Ryan Wimpey | Ryan Wimpey Success Story + Outwitting the Devil Co-Author Sharon Lechter shares about Outwitting the Devil + “We’ve been working w/ Clay for the past 5 months, 2 of which have been our biggest months ever!!!” – Ryan Wimpey

Audio Transcription

Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. 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 two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? Nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 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. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. Two men, 13 multimillion dollar businesses, eight kids, one business coach radio show. It’s the Thrivetime Business Coach Radio Show. Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show. Alright Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio and podcast download. And Chubb, if I can, I’d like to leave, I’d like to start off today’s show by sharing with the listeners or leaving the listeners with a notable quotable that’s not positive. Chip, I want to start off today’s show on sort of a downer. Take it down and then Sharon can bring us back up. We’ll work right back up here. Yeah, absolutely. Because on today’s show, we have the best-selling author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad on today’s show, the best-selling author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad book series on the show. And she worked with the Napoleon Hill Foundation to write a book about this topic I’m going to bring up right now. And if you are somebody who’s a Judeo-Christian, then you’re probably aware of or you’ve heard the verse Matthew 15, 19, where it reads, for out of the heart comes evil thoughts, Fornications, wow this is pretty light. Theft, false witness, slanders. And what I have found over the years, having coached a lot of clients, is I’ve found that the vast majority of America is struggling with some vice and or issues. And so, Chep, I’d like for you to copy some of the show notes from our Sex and Drugs podcast, because there are so many examples that have blown my mind over the years of people that are behaving badly and their business is struggling as a result of it. So I’ll just give you a few examples. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and CBS News, 75% of employees steal. Well, you might say, okay, that’s employees. I’m an entrepreneur. But what’s crazy is I found that the same number is true when it comes to entrepreneurs. I’ve seen entrepreneurs that quote a client a price and then they keep raising the price just to see how high they can raise it. They’re just gouging customers. I’ve seen entrepreneurs not paying taxes. I’ve seen entrepreneurs stealing in multiple ways. You talk about here, Matthew 15, 19, you talk about adultery. Gosh, I have seen some serious, first-hand, up-close, in-person adultery. I’ve seen a lot of business owners who’ve had a very successful company and they lost it all because of making poor decisions after work or before work. According to psychologytoday.com, past statistics have shown that in the US 50% of first marriages, 67% of second marriages and 73% of third marriages end in divorce. We’ll put the show notes here for you. Here’s another one from the Washington Post. 78% of the men interviewed had cheated on their current partner. Five minutes. Yes. What percentage? 78. that there is a full 22% of American men don’t cheat on their spouse. Hey! Yes! One out of five. Give us another terrible statistic, Chup. No, let’s see. 17% of couples are content in their partner. But it’s only 70% of people even like their partner. Chup, we’ve got a lot of Americans struggling with gambling addictions. Right. A lot of Americans are struggling with alcoholism. There’s so many vices and problems. And so 4 to 6 million people, according to Livestrong.com, would be considered problem gamblers. People whose gambling affects their everyday lives. So what happens is, what happens is, is that a lot of times people know what to do, they just don’t do it. And if people did know what to do, then teen pregnancy would be a thing of the past. Chuck, do you remember how hilarious it was in high school when the guidance counselor would come in and give a group of high school seniors and juniors a safe sex talk? Do you want to know what’s really crazy? What’s that? We didn’t even have any type of education in high school. They did it one year in sixth grade. Did you not just giggle the whole time? No, it was so silly. Yeah, it was just like… This is how I recall it happening. I remember we had a guy in my seventh grade class, sixth grade class, who gets up there and he says, alright everybody, I want to talk to you about, let’s be serious today, let’s be mature. He’s got an auditorium of like, probably 150 boys, middle school boys. So there’s a couple things. Babies are created as a result of the penis and the vagina engaging in activity. Now the vagina will… And I’m like, oh, vagina? He said vagina? Oh, dude. And then we get together and we’re like, we go, don’t laugh, don’t laugh. And then it would be like, now, men around the age of yada yada, their pituitary gland begins to develop, and the female pituitary gland begins to develop, which causes enlarged mammary glands. What? What? And he said, Clay, do you have something you want to say? Uh, no. Boobs. And that was like, that was what happened, you know? Yes. But we already knew all these things. You learned about that on the bus four years before that. Right. Right. And so like in eighth grade, seventh grade, I remember eighth grade, the first girl that I’d heard of who got pregnant. I remember ninth grade hearing of a girl that got pregnant. I remember my tenth grade year in high school, there was dozens of girls that got pregnant. And every time they got pregnant, they wouldn’t make a special announcement, but you all knew what happened. And then they would have another class, and the school board would get together, and concerned parents would get together, and they would just get together and make these new classes and curriculums. You say new classes and curriculums? No, but new classes and curriculums. Freudian slip there, Chip. But what happens is they would make these new classes and curriculums designed to help us learn how to be more effective. And so I remember they had one class that went as far as to teach how to put a condom on a banana. And that was actually taught, how to put a condom on a banana. And I remember I got invited to a party, and I won’t mention the person’s first names, I’m sure she’s changed since that time. But it was a birthday party at her house. And I’m like 16 or 17, I really didn’t go to a lot of parties at all my junior and senior year, I just totally chose to kind of opt out. But I went to one of the parties, and so I’m knocking on the door, and it’s like a, and the parent is there, and the parent is obviously intoxicated. And they said, hey, Clay, here’s the deal, man. Come on in, man. Come on in. I said, great. I said, hey, I’m just looking all befuddled. He goes, here’s the deal, man. I’d rather be the parent that has everybody drink here than the parent who allows you guys to go out and drink when I don’t know what’s going on. Have you ever had that? Have you ever ran into that kind of parent? Yeah. Right. So I run into that kind of parent. So I go downstairs and there’s a girl from my high school who’s totally naked. Oh, wow. Yeah. And all of the guys are like getting it on with her. Like multiple dudes getting it on with the same girl. And I’m thinking to myself, I’m not kidding, there’s like three guys and I’m going, ah, on a ping-pong table. I remember going, ah. So I go upstairs, like I’m at this party. Right. And so I’m like, okay, hey, you’re going upstairs, you know, looking for some food to eat or some everyone’s got beers except for me so I’m like okay I’m gonna go outside go outside there’s somebody getting it on everyone’s getting it on. Freak fest. Right so anyway this is good stuff happens everyone’s intoxicated it’s crazy so I remember talking to one of my buddies and I’m like dude what was that all about I thought you were dating this person and you he’s like oh dude I uh I you know it doesn’t matter man we’re just hooking up. Yeah, you know. And so I said, well, we just had this guy come into our class and talk about the, the one of the teachers talk about safe sex and how X percentage of high school students were getting pregnant and how if you did get pregnant, your chances of success are going to decrease dramatically. Dramatically. And so we just had the talk and I said, I kind of looked at him. I’m like, dude, at least did you, did you at least do the whole safe sex move deal? And he’s like, no, it feels better when you don’t wear a Jimmy hat. That was his actual quote. It feels better when you don’t wear a Jimmy hat. Now, I’d never heard that phrase used before, but I thought, that’s kind of clever, but yet that’s not smart. And so long story short, these people had a baby. Yeah, and this just kept happening throughout high school. I remember a junior year finding out how many of my friends had STDs and had babies. And it’s not about education. It’s about implementation. And so Sharon Lecter is a financial educator. She exposes you to the knowledge, but she also encourages you to implement. And what Napoleon Hill discovered and what he wrote about in the early 1930s was it actually caused him to get to have actually caused him to become depressed is that a lot of people know what to do now. Most people have read the book and they still don’t do it. And so he discovered like, gosh, man, I think that why people don’t do I think why a lot of people don’t have success is because of their own vices. They’re caving into their own worst, inner, most carnal, primal desires. And so he wrote this book called Outwitting the Devil. And when he finished the book, his publisher, his wife, everyone thought the book was too crazy because it was talking about how to have conversations with yourself or the devil and say I’m not going to do that. No, I’m not going to do it. It’s about willpower. It’s about self-discipline. I really feel like this book Outwitting the Devil can change the life of somebody’s life. I’ve given that book to dozens of people and I own a copy of it that’s in the man cave at all times. So Thrive Nature without any further ado, back to our exclusive interview with Sharon Lecter as she breaks down her book that she worked with the Napoleon Hill Foundation to create, Outwitting the Devil. Sharon, my son was born blind in 2007, and his name is Aubrey Napoleon Hill Clark after the late great success author Napoleon Hill. And I was so excited when I saw that you were digging up the old manuscript that Napoleon Hill wrote in the 1930s and I believe it was his wife who banned him or encouraged him not to release the book at the time. Could you share why the book, Outwitting the Devil, wasn’t released? You know, why it was held kind of a secret since the 1930s and how you got involved with the publication and the freshing up of that manuscript? Well, certainly. Let me give you a little bit of background first. In 1908, Napoleon Hill was Andrew Carnegie to go out and study the thesis of success, understanding he was going to introduce them to all his rich friends, and it turned into a 25-year endeavor, and from that in 1937, Napoleon Hill published the book, Thinking Grow Rich, and it was an instant success, but he was frustrated, because he said, even though people know what they’re supposed to do, they don’t do it. And he realized that that was true in his own life and he says, here I am, I’m the custodian of this thesis of success. I mean, I’ve lived it, I’ve breathed it, and I still have my ups and downs. What’s wrong with me? And he sat down out of his frustration and just a few short months he wrote this book, which he kind of said was a download from above called Outwitting the Devil. And the title scared his wife to death. She worked for the Methodist Church, and she forbid it to be published, and it was actually locked away. And it really is an interrogation of the devil, and Napoleon Hill says, you can believe I’m talking to the real devil or an imaginary devil. Will you derive any benefit from what I share? And it talks about how, and let’s talk about it as a man-made devil so we keep people on the line, they don’t get mad at us. So we each have that negative voice inside of us that’s saying, you’re not good enough, you can’t do this. And we live in this world of fear, fear of poverty, fear of failure, fear of success. How about fear of criticism? We’re so afraid other people are going to talk about us and what we’re going to look like or we don’t want to be the one that goes that path less traveled, even though that’s where the true success is. We want to follow the masses. And so this book out, When in the Devil, talks about fear and how fear can cripple us. Fear does one of two things. It can either cripple us, paralyze us, or it can motivate us. And in 99% of the cases, fear paralyzes us. And so he talks about, first, we need to recognize where that fear comes from. And once we recognize it, then we can move forward and overcome that fear and take control of our own lives. And when we are in control, we recognize the fear is still there. It still comes, but you recognize it and you don’t allow it to consume you. You turn it around and use it as the energy to keep moving forward. And that’s the whole purpose about winning the double. us about Winning the Double, and I will tell you, I think there was a greater hand at work. Because had it actually been published in 1938, I’m not sure it would have been competing with Think and Grow Rich. And now Think and Grow Rich has sold 100 million copies, it’s established the brand. And Outwitting the Double came out right after this latest economic crisis, and it really – our goal, when they asked me to step in and support the foundation, was to reinvigorate the teachings of Napoleon Hill for a younger generation. And, Outwitting the Devil is perfect for that because it’s a little in your face, it’s a little irreverent. It basically says, wake up and smell the roses and don’t give up your responsibility and the authority for your life to other people. Take that control and then things that you can do to get rid of that fear and be able to overcome it. And it really is working. We have had, it’s stayed on the bestseller list for a long time, ever since we published it and it truly is speaking to the younger generation. So I’m thrilled by it. That book has so many profound notes, countless epiphanies, these mindset altering notable quotables. I mean, my book is just filled with notes, but I have a few highlights from the book. I wanted to read the excerpt to you and see if you could break it down here on the final few minutes that we have with you today on today’s podcast. Is that all right with you? Certainly. I guess it’d be kind of a weird time to reject me, but here we go. All right, there we go. Here’s the notable quotable. The capacity to surmount failure without being discouraged is the chief asset of every person who attains success in any calling. calling? Absolutely. I think if we use one word, the word would be perseverance. That is to understand that fear of rejection, that fear of failure can stop us in our track. It does most people. You just basically don’t keep going because you think you have a negative. You get a no. You say, understand now. When you start hearing a no today, change it to not yet, and know that you have to keep going, that you still have an opportunity. And I shared the story of my biggest business mistake turned into my greatest life decision. And that is, again, keep going in the fact that making mistakes and having failures is part of that process, part of going in that direction. I mean, Walt Disney himself, fail. He was fired at the age of 17 for not being creative enough. His first character was stolen by MGM. His first company, Laugh-O-Gram, went out of business. Each time he kept going, because he knew he had a gift. He knew what he wanted to do. The first studio that he took Mickey Mouse to turned it down, saying women would run out of the studio with a big red on screen. And that gave him the courage to start his own company. And so, obviously, we don’t need to talk about his level of success, but I don’t know how many of us would have gone through that many failures and kept driving. And that’s the essence of success. Now Sharon, one of the notable quotables in your book, you’re talking about drifters and non-drifters. And you’re right here, you say, or Napoleon Hill writes in the book that you did with him, the class of people who control their environmental influences are the non-drifters. All who are victims of the habit of drifting forfeit their power to choose their own environment. They become the victims of every negative influence of their environment. Can you share with the listeners out there the importance of controlling your environment and what it means to do so? Well it comes into several different auto suggestions as part of that. What are you allowing in your space? Are you putting yourself in a group of people who want you to succeed and they’re there to support you and encourage you? Or are you putting yourself around people who are basically wanting to keep you in your place. And if you start to make an improvement, they want to pull you back. And so the environment is everything. It’s so important to understand what you’re feeding your mind, as well as your body. What are you doing to support yourself? And that concept of the non-drifters. Think of the term, go with the flow. Drifters, which Napoleon Hill talks about, 98% of the population of drifters are the ones who basically don’t make plans. They don’t have that definiteness of purpose. And non-drifter knows what they want out of life. They have a definiteness of purpose, and they create a plan to get what they want. And they don’t let other people divert them. Certainly they get off the path every once in a while, but they know what their goal is and they recalibrate and refocus and start moving forward. But the drifters basically never have, you know, whatever. They say, well, whatever, whatever you want, sort of, or go with the flow, the lemmings, right, right off the hill. And so if you know someone in your life, you know, that you’ve tried to help, you know that they’re lost, and you talk to your blue in the face, and they don’t respond, I always recommend give them the gift of the book Outwitting the Devil because they may very well find themselves in that book and find that lifeline of hope that will help them find that definiteness of purpose in their own life. Now Sharon, my final question I have for you, and I know Dr. Zellner has one final wrap-up question for you, but my final question for you is on a daily basis, how do you personally keep yourself from drifting? What does your morning routine look like? Every morning, what does that first hour or two hours of every day look like to keep you from not drifting all these years? Well, I know a lot of people talk about they get up and they meditate first. No, I get up and I actually do look in my emails first so that I know what’s waiting for me during the day. So that then I can go in and take a moment and think about what my goals are, think about what my top priorities are. Because so many of us, we’re multitaskers and we have so many things that pull us during the day, particularly entrepreneurs. We have this something called shiny object syndrome and we can get easily distracted. Luckily, I have people on my team that will recognize that I’m in one of my shiny object syndrome moments and remind me, you know, do you really want us to change priorities so that we can refocus it? But part of that is in the morning thinking about what is it that I want to accomplish today? What are the three or four major things that have to happen before I get in and start responding to the hundreds of emails and new requests that come in? And again, those systems we talked about earlier in this hour of conversation, having those systems of how people can get access to me helps me be able to focus on the things that I have deemed important that day. Having systems in your office are very, very important so that you can focus on what you need to continue driving your business forward. Dr. Z, what’s the final question you have for Ms. Sharon Lecter? Mrs. Lecter, I have a question for you, and that is, what is your process? I mean, you obviously have written many successful books in a relatively short time frame. What’s your process in writing? Are you the, I go to a beach and I get a pina colada and I sit in a hammock and just write all day, or you, what’s your actual physical process of writing a book? Well, one part of what you said is accurate. Typically, I’ve written 22 books, so every book has been slightly different, but all of them have had an element of me at the beach. I typically run away. The ocean is food for my soul. And for me, I have to literally immerse myself in a book. And I live with it for two or three days. I turn off the phones. I’m by myself. I get up really, really early. No piña coladas involved. No hammock involved. I get up early in the morning and I work until late at night and then I get up and do it again and then I literally walk away from the book for probably up to a month and then I come back with a fresh mind and a fresh thought and I’ll read something and I go, oh, that was pretty darn good, Sharon. And then I’ll read something and go, what was I thinking? But it allows me that separation and to be able to cleanse my mind and I come back and I continue working on it, but in a very focused way. Some people, dear friends of mine who are very famous authors, write an hour a day, that would never work for me. I have to totally focus and turn off everything else around me that’s going on so that I can experience the book, because for a book to be successful, it needs to come as if you’re speaking to the reader. It’s not the words on the page, it’s the message on the page. And so when I’m immersed in it, I feel like I’m having a conversation with the person reading the book, and that’s important to me. So that when I reread it, I want to read the conversation. I want to connect with them emotionally, not just intelligently. Very good. A little sidebar question here. What are some of your favorite beaches that you’ve done some of your best work? My favorite beaches? Yeah, your favorite beaches. Yeah. No, beaches. Beaches, yeah. Where you going to write. The vast majority of them are San Diego because I live in Phoenix, so I can jet over there in a few hours and sit and watch the ocean. But I have been to British Virgin Islands, I’ve been to Costa Rica, but the vast majority of my writing has been in the San Diego area, La Jolla, San Diego. Excellent. Well, Sharon, I want to respect your time. I just want to tell you, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to educate our hundreds of thousands of listeners. It means the world to me, and I feel really good because I can stop being nervous. I’ve just been nervous the entire time here. I can now breathe easy. I can breathe. Thank you so much Sharon. Why were you nervous? Because you’re a big deal. You’re a big deal. Sharon, there is a big deal. I was worried about Sharon. Do you remember when you wrote that book? That one time. That was awesome. Next question. Yeah. Yeah. We’re so excited. We’re a bunch of nerds here. We appreciate you very much. Two men, 13 multi-million dollar businesses, eight kids, one business coach radio show. It’s the Thrivetime Business Coach Radio Show. Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show. That’s it. Arms away. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom 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 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 here. Alright Thrive Nation, welcome back to The Conversation. It is the Thrive Time show on your radio and podcast download. Now Chup, as a business coach, you and I have both worked with a lot of top-level, high-flying entrepreneurs. We’ve also worked with a lot of entrepreneurs that come to us slightly broken, they’re a little bit down, and we’ve helped repair them and helped them get into a level of success. Stitches and band-aids and things, yeah. But one of the things people always want to talk about is marketing and branding and sales. But people never want to talk about accounting and bookkeeping. They want to talk about the holy triumvirate, marketing, branding, sales. They love that. Feelings and visions. New deals. New deals and growth and build outs, but no one ever wants to talk about Financials you guys want to delegate that but yet every single successful entrepreneur I’ve ever met really has a fundamental grasp of the financial aspects of the business and so on today’s show We’re interviewing a certified public accountant check. We’re interviewing a New York Times bestselling author? Check. We’re interviewing the CEO of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad organization? Check. We’re interviewing somebody who worked with Robert Kiyosaki to write the 14 books of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series? Check. We’re talking about the lady who took his idea, which was on a piece of paper, to make a board game, Robert Kiyosaki’s idea to make a board game, and turned it into a book empire. Check. We’re talking about a lady who was asked by the National CPA, Financial Literacy Commission, to serve as their national spokesperson. Oh, by the way, this is the same council that served both President Bush and President Obama. Check. This is a lady who has a team of over 5,000 people who help her with her various entrepreneurial projects. 5,000, that’s a lot. Check. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a person here who’s written Napoleon Hill’s, or she helped to re-craft Napoleon Hill’s book, Outwitting the Devil. You see, Napoleon Hill wrote a book, the manuscript for Outwitting the Devil, in the 1930s. But when the best-selling self-help author of all time went to release it, his wife told him not to because she thought it was too controversial. And so, years later, Sharon Lecter revived the manuscript and helped her release Outwitting the Devil. Check! She also helped write Think and Grow Rich for Women. Check! She also helped to release the Napoleon Hill book Three Feet from Gold. Check. Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest is bona fide. She’s an unbelievable author, a dynamic speaker, a top-level entrepreneur, which indicates that she does not know who I am, because if she did, she would not have agreed to be on today’s show. So ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, our exclusive interview with Sharon Lechter, and she’s teaching you why you just cannot delegate your financials. Now, as far as the financials, look at the numbers. Sharon, very few entrepreneurs, I mean, we have a ton of people that attend our workshops. When they come to the workshops, and Dr. Z, you’ve seen this, people want to talk about marketing, oh, the vision, sales, and then they want to go back to talking about the vision, marketing, and then sales. Then Sharon, sometimes they’ll go back to the vision, then back to sales, then back to marketing. And yet, but you have to know your numbers. And I’ve heard you talk at length about this, but I’d like for you to share with the listeners about why you can’t abdicate your financials and why you can delegate them to a certain extent, but why you as the owner of the company have to be aware of what is going on financially. Can you coach us? Certainly. And I can’t agree with you more. You do a webinar or a seminar on sales and you sell out. You do a webinar or a seminar on understanding your financials and it’s hard to get people in their seats because it doesn’t sound exciting. But at the end of the day, your numbers tell a story and you’re creating that story. And so if your story isn’t going the way you want it to go, the sooner you know about it, the better. And so it’s very important for entrepreneurs. And sometimes, you know, you can’t be the one doing the numbers because you want to focus on growing your business, but you need to make sure you have the right people on your team. But you always need to know your numbers, and you need to have a dashboard or something so that you’re constantly on it. As I sit at my desk right now speaking to you, I have my accountants outside working on some things for me. They know that I need to, you know, at any given time, I know what kind of accounts I have, I know what kind of money I have just because of my years of experience. But as a CPA, that’s obviously important to me, but it’s more important to me as a CEO. If you own your company, if you don’t know what the numbers are telling you, then you can get a very rude surprise. And it’s very important for people to understand the importance of understanding the income statement, which is telling you over a period of time how you’re doing it, and then also to understand your balance sheet, which tells you basically like a snapshot of the day and time, showing you what your assets and liabilities are and how those two play together are very important. Sharon, I see, it’s painful for me to see it and as a coach and I write for Forbes and so I have a certain platform but you have the one of the biggest platforms in the world. So I’d like for you to maybe give the tough lesson to the entrepreneurs out there listening who are saying, yeah I know accounting, I know I need to know my balance sheet, and I know I need to know the income statement. But I don’t, because my accountant handles that. Could you give us the tough love for somebody out there who is refusing to know their numbers? I’m sure you’ve met people like this before. Well, they know the stat of the number of businesses fail in the first three years, and the primary reason they fail is lack of capital, lack of funding, and lack of financial management. And what happens is, you know, those entrepreneurs that fall into that category play are the ones who put their head in the sand. And they think that if they just drive faster and they make more sales, everything’s going to be okay. The issue is, unless you understand the whole picture and you understand what your margins are, understand what the bottom line is. You can’t really grow your business. And, you know, people that are losing a nickel on something say, if I can just sell more of them, I’ll be okay. No, you’re just going to lose that much more money. You have to understand the cash flow of your business. And more importantly, you need to understand the timing of your cash flow. And so it’s not just understanding that you’re selling a lot, but you need to understand when that money is coming in and when you have to spend money in order to make the product. So let’s say you sell a million dollars’ worth of product. Well, you have to have that product in your inventory, or you have to have the money to build it so that you can collect a million dollars. And so you probably need a lot of that cash up front. And so what happens is business owners who don’t pay attention to that end up having of very expensive money factoring those receivables to be able to pay for the inventory. And they get themselves further into debt, further into problems. And instead of feeling good about being successful, that success costs them their business because they have not paid attention to the numbers, to the cash flow, and the timing of that cash flow. You know, our show, we’re all about teaching listeners specific action steps they can take. And so I want to take a second to brag on a listener that’s actually doing this properly. But Aaron, who I mentioned earlier with Shaw Homes, one of the things that gives them an unfair advantage over their competition is that they know the costs of the materials. So like when the cost of plywood went up drastically recently, Sharon, they know that. And so they were able to quote the clients accurately and they don’t get to the end of the, when you finish the home, you close on the home, the new buyer moves into the home, they don’t have to tell the buyer, oops, it’s going to cost more money. And they don’t run out of cash. So I’d like for you to put on a little mini seminar here about what we need to know about cash flow, because Shaw Homes knows cash flow, they know their expenses, that’s why they can quote people a price and honor it. But their competition, I mean, if you go online and read the Google reviews, there are so many reviews by customers complaining about the bait and switch move. I don’t think people are, the other builders are dishonest as much as they just don’t know their numbers. Can you talk to us about cash flow and just kind of cash flow 101? What do we all need to know? Well, Aaron’s business is a perfect example of the timing of cash flow that I just mentioned because it doesn’t, you don’t build a house overnight. And so they have to have the financing to get that house done, knowing that the payoff is in the future. And when that payoff comes in, hopefully it’s going to have not only pay off their expenses, but give them the profit on top of it, and those expenses include all those materials you’re talking about, but even more so, the labor of all the people on their team. And so just as in, when I talk about cash flow, I want to take a minute about materials. We talk about just-in-time ordering. When they’re building that house, they can’t put plumbing in until they have the plumbing in before they can pour the concrete over it. Those things have to come in. There’s a stage in which you have things done. You can’t have the roofers waiting to put the roof on when it’s not ready for them. And so each stage of process of building a home has to be timed appropriately so that you have the minimum cost of labor for the people and technicians doing their job. And that has to be perfectly timed. And so that takes talent. That takes people who know what they’re doing. But it also, underlying, takes that expert and that individual understanding what every minute of that costs them. So when they have a delay or they have products not, you know, the lumber isn’t there, they have a week delay in lumber, they have to recalculate and find out what that’s going to cost them to make sure they’re always working to their budget to make sure they have the profit that they’re expecting at the end of the day. We talk about remodels as the homeowner. You always say it’s always going to take another several months past what they promise. It’s a guarantee, and it’s going to cost you more than what you originally commit to, because you’re going to have surprises. And that’s something that can be very painful, but that’s those unexpected things. Every business has unexpected things. The issue is, the sooner you find out about them, the sooner you can plan and recover. And that’s all about cash flow. And cash flow comes with, from the moment you start your business, one of the things that can kill you is that you think you have sales, and the sales are there, but you don’t have, it’s gonna take you 60 to 90 days to collect on those sales. Well, you have to have the cash to be able to build the product, as I said earlier. Well, what happens when all of a sudden you’re hugely successful and you have a huge order that comes in and you don’t have the ability to respond to that order? Your business can crumble. And that’s why it’s so important to always have a pulse on your cash flow, not just your income and expenses, but also the cash flow, which is the timing of that. That’s why when Fortune 500 companies, they do an income statement, a balance sheet, and a cash flow statement, so that you can see what’s happening within the business. Because the assets could go up because they’ve got outdated inventory. You know that when you start looking at the cash flow statements. Now one of the things that you have created that was powerful for me as a young whippersnapper. Sharon, the year would be 1999, I believe. So this is maybe, because you wrote the book in 95, is that correct? You and Robert came out with the book in 95? Well, we published it in April of 97. 97, okay. So the year is 1999. Dr. Zellner can vouch for me here. I dressed like Eminem. I had no idea what I was doing. Sharon, I went on to build the largest wedding entertainment company in the country called DJConnection.com. We did 4,000 events per year at the peak before I sold it. But I’m there working in a call center. I’m reading this book, the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, and at some point you’re talking about this cash flow quadrant concept. I’m not sure how refined it was at that point. It was probably 2001 when I really started paying attention to the book and really understanding it. So it’s 2001, so I might have even read Cash Flow Quadrant. But you talked about, there’s this quadrant, and you said to me directly, like it was yesterday, you said, Clay, you start off as an employee, step one. I’m going, oh, that’s good, that’s good. Step two, you become self-employed, you own your job. And I’m going, yeah, that’s awesome. Step three, you own a business where other people work at the business that creates jobs for others and time freedom for you. And then step four, you become an investor. And I realized I am an employee and I can’t afford to become self-employed yet. I now must get three jobs. So I worked at Target, Applebee’s and DirecTV. My wife worked at Office Depot and Oral Roberts University. I turned off my air conditioning, Ms. Sharon. You caused me to turn off my air conditioning. It is your fault and your credit. So it was very hot in Oklahoma in June and July. We had no air conditioning, it was hot. And I’m reinvesting in myself, but I didn’t quit my day job until I could afford to become self-employed. Can you walk us through those four steps about being an employee and when it’s time to make the jump to become self-employed and what it looks like to become a business owner? Just walk us through your cash flow quadrant. Well, the cash flow quadrant, if you imagine just across the top left corner is E for employee. The bottom left is S for self-employed. And so that left side of the quadrant, that’s what school teaches us. You know, that’s how we are taught. And that’s exchanging your time for money as an employee or self-employed individual or even a small business owner who really owns a job, not a business. The right side of the quadrant, the top right corner, is B for business. And that’s where you have systems, you have other people working for you. And the real test of whether you’re an S or a B, as a B, you own a business. If you walked away and came back in six months, it would still be operating. It’s not dependent on you being there. So you totally own an asset, and that asset is the business, and the business is being run by systems and people. And then you have investor as the bottom right, and investor is where your money is working for you Whether you’re invested in real estate or in the stock market or an IRAs, whatever that is That’s your money working for you So your personal business is your personal financial statement when you put money into your asset column They’re like employees working for you Those are your investments and you want the every wealthy person in the world has one thing in common They own investments they own assets and those assets work for them. So on the right side of the quadrant, school doesn’t teach us how to be business owners, school doesn’t teach us how to be investors. We learn that through the real world education or through the world of hard knocks. And so as I sit here today on this phone call, I live in all four quadrants. The vast majority of my income comes as an investor and a business owner, but I’m still an employee of my own corporation. I still am self-employed. When I go out and speak, I get a speaker’s fee, and that’s the left side of the quadrant. But I want more and more of my income to come from the right side because that’s not me working for money. It’s my assets working for money, business owners and investors and so you don’t have to be in only one you want to be everyone wants to have Money in the as investors that are working for you and have a business owner And if you own real estate, that’s a business that you are in the business of real estate so all of those things work together and the Your ability to earn money on the left side as an employee or a self-employed person is finite. You only have so many hours, so many days in a week. However, on the right side, as a business owner and as an investor, your ability to make money is infinite. I think a lot of people get stuck there in that self-employed area where their ability to earn is limited. It is finite. They get stuck there. Why do people get stuck there, Sharon? You’ve helped people get unstuck in that area. What’s that doom loop where people are stuck in that self-employed area? Well, I think a lot of times you start getting so busy working in your business, you forget to work on your business. People feel like they have to do everything on their own. They don’t bring in the talent to help them grow their business. I mean, in order to be able to go from a small business to a big business, you have to have systems. And when you do everything yourself, it’s going to be hard to grow, and nobody’s going to ever be doing it exactly the way you want to. But if you create the systems, you know, obviously we can think of the most perfect example. McDonald’s everywhere. The owner’s not there. It’s run by teenagers, and it’s done that because the systems are so ironclad that all that somebody has to do is follow the systems. And that’s the ideal of having, going from a small business to a big business. A big business has systems, and you manage the systems, not necessarily the people. And you have people working for you, your systems are working for you, other people’s money. And that’s what really gets you out of a small business to a large business. Now maybe as a small business, you’re a doctor or you’re a lawyer, so how do you do that? Well, you hire other doctors or other lawyers, and you start building a practice around it so that you have the ability to earn, have systems on how the operations are being handled, and you make a percentage off the other doctors and lawyers. You’re taking the overhead and your ability to grow and leverage. In order to, you know, you might have a very successful small business, but a successful small business can only scale and therefore be sustainable if it has systems. I feel like the systems involve checklists, processes, workflows, and sharing their things. They’re so boring. I mean, they’re not vision. They’re not sales. They’re not marketing. I mean, the systems thing, I’m kind of a sick freak in that I actually enjoy making systems because I like the results, and I think I also just like the process of making systems. But I think a lot of people get stuck in that rat race, and they’re not even looking for a way out. Why do you feel like a lot of people get stuck and they’re not even before they’ll be I think people will come up to you at a seminar There are 45 years old and they’ve been stuck in the rat race for 20 years And then it just occurred to them for the first time at your seminar that it is possible to get out of the rat race Why do you think people don’t even try to get out of the rat race? What is it just they don’t know or they they’re they’re overwhelmed or what? What you’ve seen it probably more up close than I have. Why do you think a lot of people get stuck in that rat race? Well, sometimes we get in a world of comfort and that comfort turns into complacency. And even though we’re not where we want to be, we’re able to pay our bills and we can put our head on the pillow at night. And we end up just getting too comfortable. And what happens is a lot of times we have a crisis and we get thrown into chaos and we end up having to become creative again, and that gives us the ability to have a bigger vision. And the whole concept of understanding what’s possible. And I think a huge issue is your environment. Are you hanging out with other people that are in that same category, people who are just getting by, people who are on the rat race? And if that’s the environment you’re putting yourself in, then it seems normal, right? If you want to get out of that environment, then you need to put yourself in an environment with people who are really striving for success, because they can help you. And most of the time, school certainly teaches us to do it on our own. And so, you know, we come out in the business world and we think we have to do everything on our own. And it’s so important that we realize that you have the right people around you, the right team, the right peer network, we have the opportunity to really grow more quickly. The right mentor. Mentors are priceless because they’ve been successful where you want to go. And they can help speed your way to success by opening doors, steering you around the pitfalls. And there’s a difference between a mentor and a coach. A coach may not have that success, but they know what you want to do and they can help you be accountable and make sure you stay on track. Look at this cute baby. What a great baby. Quality baby, that’s a healthy baby. Prime Nation on today’s show, I’m very excited for you to hear this success story about this wonderful couple that Sean, I would describe them as they are killing the game in the most non-violent way possible. They’re killing the game in the most non-violent way possible. They are blowing up in a good way. Folks, I’m telling you, these folks are really growing their business and what makes them great is they’re really kind, hardworking, diligent people and we’re honored to serve them. We’ve got Jenny and Mike here joining us. Jenny and Mike, welcome to the Thrive Time Show. How are you two? Hi. Thank you. Good. We’re doing well. Okay. Now, I’ll start with you. So, how did you first discover us and the business coaching that we provide? So, I was listening to different podcasts about business. I was starting up our business. And so, you were the first one to pop up on our podcast on Apple, I think Apple is what I was on. And so, I started listening to you. I got on your website and I was just a little girl starting a business and I said, I’m gonna ask this guy to be my coach and I don’t think I’m gonna get a shot. But sure enough, within a week, he called me. Now, who is this cute, cute child here? But Micah, who is this cute kid here? It’s Lennon Rose, she is about to be 10 months old. I hate to do this to you, but can you kind of hold up the baby to the camera a little bit? This is right, look at this cute baby. What a great baby, quality baby, that’s a healthy baby. Okay. So, Mike, can you tell us, what’s the name of your website there? I think people want to look you up and verify you’re real people that don’t just happen to have a cute baby. Yeah. Our website is newconcept.healthcare. Newconcept.healthcare. So newconcept.healthcare. I’m going to pull it up right now, folks, so we can all verify that they’re not just a couple who’s taking advantage of the cute baby they have to get a podcast here. This is a real couple, because I’m pulling it up here. So this is the website, it’s newconcept.healthcare. And can you tell our listeners, what services do you guys provide at newconcept.healthcare? So we offer more functional medicine. So we offer IV therapies, we offer hormone replacement therapies. We also do acute care. We do pretty much everything, but we’re very much alternative. We believe in medical freedom, and that’s what we offer. You guys, you reached out. Do you remember that initial consultation there? Do you remember, Mike, that initial consultation? Do you remember what that was like? Yeah, it was actually pretty overwhelming that we started in this business with absolutely nothing, and we had the opportunity to work with five times a day. Well, you know, the one thing I always try to do is, you know, my father, great guy, may he rest in peace, he worked his tail off like so many people do and there was no real economic results that was achieved from it. There wasn’t any, you know, he had a college degree, he’s working two jobs. I remember he’s late 30s, he’s working at Domino’s delivering pizzas, working at Quick Trip, he worked at furniture stores and I always try to look at every new client we have as though I’m talking to my dad. You know, because like what would, what would my dad, you know, what could he have learned at the age of 37 that could have changed the financial trajectory of his life? You know, I try to look at it that way. And so you guys, I paired you up with Sean, you’ve been working with Sean, I believe Sean since October of 2020, is that correct Sean? I think that’s when they started their business. It wasn’t until about April of 2021. So April of 2021. And at that point, from that point to now, Sean, how much growth have you guys achieved from 2021 to now? Do you know that number? Yeah, I mean, we’re sitting at 2023 revenues were $821,000. And they’re in October of 2020. Like, they only had a few months, but they made about $95,000 by the end of 2020. And then we grew significantly that first year, about 375%, to $588,000. And we continued to grow there ever since, all the way up to where we’re getting close to the million dollar mark at this point here, just like three years in. Jenny, how would you describe the growth? Would you say you’ve doubled? Are you five times larger? How would you describe that? Oh, no, I definitely feel the growth. There’s been some growing pains, and you guys have helped us through that, too. So it’s been amazing. It’s been amazing to help people, because that’s what I’m passionate about. And you guys have really helped us expand and tell people what we’re about. So step one here, we did, we do this with all the clients. I’m going to walk people through the steps. We really needed to nail down your branding. And that’s a big thing because, you know, branding is to humans what clothing is. So as an example, you know, you wake up today, folks, if you run around and you’re streaking through life, you’re probably not going to get a lot of conversations started. So we all have to be intentional about, you know, what are we going to wear? Are we going to wear a tie? Are we going to wear a polo? Are we going to do makeup? Are we not? So people, they judge us based on our appearance. And so we really had to get a website built. We had to optimize the online brand. Jenny, we do it all included for our clients. So we don’t refer you to another vendor. We do it all. Can you talk about the impact that that has made on the business? Oh, for sure. Just the website itself, it looks so great. We would have never been able to make it look that great. The way y’all optimize everything and keep us, you know, with Google, just, you know, where people search us and we’re the first people that come up. And that’s actually how we’ve established our business and started offering some of the things that we offer is because of the tags that we have. I didn’t originally start off as doing IV therapy, but due to people Googling, you know, health care functional medicine, I had three phone calls in a week that said, hey, do you offer IV therapy? And it was very interesting. And I was like, well, no, but I can. And so it was because of you guys that that kind of snowballed and took effect. So yeah, there’s a lot that you guys have done for us. Now, Sean, we’re working with these wonderful clients here. I’ll pick on Mike here. You know, you always say great things about Mike and Jenny. What makes them good to work with? Because I want to make sure for anybody out there, if you go to ThriveTimeShow.com, I consistently offer a free 13-point assessment. I’ve been doing that since 2005. I do it without reservation. There’s no obligation. But there’s usually about one to two knuckleheads a week that will fill out the form and probably 20 really great people that fill out the form. And then we only take on 160 clients. And so I don’t want anyone to waste their time. What makes Mike so great to work with? Well, Clay, I mean, you, when I first started coaching, you taught me about these, you know, these two types of business owners. There’s the happy hopers out there and then there’s the diligent doers. And I think these guys are a great example of the diligent doer. They continually apply effort to work on their business, not just in their business. They consistently show up to their meetings. They track all of the critical numbers of their business and they are aware of what’s going on with all of their employees. They’re paying attention to all the little things going on. They’re keeping all the plates spinning and they ask great questions. They actually really do make a great effort consistently to apply our systems and help their business grow. It’s been working. So step one, we get the branding nailed down. That’s the website, the print pieces, the logos, the business cards, but then you have to develop that online reputation. Now that can be a tough thing to do, Jenny, and I’m not, this isn’t a backhanded compliment, I’m just saying, but for people that are humble and very kind, of which I would put Jenny in that category, sometimes asking for reviews is more difficult because you almost feel like you’re self-promoting. I’ve never had this conversation with you, but when you, has that been difficult for you to ask people to give you video reviews and Google reviews after you provided the service? Or was that easy for you to do? It was not. It’s not easy. It still isn’t easy. It is. It’s difficult because you feel like you’re begging for something, even though you know you did the right thing. So it is. It’s difficult for me. It’s just my personality type. But we get it done anyways. I’ll find this for the diligent, kind customers we work with. It’s very difficult sometimes to ask for those objective reviews from real customers. And I find that from my clients I’ve worked with that are sort of like self-described barbarians. I had a guy years ago I worked with, I won’t mention his name or his industry, but I’ll just say he’s obsessed with physical fitness. And he told me, he says, I’m kind of a business barbarian. You tell me what to do and I will slay the dragons. And I’m like, okay, you need to get Google reviews from everybody you’ve ever worked with. And he’s like, oh, I’m on it. And this guy’s just shamelessly calling through his phone and just lighting people up, going, give me a review. Come on, give me a review. Why would I give you? He’s like, go ahead, dial it down a little bit. You know, so again, you guys are humble, diligent doers. You’re the ideal person here. So I appreciate you sharing that. The next thing we had to do is we had to create a no brainer. Now, a no brainer is an offer so good, so amazing that people simply cannot say no to it now I’m gonna I won’t mention the name of the company, but I worked years ago, and I still work with this company They’re a medical company. They’re doing well now and for whatever reason they put on their website first initial consult 497 and he went to one of these like borderline spiritual motivational conference things where Jesus isn’t described But they did kind of talk about metaphysical alignment and getting your woosaw, getting in your groove, alignment, no friction. And he came back and he’s like, Clay, I believe in the seventh number of completion. I agree. He says, four is the number that’s urgent. I’m like, okay. And I go, what? He’s like, I don’t want tire kickers. So I’m going to do 497 for my first consult. That way I don’t deal with the tire kickers. And I’m like, doc, I love you so much. You’re a doctor. I love it. You don’t have any customers, though. That’s why you came to me. You don’t have any customers. So why don’t you do a first free consult? I’m not going to do it. I’m going to kick out Sean the tire kicker. I’m sure you’ve never seen this with a client. Oh, never. And so, now, what makes it worse is his wife also went to the Metaphysical Alignment Motivational Jackassery Festival, and she was like, 497 is the number. I had a dream about it. I’m like, yeah, because you probably talked about it all weekend. You probably are subconsciously thinking about it. You’re probably creating a neural pathway related to 497. And so anyway, after about a year, he finally says, okay, I came to your conference and I saw a person that did the first consult for a dollar. I’m going to go with that. And now his business is blowing up. Could you talk about your no-brainer, your first consult for a dollar? How has that helped you having that no-brainer offer? Yeah, so it gets people in. And so when we get people in, we know that we’re doing a good job and we know that we’re trustworthy and our healthcare is superior to most. So just getting people in for that dollar, because a lot of people are, you know, they’re nervous about going to the doctor or they don’t trust healthcare system. And so they know that they can come in, they’re only going to spend a dollar, they can figure out whether or not they trust us, figure out whether or not we’re the place for them. And we know 100% of the time we will be. So it’s really helped us just get people in and get people to trust us more. Now, once somebody fills out the form, folks, again, there’s a linear pathway here. I’m trying to give you a visual here. So you establish your revenue goals. You figure out your numbers to break even. You figure out how many hours a week you’re willing to work. Even though you have a cute baby, you got to figure out how you’re going to get it done. Step number four is you define your unique value proposition. What makes you unique? That’s something you and Sean have worked on together. You improve your branding, now you’re coming in contact with humans, business is a contact sport, I love this part. That’s when you start marketing, you launch your marketing, you have your online ads, you optimize your website, you begin to come up top in the search results, you start to get leads. Do you remember what it was like, Jenny, when you first got your first online lead? Do you remember the first one where you’re like, it’s working. Do you remember that moment? Yeah, it was almost like we wanted to, well, we did celebrate because it finally had happened. And then as soon as the first one came in, the second one came in. And like I said, it was almost a growing pain experience. We would have so many leads so fast. So it was great. And we still celebrate every lead that we get. Now, Mike, the next step is you have to make sales scripts. We recommend to every client that the calls are recorded for quality assurance. You have a sales script, calls are recorded for quality assurance. You have a one sheet that tracks your pricing. You have pre-written e-mails. You begin tracking. Sean’s always bragging about you guys with tracking. Mike, how has it helped to have tracking in place where you can see – how does that help you? Well, it’s really a good benefit because, you know, at the end of the week, you know what your income was, you know what your leads was. So wherever we’re lacking in, we can quickly adjust and make that adjustment to make it work for the next week. Now when you, if you don’t have tracking, uh, folks, this is a true story. It’s kind of a sad story. So I’ll, I’ll speak in generality. Sean, I talked to a guy the other day and share terrible story, long time client and he got motivated. He said he set up a trade show. He didn’t tell me he’s doing that. It’s fine. You don’t have to tell me, but he set up a trade show. I think he’s going to try to surprise me with the fruit of the trade show. So he set up the trade show and he gets on the call. His energy is kind of off and I’m like, are you okay? Yeah, dude, fine. What’s wrong? Hi, just, I don’t know. I’m like, you’re late. We’re getting, you know, 10 to 15 leads a week. It’s very consistent. Revenue looks good. He’s like, yeah, I’m in a tight spot. We are a tight spot. We’re in a tight spot. He says, I did a trade show. You did a trade show. Yeah, I got roped into four. I did a thing where you get the billboard, you get the trade show, you get the magazine ad. And I did the trade show and we got no leads. And I go, what kind of trade show did you do? And he says, well, I went to the whatever trade show. And Sean, what I find is that there’s the emotional excitement about being on the billboard, being on the magazine cover. And he got called by one of these kind of scam, I call it a scam-och-ery or jackassery. They call you and they go, boop, boop, boop, boop. Hey, is this Sean? Yeah, this is Sean. Sean, yeah, I noticed that you have an incredible healthcare company and we wanna honor you by giving you the Yadda Yadda of the Region Award. It’s the Yadda Yadda, it’s a prestigious award. We’d like to meet with you. Can we meet with you? Yeah. So now I meet here. Now Sean, again, we’re on the phone but I still like the phone voice here. So now, Sean, so because we’re so honored, you know, we’re we’re inviting you to a plated dinner to honor your just your honor, your honor, your greatness, your humbleness. And it’s going to be a thousand dollars a plate for you and your wife. And did you want four seats or eight? Because most people do eight. Oh, I guess just four for four. a glossy magazine feature in, we’ll just call it like, Missouri local top doctor Jack Assery. It’s a great magazine. Oh. And you’re also on the, you’ll be on a billboard. We’ve teamed up with the billboard. It rotates through your, you’re going to see your, oh hey, don’t get too excited. And just because we’re honored. We’re not, you know, again, we’re just honored. Now, do you want to do the four, four tickets or? Yeah, absolutely. Now, the way it works is it’s going to be four payments of 4,000 for a total of 16,000. And that’s, no, I’m serious. And now they’re in the trade shows and he’s going to the trade show and there ain’t nobody there. There is nobody there. You’ll need to be technical. Nobody was at this trade show. I mean, everybody was not at the trade show. He’s got photos of like him and his wife and his team in an empty booth and he’s got a magazine and no leads are coming and he was so excited to tell me. I’m sure you’ve never encountered this sort of thing, Virginia. Have you, you know, Jenny, have you ever seen a situation where that sort of shamockery advertising has been entered into your world in some capacity? I’ve been there. I’ve been exactly where, what you’re talking about. And I’ve set up everything and paid employees and I felt like I was nothing more than a free pin show. The only people that were there were people looking for free pens. Oh, I know, and it feels terrible. And then you kind of have to sell it to yourself all day. But guys, we’re getting our name out there. Sean, can you pass the megaphone back there? Yeah, because I always tell people, if you want to get your name out there, what you do is you just run outside and say, all right, come visit New Ponce Health Care. And people go, why are you yelling at me? I’m trying to shop for my groceries. New Ponce Health Care. Get my name out there. Is this effective? Of course it’s effective. I’m getting my name out there. That leads to buying frisbees, branded frisbees, and all the sudden you buy these things. Sean, you know what I’m talking about. Oh, yeah. So now we have to do, and I’m going to show you, this is kind of the back end of one of my companies, Elephant in the Room. And you do a search for EITRLounge.com and then you go to forward slash staff. I’m not going to give you the password, folks, but you log in. And these are all the systems needed to run the haircut chain. Now, one thing I thought was very interesting is Truth Social, President Trump’s social media platform. The other day they were disclosing Newsweek was disclosing the revenue of it. And I just want people to know this because I think, and just full disclosure, I’m a very conservative person, but I just want people to see this. This is just something to look at. Truth Social, they declared in their filing that they did $3.3 million of revenue and had $49 million of losses, which by the way, that’s very normal for a tech startup company. Their users are going up and they’re having an, there’s like a reaction in the marketplace. People are actually putting more money in, they’re investing, the stock price is going up. But I don’t know anybody that I’ve met in my life, I’ve never met a client that can afford to bring in 3.3 million and lose 49 million. So like for my haircut chain, we have five locations, we bring in more than 3.3 million and this just in, we don’t spend 49 million. So we have to, we call it a lean startup. You got to keep that thing lean. And so when you go to eitrlounge.com forward slash staff, every document needed to manage the business is here. So the opening checklist for the manager, you click here, boom, this is what the manager has to do to start the day. Everything is documented. And that’s kind of where we’re at right now with Ginny and Mike’s business. We’re in the process of building all those checklists. Yeah. Sean, what kind of checklist have you built so far? Oh man, we have a whole page. Their staff page is pretty built out. We’re really getting there. I think more right now, it’s getting, correct me if I’m wrong, we need some managers in there so we can free you guys up from the business. And so we have a lot of the worker level systems. We’re just now working on more of how do we get those manager level systems and find those high quality managers. So let me give Jenny a little mentor moment here. This will be helpful for you. I’m gonna hop on a flight in about two and a half hours, three hours to go to Denver, all right? And I gotta go to Denver to meet with the founder of oxyfresh.com, this is a brand we’ve worked with and helped them to grow to 550 locations now, 550 locations, okay? And if you type in carpet cleaning quotes, we’re the world’s highest rated and most reviewed company in the world. In the world, okay? 274,000 reviews. We’ve been holding this idea in our mind for 15 consecutive years. I’ve been working on this, Sajan, before I met you, we just were grinding, okay? Yeah. And the biggest challenge that the locations have is managers, finding a good manager. And I tell people this, and it never goes over well, but hopefully eventually it will. I’ll keep refining it, refining the idea. The kind of person that enjoys conflict, but also likes people is a good manager. Let me try that again. The kind of person that enjoys conflict, but also likes people is a good manager. And I have found it’s not so much trainable as it’s findable. So as an example, where we’re getting ready to head out to Denver, Sean, you know my personality type. And you know that I have to pack all this stuff to get ready to go. You saw my suitcase out there? Yep. How many times do you think I’ve followed up with the people involved in the trip so far before leaving? Oh man, it’s probably on your to-do list and you’ve checked it off like probably at least five times today I would think. And what kind of things do you think I might have put on my checklist to travel to Denver? First off, just making sure that the timing is working, making sure that you have all the stuff that you need, making sure that you have double of the stuff that you need in case something gets broken. Making sure that the people who are there know you’re coming and when you’re going to be there. Keep going. Do you think I’m checking a bag? Oh, yeah. You’re probably not checking a bag. There it is. You’re probably just lost. Right. No. And am I… Do you think I’m catching a flight a lot earlier than I need to be there? Way earlier. Yeah, if I’m having a meeting tomorrow, which I am, I’m leaving today at 1230. That’s the sort of paranoia that makes management possible. So I have literally called, I said, all right, I’m getting on the 1230 flight. We’re meeting tomorrow. I should be in by like four o’clock Denver time. Our meeting’s tomorrow. If that flight gets delayed, and the next one gets delayed, and the next one, I’ll still be there. I’ve got backup phone chargers. I have a rule, everybody going with me. You cannot check a bag. I want to check a bag. Can’t check a bag, why? Because it could get lost. This is real. I’m not, I’m completely paranoid. And that is the paranoia is what makes the businesses run. Yeah. And I asked my staff every day, guys, elephant in the room, did you guys get a review? And they say, yeah, we got a review. You asked me 10 minutes ago. Okay, I’ll talk to you in four minutes. You hear me say that, I’ll say, I’ll talk to you in five minutes. Yeah. And I’ll do it, and it’s a follow up of, because I have to make sure that the checklists are being followed, the reviews are being followed. We’re a licensed business, people don’t know that. Haircare, you’re licensed by the state, so we have certain cleanliness standards, we could have random people from the state show up. So we got checklists. And I follow up, and it doesn’t bother me to follow up with the same adult who’s in their 40s six times within a 50-minute span of time. It doesn’t bother me. But most people, that bothers them. And so, have you found that, Jenny, that a lot of people don’t like to follow up? Have you found that, or is that just something unique to me? I’ve found that they don’t like to follow up. No, people don’t like to follow up. It’s almost like an awkward communication thing that people try to avoid, yeah. And it’s not necessarily that you’re being mean or any type of way, but I feel like that’s probably the way that we feel when we continuously follow up, like we’re having to step on people’s toes, but really we’re not. We’re just getting the job done. So my mentorship moment for you is it’s probably the same feeling you have when you ask for reviews. Yeah. It’s probably the same. So, and I’m just saying, and then, and if you, Mike, did you ever play football or a sport of some kind? Yeah, I used to play soccer. Okay, soccer. So like when you, what position did you play? Goalkeeper. Goalkeeper. Okay. So is a goal, this is a great, great example. I didn’t know you were a goalkeeper. But when you’re a goalkeeper and someone’s kicking that ball at you fast, I mean, just the ball’s coming in there. I mean, people can really kick a soccer ball fast. There are certain people that want to be a goalkeeper, but they kind of avoid the ball. They try to hide from it. They flinch. You know what I’m talking about? But you actually would lunge into it. Am I correct? Right. I mean, you’re aggressive, right? I mean, you’re like you had for some reason you enjoyed it. Yeah. Right. Getting 100 miles an hour fastball. Have you ever seen somebody who tried to be a goalie? I’m not looking for a name here, but somebody who would kind of hide from the ball? Yeah. This is the same thing for management. Like as a manager, you have to want, like you have to sort of seek out conflict, but like people. So I’ll say things like, okay, it’s eight o’clock. I need to make sure you put out the flags in front of the elephant in the room store today, Mr. Manager, put out the flags that draw the attention by the road, put out the flags, and I’m gonna call you in 10 minutes to follow up. Call him in 10 minutes. Are the flags up? Can you send me a picture? They’re like, do you not trust me? Absolutely not. I trust nobody. Go ahead and send him. And then I’ll call him back 30 minutes later. Hey, did you get Google reviews? Yeah, we got one Google review. You know, the quote is 10. Yeah, I’ll call you back in two minutes. You know, call him back. Hey, did you get a review? It’s been two minutes. I know, I’ll tell you what, I’ll call you back in an hour. My whole day is just following up. And then over time, the culture happens where people go, he’s gonna follow up. And now the people that like the follow-up like to work there and it’s become a great thing. And that’s where we’re kind of at right now, I think, is we’re getting into the follow-up phase. Do you have call recording in place there, Mike? Do you have the call recording for quality assurance installed yet? Yes, we do. And are you learning some things? Yes. It is very hard to train people on recording. Screw us. Yeah. Okay. That’s something we got to do. Now we’re just going through the workflow. And then the wowing the customers. What Sean is saying is that your patients are consistently wowed. Now, I don’t know if that’s because Sean is your hype man or if that’s a real thing, but it seems like people are actually wowing. They’re being wowed right now. People when they come in, this is, if you look at the workflow, they buy something. Right here, we have to wow them. You’ve got to create that wow moment. And again, if you want to download this diagram, folks, just go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire. Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash millionaire. You can download it from my newest book called A Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’ve got to create that wow moment. I mean, amidst the checklists and the tracking, at some point here, you’ve got to create a moment that wows people where they go, wow, so I’m trying to get everybody’s creative juices flowing here. So if you have a restaurant, I work with a restaurant in Florida right now, a great restaurant, they say, welcome in, is it your first time? They say, yes, my first time. Oh, well, hey, you get free appetizers on us today and one free adult beverage. Welcome in. And that every time it’s that, wow. And then when you come back later and ask for a review or, hey, what entree do you want? Guess what? People become generous with how they buy. Another example, I work with an auto auction. The auto auction says that the first time you buy from the auto auction, you only have to pay a dollar more than the actual cost of the vehicle just to wow people, to get that going. I happen to work with a carpet cleaning business, and what they do is they say, hey, the first time we clean your carpet will be any competitor’s price, and it will be at least half off of our normal price. And they go, okay, great. You’ve got to have that wow moment. What are you guys doing, Jenny, to wow your customers there? Well, there are things that we do. We will oftentimes give samples of certain things because we know they work. We have a lot of supplement sales that we do. Again, the dollar consult is a wow moment because we will spend some 10 to 15 minutes explaining how we’re different. And I feel like they’re wowed because of that. Also, our services are so much different. We spend time in the room with our patients. We listen to them. They’re not just a number. And a lot of times people have never experienced that. So there’s a lot of wow moments, I think, for all of our patients. I understand that 59% of your customers are now from word of mouth. Is that accurate? Yeah. That’s huge. Yeah, well, and with the customer acquisitions cost, too, I’ve heard you say this before, Clay, that if you’re advertising and you’re doing a good job wowing at the same time, they compound each other and you’ll end up having two to three word-of-mouth referrals from those patients that are wowed for every one lead you have from advertising. We measured and tracked that they had this last year. For every dollar they spent on advertising, they were able to bring back in $4.61. So that’s a 461% return on their marketing investment. It’s incredible stuff. And the great news is, as we build these systems, if you guys ever wanted to franchise or license or open up multiple locations, if done properly, you should be able to scale it. It should be very repeatable, very duplicatable. Other things you guys have done, you’ve implemented a database to keep track of your customers, you’re gathering objective video reviews. You guys are really checking all the boxes. I’d like for you, if you can, Jenny, here, to give a word of encouragement for any of our listeners out there that are a little bit on the fence right now and they’re going, you know, I have thought about scheduling a free consultation, but I don’t know. I hear it’s $1,700 a month. Can you maybe explain your thoughts, what you’d say to anybody who’s a friend of yours or family that asks you about the value about the business consulting? Oh, well, I would say that the $1,700 a month is an excuse not to have someone to mentor you. It’s kind of like being in a gym when you need a trainer. We’re not always perfect, and business owning is not easy, and you need a mentor. I’ve never missed the $1,700 a month, even when I was only six months in, when we started with you guys. I’ve never even considered it a loss. It was scary at first to make that, but that wasn’t an excuse. I knew I needed someone to guide me through this. And you guys have guided us through this through the entire thing, through employees, through income, through spending, through all of it. And we come through so many problems. There are a lot of problems that are established when you have a business. I mean, you become very overwhelmed very fast, and you need somebody that you can call who’s successful, who’s been there that says, you’re not crazy. This happens to all of us. Here’s what you do about it. It’s been the best decision that we’ve made. Final question I have here for you as far as, um, having a turn, like a one-stop shop. Years ago, I hired a business consultant who was great. And he would say things like, and I’m not ripping him. I’m just telling you what would happen. He would say, Clay, you got to work on your business and not in it. I’m going, that’s true. He goes, you got to delegate to elevate. That’s true. Clay, your website is not optimized. And I’m going, this is great. Fresh perspective. I go, Bruce, could you help me optimize? No, I don’t optimize. Could you help me work on it? No. Could you help me make a checklist? No. Do you make, do you help me with the print pieces that I need to make? No. Can you make a video? No. Do you help me with my online ads? No. Clay. And he would use that. He was kind of an Eastern, he’s an Eastern, Northeastern American guy. And he used to say, Clay, baby, let me tell you what, I don’t make print pieces. What am I, a print piece guy? I’m not a web guy. We know what I am, I’m a work on the business guy. You got to find a good web guy. So every meeting we would have would result in me having to find another vendor to pay another $8,000 to build the website, 4,000 to make the video, 5,000 to do. So every time you give a recommendation, it would lead to another cost. Can you maybe explain the value of having a flat monthly fee? Yeah, I don’t have to ever worry about it. Like, I know if I need the website updated, it’s a text away. I know if I’m having trouble with an employee, it’s a text away. I know if I have need financial advice, it’s a text away. And again, we meet every single week and all our questions are answered and we’re held accountable to what we need to be held accountable for. So, it really works for us. Jenny and Mike, thank you guys for your time so much. I really do value your time. I appreciate you guys being here today. And on part two of today’s show, we’re going to tee up another success story because we want people to know it is possible, despite the financial jackassery plaguing our nation right now, it is possible to become successful and you guys are a living example of it. Thank you guys for bringing your baby on the show. We’ll talk to you soon. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma and we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay. I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually non-existent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn Company in the Tulsa area and that’s really helped with our conversion rate and the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay. So 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, our Google reviews that we’ve gotten, people really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process, and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, 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, that way everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability, we’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast, like Jared had mentioned, that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, 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. We were in a rut. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it, do the action, and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline but that’s what it’s 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 pediatrician. Through our new digital marketing plan we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-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. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklist, the workflows, the audits, um, how to, how to, um, navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, um, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy’s just amazing. He’s Keith. 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. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. 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. I’ve seen guys from start ups go from start ups to being multi millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. 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. 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. 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. They were super excited about working with him and 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 and 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. 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 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 Thrivetime 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. 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 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 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. 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 calls. Well, 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 an 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. 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 worked with you. So I’m looking, we’ve been good friends 7, 8 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. 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’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 hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. 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, 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. That’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 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 it 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, 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 almost 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 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 wanna 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’d 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 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 wanna 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 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 parts about you be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.