posing the question like, is this you? Are you tired of this? You know what I mean? And people called all the time off that ad. Wow. So I mean, that’s just an effective ad. I’m not saying I necessarily chose the language for him. So that’s an example of one. Another one is Dr. Zellner, who’s one of our Thrive mentors. I was hoping you were bringing this up. He did a deal where he did LASIK eye care for $1. Woo! One eye. Is it a billboard? Yeah, it said LASIK eye care, $1 for one eye, or something like that. No, I don’t think you even clarified it. I think you said LASIK eye surgery, $1. LASIK eye surgery, $1. And they’re like, how did you do that? And they call in. He’s like, well, the other eye is much more expensive than the first eye. Yeah. But he got calls. Right. The whole idea is you want to have something strong that’s shocking, that questions what people are used to. It’s a purple cow, something that really stands out, right? Southwest Airlines is great at this. They started to say, well, everybody else charges for bags, so let’s not, but let’s tell everybody about it. So Bags Fly Free was this big promotion they did. Very memorable. The whole idea, or like, Jared, the shocking visuals on Subway of this guy who had lost so much weight, it was shocking. You want something that reaches out and just grabs the attention, like, wow, that before and after picture is crazy. Wow, I can’t believe they wrote that in print. Oh my gosh, that’s, I’ve never seen an airline that has the Bags Fly Free, or you just want to make sure you do things that are going to jump out and grab the attention. If you don’t grab the attention, it’s sort of a waste of time. A lot of people want to be safe, and they don’t. Have you ever been worried about an ad being too strong? No. No. I’m the other way. I don’t really care. I’m all about trying to get paid as much money as possible by offering the most amount of value to ideal and likely buyers. Entrepreneurs as a general rule, the most successful ones, are ones who’ve decided at some point to put fear aside. So I do ads based on my own ethics. If I think that my ads are offensive to my faith or not honest with my faith or my values, then I won’t do them. But I don’t care if someone’s offended. So how do you know if your ad’s strong enough then? How do you know you’ve got an ad that can grab the attention of your likely buyers? Usually if someone in your staff is like, I think Dr. Zellner tells a story which is phenomenal, but he says if someone on your staff isn’t saying, oh no, you can’t do that, then it’s probably not a good ad. It’s not strong enough. Yeah, so you wanna have an ad that’s pretty strong that freaks a few people out. Okay. Something that’s gonna get attention. I mean, something that’s just, it’s gotta grab the attention of the ideal and likely buyers. So tell me then, again, if I’m on the other side of the camera here, what are my action steps to creating this ad that stands out? What I would do is I would go ahead and take an inventory of your competitors’ ads. So go get different magazines they advertise in. Or don’t act like you haven’t spied on your competition, but look at what they’re doing and figure out what is a way that I can totally do something that one-ups them or that wows the customers or something that they wouldn’t do. So that’s the opposite of what they would do. So example, there’s one company in Tulsa, it’s probably all over the country, called Planet Fitness. Yeah. And they advertise the $10 gym. Right. And a lot of these gyms focus on trying to help you get in great shape and they put big beautiful people on billboards. And theirs is more of like it’s a judgment-free zone. It’s only $10. Well, that just like really gets your attention as opposed to the ads that are… Have the perfect people on them. Yeah, and it’s just counterintuitive. They have the real men of genius commercials they used to run forever. Those are funny. The whole idea is you want something that’s funny, that’s memorable, that’s shocking, it’s some sort of emotional, that it just pulls up, it evokes some kind of emotion. Good, that makes sense. Check out the competitors. That’s the action step. Check them out and do something they’re not doing. Check out your competitors, look at what they’re what they’re doing, do something that’s gonna shock. Right. It’s gonna wow. Boom. Principle number three, put your contact information on the advertisement. Seems simple but most people don’t. Did you ever not do this? Most people watching this, if you’re a business owner, you’ve probably run an ad or you almost ran an ad or you know someone who ran an ad that didn’t have your contact information, which is sweet. When you’re like, I just spent $8,000 on something and no one even has a number. That’s not good. Yeah, and that happens a lot. So you need to just make sure, use this as a checklist. Type this in your Thrive Notes right here. Yeah. Pull it up next time you make an ad. Bam. So what do I need to include for the contact information? Before, I know you look kind of parched, would you like a refreshing Sprite beverage? I’ll take this Coke here. Oh, OK. A refreshing Coke, a choice of a new generation. Is that what it is? Or is that Pepsi? Was it classic? You can’t misrepresent our almost sponsors. Yeah, well, almost. They’re not sponsors now, but they could be in the future. Yeah, we’re just showing them what they could have right here. OK, I’m sorry. Can you repeat the question? I’m so enamored by that. We’re talking about contact information. Yeah. OK, so what do I need to include? All my contact information, some of, does it depend on the situation? Put your web address. Put your phone number. I don’t recommend you put your email, because you’re gonna get a lot of people that reach out to you, since the ad’s effective. But I do think your phone number is big, I think your web address is big. I would do it. Okay, but avoid the email, because they’ll just blow that up. I wouldn’t do it. Once your email’s out there, people start spreading it around, and you lose control. So how important has it been for you putting your phone number on ads? What are some good experiences? Well, I just wanna make sure that it’s easy to find. You know, people who are advertising, when you’re advertising, you’re like annoying people. You know, if you’re advertising before a YouTube video, no one wants to watch the ad. No one wants to watch that. We’re like, I’m trying to watch this video of this cat that can juggle. Why am I having to watch this ad? And if you watch the ad, the ad better be good. Or as soon as you can click the skip button, you will. Or as soon as you can skip past it, you will. If you’re reading a magazine, you see an ad, you’re like, oh, get out of here. I’m trying to read this article. Why is there this ad? But if you have an ad that seems like it’s an advertorial, something that people want to read, that adds value, that’s great. But if your number’s not prominent on there, people aren’t going to be curious and go, what is this? They’re not going to get down there and look for the four-point font with your number. So a lot of people try to be very cutesy with their ads. They’re like, well, I put my number really small because my number doesn’t matter. No, put your number where it’s big, people can see it. Make sure people can see those numbers. Do you have a story specifically of something, a deal or something that’s come from you prominently displaying your number somewhere for people to find easily? I have more of a story of how not to prominently display it. I ran ads in a magazine for years. Just, yeah, we’ll do it. Yeah, we’ll do it. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. It’s probably two years in three years in and a bride says Hey, I don’t know if you know, but you don’t have your number website on your ad That’s right spent 20 grand on that Oh You know, and I would get like one or two calls a month from it. I was seeing like this ads terrible You know, well you would I was thinking well, maybe the ad the company’s sold me the ad maybe they would Proof it or check it. Well, if you ever assume that somebody else is looking out for your business other than yourself, it’s not going to, it’s not a good thing. So did anything change when you did put it on there? I put a number in there, the phone rang quite a bit. Same ad, just the phone rang quite a bit. So yeah. This is old action. And with the phone number, if you can have a number that is memorable, that’s great. Good. So if you can have like Dr. Zellner, his office, I believe is something like 918-460-2020. Yeah. Or 461-2020. It’s one of those numbers there. Why is it 2020? It’s because it’s vision, it’s glasses, it’s optometry. And Dr. Zellner is one of our Thrive mentors. An optometrist, he chose 2020. Right. If you get a number that somehow ties into what you do, that’s awesome. That’s like 1-800-got-junk. That’s a number that you can do. Yeah. You know, having a number that’s not memorable is not necessarily, it doesn’t hurt you, but it’s not a benefit. Right. That makes sense. You know, there’s like 1-800-what, ProFlowers.com. A lot of people know that number. A lot of people know 1-800-GotJunk. So you can have value just in that number. That makes sense. Makes sense? Yeah. So action step here, action step for us. Look for a number you can name. Look for a number you can come up with, you can brand. Look for a number that can get attention like 1-800-GotJunk. And then go through all the advertisements and make sure your contact information is on there. Make sure it’s big. Right. You can actually see it. Yep. Principle number four, use some aspirational design and artwork. Yeah. Talk to me about this a little bit. Just because I’m not a beautiful man doesn’t mean the people in my ads don’t need to be beautiful. So I am not a model. I mean, I know it’s hard to believe, and the subscribers are like, how is this guy not a model? I mean, but, you know, I’m not a model. But for the people who are saying to yourself, well, I want to put my brother-in-law on the ad. Well, look at him, and if he’s a beautiful man, put him in there. But if you’re saying, well, he’s just going through a rough patch, and I’m trying to give him some work, don’t do that to yourself. You got to have aspirational people in ads. Think about Nordstrom ads. Think about Lexus ads. Think about ads for any company you can think of. Even McDonald’s. Beer ads. Ads for airports. Ads for airplanes. I mean, any ad. Banking ads. They usually don’t have just bizarre people. But when you get into local communities, they put ads in there of people because they’re like, well, I don’t want to judge anybody. And Greg works in accounting. And Greg’s our guy. So I want Greg in my ad. Why would you do it? Greg that knows he’s not a beautiful man, you know Greg’s not a beautiful man. Just hire a model or an actor or get somebody aspirational. The same is probably true for a design lab. If you’ve got a flyer or something to add on Facebook, not just the people in it, but it’s got to look good, all of it, aesthetically. Everything has to look good. People judge you based on their first impression. You’ve got to get something awesome there. That makes sense. Do you have any examples of times you’ve done this wrong or times you’ve capitalized on this? Well, I can say this. Over the years, as we’ve grown the different businesses, I’ve learned. Some of these things took me a long time to learn. One company in particular I’m working with now, we have a TV personality. They feature on some of their website branding. They get a much higher rate of return and call to action on their website than they did before because they’ve hired a professional. I know with the companies I work with now, I always try to make sure that we have professional actors or people that know what they’re doing that look great on camera representing what we’re doing. Just don’t go with amateur models and amateur because if it’s not aspirational, it’s demotivational. So how do you do that if you’ve got a smaller budget? You can go to, they have local model agencies and you can do some kind of trade out. You can say hey The girls who are in our ads They can be featured in our ads and they will give them I guess say I owned a hair salon I could say all the girls who are in our Commercial can get free hair care Hmm or they can get a discount off our products and services or we’ll do trade out or do something get creative But do whatever you have to do to make sure you don’t have people in your ads that are not aspirational. So action step is just to sit down and evaluate all your ads and see if there’s something that, I don’t know, something to aspire to? Just don’t put gross pictures in your ads. Don’t do clip art. That’s the action step. Don’t do nasty pictures. Yeah, don’t. It’s got to look world class. Right. If it doesn’t world, does not look world class, people are going to say, this looks amateur. Right. Don’t think they won’t. You would. Right. I would. You would. If you’re watching, I mean, you would do the same thing Absolutely, so we’ve got to make sure that people in our ads look first-class good the pictures first-class No, clip art first-class much like these incredible beverages. Yeah. Yeah, well I can tell you what I’m very happy that we have this incredible First-class sprite. I just realized you don’t have a bottle opener so that’s a shame you can use your teeth Okay, maybe next segment all right principle number five make a direct offer, potentially with an expiration date. Talk to me about the direct offer. Why is this so important? And what does it look like? If you have an ad, and it doesn’t tell you what you should specifically do, you’re going to do nothing. Yeah. So whenever I see an ad, that’s just like, America, like, I don’t know what you want me to do. And you see it all the time these these government? Organizations that run ads been like this message provided to you by the good people at blah blah blah like I Don’t remember any of the commercials. Yeah, do you I mean you’re but we know what the feel of them all is We know the music’s kind of like It’s so safe. It’s so and I I what I do is I watch them watching the Super Bowl and all of a sudden it’s like Some generic message, and I’m like whatever you guys have any Cheetos And then I go back and watch I don’t remember what the ad was. I don’t remember anything. But the ads that you remember are the ones that have that direct call to action and some sort of shock to it or some sort of, it pulls on you emotionally. So you really have to have an ad, whenever you do your ad, you want to make sure that it has some sort of direct call to action. So I guess the best example would be like, limited time offer, special runs till Sunday. You know the reason why those companies run ads in the Sunday papers is because it works. So TVs on sale until Sunday at 5 p.m. That’s an ad with a call to action. Come in here, buy this TV by Sunday. So you recommend putting expiration date on some of these ads? I am all about it. Expiration dates, I’m all about putting direct calls to action, where people absolutely know what you want them to do. Call now, all supplies last. Order your free this today. This expires by Tuesday. Call now for your free bonus gift. But I’m totally against just running an ad that just has branding. Right. You know, just here’s our logo, here’s our name one more time. Hopefully it helps you remember us. I just totally am against that. So if I’m an entrepreneur trying to think of a call to action, call to action works for any kind of business? Yeah, throw me out some different kinds of companies and I’ll give you one. Well okay, we’ve got Dr. Zellner’s optometry. Yeah, I would say something like, if I was in his business, I would say come in and buy one pair of frames for 200, get the second pair for half off until Sunday. Hair salon? Hair salon, I’d be like, maybe like first cut, you know, you know, come in like anybody who gets, like whatever my low hours would be, if my low hours were like Monday morning and Tuesday morning, I might say, all Monday and Tuesday haircuts until the end of the month are half off. Pet party business. Pet party business. I just put a going out of business sign right there. Okay, good, excellent. Principle number six here. Okay. List a few, not 40. Why? Why is it important just to list a few? And I think you’re, you were talking about benefits here. Yeah. Why is it important to not overwhelm the viewer with a list of benefits? It’s really important because when you’re looking at an ad, you can only see so much information. You only process so much. So you want to have, what’s your main idea you’re trying to communicate. And then there’s maybe three or maybe three benefits, maybe four, but not like 50 in a whole page of text. I think it’s important in the soft selling in a hard world book by Jerry Voss, he talks about what a benefit is and how it’s not a feature. He says, in any business, the only benefits that sell are power, profit, prestige, and pleasure. So your benefits have to fit in one of those categories. We’re not talking, if you’re selling vacuums, you’re not talking about how fast does, I don’t know, circular, the bristles on the vacuum work, right? That doesn’t mean anything, but the amount of time that this vacuum saves you would be a benefit, correct? Right. I mean, you’re trying to describe benefits to the ideal and likely buyer that resonates with them as being true and something that they want. So you’re trying to help people save time. Like if it’s a consumer, you’re trying to help a consumer try to save time trying to help the consumer save money Trying to help them kind of improve the way they feel about themselves. That’s really kind of your big three It’s save time save money improve the way they feel about things. Oh, you know and then you’ve got sort of like the Ongoing motive that most people have is to avoid pain or to experience gain Yeah, and so you these are what you do so you try to appeal to that so that way is of if you’re writing an ad for college students, you might want to put an ad of like, get your start at yada yada. Or move from, find your ideal job. Finding your ideal job is only one call away. If you’re marketing to college students, because you’re trying to create something that is true to them, that’s your one call to action, that’s your one core benefit you’re trying to describe. And then what you’ll do is underneath that, you get maybe three benefits you can put in there. But you can’t be having like a whole page of 50 promises. Why is it that so many companies focus and use words like professional or trusted? We’re the professional option. We’re trusted. And not focus on the benefits for the actual consumer. Well, the benefits for the consumer involve answering the question, what problem do you solve for the consumer? That is the core reason why you are putting the ad in there. You’re explaining, what is the problem that you have that we can solve? A lot of businesses don’t really know what problem they solve, and so they’re just talking about what they do. I don’t care what you do. I want to know what problem you can solve for me. And so it’s really important that you think in terms of a customer focus, think in terms of what problem can you solve for your ideal and likely buyers. So tell us a story. Let’s do story time with Clay. What’s one of the best benefits you’ve given that you’re most proud of that really attracted consumers? Well, with our DJ business, I think we’ve nailed it. And then with the hair salon, we’ve nailed it pretty well, too. For the men’s grooming lounge, we basically are marketing, we’re constantly sharing the message that it’s an experience for the modern man. Basically, it’s a haircut for the modern man who’s looking for an experience and not just a haircut. I can’t remember the actual wording we have on there, but the idea is that we’re expressing that if you’re looking for experience and not just a haircut, then the elephant in the room is the place for you. And a lot of guys are like, yeah, that’s me. And then they say, well, what is that experience? Paraffin hand treatment, hot towel treatment, straight razor shave, scalp massage, yeah, those are things that like resonate with people. That work has worked very very well. But if we were just to put quality cuts, professional service, integrity people, trusted professionals, that can be like any ad in America. You have to make something a little more than that, a little more attraction than that. Okay, so if I’m an entrepreneur here and I’m really struggling to think of benefits that will bring those customers in, will catch their attention, what are my action steps? Ask yourself what problems can you solve for the customer. What problems can I solve for the customer? Yep, I would ask you to write down, let’s say, a minimum of five. Okay. What are five problems that you can solve for customers? And then figure out which one of those is the most powerful for your customers. Okay. And if you have a hard time figuring that out, I’ve always in my business, I love getting the customers involved. I love talking to former customers and saying, hey, which one of these ads to you is the most appealing? And they’ll help you. Perfect. Yeah. Principle number seven, keep your branding consistent. Yep. Keep your branding consistent. Now, in your mind, why is it so important for advertisers to really keep that brand consistent? Well, there’s, I mean, branding is something that, there’s all sorts of research out there, there’s all sorts of data, but what they’re finding is that people have to see something many times, a lot of people have to see something five or 10 times before they even know what it is. So, like, example, for me, I drive to work every single day, basically the same way, and I have no idea what businesses are on the way to work. And I think I’ve been on the way to work the same way at least 300 times. So I have no idea, but I still have no idea. So if they’re gonna get my attention, they would have to have a billboard that was saying something insane. And it would have to be like, it had to be something pretty crazy. There was a billboard in Las Vegas where a guy actually looked he made it look like there’s a hanging body hanging from the billboard which I don’t recommend you do but he did it and all these cars were like what it was a mannequin but it got their attention yeah well he was able to get national news through that that’s crazy that’s a little crazy yeah but if you had something that could get my attention in a memorable way as I’m driving, you probably have to get my attention five or six, maybe even ten times before I even fully recognize it. So in marketing and branding, you’ve got to keep it consistent. Otherwise people will forget that’s the same company. Do you have any rules of thumb that you live by when it comes to keeping a consistent branding? Yeah, and as I get older I get more fastidious about it, more detailed about it. But you just want to make sure that your logo is the same, the same proportion, the same colors, the same resolution if possible, the same tag lines. You just want to get everything to be as close to the same as possible. So if I’m watching this and I’m motivated now to become Captain Consistency, what action steps do I take right now? If you’re watching this and you want to become Captain Consistency with your branding, it’s super important that you commit to establishing brand standards today. So what is your logo? Which logo will you use all the time? No variation in color because of this handout and this online. Yeah, what logo, what tagline, what are your official colors? You know, there’s color values. So if you’re talking to a printer, they’re gonna ask you, well, what’s your actual color? You’re gonna have to know these things. I would just sit down with a local printer, a graphic designer, or just do a little Google on it. But you want to basically go with brand standards, so every single time you advertise, it’s the same. Same with phone number, I’m guessing. You don’t want to be switching that up or having multiple… Yeah, I’ve done that before. Don’t do that. Do the same number, same website, same brand, same logo. Keep it the same. Boom. Boom. Principle number eight here. This is the last one on this marketing 101 here. And the advertising 101. This one is set aside a consistent percentage of revenue to advertise. So specifically set this aside each month for advertisement. Have you always done this? Yeah. This is something you’ve been good at from the beginning. Yeah, I’ve just, I learned from people that are smart, guys like Dr. Zellner have taught me over the years that you just, you always want to have a set aside of your, a set percentage of your revenue you set aside for advertising. Do you have a number that you always set aside there? Many of the mentors I’ve worked with have set 5%. So 5% of your gross revenue, you set that aside for advertising. Not 1% or 2%, not if you have extra money, not if it’s a good month you advertise, but it’s a consistent belief, a buy-in that advertising and getting in front of ideal and likely buyers in a memorable way is the best way for you to reach the marketplace. So it’s a consistency. You have to just consistently advertise and you want to be able to keep the funds available to do so. So if you bring a dollar in the bank, I recommend you set aside five cents and that goes into an account that you use just for ads. Now, I know that we’ve talked a lot about advertising right now, but again, here at this last principle, can you just explain to us why it is so important to actually put away 5% of what we’re earning for this every month? Why is that so necessary? Well, okay, like example, every time that I make a purchase, I get a cash back bonus. I have a credit card to give me a cash back bonus. Once I accrue a certain number of cash back bonuses, I always take my wife on a trip. Why? Because I set it aside. And so every year it happens. I never don’t do it because I always have money set aside. I always have money set aside because every time I buy something it sets aside cash. If I didn’t set it aside, I might get to a time where I’m like, oh, I don’t have enough money to go on this year’s trip. But it’s like an automatic, systematic way to do it. You want to set money aside because advertising, when the market gets tough, when the market’s hard, when the economy’s in a recession, that’s when you really want to advertise. Ads get cheaper when less people are buying them. And then when the market gets tough and it gets hard because there’s more and more people who are out there competing with each other. So now the market’s hard for a good reason. The market’s either hard because there’s very few customers buying in a recession, in which case ads are cheap, or ads are expensive because everybody’s wanting to advertise and the market’s good, but now it’s so competitive it’s tough to be successful. Either way, you want to set aside a set percentage of your money so you can always win. And the more you grow your company, the more your advertisement budget grows. So set aside at least 5% there each month. That’s your action. Absolutely. So Clay, we’ve talked a lot about this. Do you have any other added additional bits of advice here for this entrepreneur watching? I would just say if you’re watching this right now and you’re an entrepreneur and you don’t have a lot of money, just know that you need to advertise in some way. Advertising can be doing trade-outs with local businesses. And you say, hey, if I’ll refer you, if you refer me, and we’ll swap out services. Advertising could be paying a referral commission to anybody who refers you. Advertising could be anything you spend money on to acquire a new customer. And going back to this diagram, if you wow a customer, they should tell their friends. But advertising is always five times more expensive on the front end to gain one new customer than it is on the back end where word of mouth takes place. So, if you think about it this way, when you move into a new town, anybody, if you’re watching this, if you’ve ever moved to a new town, or maybe you know somebody who’s moved to a new town, you move to a town, gosh, it’s hard to meet some people. Because you don’t know anybody, and you don’t know who to talk to and where to go. But once you meet one person, I mean, it might take you three weeks to meet one person. Some people I know, it takes them a long time to meet one person. But once you meet one person, if you’ve ever gone to a new college, same deal. It’s hard to meet a few friends. But once you meet one, it’s easier to meet quite a few more because they’ll introduce you to other people. So the key is to advertise to your ideal and likely buyers. And one mistake I see a lot of business owners do is they advertise to the wrong demographic. And so this will be the final example I want to give you. One business I worked with years ago, this guy was like, I want to buy TV ads. So he’s putting like $20,000 into TV ads. Well, you put 20 grand into TV ads, who are you reaching? The whole city right you can’t control who’s watching. It’s not like it’s a specific demographic like it’s a specific Show yeah, he just it was like he bought ads on a rotator He didn’t buy him for a specific show you could probably do it He didn’t and so he’s spending $20,000 to market the whole city The only problem is his product is so specifically niched and only a certain percentage You know like 5% of the city would even buy his stuff. And the people who would buy his stuff probably didn’t watch the programs that were on that station. So, one, the people who were calling were not the kind of people he wanted to work with. And two, he didn’t get that many calls because it wasn’t appealing to his ideal and likely buyers. So make sure that you know who your ideal and likely buyers are. And any time an advertisement opportunity comes to your desk, don’t say yes to it unless it allows you to specifically laser target to your ideal and likely buyers. I love it. Thank you, Clay. You are beautiful. Thank you. I would suggest saying yes to Coca-Cola, though, not that this is an advertisement. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion Would you need profits to get your to you to get your goals? Yeah, because if you have a 15 million dollar business, but you have 15 million dollars of expenses. It’s kind of pointless. Holy crap All right so the question I would have here for you if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save three thousand bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees would you do it? Yes absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has a sane mind why would they not go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash card thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10-minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least $3,000 a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. Now, that’s clear. OK, so that can be true. So I would encourage everybody to check out thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they can save three thousand dollars or more on credit card fees maybe they think it is a waste of time and then it won’t it’s not possible there’s somebody out there that’s making more than three thousand dollars every 10 minutes and they’re like nah that’s not worth my time probably some someone out there that would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard because you can compare rates, you can save money, and the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom, and in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. Takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average I Am at a loss and I cannot think of any other shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair Good. Yes. No, it’s better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really fool Read it! Can’t tell you can tell me I’m a doctor. No. I mean, I’m just not sure but can’t you take a guess? well Not for another two hours You can’t take a guess for another two hours and in my case in my in my case my particular case I save over $20,000 a year Wow which is uh, you know like groceries when my wife goes to the organic store. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So, because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question. What’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod. Do we have it? The brand name of the clock. It’s an elegant, from Ridgway. It’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information. A member of our team will call you. They’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you ten minutes or less. And they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than three thousand dollars a year Off of your credit card processing you were hoping what I would know you money No You don’t owe us money because the end of the day at the end of the day The goal of business is to create time freedom and financial freedom in order to do and in order to do that you need to create additional profits 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. We have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. 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. 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 Pest Salon 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, 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, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success 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 been a big blessing in our lives and also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business and 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. You know, they implemented those systems, that 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 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 turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks he’s doing reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start ups go from start up to being multi millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay 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 of you and 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 any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. months, he helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. 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 van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. 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 escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And 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 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. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their call. Okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients. I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year. I’ve worked with, now so, so I’m looking, we’ve been good friends seven, eight years and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean, the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double, we’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take, no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well, I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. The best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day. Somebody out there is having a hard time. Call them in script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do, if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, and or let’s say you buy a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe even further down the road. Maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012. And at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met… How did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected yeah, well we had that speaking thing that oh there was So it’s victory Christian Center. I was speaking there My name is Robert Redmond. I Actually first met clay almost three years ago to the day I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help you know direct my life to get some mentorship But I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life-changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn. I have learned a lot in those different categories and then Again, the the mindset that I’ve gained here Has been huge, you know working here You can’t you can’t be a mediocre person You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall, in the group interview, talks about how, you know, the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship, that as we pursue our goals, and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that I don’t know if there’s anyone else’s that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s, again, unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people, and in short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay, I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around, and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months, just from being around Clay, following him, and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.