Entrepreneur | Flaw Finding System Enhancement + Profitably: Nail It All Then Scale It All

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. 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 three, two, one, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re in the top. All right, we are coming back with Business Startup 101 Phase 7, Flaw-Finding System Enhancement. We’re going to start it off with a notable quotable. The entrepreneur is not really interested in doing the work. He is interested in creating the way the company operates. In that regard, the entrepreneur is an inventor. He or she loves to invent, but does not love to manufacture or sell or distribute what he or she invents.” Michael Gerber. Michael Gerber is the guy who wrote the book, E-Myth. He has a phenomenal book series called the E-Myth Revisited. The E-Myth, this is an awesome author. You really need to own that book or at least have a really deep understanding of his writing. What he’s talking about is a business is just a vehicle to help you get to where you want to go. It is not the destination. We talk about that a lot here at Thrive15, but a lot of business owners, they build a business that’s a vehicle that they kind of like view that the business is the destination itself. But the truly successful entrepreneurs build a system that can operate without them. And that’s what we’re talking about today is how to do that. Alright, we’re going to go through steps one through six of how to do that. Starting with step one, create a linear and physical product, service, delivery map, or workflow. Unpack that a little bit for us, Clay. A workflow, it’s like a linear, it’s a step-by-step, how do you get from point A to point B. So an example would be like if I wanted to make this cup, okay? That’s my company, we make cups. Step one is homeboy needs to take the clay, let’s say, and actually shape it into the shape of this cup. So we have one guy, all he does all day is he shapes it. And we would have a checklist of how much clay is used, how much water is used, what materials are used, very, very specific checklist. Step two, they pass it down the row and now it’s to my desk. And now my job or my job, my station, my job is to put it in the kiln. Okay. Now you put it in the kiln, which means put it into the, it’s like the fire, you know, where you heat it up. But this guy over here, he has a very detailed checklist about how to, you know, make the actual cup and form it. But mine just says, put it in the kiln. The problem is I don’t know what temperature to set the kiln at, so I put the cup in, the cup explodes. So we need to go, okay, we need to probably write down the temperature that we need to keep it at. So then he does his thing, the specifications, he passes it to me, I put it in there at the right temperature, and that’s a line, it’s a linear path from here to here. So step one, you need to draw it out. I mean, it’s a physical drawing. And Thrivers, we have, I want you to make sure you put this on the notes, we have a workflow document for you. Well, I’m knocking over my cup. We have a workflow document here for you that will actually show you a specific step-by-step how to do it. But step one is you want to talk about what materials are needed to make the actual cup, how to mold it. Step two, what temperature to heat it at. Step three, it comes out of the kiln, then my job is to cool it, right, to cool it and to paint it. So what are the specifications? What colors do I use? And you say, um, paint it with like a red and a blue. Well, I paint it, but I don’t paint the same blue that you wanted. So now we have to figure out what actual color of blue that we want, right? Specifics. Very specific. Now, step four is I have to put it in a box. What size box? Where do I buy that box from? So really, step four is to put it in the box, right? But it’s not to buy the box. Step to buy the box is actually before you even make it. So now you have to check and change your timeline, your workflow. Now over here to have step one of where do you buy the box, right? So you over here, where do I buy the box from? How much does it cost? What paper weight? Then what materials and supplies do I need to make the cup? Then what are my steps to actually produce, mold and shape the cup, then what temperature to do the kiln, then what color to paint it, then we have to sell it. So now the next step is what websites do I put it on specifically? When do I put them on the websites? And then the next step is when do I put it on social media? The next step is, and it’s all these steps, and you have to make a linear workflow. It’s a specific line item, step-by-step process designed to create predictable and repeatable results. That is the goal. Nobody does this. You need to do this. Almost no one does this because they’re like, well, I’m so busy. I watch it on Facebook. I mean, very few people are going to spend the, I would estimate probably 45 to 50 hours needed to make this system. Step two, break every aspect of your product and service delivery into a very detailed linear and physical product slash service delivery map or workflow. And what we’re talking about, we hear the word workflow a lot of times we go, workflow is just, it’s something very doable. But a workflow, we’ll put the definition up on the screen here, but a workflow is simply describing the flow of the work. It flows from here to here. You have to do it. The workflows that I have for like Elephant in the Room, for our photography business are so detailed. It allows me to go back to them time and time again. That’s how you do it. All right. So you’re saying that you need to be detailed. You have to be because if you don’t, first off, if you don’t have it written down, how are you going to change it? Because remember the guy over here is trying to paint this cup. He paints the cup wrong, the wrong color. And most small businesses and most businesses for that matter, they just say, well, Gary, you painted the cup the wrong color. Sharon, you painted the wrong color. It’s obvious, common sense. Common sense. That’s stupid. Maybe Gary’s colorblind. Maybe Sharon’s colorblind. Maybe they thought it was a different color. I mean, just stop doing casualness. Casualness causes casualties. Oh, pay attention here, folks. So I’m just making sure we’re getting this. Casualness causes casualties. Boom. Big one. Big one. Okay, moving on. Step three, add your wow and the raving fan creating steps to your workflow. Create systematic wowing. So what happens is in the workflow, you’ve procured the box, you’ve procured the materials needed to make the cup, you’ve made the cup, now you’ve figured out what temperature to heat the cup at, now you’ve gone to the system where you put the cup in the box, you’ve figured out you sell the box, you put it on this website, this social media, but now you’re just selling it You’re selling a product right in exchange for the monetary compensation you seek You’re selling the services and products in exchange for the monetary compensation you seek. The problem is what’s wrong with this fill me in Everyone says who has a successful company. Oh Most of our business comes from word-of-mouth How do you generate word-of-mouth if everyone doesn’t have the same wow standards that you have. So I want to make sure you put this on the notes here. There’s a thing called the net promoter score. The net promoter score is a score that Harvard has developed that allows you as an owner to predict how likely your business is to receive ongoing word of mouth. So the companies with the highest net promoter scores in the world, you want to speculate on some of the highest ones? Apple. Apple, keep going. Let’s think. We’ve got Apple, maybe Southwest Airlines. Yes, and Trader Joe’s. Trader Joe’s. And Starbucks. These are companies that wow people every time. So in my office, you’ve seen this, we have a new client, right? We have a swag box we give them with a copy of my book. Sometimes we’ll get like an ice sculpture or we’ll have, you’ve probably seen a lot of things, we’ll maybe theme the music to match them, we’ll change the flat screen, there’s moves we can do to wow them. When they come in, there’s like a flat screen image that wows them. They’re like, oh my gosh, you put my face on the screen, or there’s something. Up lights that match their colors. Up lights that match their colors, yeah. It’s a wow. So with the DJ company that I grew back in the day, with the haircut business I grew, you need to have a predictable wow. You need to have something where every single time somebody comes in, they’re getting something they didn’t expect, which makes them wowed. So one of the examples that I, I just, it’s amazing to me, I think it’s a very exciting, is if you go into, there’s a fresh market down there in Dallas, and every time you walk in, you’re just inundated with samples, tons of samples, I mean, generous samples, a lot of samples, smoothies, beverages, and then whenever you walk back to the area where they have the fish, the guys always go, fresh fish, and they throw the fish and they ring the bell, and so you walk in, you walk in and they say, would you like a sample? And you’re like, well, yeah, sure, but it’s like unbelievable generous, unbelievably generous samples, right? Then you walk around the corner, there’s samples of like wine, there’s samples of candy, there’s samples of meat, there’s samples of, and then you walk into the section the guy goes fresh fish you go over to the chip section They’ve got samples of chips you go to the meat. They got samples of meat They have a guy putting on a cooking show in the store. I mean a cooking show It’s like really cool. You see him with the pan seared stuff flames going everywhere It’s a Wow and when you’re a loud, what do you do? Bye. Well, and you return and you Tell your friend your friends you promote Chris for psychological reasons when you’re loud You want to refer now remember when you are when you’re loud you want to refer now. So a lot of businesses we don’t have, we’re not putting in a wow into our workflow. We have to put it into our… And what’s a workflow? It’s a line, it’s a linear path, it’s a step-by-step, it’s a physical document. If you go into the workflow, if you go into some of the bigger companies in America, I’ve had a chance to consult with some of them. I’ve literally gone into some of the businesses, they have a wall as big as the wall behind me. me and on it, it shows you a service map of their entire process. And it’s like 15 feet long. Step one, step two, step three. That is how you build a scalable success system. You don’t do it by being general because you can’t go back and fix something. You can’t edit it and make it slightly better if you don’t remember what it was. And the complexity of our world has become too much for the average human’s mind. And so we’re gonna put the quote on the screen here from Atul Gawande, okay? He wrote a book called The Checklist Manifesto, which is actually on your desk. And he is a guy who used to work with the World Health Organization. He’s a famous surgeon. And he talks about the complexity of just the life right now, for the world, it’s too much. You have to build a linear workflow or it won’t get done. All right, that is good stuff. On to step four. Every time you have a problem or an issue during the week with the execution of your product or service, write it down on the Lidia Workflow Map. It must be visual. You have to go back to when there’s a problem, you stop and say, what part of our system is the problem? You ask yourself, you don’t pick on the person. This is where small business owners are getting it wrong. Probably not you, probably just other people. But they’re running around saying, hey, you know, I need to try harder you need to be more motivated you need to be more accurate stop having that conversation make a checklist and make sure people follow the specific steps in the checklist that’s how you have success that’s how you achieve a status I want you to write it down and this is how you achieve a thing called lean six Sigma or six Sigma will put the definition on the screen but six Sigma screen. But Six Sigma is basically where you have so few errors per million. I mean, think about this. If you’re doing the same process a million times, your error rate’s down to like less than a percent. That’s what Six Sigma is. When you only make one error, like less than one error per million, it’s like almost no errors at all. That’s pretty awesome. That’s the kind of quality standards you need to have if you’re going to build the next Intel, the next Google, the next Microsoft, you have to that level of detail. So basically you don’t want to settle for anything less than perfection. And you need to, yes, exactly, you need to document it in a very specific line item way. So if you have an issue, what do you do? You immediately write it down, then you go back to your master workflow and you fix it. Alright. Okay, moving on to step six, or step five, excuse me. Refine your system to make it easier and easier to repeat for new, honest, and diligent team members. So what’s that mean? After you get the system very detailed, you then want to go through it, and you want to ask yourself, is there a way to eliminate a step? So this week, I was working with a small business owner. It’s a fitness company. And if you go online and you request a two-week free trial, the current system was this. See if this makes sense to you. I’m going to cue this up real quick. So this is the current system. Customer fills out, they search online to find the company. They find the company online, they fill out the form. The form, they fill out a form for a two week free trial. That email gets kicked out to person A. Person A has to call person B, who works at the company, to make sure that they know they’ve received the lead. Person B has to call person C to make sure that they are in fact wanting to schedule an appointment. So person A gets the lead, sends it to person B, and then person B has to call person C to make sure that they can actually do a fitness consultation with the person. Person A receives the lead. Person B calls person C to make sure person C can in fact do the appointment. emails said customer D to see if they want to come to the meeting. If the customer does want to come to the meeting, person C notifies person B and A to send the person an email verifying they can come. Seems a bit convoluted. Yes, and that is how many systems are done and they’re just done because of redundancies. And what happened is, person A, who really should be the person just calling the customer, doesn’t want to work the hours needed to answer the inquiries. So the entire system was made because person A doesn’t have the freedom in their schedule to call people during the day and person B is trying to help out and so they’re the one who has the phone during the day. And person C is the one who’s actually at the fitness place available to meet with people. And these are the systems that you shouldn’t have. So I created a system this week. I sat down, we made a workflow, and I said, here’s the new move. The lead comes in, it comes into person C. For accountability, everyone is blind copied on the email. Everyone gets the email, but the emails come directly into person C. A and B can get the email if they want just to verify, but person C schedules a person with a customer, done. Email comes in, but that’s how it needs to work. It needs to be very simple. So, once you build the system, start looking to the levels of complexity and figure out how can you make it more and more simple. And it’s usually because you have too many different people who aren’t cross-trained, they don’t know all the different skills. And so you have one person who knows this skill. This happened in our office the other day. We were trying to choose a video clip for our website, and one guy says, you know, I don’t know, I’ve got to wait for the video guys to choose a clip. Why the freak does we have to wait on a guy to choose a video clip? Well, we do because we’ve always done it. Yeah. So we have to make it less and less complex. Okay. Complexity does not scale. All right. Okay, on to step six. Never stop. These processes are what gives the business its value. You want to define, act, measure, and refine. Four-step process, you never stop. You define what your goal is. You want to wow, in this case, the fitness. Let’s go back to the example of the cup. Your goal is to sell a bunch of cups, a copious amount of cups to make a copious amount of cash by wowing customers. Love it. That’s your goal. Yep. So you have to define, okay, this is the kind of cup I think people want. Then you have to measure it. How many people are buying cup A? How many people are buying cup B? How many people are buying cup C? Oh my gosh, everyone’s buying the cup A. Wow. So you measure it. Then you refine. After you define it, you actually, you define, right? Then you act, you do it, then you measure and you go, wow, everybody is loving cup A. No one is ever buying cup B and C. So you scrap cup B and C and replace cup B and C with a new cup, D and E. Pretty soon you discover you define, you act, you measure. Man, everyone loves cup D. People hate cup E. So you get rid of cup E and you keep doing this until you end up having three cups everyone loves. That’s how you do it. You never stop until you achieve perfection. And you know when you achieve perfection? Never. So the thing is, you have to have that sort of mindset that you’re trying to make an unbelievable system on behalf of your customer. Because you know what? The more that you wow, the most selfish thing you could do, the most selfish thing that you can do is to wow a customer. Because when you wow a customer, they’re going to tell their friends. So the more you wow, the more they refer now. So the most selfish thing you can do for your wallet is to wow customers. You can never be content. Ever. Never. I hope everybody is listening to that. So important. So important. Bang. All right. Thank you. Hey, are we done on this incredible training? Are we done? We are. That is phase seven with a big boom. You’re going to let me go out like that? Big boom. Okay. Fine. I’m going to dedicate point number seven to Kevin Mitchell, a former San Francisco Giants left fielder who is famous for catching a baseball with his bare hand and for banging out 47 home runs one year. Oh, that is. Kevin Mitchell, this goes out to you. Way to go, Kevin. Okay, and now we’re on to phase eight. Profitably nail it all, then scale it all. So we’ll start off with a notable quotable. Don’t become your company, invent a company that can effectively scale and grow. What do you think about that Clay? Well the thing is, the thing is, I want to make sure we get this, is that you want to create a company that can scale without you doing everything. So as an example, we’re going back to our cup analogy. If I’m really good at making cups and I’m like, I can order cups like a boss. I can order the chemicals needed, the compounds needed, the materials needed. I can order the clay and the compounds. I can, I mean I can order that glaze like a boss. And when I get that, I can make these cups. You should see me. When you watch me make cups, it’s like watching the movie Ghost. Remember the movie Ghost? It’s like me. I’m just making it. It’s beautiful. It’s the day where you’re going, this guy, it’s like an art, the way he builds these cups. And then I also am the one who paints the cups. I’m up at night going, I’m just going to paint over here. I get my little music cued up. There’s a certain music you have to have to be a good cup painter let me get it you know and I say let me get my here we go there it is I get that going there nice get that and people say hey do you think maybe you should hire some people nope I’ll just put this now in my box I’ll put it on my website one sold one sold ladies One sold. One sold, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. Another order comes in. Take it, make it, paint it, box it. Another order comes in. Another order comes in. Another order comes in. Another order comes in. I’m leaving you. Because I spent all my time painting cups. That’s what happens to a lot of small business owners. They get so excited because they’re going, everybody’s paying me to watch me paint cups, ladies and gentlemen. I’m on fire and orders are coming in and I’m just sitting there getting orders all day. But eventually, your wife says, I’m leaving you. So you have to focus on faith, family, finance, fitness, friendships, that’s life. The five F’s. F5, baby. Have a tornado of awesome. F5. Awesome. Faith, family, finance, fitness, friendships. So you have to find a way to build a system that allows you to make the money you need to be able to achieve your life goals. Your life goal, hopefully, is not painting cups. But the main thing is, and if you’re a cup painter, no disrespect. I have a lot of respect for the profession. As a former cup painter myself, I really… You got your start in cup painting yeah but that’s the idea well we’ve got four steps we can go through to help the big quadro they can scale their businesses so we’re gonna start off with step one be fruitful before you multiply yeah so you want to be fruitful then multiply we want to do is you want make sure you’re making a profit per cup as example if you sit down with one business owner about eight years ago she had a business that she was selling a ton of stuff but she wasn’t making any money. So I sat down and I’m like, and she wasn’t selling cups, but let’s pretend she was. And I said, you sell the cups for $3. How much money do you make per cup? She says, Oh, I’m making, I mean, I bring in like 900,000 a year. I said, of profit? Well, do you mean gross profit? Or do you mean after taxes? No, no, no. How much money do you have left at the end of the month? What do you mean? I mean, I’ve, have you looked? Well, no, we look, I’m not exaggerating. She’s making less than 10 cents per product that she was selling for about $3 a piece. Not good. And after taxes and her paying people, she wasn’t making any money at all. So the idea that she wanted to do more of that was insane, but that’s what she called me to do was to help her grow her business, market more. So she was trying to scale the fail. That’s right. But I went in with her business and I said, we’re going to raise the product price about a dollar per product. It’s straight profit. Now we’re going to scale it. So you know what we did? People said, I don’t know if I, why don’t people want to raise their prices? Why are people right now who are watching right now not wanting to raise their price? And you’re my, why would someone not want to raise their price? Fear. Fear, which is false evidence appearing real usually. False evidence appearing real. It’s usually somebody saying, I don’t want to raise my price because I don’t lose my customers. So this particular person that said, I don’t want to lose my customers because if I raise the price I might lose them all. Well let’s say you kept them all. That’s a pretty bad case scenario. If you keep all your customers and you don’t make any money, then you’re just busy. The difference between busyness and business is what? A why. Let it sink in. Business spelled B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S, business. There’s no Y there. All right? Okay. But if you don’t know your Y, so you’ve got that big old Y in that word, busyness, if you’ve got that Y, the Y’s screwed up, what will happen is you’re just busy. You’re not making any money. Business is about making money in exchange for offering quality products, goods, and services. So I sit down, I said, listen, if you stay down this path and you do not raise your prices, you will always be busy and you will never have a profitable business. So if we’re going to make some business, we’re going to make some profit, we need to be done with these ridiculously non-profitable exercises. We’re done. And as her coach, she empowered me to do that. She allowed me to do that. And I can tell you, she, I’m not exaggerating, she’s literally taken her income up for what is it like, probably about $15,000 a year? And she’s now making a little over $65,000 a year just by raising the prices and making sure she was fruitful before she multiplied back to you beautiful Okay, that’s step one step to Document the profit profitability of each transaction after factoring in all expenses So we’re gonna do is we’re gonna make a list of fixed one puts on the screen you want to make a list of fixed costs Fixed are the costs that happen every month like your lease your insurance your utilities Those are fixed costs costs that do not go up and down every month. They’re fixed. Somebody says, well, when it’s hotter outside, my utilities do go up fine. Some people have flat rate. On their utilities. But the point is the fixed costs are the costs you pay every month, whether you sell anything or not. Now your variable costs, okay. Your variable costs. Those are the costs that are involved with each transaction. So going back to the cup example, that would be the cost of the paint to paint the cup. That’d be the cost of the materials for the cup, the cost of the glaze, the cost of the materials you needed to heat, the kiln, the cost of the box, the cost of the website, the cost of shipping, all the costs related to each product production. So we sold these cups for $3.50 a piece, and all the costs that went into it were $2.00. How much profit is left? So it’s $3.50, and $2.00 of costs go into making every one of them. It would be $1.50. Yes. However, what are your overhead costs? What are your fixed costs? Well, if our fixed costs are $10,000 a month, we have to now sell 10,000 cups just to break even. You need to know these things. Drivers, we can help you. We have awesome workshops. You can come out here to Tulsa. Unbelievable workshops. We’ll walk you through this. There’s no upsell. Life-changing for people. Many people changing their lives with this. We will walk you through this, but you must know these things. Yes, that’s good. And those workshops are included in your cost you already pay. They absolutely are included. Now, the only thing is, if you want to take you to Los Cabos for you and your wife, I understand you do have a significant upcharge. Is that true? I mean, you basically just… Yeah. He’s like, well, it’s like five grand, basically. It’ll be good. Five grand directly to me, I’ll take you out to lunch. Okay, moving on. Next one. Okay, step three. Push for higher profitability. You can all expect what you accept. Okay, so you can only expect what you accept. Read it again one more time. Alright, push for higher profitability. So stop right there. Push for higher profitability. Once you know your profit per item, see what the market will bear. See what the market will pay. Remember, when pricing, what you want to do, and we’ll put up the Paul Graham quote on this. Paul Graham’s the guy who started Y Combinator. But you want to see how much people are willing to pay. You want to charge enough where it’s like it is still a very fair value and the customer feels good about it, but you need to figure out what is the peak amount that you can charge after you’ve established market share, after you have a lot of customers. You want to figure out what is the price they’re willing to pay. Okay. All right, and we’ll move on to step four. Focus on scaling it only after you have profitably got it right. Okay, so you don’t want to focus on like, let’s open up another location. I see so many entrepreneurs who are like, I want to open up a second location, I want to have a second store, I want to, I have a big vision to franchise. By the way, if you want to know how to franchise, we have some very specific training on that. We’ll teach you how to do that too. But I’ve worked with companies that have franchised. I’ve helped a company, I’ve helped a company that’s started off with an idea and now they have hundreds of franchises and I’ve done that. Elephant in the Room, we’re in the process of doing that. It’s a system, but you don’t want to scale it out and open up another location and open up multiple stores until you’ve made profit on the first one. Super important and we all understand this. If you don’t get it right at first, get it right and get it tight. Nail it before you scale it. Check it out, if you don’t nail it before you scale it, you’re going to fail it. You’ve got to nail it before you scale it, otherwise you’re going to fail it. And when you do fail it, you’re going to end up hearing this sound. And it’s not going to feel very good. You’re just going to go, Why didn’t I listen to that guy? So it’s very, very, very important that you nail it before you go out and scale it. And those are the four steps to do that. Absolutely. And I will tell you, folks, if you’re needing some more air horn in your life, you now have it. Uh oh. Uh oh. Uh oh. 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. Whoa. And would, you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your mind, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a 15 million dollar business But you have 15 million dollars of expenses. It’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. 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 3,000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees. Would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Oh Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has the same mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10-minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least 3,000 bucks a year? Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. Now that’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I 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 ten minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. If there’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes, and they’re like, nah, that’s not worth my time. Hello. We getting there, everybody. We getting there, everybody. There’s probably someone out there. OK. They would think that. Well, I’ll just tell you, folks, if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes, I would highly recommend that you go to throttletimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard. Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and you know 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 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. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really, fool, really. Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. Stop looking at me, swan. Well, let me tell you a good story here real quick here. I actually, years ago, compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure. Why 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 particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh God. Everything okay, ma’am? Oh, 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, alright? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, alright. 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. 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 10 minutes or less. And they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, 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 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 dollar companies. They both have two to three thousand 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, you know, asking our customers for reviews and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn Company in the Tulsa area and that’s really helped with our conversion rate and the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411 percent. Okay, so 411 percent 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 percent, and that’s largely due to, first of all, our Google reviews that we’ve gotten, people really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process, and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those and that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no 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. 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 gonna take in order to really succeed. So, we just wanna give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40% to 42% 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 the use of services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with 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, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like 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. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal. And they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right and anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live years ago. This is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman, so we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system 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 gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s gonna be the best business workshop ever, and we’re gonna 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. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000. down roller coaster and so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of a hundred clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from five clients to twenty clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. 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 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, 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. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management He said the most effective executives make one decision a year What you do is you make a decision? What is your system and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system? And so that that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here I you know, I 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 hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. On that 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 we do If someone were to buy an Apple computer today Yeah, and or let’s say about a personal computer 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 make I basically make the systems and You’re like the computer not like the software skyline describe a relationship to him i want to ask you this when i reconnected uh… and i think it was in the year two thousand and uh… was maybe two thousand and ten the right to have an eleven maybe or maybe even for another of a dozen thirteen two thousand twelve okay so doesn’t twelve and at that time i had was five years removed from the deep 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 you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing. Oh there was, so it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help 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 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 be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence. And then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life. That standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall, in the group interview, talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory, and the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I 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. You know, 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 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. In short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay. I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around, and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months, just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say, come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself, be open to learning and adjusting Be open to challenging yourself, be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.