Entrepreneur | Part 3 – Coaching Clients Questions and Wins of The Week

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. One, two, three, four. Everybody, we are now knocking at your door. It’s The Thrive Time Show on your radio. My name is Clay Clark, the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, sent here to both entertain and educate you, but really to help you grow that business you’ve always been thinking of, Z. I think a lot of people, Z, we have Dr. Zellner, by the way, inside the box that rocks, the optometrist turned tycoon. Z, I think a lot of the people listening right now, they have this burning desire deep within them to start a successful business. According to Forbes, over half the people listening, 57% of people, want to start a business. What’s going on? Well, that’s why Scripps approached us to do this show. As you know, you approached me about three years ago and said, hey, let’s scale business coaching because I can only do one at a time. I was like, wow, that’s a great idea. We came up with Thrive15.com and we gathered mentors all around the country, successful business people, all men know, all women know, but a combination. And we have mompreneurs on there. I mean, we have Jill Donovan on there with the rest of the company. Yeah, mompreneurs. She’s one of our mentors. Hey, Jill. And so we gathered all these people. We filmed them, and we made it kind of like a Netflix business school. We did that, and we had so much fun with it. And we grew that, and then Scripps approached us and said, hey, we’re looking for nobody’s doing a practical business talk show. And we looked at each other and we said, well, I mean, why not? I think a lot of people listening might say, what is in it for you two guys? What are your motives? Well, I’m going to tell you what, just like you, our favorite listener, by the way, if you’re listening right now, we know you’re an elitist. I mean, you’re one of the elite minds in America. We don’t have any trolls listening to our show, but if you’re listening right now, you’re choosing to invest time to learn how to start and grow a successful company. That’s exciting. But we have wins. And just like any business, just like any sports team, you want to keep track of the score. And so, Zee, you and I track wins. We like to celebrate entrepreneurs who listen to the show, applying what they’ve learned. It’s my number three rule in business. What is that? And that is, you know, what that makes me want to do, don’t you? It makes you want to shoop? No. Hey, I want to shoop and rave. No, it makes me want to take you down to the farm. Yee-haw! You see, I’m writing a book called The Business Pig. And in it, I’ve got all kinds of business rules. My business rules, my top ten business rules, and number three is, you’ve got to know when to cook the pig. I’ll say, what does that mean, man? I’ll tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. I’m going to tell you what it means. And number three is, you’ve got to know when to cook the pig. Oh, see, what does that mean, man? What, what, what is, what is… I mean, overall, man, are you talking about pig cooking or what are you, what are we talking about? What are we, we back to Oklahoma Joes? Is this a barbecue segment again? I would not mind if the entire show was focused on Oklahoma Joes. It’s noon, I’m hungry, it’s a Thursday, I got one more day and then, you know, it’s the weekend. You know what that means is you go through business. One of the things I’m going to coach you up and tell you to do in that is you’ve got to celebrate your victories. You’ve got to celebrate your wins. And so when we have Thrivers, email us in. Yes, we read them, info at thrive15.com. So email us your questions, email us your success stories, email us your, I don’t know, email us anything you want. But when we get a victory, we like to celebrate it. And that’s what cooking the pig is. Anytime you have a pig out there, like an apple in its mouth, and you’re cooking it, it’s some celebration, it’s some luau, it’s some wedding, it’s something you’re celebrating. And that’s the thing I think some people lose as entrepreneurs as they go through their business careers. They’re not celebrating enough of the victories because that’s half the fun. Now this right here, Z, this is my, it’s very complicated for me to celebrate a win, but I have two sound effects I have to hit. Let’s see if I can do it. Okay, here we go. Coming in hot. Coming in hot. It turned better, but then it started kind of annoying. Yeah, I’m sorry about that. Okay, here we go. This is from Shannon in Oregon. She’s in Oregon. Her company’s called Lofty Beauty Lounge, if you’re Googling it. Lofty Beauty Lounge. Lofty Beauty Lounge. Here’s the deal. She’s been working with one of our business coaches, Mix Master Marshall, and she’s set up a new membership model. Okay. And she’s now a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. She’s a senior member of the team. which is Mixmaster Marshall. And she set up a new membership model. And she’s now seen success with the new members. She said that she’s gotten members signing up left and right. Things are going well. Also, she’s now implementing the search engine optimization strategy. And she’s three months in. And she says here, she’s now ranking in the first page of Google. On the first page of Google. And with her Facebook ads, she’s getting 10 to 15 bookings each week. Yeah. That’s I think it’s eyelash extensions is what she does. Her company’s called Lofty Beauty Lounge in Oregon. Shannon how you doing? That’s exciting. Your eyelashes look longer. Did you fly up there and do that? Because you’re looking very handsome. Part of this post Valentine’s glow I’ve decided to add some eyelash extensions. I’m sure Vanessa really liked that. You’re like maybe normally I would buy you chocolates and flowers. But this year, I’m going to do something. I’m going to give the gift that keeps giving. I’m going to… You know, Z, I want… Oh, wow. I’m going to get eyelashes changed. You know, Z, a little fun… I could give you butterfly kisses all night long. You know, a little fun factoid. A lot of people want to talk about, you know, Boy George, and they’re like going, how did Boy George end up the way that Boy George ended up? Well I’ll tell you what happened is, he first he just wanted to impress his girlfriend by getting some eyelash extensions for Valentine’s and next thing you know, this is what happened. Next thing you know he’s like, guys I wrote this song called Karma Chameleon. You ever heard of this song? Oh yeah! I was just a kid. But first thing, I mean Boy George was just, that’s 80s right? Yeah. Or is that 90s? Come a come a come a come a come a chameleon. Get your eyelash linked in. Get your eyelash linked in. The thing is, all he was wanting to do is he had a business show. Boy George started off doing a business radio show. Oh no. And he’s reading Wins of the Week. Is this verified? No, no, this is total hyperbole. We have no proof of this. But anyway, so what happens is he’s reading the Wins of the Day, Wins of the Week, and he’s reading the Wins. Next thing you know he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. Next thing you know, the next thing you know, he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions. And he’s like, I’m going to impress my wife, get some eyelash extensions next thing you know boy George is starting the culture club and he’s he’s singing you know some pretty impressive hits and then you know he has a pretty impressive career and people wonder how did he how did he become boy George I don’t know I haven’t asked him I was celebrating wins getting eyelash extensions and so now we dig into the stack of stuff. And today, Thrivers, we have an unbelievable assortment of questions that you’ve emailed to us. We have one Thriver right here in Miami, Florida. I say right here on the planet Earth. Thrivers, listen, many of you are going to Thrivetimeshow.com. This is so exciting. And you are sharing the podcast, the archived radio shows, with your friends and family. And so we have David in Miami, Florida, who has a company called Landro Express. I pulled it up on here. I have it in front of me. Landro Express. And here is his question. And if you’re listening today and you say, I want to have my question answered, too, you can. You just email him at thrive15.com. Here’s his question. And Z, you and I will kind of break it down. OK, so here’s his question. How do I implement better cash control at my point of sale? Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, you’re listening to the Thrive Time Show. Z, I’m going to start off here. I’ve got three moves, and I’d like for you to kind of pile on if I miss something, okay? Okay, I’ve got six moves, but three moves is good. My moves are probably some of your sub moves, because this is a huge, huge thing. One, and this might sound really controversial, but if I were you, David, I would only take credit cards or debit cards. I would just eliminate cash entirely. Okay, can I, I’m gonna, what I’m gonna do on Facebook live if you’re watching, I’m gonna, I’m gonna get off the mic and I’m gonna go over there and I’m gonna slap Clay real quickly. This won’t, this won’t take long. Well, I mean, it’s just, it’s, it’s, see, I will tell you this, I mean, it’s sort of a, it’s a sign of the times. Just take only credit cards and maybe, maybe see if your customers will get a number embedded on their arms and they can just use that instead of cash. I just went creepy. I’m just saying, I would do credit cards only if that is a huge issue because, check it out, the dry cleaners, you’re a dry cleaner. You’re a launderer and dry cleaner. The dry cleaner that I go to in Tulsa, recently I go in there and the guy says, I always get, I have basically a bunch of white shirts, red ties, blue suits. That was my uniform for years. Yeah, your uniform. So I like to keep it clean. I’m a corporate sellout, so I still have a formal speaking event every Tuesday morning for Farmers Insurance, so I have to wear my suit for that thing. So I go over there and I drop off my suit. This is about a few months ago. I drop it off, drop off my dry cleaning, and she says, do you want to do debit card or credit card? And I said to her, I’ve got some cash. She goes, we’ll just do debit card or credit card. I go back this week to drop off some stuff and she says Are you on file or do you need to do debit card credit card? I go I’m on file so now I’ve got it on file and now the thing is every time I go in I just drop off my dry cleaning She charges me and I don’t have to bring cash, but the thing is it’s for my convenience They don’t take cash, but really they don’t have to call me about collecting a check They don’t have to worry about me bringing cash and it eliminates the dry-cleaning person maybe taking some cash, maybe messing up the drawer. That would be my move in a perfect world. Feel free to punch me, give me a super move. Oh, it hurts so bad! Well, here’s the reality. You can limit your sales by doing that. I know fewer and fewer people use cash. I mean, I get it, okay? But here’s the thing as far as handling cash, you want to make sure whoever’s handling your cash is authorized. And the question is how do you authorize somebody? So here’s the deal. You could say, okay, well we’ll be a cashless business and that’s okay. That’s how you eliminate the problem. In a perfect world. In a perfect world. But you know what? I choose to say, listen, you can pay me however you want to pay me and I’m just going to set the rules up for that. So the first thing you want to do if someone’s handling cash in your business is you want to make sure that they are authorized to do that. Now there’s some sub-steps to authorize someone to do it, okay? And these may sound kind of like, oh, is that, that’s… Z, we had a question because somebody just emailed in and we tried to respond. They called in the line and they’re going, you mean you have to authorize people for cash? And our call screener said, you absolutely do. Z’s saying you have to authorize certain people to handle the cash, and this is what they said. Surely you can’t be serious. I am serious, and don’t call me Shirley. Unbelievable. And don’t call me, and don’t do it. So here’s what you have to do. So you’re hiring someone, you’re going to put them in a position, say a teller, they’re doing check-out, they’re going to handle cash, okay? Cash handlers. So what you need to do is you need to make sure you go the extra step and verify their employment history, alright? Because if they were a theft before, they’re not going to be eligible for rehire at their old place, okay? You’re saying that thievery is contagious. It’s like if they did it once, it’s probably a contagion they bring with them to the new business. It’s like a virus. It’s stuck in there in some gangly asylum. Holy cow! We got it. It’s a button Thursday, folks. Oh, wow. The second one is, you’ve got to do, and I know this sounds kind of creepy but you could do a background check on them. Background check? You’d be surprised how many times you know when it’s all said and done at one of my places of business. This is gonna be crazy and you guys are gonna go well aren’t you a fool? Yes I was. We had cars, a car stolen and come to find out when it was all shook out I was it this is at the auto auction obviously and so you know we we’ll have a thousand cars through there a week. You know what? 800, 900, 1,000 cars. So scary. And so you’ve got a lot of moving parts, a lot of people working there, driving cars. Who did? You know, checking them in, checking them out, running them through the sale. And so, of course, every now and then, back in the day, a car got stolen. And so we called the police. We’re looking at it. We do all this stuff. And all of a sudden, one of my employees doesn’t show back up again. And we’re like, oh, that’s weird. A car was stolen. An employee didn’t show up. Pickup truck and Billy are both gone. Where did Billy go? So the police actually run a background search on him and guess what? Chicken butt. Guess what? This dude had a police record for stealing cars. I mean I didn’t know that. Oh man that does just it. So he had a record for stealing cars? Yeah, so we did a quick adaption of the rules of hiring and a background check became mandatory. Because here’s the thing about it is, is that if a guy’s a car theft and you have him driving your cars around, two plus two equals… Oklahoma Joes? Oh, that’s a great place to go for lunch. And I’ll tell you what, Thrivers, it is around the noontime, and I’m going to tell you one thing you could do. You could choose to say, you know, this Thursday, I’m going to throw it away. I really don’t value this day. You could say, this is a great day. I’m alive. I’m going to celebrate my life, and I’m going to have a great quality lunch. If you’re somebody who’s serious about having the best quality lunch, and you’re not afraid of meat like my wife, get over to Oklahoma Joe’s. We have three locations to serve you the world’s best baked beans and stay tuned We’re gonna talk more about pricing and cash controls stay tuned throughout time show All right, thrive nation green country, Oklahoma’s welcome back to the thrive time show on your radio Some people want us to go fast But because I want we really care about you being able to understand what we’re teaching We’re gonna go just a little bit slow. We’re gonna give you notice some notable quotables, statistics, facts, everything you could possibly need to know to know things on a deeper level because there’s sort of that surface level. I’ll call it the epidermis of training. We’ll call this just motivation. There’s so many motivational books, motivational seminars, motivational, but we choose to believe you are sufficiently motivated. You my friend are an elite human. You are listening to the Thrive Time Show and what you want to know is the stuff a little bit deeper than motivation Z these the thrivers out there. They want to know The specifics they want to know the step-by-step the nitty-gritty of starting a successful business Ooh, baby Well, that’s what we’re here. We’re from the practical steps the the stuff You know, you don’t learn in business school that stuff that you can say. That’s what I do. Oh, that’s how I handle that situation, which typically you learn two ways out there in the world of business. You learn by either mentors or mistakes. Ouch! And those are costly. And I’ve made lots of those. And before the break, we were talking about handling cash. The question came in, how do I implement better cash control at my point of sale, David, down in Miami, Florida? Miami, Florida. He has a company called Landro Express. And what’s so exciting is that Thrivers, listen to me, listen to me, Thrivers. If you love a show or part of a show, please do us a favor. We only ask for one favor, one favor. Go to thrivetimeshow.com and share the podcast with a friend. So we have a Thriver who shared this with another Thriver, and it just grows and grows and grows. We have over 32,000 downloads last month from people just like you all over the planet. 50 different countries. 50 different countries. I’m going to read you a little notable quotable and then we’re going to get back into price controls. I’m not done with the cash handling too. Excuse me. We’re going to get back into the cash controls. I’m the guardrails on Clay’s law. I have a little bit of a notable quotable from one of our loyal listeners and a great guy, Mr. Jim Stovall. He’s a Tulsa millionaire success story. He actually achieved his success after going blind. I mean, what’s your excuse? I mean, that’s unbelievable. You want to talk about an inspirational story. Now, here’s what he says. He says from his newest book, The Art of Productivity, he says, be careful to never confuse activity with productivity. He goes on to say, sometimes in the midst of frantic activity, the most productive thing you can do is stop, take a breath, and ask yourself several questions. And so this Thriver here is doing that. David Carlson in Miami, he’s asking Z and myself, he’s saying, how do I implement better cash control at my point of sale? And the first three moves Z and I went over was one, I suggested, if it’s possible, go to a credit card only system. Now work with me on this, Thrivers. We are giving you best practice moves that we know that work, and you have to decide whether it will work for your business. I know of a very successful basketball camp. A guest we have on the show all the time, Coach Calvert, who realized chasing his clients down for checks and cash wasn’t a viable thing. He needed to spend his time on the court coaching. Some businesses, like it appears to be here with Londro Express, it appears as though you have a team of people and accepting cash and check wouldn’t be an issue. But that’s one thing. I’m saying if you’re in a scenario where you don’t have the resources to sit there and have somebody collect cash like you’re a basketball coach, I recommend a credit card only kind of a membership model. The second is he goes, hey, listen, you have to authorize who’s handling the cash. You’ve got to appoint certain specific people who can handle the cash. The third move he said was you’ve got to do a background check. You’ve got to check those people to verify that they actually are not felons, they’re not criminals. Yeah, step one was employment verification. Make sure you really go through their past history of where they worked and talk to the owners of those businesses because if they’re not eligible for rehire, chances are it might be because they actually stole cash or stole goods. And so there’s a history people leave a trail, people leave through life and shame on you for not going and looking at that trail. The background check, fingerprints, the whole nine yards, make sure you know they don’t have a background. Because I just gave the example of how foolish I was. We hired a guy and of course they say all the right things in an interview. They do all the right things, of course, of course, of course. And the dude was working at my auto auction and he stole a truck. And then when the police showed up, we got to digging around, guess what? The dude had felony arrest for doing what? Stealing cars. I’m like, oh my goodness, how did we miss that? Well, we missed it because we just didn’t have that implemented in our hiring system. And now we do. Now we do. So all you guys out there that have felonies for stealing cars, you will not be able to get a job at the Z66 auto auction. Z, you know how that makes me feel? Oh no. How does that make you feel? Yeah, exactly. See, I have a quick story about not doing background screening. This story is epic. Oh, it’s got to be good. So here we go. Okay. I don’t want you to cry laughing, because I’ve never shared this with you, and I want you to keep it together. Okay, okay. Back in the day, we had a disc jockey company, and one of our DJs, during the interview process, he claimed to be a world-class boy band member. Now this man is closer to 500 pounds than 150 pounds. And he said, in the interview, I’m looking at his resume, and he literally said in his interview that he was part of a boy band, but due to certain contractual obligations he decided to turn it down. And I’m like, that is definitely a red flag. We need a sales guy. So we book an event for a group, you book DJ parties, you never know where you’re going. Well, this one is at a camp. So you book it. Think of it like a DJ connection. My name is Clay. I can help you. Yeah, I’m calling. I want to book a DJ for a camp this week. It’s going to be an awesome camp. We have these adult gatherings. We’re going to have a big picnic. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m like, OK, cool. Any kids? No. Boom. What day, what time? I get all the details. I book the event. I send out David. I won’t give you his last name. I send out David to drive out to this camp. Well, this camp turns out to be a nudist colony. Oh, gosh. No. No, no, no. This is. I’m just going to get a drink of water. Well, since I’m setting up my equipment, I might as well just take off my clothes and show my equipment. Well, I mean, you’re in Rome. So here’s the thing. So he ends up the night of the party. I mean, I don’t see the guy. We’re unloading DJs. It’s 2 a.m. It’s 3 a.m. It’s 4 a.m. It’s 5 a.m. Finally, the guy comes back in the driveway and the car is parked in a way that only a completely intoxicated man could park a car. Now, he’s driven back an hour and a half from the place. He gets out of it wearing sandals and his boxers Nothing else on and he’s like looking kind of wet and soggy and I’m like what happened to you I mean, this is a large man. Okay, and he says I went to the nudist colony and things got out of control and I forgot to collect payment and I Know you didn’t Vanessa. I like put on a shirt. What are you doing? And he goes, I did forget the DJ system. And I’m like, you forgot it? And I’m like, did you collect payments? He goes, I have to be honest. I have had a lot to drink and I did forget it. And I’m going, you forgot the equipment. You forgot the check. You came back nude. I forgot your clothes. And he’s like, well I didn’t know how you wanted me to handle it. So we look into his resume, but obviously he’s not a member of a boy band. Obviously. And so anyway, at work on Monday, I sent him back out to go get the equipment. It was a big ordeal. So on Wednesday he comes back to the office and I said to him, I said, David, in front of the whole office, because I had some fun with him, I want to do a public hanging. Because Jack Welch says that public hangings are a great way sometimes to deal with people who are nefarious liars. And so I did that to David. What were some of the songs, some of the top boy band songs out there right now, like the song I Did It That Way. That’s a big song right now by Backstreet Boys. Could you sing that for us after lunch? And he’s like, absolutely. Well we all start looking at our watches and guess who doesn’t come back after lunch? Let me guess, the naked David. That’s right. And so you’ve got to take those background checks so you can end up with the nudist DJ. Stay tuned. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back into the conversation. Today we’re talking about how to start and grow a successful business as always. But we’re diving deep into the mailbag. When I say deep, I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of emails we’re getting from great Thrivers like you, and specifically David in Miami, Florida. His company is called LaundroExpress.com. Check it out, Thrivers. Find him on Google and give him a favorable review. This is a great guy. He asks this question, Z, about cash controls. Z, how important are cash controls in a business? Well, I’ll tell you what. When someone steals from you, it just affects your bottom line. It comes right off the bottom line. When I first got into my first business back in 91, the first lady that worked for me, the first one, I caught her stealing cash from me. And I’m just like, oh, and so now that’s been an issue, you know, every year of my life in the sense of businesses trying to reduce what I call shrinkage stuff, walking out the door, you know, study came out the other day, clay and guess what percentage of employees steal from their employers? Well, if you and I want to pull this up here because I want to make sure that I’m, you know, we always on Thrive 15, one of the things we specialize here at the Thrive Time Show and Thrive 15 is we really want to make sure that we never give you inaccurate statistics or quotes. I mean, it’s kind of like a news, like a business news show almost. And CBS News actually published this and they did a study in conjunction with the U.S. Chamber, which by the way is sort of a partner of us for Thrive15.com. If you are a listing right now and you’re a member of the military, and by the way about 10% of you are. You’re a member of the military, you’re a reserve, you’re married to someone who’s… Go to Thrive15.com and claim your free account. It’s not free. You earned it. Claim it. You earned it. Go up there and get your free account. Go get that account. Thrive15.com. It’s free. Why not do it? You fought hard for it. Go get your free account. This is what it says here the US Chamber estimates that 75% out three out of four Employees steal from the workplace and at most do so repeatedly when they independently studied Employees that was just I didn’t feel very good. So how can we what we’re doing now David David emailed us in a question from Miami, Florida, of course, and and his deal is how the cash control Give me some specific steps that I can do, you know, instead of just saying well, you know Watch that cash better. Okay next question. No, we’re giving you some specifics So step one is is make sure you pre qualify any of your employees not every employee should be handling the cash by the way It’s not like well anybody check anybody out everybody take a cash payment. No, you have pre qualifications for that. It’s employment verification, background checks and then the third thing in that in that kind of protocol is that everything should be documented. All the cash should be documented throughout the day. You should have all your paperwork done throughout the day. So that’s kind of my step one in the move where you precondition your cash handlers. Okay, so you know, you know them better. You’ve deep dived in a little better. It’s a little bit higher bar to get over before you can before you can do that. Okay, my second one is this is is maintained separation of duties what is what does that mean maintain the separation of Duties through I was just want you to write that down Because the profundity of what Z is gonna say I’m telling you can totally change the game if you’re having a hard time controlling Your cash at a laundromat or any other kind of business. Yeah So what that means is is that when you are maintaining your separation of duties, in other words, not everybody’s handling the cash. You’ve pre-qualified the people to do it, and they’re the only ones that are doing it. I don’t care how busy you get in the day, I don’t care how far behind they get, only those that are pre-qualified. So you have the separate, you know, it’s kinda like, well, I’m not pre-qualified, but you’re busy, so I’ll help you with this transaction. No, no, no, no, no, separation of duties. You’re a salesperson over here, you’re here, you’re the teller, you’re the person, okay? And also that teller that when you separate the duties You’ve got to give some authority to the person handling the cash. You know they’re the only one with the key to the drawer They’re the only one that has the code to log in to to make the transaction go through so you have to separate You have to separate those duties also whenever you have cash coming into your business. I Recommend some businesses recommend. I mean some people recommend to I recommend three people touch that cash what does that mean that means the person that accepts a cash is one touch okay they document they accept the cash the person that reconciles a drawer at the end of the day is a different person Oh second person second person touching the cash and then the person that does the deposit slip is the third person that touches the cash all right you following me on that so now you have multiple people touching the cash. You go, why is that? Well, if I’m the only person, if I’m accepting the cash, if I’m reconciling the dwarfs in the day, and I’m doing the deposit, guess what? You don’t know how much cash I’m taking. And that cash will walk on out the door, walk on out the door. So can you repeat your moves because I want to really make sure that the thrivers are getting this because I’ve got some negative, just some negative Nancy to pour on after we… Oh, good. Recap the rules real quick. I’m taking notes here. Okay, here we go. Cash handlers are authorized. Prescreened cash handlers. Employment verification. You’ve done background searches on them and you make sure all the transactions, they’re all written down. Got it. A writing down of all the… So that’s the precondition. Number two, separation of duties. In other words, if you’re not authorized to handle the cash, you don’t handle the cash. And the third thing is I like to have three people touch the cash throughout the day. In other words, the person that accepts it, the person that reconciles it, and then the person that makes the deposit slip. Because you need to get it to the bank. Now I have some really negative things to say, and you can pull us out of the gutter here, Z. Okay. So I was at church one day, and the pastor was reading. So that’s not negative. It’s good. It’s good. So the pastor is quoting from the Bible. He’s quoting Matthew 5.10. And those of you who are listening are like, the Bible? That’s just an old book about religious shenanigans. So work with me, Thrivers. Google it. Matthew 5.10 says, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So I look up the word righteousness. Thrivers, I encourage you to go ahead and look up the word righteousness. Listening to what I’m saying righteousness means doesn’t mean nearly as much as if you verify this yourself. If you engage and you look at it and you kind of test it, we’ve worked on this, righteousness means you’re following morals. So what happened is when we built our consulting firm, which is now Thrive15.com, I mean basically our coaching, the consulting we used to do, we were Tulsa’s top marketing firm and now as we’ve grown and grown and grown, Thrive has kind of almost like eaten Make Your Life Epic, and now we’re like the best marketing slash business coaching platform on the planet, where here’s the deal. You have to understand that when you have the mindset that Z’s talking about of trusting but verifying, when you have three people handle the cash, let’s say you have a business with four people. I promise you this is what’s going to happen. Person number one is going to go, well, how come I can’t handle the cast? Don’t you trust me? And this is what I want you to look them in the eye and say. I trust you, but I want to verify. I trust you, but I want to verify. They’re like, well, why? I thought we were trusted. Trust is earned, but I want to verify. And when you verify, people then get a little bit like, well, how come he doesn’t trust us? So for search engine, work with me. I have one guy who writes the content. All right I have another person who uploads the content and the third person Sharita right now who verifies the content three three I’m telling you as our company’s grown it hasn’t been that big of an issue now, but we first started There’s only four people guy number one who’s writing the content says Why can’t I just upload my own content and verify it? I said my man trust but verify but again because I was righteous, because I was right, because I was correct, because I was being morally correct, many people get frustrated and they want to persecute, they want to attack you as the business owner. They want to go, don’t you trust us? They want to attack you and go, why don’t you believe in us? What’s the deal? So Jesus was killed at age 33 for basically being a good guy and for being righteous. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot for being righteous, a good guy. Many people are attacked for saying the right things. I’m going to tell you what, when you implement this system, the hard part, I want to talk about this after the break, is when you go to implement this and you have a team of four people and you go, I want you to touch the cash, you to verify it, and then you to double verify it, or whatever your system is, when you try to implement this, the thing behind the thing is people are not going to be happy with it. Well, and I’ll tell you what, David, I’ve got the ultimate secret sauce. After the break, I’m going to share with you. And if you implement this, you won’t have any cash problems. Stay tuned. Thrivetimeshow.com. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. On your radio, this is the show where we help you learn what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. I think a lot of entrepreneurs out there, you have questions that you feel, it’s almost like this pressure for you to, if people say, what do you do for a living? You say, oh, I’m self-employed. You almost feel like you can’t ask basic questions. You almost feel this pressure to ask big TED Talks kind of questions. But what we do on this show is we’re a business school without the BS. We’re the stuff behind the stuff. But we would not be able to answer the questions unless you were sending them in hundreds and hundreds of questions. And so I applaud you, David in Miami. I really do. I applaud you for asking this question because it’s a good question that so many people have. You wrote in here, you emailed info at thrive15.com. How do I implement better cash control at my business and point of sale? We went into these moves. And if you missed it, go to thrivetimeshow.com to check them out. But now we’re talking about the fallout of that, sort of like the nuclear fallout. When you go to implement a system, and one of these final points was you have to have three people touch the cash, kind of a trust but verify system. And I work with so many businesses. I’ve coached so many businesses where I know the moment that you tell Sally, Doug, and Tom, it just got real. And you go, Sally, I want you to touch the cash. Doug, I want you to verify it. And then Tracy, I want you to put it into the system or whatever their names are. Z, tell us the super moves when the team starts to push back and go, they start to say, why do I need to do this? Well, they need to do it because that’s what you’re paying them to do and that’s what you want to do. And they’re going to feel like that you don’t trust them and that, you know, hey, why can’t I do it? But you know what? Those are red flags. And that’s just you don’t you don’t any part of that. OK. So you need to be firm on the rules. Three people touch the cash. One accept, one count out the dwarf in the day, and then one to do the deposit. But David, I’m going to give you the last little super move on handling cash in your business. And I’m assuming, Dave, that you are the business owner, or at least the manager or someone in authority. So I’m assuming you’re the owner, the entrepreneur that wrote into us, the thriver. And here’s the ultimate secret sauce in handling cash in your business. Oh, beautiful. Give it to us. This is it. You have to come up with a system that is so waterproof, tight, that you can’t steal cash out of your business. That you can’t steal cash out of your business? What does that mean? You know, because what will happen is I see so many business owners that, quite frankly, go in and take cash and don’t deposit it. What? That’s a thing? Yes, that’s a thing. Worldwide that’s a thing. You say to yourself, well, that’s my money. Well, technically you’re supposed to report it and pay taxes on it, and part of that money, right or wrong, goes to the government. So you can take your entire life. Think about it, Thrivers, this is an encouraging message. All the money you earn during your life, if you take a third of it and you pay it in taxes, you could team up to buy one-third of one missile. There you go. But here’s the deal. And you say to yourself, well, all the reasons you might want to still cash out your business, one, well, the government doesn’t need it. I’ve got enough money. Two, well, they’re not spending it very well, so I’m going to spend it better than they do. Okay, come on in. Right? And number three, I need it more than they do, because they’ve, guess what? Steal money do the same thing to you. I look at you say well. He’s a business owner He makes plenty money drives a nice car. He lives in a big house, or you know he’s got it going on So he doesn’t need it or to did you see what he spent money on last week? He went to wherever and did whatever he’s not real life scenario. He’s not he’s not real well real-life scenario do it thriver. I talked to lives in Colorado This was a statement that was made by his employee. I don’t know how you handle it all right They’re gonna turn out pretend that I’m the person that said this to you all right so Z I mean I I Really would like to do that stay you know stay a little bit extra after work today But I noticed that you mean you spent like I saw the invoice come in you spike True number twenty eight thousand dollars on your retaining wall, and that’s like what I make in a year, and it’s just hard to stay motivated when I know you spend so much on a retaining wall for your house and not even $28,000 on me. I work so hard. I work 40 hours a week every week, and you want me to stay extra, and you’re spending more money than you pay me in a year on your retaining wall. Well, Billy, that’s a good point, and I’ll tell you what, that’s why I’m going to encourage you to one of these days. If you want to, you can have your own business, and then you can make your own money and then you can you know put it where you want to put It and spend it on what you want to spend it on but that’s what I did now We have a deal and this is our deal and if you stay extra and work extra I’m gonna pay you all right and And that’s that’s where you are in life, and that’s where I am in life And those are the differences, and it should be kind of self-evident Billy and the fact that that upsets you How do you say I’m getting upset? How do you say these things guys? Why watch you do it? Yeah, and there’s so many guys I talked to the Thriver and he’s like, I want to, I want to say, I want to, you know, he’s listening to you Zee and this is a true story. He says, I want to be able to communicate things calmly, but in the heat of the business, does Zee talk to people that way? Do you actually? I do. Do you know why? Why is that Zee? Because when you’re the boss, you may think obstacles seem small, but when you’re the boss, you got the hammer. You got the lead pipe too. You got the hammer. You got the lead pipe. You’re like a piece of mine, say. I can hit you with this hammer, but I choose not to. I choose to remain calm. I would never threaten you directly, but I swear to God, I swear I could put you in the river and you could be sleeping there with the fishes. I could put your feet in the concrete and nobody would miss your body, but I would not do that. It’s like going to a junior high and you can pick on the kids, but you’re better than that. You’re not going to do it. I can potentially threaten you, scare you, intimidate you, and I do have people that can bury you and burn your body and no one would ever find it, but I would not insinuate these kind of things. I would not do it. Well, the thing about it is that, hey, listen, the first time or two you go through scenarios you can get a little emotional, but then you realize you put those emotions in check and you’re the leader. yourself in calmness. You can’t get irate at all the stupid little things that people might say out of their mouth because they’re young and they don’t know and they just spur things out and you educate them. You say, well listen, when you make the money, you can get your own retaining wall. When you have your own business, you can do what you want with it. And when you do it, I mean if you win the lottery, do you want me telling you how to spend the money? No, because it’s your money. Now Z, we have another win that just came in this is a win of the day We’re getting wins every day now winning Thursday now this comes in from Francine So let me queue up my winning when my winning a sound clip here She says this I Have been able to dramatically increase my Google presence by implementing the strategies taught in your start here book I don’t know what that means in terms of revenue your Start Here book. I don’t know what that means in terms of revenue, but she says, dramatically increase my Google presence by implementing… Woo! Yeah, clap, clap, clap. Boom! Boom! We like the audience noise, so we can pipe in here. You know, kind of like… I’ll get that ready. I’ll get that ready for you. We should have that. I’m writing that down. All the buttons you’re pressing, that should be one that we have. Yeah, and I’ll tell you this, Thrivers, I’m writing that down. You can hold me accountable here, Thrivers. That will happen. And I’ll tell you a win of the week that’s exciting. If you Google right now, America’s number one business coach, we’re topping Google. Thrive Time Show on the radio is topping Google because of back links from people like you, reviews from people like you, because of testimonials from people like you, and because of transcripts from people not like you, like us. So the thing is Thrivers, I want to encourage you that you can get to the top of Google for any term you want, just like Francine, super exciting. Well, listen, Clay, there are steps to get to the top of Google. You don’t just wake up one day and say, I think I’m going to get to the top of Google. There’s a lot of steps and a lot of processes and a lot of little secret moves to get there. And it would take a couple of hours to teach you. Yeah, so when and where can I come and learn about that? I mean, because I’m a business owner, I know Google is a big thing, and I know getting to the top of Google, at least page one, can be worth hundreds if not millions of dollars. Well, what you’re going to do is your first step number one, Thrive, is write this down, go to thrivetimeshow.com. Okay, I’m writing. Hold on. And by the way, this step is free. Thrivetimeshow.com. Step one. Got it. Step number two is you’re going to click there on the button called conferences. Okay. You click on that. Conference. Got it. Cool. And you want to see if we have any available seats left because we don’t have an arena. We try to keep it… She hosted at our 20,000 square foot facility. We should have an arena one time and do bullfighting before you speak or something. That would be fun. Do you want us? Are you not entertained? Do you want to see bull? I mean, the thing is that we bring people here to our in-person workshops. Okay. Sam, our producer, has seen them. I think Ian, you’ve seen them there. And you know, there’s about 40 people that are here. A lot of husbands and wives, a lot of business owners, small family businesses from all over the country. The last one we had, we had people from 10 different states that came in. They all fly in. Okay. And when you get here, you’re going to be overwhelmed by the… It’s kind of like a Disneyland of entrepreneurship. Okay? I like that. Step one, go to the website. Step number two, fill out the form. See if we’re available. And what we do is our conferences, if you’re going to thrivetimeshow.com, you’ll notice that Tony Robbins typically charges between $1,000 to $3,000 for his workshops. And it’s very motivational-focused. Option number two is you could go to the Maui Mastermind, which is $30,000. That’s a lot of money. It’s a great workshop, but it’s $30,000. Another option that you could do is you could go to the Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminars by Robert Kiyosaki, and you will be upsold like a boss. Just Google the Rich Dad Poor Dad reviews and you will see a flood of, oh my gosh, they high pressured me. I mean, you might have to go, I think I have to go to the bathroom and you just run out the door and they’re still going to chase after you and somehow they’re going to upcharge you. But we have our conference tickets. They’re $500 and that’s for you and your team. So it’s not just for you, but it’s you and like your team, you and your office. So you and up to four people can come with you for $500 and if you cannot afford that amount, you actually get to what? You actually get to almost determine the amount because you have a scholarship available. So if you have $20 in your pocket, you can get out to it, okay? But we’re dead serious. You’ve got to check it out. But the thing is, vision without execution, according to Thomas Edison, is hallucination. So stop hallucinating, get serious, turn your big visions and dreams into action, and go to thrivetimeshow.com. We’ll be back. We have more answers to questions from Thrivers like you. Stay tuned. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back into the conversation. We like to view the Thrive Time Show as really it’s kind of our audio dojo of mojo. You might say, what does that mean? Well, I’m going to tell you what. right now where there is so much negativity and so much jackassery. Now jackassery is like this, okay, if you’re listening to the show enough, you’ll kind of over time figure out my political views, but I’m not going to sit here and spout them on the show. But what will happen is, let’s just say that Z is a super right-wing conservative and I’m a super left liberal, and I’ll go on my Facebook and write, I just, all the Republicans hate the Democrats, and there’s just so much judgment. And then somebody else will write back, well, you know, if you would just, and they just go back and forth with hyperbole, judging each other, arguing, fighting, and no one’s making any progress in their life. No one’s actually focusing on how do I, how do I improve my own quality of life? I mean, you’re arguing online about his political views and your political views, but what about improving your life, your own life? And so this is a show dedicated to you and how you can improve your own life. And so one thing we do, Z, we started doing this recently, is we encourage you to email us info at thrive15.com. Info at thrive15.com. And currently we’ve been able to answer the majority of the questions that you’re asking either through the videos at thrive15.com or the questions. But it’s starting to speed up, so it’s kind of a challenge. Can you ask a question that we don’t have time to answer. That’s the question. Yeah, exactly. And the thing about it is you’ve got to understand Thrivers. We built the boat, but you’re driving the boat. What does that mean? That means that we started three years ago with Thrive15.com and we started making videos of great success stories, mentors, and problem solving, and basically business coaching. You know, it’s a monthly fee. You can get on there. I call it the Netflix of business school, business coaching, okay? And you said, we want more. So we started in-person workshops. You said, we still want more. So we started the radio show. And you said, we still want more. So guess what? We started one-on-one business coaching. So you’re kind of driving the boat on this, and that’s why we love the questions that come in, because we want to talk about and help you problem-solve the practical stuff of starting and running a business. Because Forbes says that 57% of you out there listening right now you’re driving or you’re at your desk you’re sitting listening to the show and you’re going you know I may want to start a business. You know for some reason when you said going you said you’re driving the boat yeah I pictured fishing and my dad who is his passed away about you know five months ago for some reason my dad loved fishing I could never quite get into it but I always think of my when you say when you say the boat or fishing you know certain things remind you of certain people. I always think of my dad and fishing and he was a huge Credence Clearwater revival fan. So I’m gonna cue this up here kind of special dedication to my dad upstairs here. Tom Clark, this song goes out to you. Here we go. For anybody who likes fishing on a boat. Oh yeah, Thrivers, you’re driving the boat. You’re fishing on the boat. Doesn’t this seem like a great song to lead into our question? Oh yeah. Oh man, I almost don’t want to even talk. I just want to let it happen. Let me just give the drivers 30 seconds. Here we go. Come on now, drivers. Oh yeah. Get those questions ready. Email us at gointhrivergame.com Keep your hands on the steering wheel. Here we go, drivers. Everybody now. Thank you for educating me about great music. So here we go. This is a question from a Thriver just like you in Tallahassee, Florida. Dr. Owens, check it, check it, check it, check it. He’s a doctor. Do you understand what this means? This means that people like you, regardless of education levels, have questions about how to grow their business. It means that you’re not an idiot because you have basic questions. I had them at one point too. Z had them at one point too. He mentored me. Someone mentored him. That’s how it works. Okay? So this is the great give back. We’re trying to help you pay it forward. Here we go. How do I learn if customers are willing to pay for a new service that I’m offering? Dr. Owens in Tallahassee, Florida. Well, first off, big shout out to the Seminoles. And I have three moves, and I would like to hear your moves. I have three moves. Wow, so that’s six moves. This is going to be fun. Here we go. So this is my move number one. One is I would create a no-brainer offer. I don’t know what kind of doctor you are, but I can just think back to a lot of the dentists I’ve worked with. For some reason, I’ve worked with a lot of dentists. If you’re listening right now and your dental practice is in the financial toilet, my specialty is helping fix it. So here’s the deal. We had one dentist in town. He came to me and said, I think I want to offer veneers. And I said, well, okay, so let’s offer veneers. So we made a one sheet, a nice eight and a half by 11 print piece. By the way, we have sample examples at thrive15.com, templates you can look at. And with every patient that checks out, say, have you thought about having any cosmetic dental work done? And the patient will say, well, kind of. They kind of whisper. Because when they think about cosmetic dentistry, no one wants to talk about it out loud. It’s like, yeah, kind of. And you go, well, here’s the deal. I don’t know if you’re interested, but for as little as $88 a month, we can do total veneers for your teeth. And by the way, most TV celebrities, most TV personalities have had veneers, most actors and actresses. And you can just look through this book real quick while the doctor is waiting to see you. So the patients slip through and they see a local TV host or a TV star and they see different people and they’re like, oh my gosh, I didn’t realize these people had veneers. Well, most people on the planet who are on TV have had veneers. By the way, Thrivers, you’re on Facebook Live? I’ve had veneers. Look, veneers. So the thing is, you ask the patients, have you thought about it? And they go, yeah, I’m kind of interested in that. How does that work? And the doctor goes, Oh, we have a program called Care Credit. My wife wanted to do TV, like your sister-in-law, Shira Kimiko. And Vanessa and I both had small teeth, and so she wanted to be on TV. And one of the TV people said, Hey, you have to have veneers if you’re going to be on TV. You understand? That’s the move. So my wife and I are like, oh my gosh. And it’s like $2,000 a tooth. And so we were like, we can’t afford it. But with care credit, it was as little as at the time, maybe $100 a tooth, whatever. So $2,000 a tooth, but $100 a month. And we did it. And you know what? We paid on those payments for a couple of years. And it was great. It was great. Great for me. Great for her. But the doctor started asking. So one is you make it a no-brainer. When it’s as little as $88 a month, it’s kind of like the barrier of pricing no longer is an issue. So for elephant in the room, I didn’t know if people wanted to go to the elephant in the room, so we made it where your first haircut’s a dollar. You just remove the barrier of pricing. Make it a no-brainer. Move number two. Do an A, B, and C option and run ads for all of them. So you’re going to feel like a schizophrenic salesperson, but on Monday run one offer and track the results. On Tuesday do a different offer and track the results. On Wednesday do a different offer. One of our thrivers wants to start an organic smoothie business and I’m encouraging these people, I’m encouraging this couple, I love the idea, but I don’t know what ad’s going to work. So design an ad and run all three at the same time and see which one gets the most clicks, which one gets the most calls. And the third, and this is the deal I would do, is I would ask your customers. So don’t even try to sell it to them, but just say to your customer, Hey, Ms. Smith, it was great seeing you today. Just a question, because we’re thinking about implementing a new service into our business. If we offered teeth whitening or cosmetic dentistry, would you be interested? And she would go, No, or Yes. And if you hear enough yeses, then maybe that’s stuff that you need to implement. So again, my recap of my moves is one, make it a no-brainer. Remove the pricing barrier. See what happens. Two, launch an A, B, and C ad and test them all in advertisement. Three is survey the customers. Actually ask real customers. And Z, back to you. Well, Mike, you know what? I was sitting there making notes whenever I was looking down to these questions at the first segments of the show. And I got to this one and I wrote down, try, ask, do. Tad. I had it broke down to a tad, like there’s the tad. Try, ask, and do? Yeah, try, ask, and do. And that’s basically, the try is the no-brainer. You want to make it to where the barrier to do it, just try it. And then the second one for me was ask. And that is, ask what people thought about it, ask if they liked it, ask what they would be willing to pay for it. And you can ask those in different ways. I mean, you’ve got your core people that come into your business anyway. Now you’re talking about vertically integrating something else to sell on top of what you’ve already paid the money to get them in your door. You’ve already won them over as a customer, a client, a patient. This regard as a doctor, as a patient. So they already trust you. They’re already in your chair, as we call it. And then the third thing is, is just literally encouraging entrepreneurs to do it. You know, to do the thing, to implement it, and to run with it, okay? Because like I said, you’ve done the hard part. You’ve got them off the street in your business, right Clay? Absolutely. You’ve got them sitting in your chair, and they’re sitting there because they believe in you and they trust you. And then just do it. You know, if you’re vertically integrating, adding something on that you’re already, another package, another feature, I mean, for me it’s a no-brainer. People come in and they want contact lenses. Why wouldn’t I have Play-Doh sunglasses there to sell? Why wouldn’t I? Can I tell you something about our 315 Coaching Program that’s amazing to me? Okay, go ahead. One client, I remember when this happened, a client reached out to me and said, could you teach me how to grow a successful company? He’s a mortgage business. And I said, sure. And I go in, I teach him the moves, and he goes, well, do you guys build websites? And I go, well, MeGuys consists of me, because I just sold my business. It’s me as a consultant. And he goes, what? And I go, no, it’s just me. And he goes, could you guys build a website? And I go, well, it’s just me, but I know a guy. I’ll set it up. So then he comes in. We build the website. He goes, so do you guys fix my server? And I go to him, he goes, do you guys? And again, people keep the client. And so I said, because I’m an entrepreneur. I see a problem. I solve it. I said, I know a guy who’ll make it happen. So I called Jason Bailey. Jason Bailey installed the server. I called a friend, Jason Stewart, who fixed the website. I called pretty soon. I said, I have to organize all my rowdy friends onto a team, and we’re going to be like business ninjas. We have a whole team. So you want to fix your website? You want to fix your website? You want to fix your marketing? You want to do your online ads? You want to do? I mean, we have all these. So the thing is, Z, you and I now have videographers, photographers, web developers, print piece designers, cold callers, they all are here in the Thrive15.com world headquarters. So literally, it’s like hiring a team of business ninjas for $1,500 a month. One, five, zero, zero. It’s unbelievable. And we have this new program called the Quick Start Package, where for $750, you get all the minimally viable moves. And I’m telling you, I did not sit down one day and go, well, these are the things I’m going to charge people for, and I’m going to try to do it because… No, I listened to the customer who had already said, hey, listen, I’m already paying you to coach me. Who do you recommend for video? And I recommended a videographer one time, and the client got a bill for $4,200. Remember, $4,200. The client goes, that’s three months of what I’ve been paying you. I just spent on a videographer for one video. And now we have a program where all that world-class videography is included in that $1,500 a month price. I mean, it’s crazy. But Z, you and I didn’t come up with these ideas. We listened to the consumers. Absolutely. And Dr. O, just to wrap up your question from Tallahassee, Florida, I love this question, how do I learn if customers are willing to pay for a new service that I’m offering? And I don’t want to say that the question you really should be asking, but think about this is, it’s not are they willing to pay, it’s how much are they willing to pay. Because if it’s a service, if it’s something that’s an add-on to your practice for them and it benefits them, they’re going to want it. Now it’s just a question of how you implement that into your practice and how much you charge for it. Because if you said, hey, listen, would you like veneers or $1? I mean, everybody would be like, yeah, I mean, across the board. And then you go from, would you want veneers? Sure, well they’re a million dollars. And you’d be like, well, nobody’s buying them now. So really the question is, where do you find that comfort zone of charging for it, making money on it, implementing it into your practice, and then getting enough people that say yes to it, that it’s worth your while to do it? Because that’s really what you’re talking about. Just like with the dentist and veneers. They could charge too much for it and nobody would do it and they’d say, well, I guess nobody wants veneers. No, they didn’t want to pay what you were asking them to pay for it. And if you give it away and give it away too cheap, then everybody’s going to do it. It’s going to tie up your practice and you’re not going to make as much profit as you would. So there’s a fine balance in there. And you know, it’s a great quote we had on yesterday’s show. And that is, is that you know when people start to complain a little bit about what you’re selling something for, you know you’re probably right there at the right price. Now Thrivers, I’m telling you, when we come back, I have what I would call a thunder move. And I normally don’t try to one-up both Zee and myself with thunder moves, but this next thunder move will blow your mind, and there’s a story to go with it. And I’m just telling you, if you’re trying to figure out, is the world willing to pay for the service or product I’m offering, I have a thunder move after the break. And when you get this… That’s like an ultimate move. It is. It’s like going off the turnbuckle in a WCW wrestling event. I’m just telling you, you want to, Thrivers, you don’t want to miss out. It’s a thunder move coming up after the break. Stay tuned to the Thrive Time Show. I can hardly wait. Super thunder move. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio. And today we are talking about the specific moves and tactics that will make your business grow. What Dr. Z and I try to do is we break down the tactics, the techniques, the proven strategies of millionaires and billionaires, and we teach you the specific moves, not only that they teach having achieved success, but that we actually implement on a daily basis to achieve success in our own businesses. And so one of the things we like to do is we like to feature great Oklahomies, great local, kind of local success stories. And so one of the local success stories that we have the privilege to have joined us inside the box that rocks during the break is a lady by the name of Miss Deborah Wimpy. Deborah, how are you doing? I’m doing amazing. Now, I want to, I mean, obviously you are doing amazing. But when you break it down, I mean, I’m looking at all these things you’re doing amazing at. Apparently, you’re running for city council. Is that correct? This is correct, in Broken Arrow. And you’re sort of a serial entrepreneur where you have multiple businesses, adventures you’ve been involved in. Can you explain to the Thrivers what kind of businesses that you’ve been involved in over the last couple years? Owned a retail store in Broken Arrow for four years. And then while owning the retail store I also started a consulting company that runs and manages commercial real estate associations. I have two of those and I’ve been doing that for nine years. Do some legislative lobbying for commercial real estate issues and then I have the BA buzz. So I just buzz around. What is the BA buzz? I literally buzz around and go to ribbon cuttings and ground breakings and tell people what’s going on in the community. Wow. Okay, so Zee, I want to ask you this because we have this Thriver who’s asking us this question and this is from Dr. Owens in Tallahassee, Florida. He emailed info at Thrive15.com and he said this question, how do I learn if customers are willing to pay for a new service that I’m offering? And I mentioned before the break, Zee, I have a thunder move. I have a thunder move here. I’m just buzzing by the way. Are you excited about the thunder move? Dude, yes. For two reasons. One, I think thunder move, that’s the first time, and we’ve done 130 some odd shows, it’s the first time you’ve ever pulled out of your pocket a thunder move, number one. Number two, my favorite NBA team is the Oklahoma City Thunder. So anytime you can get thunder out there, that’s kind of a cool thing. Now Zee, one thing I like to do is I never like to hype up the show. I always want to just, I want to kind of skip the whole hype and I want to get right into it. But I’m not going to. I’m going to crank it. Zee, I’m going to build up here for this thunder move. Here we go. And I don’t know if you feel like this too here, Thrivers, but Deborah, are you ready? Are you ready for the thunder move? I’m ready. Okay, here we go. I highly recommend that you market a product or service before, oh, here we go, you can even deliver it. Whoa! Whoa! Oh my! Did that melt your face off? Oh my gosh, that just irritates me on all levels. I love it. So here’s the story about the, I want to ask you, Debra, if you have any thoughts on this, okay? Because you’ve been an entrepreneur. You’ve been a part of it. You’ve seen it. Tim Ferriss is the author of a bestselling book called The 4-Hour Workweek. And if you get a chance, Thrivers, go to 4hourworkweek.com. When you go to 4-Hour Workweek, you’re going to discover that Tim Ferriss has written a bestselling book called The 4-Hour Workweek. And you go, well, how did he do that? I mean, did he actually have a 4-Hour Workweek before he wrote it? No. So here’s what he did. He ran ads on Google for all different book titles, so he ran AdWord ads for all different book titles, and he found that the book title that got the most clicks was titled, The Four Hour Work Week. So after he knew that enough people would click it, he thought, I should probably write this. No, I’m serious. No, I know. I know it’s a great story. And then he was like, you know what, I don’t really know a whole lot about time management, but it sounds like it’s going to be a time management book if it’s about a four-hour work week. So then he read every book he could get his hands on about four-hour, about time management and effective use of time and delegation, that kind of thing. And he put it all together, he boiled it all down into these specific moves, tactics, and techniques called the four-hour work week. It went on to become a best-selling book, but the entire reason he started the four-hour work week was he thought he had a good idea. And he had about 15 to 20 different book titles that he thought would be good ideas, and he’s going, I don’t really know which one’s going to be a best-seller, which book I should write. So before he even wrote the book, he built an ad and a landing page for all the different book titles, and that was the one that got the most clicks. The – Debra, I want to ask you, Debra, in your history as being an entrepreneur, have you ever thought, you know what, I have an idea for a product, but before I commit to buying all the stuff and building all the systems and investing in all the things, maybe I’ll try to sell it first. Have you ever done that, or am I just out of my gourd? Yeah, no, I haven’t done that. I feel like that’s kind of risky, but apparently it might work. Here’s my ethics on this. I went to the Bridal Show back in the day for a company called epic photos Which now exists and is now has won all the awards for the best photography company on the planet for weddings And I didn’t know anything about wedding photography And I didn’t have any cameras But my thought was I’m gonna go out there and try to sell it and if people want to buy it I’m gonna say you know what I will make sure that we check the availability and if we can move forward I’ll let you know and I told the guys I’m not going to start a company unless we have 50 people say they want to move forward. And so we went out to the show, we had about 25 or 30 people that were very interested, and I was like, well, you know, I mean, we have a big interest there, let’s start the company. But it was all based off the interest first. So that’s a big thing I do with products and services a lot. I don’t know, Steve, have you ever done that before? It’s an absolute thunder move. Yes, I have. And you know, the thing about it is you go out there and you pre-sell something, and then if there’s enough interest, then you go ahead and do it. And that’s awesome. I’d like to know the titles of the books that didn’t make the cut. I’d like to know. That’d be fun to email him and say, hey, just out of curiosity, you know, what the six hour work week didn’t fly, the two and a half hour work week, was it enough? I mean, I don’t know. Here’s the thing is, Thrivers, if you’re listening right now and you’re wondering if the world has a place in the market for your product or service, you eventually have to get out there and try to sell that thing. So I want to ask you, Debra, you’ve had some success as an entrepreneur. You’ve obviously had some staying power. You’ve been doing this for a while. What advice would you have for the women or the men out there listening who are going, I want to be a self-employed person. I want to do it, but I’m so scared. I’m just clinging. I don’t know what to market it. I don’t know what to take the jump. What advice would you have for them? Well, you know, I was saying earlier, like, not like being scared of taking the risk, but basically when I opened my store, I decided one day that I’m just going to find the space and put some people in it and it was going to just work. And so it’s kind of the same thing. I just decided I’m just going to do this. I called my husband. I said, I found the space to rent. I can open my I can open the store. And it was like within 30 days. And sometimes you just have to, though. You just have to take that risk. Did the phone line go dead? Was he supportive? Was he scared? Was he nervous? He’s kind of used to it. It’s kind of like whenever I said, hey, I think I’m going to run for city council. And he was like, oh, so sleep is not important to you? So, yeah. So, you would say eventually you just have to take the jump? Yes. Z, what advice would you have for the entrepreneur listening who goes, I’m thinking about starting a new service or a new product. What advice would you have, my friend? Ask people if they want it, and then not just your, you know, Aunt Matilda and Uncle Billy, because they’re gonna pat you on the back. It’s kinda like the voice that’s showing TV, the voice, those kids get on there, or the, you know, the American Idol, they get on there and they go, I can sing, and they do this whole expose on them, they get through, they can’t carry a tune, you know, so you wanna ask the people around you, you wanna ask customers, if you have an ongoing business now, and you wanna add a service, that’s a different thing than starting a business, so, like for me, before I got my first auto auction, I went around. I had relationships with car dealerships, car guys in town because I had vacation with them, which I won’t bore you with that whole story. You knew a guy. But I knew a guy. So I went to him and talked to him. And not only did I think it was a good idea, but they helped coach me up and they mentored me because it was a new business I was getting into. And so it kind of shortcutted me to not make the mistakes that a guy would typically make starting that business. Now, we have another question about pricing when we come back. A lot of Thrivers are wanting to know about pricing. I think pricing is a big concern for you. You’re going, I don’t know where to price my service. Should I price it high? Should I price it low? Should I price it middle? I don’t know. Price it. When we come back, we’re going to be talking all about pricing at Thrivetimeshow.com. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back into the conversation. Oklahoma’s that know me, welcome back. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, sent here to help make your wallet expand. Really a lot of people, you’re listening and you’re going, gosh, I’m new to this show. What is it all about? I’m going to give you guys about 90 seconds to clarify your mission. Well, here’s the deal. Our mission is to mentor millions and to give you business school without the BS, and that’s the whole thing. If you want to know about how to start and grow a successful business, we’re the show for you. If not, no stress. But we always like to celebrate wins of the week, wins of the day. And I have a very, very exciting win from a thriver listening every day from Arizona. And Arizona is no longer part of Oklahoma. Did you realize that? I did not realize that. That is a, I mean, a lot of people say, and you know how that is possible. Our broadcasting area, by the way, we’re broadcasting right now in Tennessee, we’re broadcasting in Bentonville, Arkansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, up in Topeka, Kansas, you can hear the signal. But you know what, where you can’t hear it is in Arizona. But what’s happening is, is thrivers like you are going to Thrivetimeshow.com, you’re finding a podcast, you’re sharing it with a friend, and so now, Curtis, who operates a solar-powered energy company in Arizona, he has a big win. And here we go. He says this, I just signed a big contract to expand into California. He just got a deal. That’s money in the bank. Woo, way to go. Come on, Curtis. Never nervous, Curtis. He’s just feeling it like a petting zoo. Arizona. OK, so here’s the deal. The next question from a thriver just like you comes to us. It’s about pricing. How do I determine the pricing of my service if no one else has offered my service? This is from a client in Florida. This is actually a one-on-one coaching client in Florida, and he has injury prevention, I guess. It’s injury prevention. He’s in Florida. Z, I’ve got my moves. I want to get Debra. I want to get your moves there, and I want to get everybody’s moves. So here we go. I’m going to start with my two moves. One, try to sell it. So whatever you think it’s going to be, I mean, I’m just telling you, whatever you come up with and we’ll get into how you do it, I would definitely try to sell it. I put that first and foremost because if you can’t sell, your business will go to Hades. You have to sell. Because if you can’t sell, it’s not going to go well. I see so many people who spend years and years and years marketing, marketing, marketing, working on their widget, but they never sell anything. So you have to eventually attempt to sell it. Move number two is I would mystery shop other companies in other cities. Other companies in other cities. So I would call a company in Dallas, a company in Miami, a company in Toronto. You mean you would actually pretend to be a customer? Yes I would. You mean you would, I mean, someone says, is that ethical? I am not going to get into that with you. I will just say that’s what I do. That’s my move. I would pretend to be a customer. I would call. So as an example, I’d go, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Yes, hey, I’m calling to learn about your one-on-one fitness business. I’m interested in personal training. Where do you live? I would say something like, Arizona? Oh, yeah. And so what has you, how did you find us? On the Internet. So what are you looking for? And I would go through the whole process. You know, I’ve even gone through, I’ve actually booked my competitors in the photography business. I actually booked, they have a non-refundable deposit of $500, I actually booked one of my competitors paid $500 down just so I could see the process. I actually paid for my own friend to have wedding photography from another competitor just to learn everything. That’s a move. That’s a dirty move, but it’s my move. It is a tad bit of a dirty move, but you know what? It is a move, and I’ll tell you what, if when you start to climb the ladder of success, your competitors will be doing it to you, for sure. For sure, man, for sure. And speaking of climbing the ladder of success I have to mention one of our super sponsors oh yes one of our super sponsors Regent Bank listen if you’re in the Tulsa Oklahoma City or no water Eric no water no water no water I sound like a hick no water which is actually a town here in Oklahoma it’s a thing and you say listen I’m starting a business and I need a bank that is friendly to entrepreneurs and friendly to business you know start-up business start-up businesses I have the bank for you it’s called Regent Bank here we go if you’re looking for a bank with convenient hours open all the time to help serve you. Region Bank, Region Bank. All right, that’s growing. It’s growing seven times faster than national average. And I’ll tell you what, the guys there are awesome. And that gets to pricing, you know, especially when you’re selling a, what you might say is a commodity. You know, you may say to yourself, well, gosh, everybody is selling money. That’s what a bank sells, right? They sell money. Basically, they sell suckas and money. They have the drive-thru thing, and they get the sucka, and what color sucka do you want and all that good stuff. But here’s the thing about it. When you’re pricing what you would think is a commodity, in other words, the actual product is not the difference, but it’s the service that comes along with the product. Now, here we go, you’ve got to wow your customers. You’ve got to wow them with that product and differentiate yourself, okay? So then when you come in, you can shop, just like you said, shop your competitors. And then whenever you do your pricing, you can either do one of a couple things. One, you can wow them and charge a little bit of a premium on them. Or two, you can go the value route and try to undercut them. Now, when I’m first starting off, I like to go the value route and undercut them a little bit, okay? Value and undercut, so it’s kind of like value, yay! Undercut, psh, yeah, right, boom, right in the head. And when you walk in, it’s kind of like when you walk into a bank. Sometimes you walk into a bank and they have like the CD board and it shows all the banks in town and what’s the CD rate and guess what, theirs is just a little bit better. Now how do they know that? How do they know? How do they know that? Do they send someone into the lobby to spy? Is that ethical? See, people are so mad at the Patriots for filming the other team. Oh no, here we go. Listen, they just got busted for mystery shopping, that’s all they were doing, with the camera. I think it was a little more nefarious than that, but we won’t get into… Just because we deflate balls and video the other team, that doesn’t mean that we should be hated. Yeah, but there’s an interesting part of this question from Florida, and that is, what if nobody else is selling it? What if you are first in the market? What if you are bringing something new to the market? Then all of a sudden, now you can do some tests on that, okay? You can try pricing different amounts. You can ask your patients or your customers what they are willing to pay, and you can actually then start to charge different amounts and see where you get traction on it. You know, Deborah Wimpey, our special guest today, she actually has this thing called the BA Buzz. Is that correct, Deborah? It is. And this is a new thing to Broken Arrow when you brought the BA Buzz. What is the BA Buzz? It’s a social site for Broken Arrow. So you can go there to find out all things that are going on, and then I can also help market your business. Was there anything like it before you created it? I don’t think that there was. So how did you determine your pricing? Did you kind of look into a crystal ball? Did you have a fortune teller? What was your move? Well, I asked other, with the marketing part of it, I asked other people who did marketing. But for me, I thought this is Bercanero. It’s kind of, with it being new, I kind of did what you were saying I do I did the you know kind of the value keep it You know you made it a no-brainer. It’s like an offer you couldn’t refuse So you can’t refuse with that would you I mean Deborah would you say that that’s a move is make make your customers You know what these moves are The thing about the move You make up an offer that can’t refuse and you then you devalue them. And you say, listen, I deal with this, this deal is so good. I’m gonna deal with you. I’m gonna deal for you, Z. If you, if you go to Elephant in the Room, it’s E-I-T-L-Lounge.com. It’s a men’s grooming lounge that I may or may not own a part of. You go over there, your first haircut is a dollar. A dollar is a low enough price to make you whole, you know what I’m saying? And I don’t, I don’t get offended, but I, you need to get over there, but it’s a jealousy. I came before that your mob needs regulating I’ll tell you what if you go over the elephant the room. I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you I’ll make sure that none of those other weirdos are on the marketplace. I’m attacking you with a lead pipe Absolutely I think that’s a no-brainer you get a man, and then you wow them with a little paraphernalia Oh great haircut Wow wow them with the pampering a beverage. Oh, and you have vertical selling in there, and you’re like, oh, would you like some shoe polish? Would you like this? Would you like, well, I don’t know all the stuff you’re selling there. Our big grand opening celebration is tomorrow night from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Learn more at eitrlounge.com, and stay tuned, more about pricing when we come back. Shoe polish. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on your radio. This is your place that you go to the daily audio dojo of Mojo to make your business grow. You see, I mean this sincerely. I really do passionately mean this. We love helping entrepreneurs like you grow successful businesses. And one of the things we love to help you do is to take pause in your busy schedule and ask yourself some tough questions. One of our thrivers out there, the multi-millionaire entrepreneur, author, this is Jim Stovall. He’s right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He listens to the show all the time. He sent us an advanced copy of his newest book called The Art of Productivity that he wrote with a guy by the name of Steve Forbes. Z, perhaps you’ve heard of Forbes Magazine. It’s kind of a deal. I’ll tell you what, they’re one of the go-to business magazines out there, so if you don’t have a subscription to it, you might want to get one. On Facebook Live, you can see Jim Stovall, forward by Steve Forbes, and I’m going to read a little excerpt because these are the kind of questions that we want you to kind of ask yourself every day as you listen to the show. One is, he says, this is what Jim Stovall encourages you to do. He says, what, ask yourself, what is it I’m really trying to accomplish? Two, do I really want to accomplish this? Three, will this activity move me toward that end result? Four, is there a better way to get from here to there than I am currently pursuing? And see, I meet so many entrepreneurs who are working so hard, and they look up and go, I’m 40. They keep working hard. Oh, no, I’m 50. They look at, I’m 60. All of a sudden, I mean, we only have one life. This is a gift. And so you’ve got to revere it, and you’ve got to get sincere about your own life goals. You’ve got to say, this is where I want to go. Am I getting there? And if you’re not getting there, email us, info at thrive15.com, and we’ll teach you how to build a business vehicle that will help produce you the time and financial freedom that you need to get where you want to go. And so we have one Thriver who goes in on a limb. By the way, that’s where the fruit is. If you go out on a limb, that’s where the fruit is. Oh, preach that. Preach that. Oh, and he says this. This is a management. This is a question from Curtis in Arizona who asks, what is the difference between leadership and management? I mean, that’s a thing. He says, going, okay, managing people, what’s the difference between leadership and management? I’m going to tackle it. I want to ask Deborah a question about this. I want to ask you, Z. So I’m going to go get into my take on this. Jack Welch wrote a book called Winning, which explains, it’s the best management book ever. But management is this. It’s getting the members of your team to perform at a standard of excellence that is not normal. It’s a higher standard of excellence that they would perform by default. And I think that if you’re listening right now and you’re going, my team is not performing at an excellent level, one of the things you have to do is ask yourself, are you managing them properly? Because you can’t just hire a group of people and allow them to do what they’ve always done and then complain that they’re not performing with excellence. And so John D. Rockefeller, one of the world’s wealthiest people during his time. Actually, during his time, he was so rich, he could basically buy everything that Bill Gates owns six times. If you think about back in the day. Unbelievable. He says this, good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people. So he says good management consists in showing average people how to do the work of superior people. So that’s, in my mind, what management is. It’s getting normal people, like myself, to perform at a high standard. That’s what management means in my mind. Now leadership is casting a vision and saying, where do you want to go? Team, this is where we’re going. A manager holds people accountable and gets them to perform at an excellent level, but a leader is kind of like a trailblazer. He sets the vision, he sets the course, he says, guys, we’re going this way, and the managers work for the leader, typically. That’s my take on it, Z. Yeah, I would say that. I would say that leadership is really the big picture and Management is the little picture and what I mean by that is you know you have the forest and the trees and leadership is Is looking at the forest the big picture? This is the direction we want to go and then management is actually more the minutia of controlling the organization or the group and saying Hey, here’s here’s the nitty-gritty of what we need to do to fulfill the leadership’s vision about where we’re going to go. And we have a lady on the show today, a local Oklahomie, a success story, a serial entrepreneur, and a lady that many of you know. I mean, if you’re listening right now, you go, I know her. It’s like, I know you. This is Deborah Wimpey. She’s sort of a Broken Arrow rock star. And Deborah, rumor has it, you are running for city council out there in Broken Arrow. Is that correct? I am. And what has possessed you to do that? Well, I’ve become a community advocate of sorts and to be honest I’ve had a passion to run for a while and my husband said, why in the world would you want to do something that pays you zero dollars and half the people are going to hate you. Do you get zero dollars if elected? Oh yes. Really? That’s a sweet gig. Okay, keep going. And so through the past couple of years I’ve been putting on these events and so this kind of leads up to why I decided to run but when I was doing the events the whole purpose was to build community and to Bring people to broken arrow and to just build awareness and it’s a lot of work It’s a lot of work to put on big huge. I mean we have 15,000 people at our last one so many people 15,000 and so why again I just I failed to comprehend I think listeners are going, there’s probably something you’re in it for. It’s probably tax credits, you’re probably getting a good deal on solar panels. She’s probably getting whatever she wants. She’s got a defense contract in her hip pocket. A defense contract. She’s probably making weapon systems out of a garage. She’s probably got a series of wild goats that she wants to get a residential home zoned agricultural. She’s in a neighborhood and she’s trying to get goats and yaks and, you know, various llamas, all, you know, she’s trying to get alpacas. She’s getting designated. She’s trying to corner the market on alpacas. So what’s in it for you, really? I mean, if you win the city council, what’s in it for you? I get to have a say, and I get to, I’ve been about the people all along, and I get to be an approachable person that people know and trust and know that they can rely on me to get some things done for them. Z, what would you say about this? Well, I say that this is why, if you’re listening right now to this show, and you’ve got a little itch, and you say, listen, I want to become an entrepreneur, I want to own my own business, you know why I say go and do it, why we’re encouraging, giving you the practical steps to do it, so then you have the time freedom to go have a job that pays you nothing. I mean, that’s awesome. That’s the way I did it. Give back to your community. Because she has time freedom from successful businesses that she’s had in the past. All right? You following me? In other words, she’s made some money. You took me down a really dark tunnel for a minute. I was trying to get out of it. I was trying to mentally understand. No. Okay. No, no. So I’m telling you what. When you have time freedom and financial freedom, then you can say, oh, hmm, what do I want to do with my time? Oh, I know. I’ll go try to get elected to a position that pays me no money, that I’ve got people that are going to complain about, and yet I’m going to do it because I have a passion for my community and I have a passion to try to give back to the people around me. Now, Debra, if someone’s listening right now and they’re like, I’m undecided. I don’t know why I would vote for you. I basically, I take the city council vote in Broken Arrow very, very seriously. I take several weeks to read all the blogs, all the articles. Why should I vote for you? Give me a pitch, give me a spiel, because I’m going to do my research. My incumbent has been in for 24 years, and although he’s darling, it’s time for new fresh blood and new vision and broken arrow on the council, and that’s my goal. Are you basically running against older people? Is that your platform? What? I do love older people though. There’s nothing wrong with older people. Z, it’s been hard for me being doing the show with you when I can’t hear you or see you, but I feel your aura. Where’s Mabel? Is she on the show? That’s Aunt Matilda. Oh, wow, that’s great. Well, I tell you what though. Listen, folks, you’re listening to the show right now. If you’re watching on Facebook Live, you can see our studios, the box that rocks, and then our home office behind us. But if you want to come in person, we’ve got an unbelievable offer for you this month, in about, what, a week now. A week? Yeah, it’s a week actually. Yep. So on the 24th and 25th of February, we’re doing an in-person workshop right here where we will personally teach you and walk you through our 13 steps of how to start and grow a business. We’ll give you downloadables. We’ll give you templates. Yeah, we’ll answer your questions. Clay will even fist bump you. He’s not, I don’t know, he’s not a big hugger, so don’t expect a lot of hugs from him, but he’ll fist bump you. Not since the arrests, can I hug a male? There you go. And you say to yourself, how much does that cost? That sounds like it’d be thousands of dollars. It’s only $500. And guess what? We have local successful business people, just like Deborah here, that have contributed scholarship money to the cause. They said, listen, this is such a worthy cause, and it means so much to me. I’m going to help finance someone out there who can’t afford the $500. So there’s no excuse not to come and do it. I think we’ve got 20 some odd tickets left. Absolutely. The thing, Thrivers, is when you come out to these workshops, they start at 7 a.m. and they go until 3 p.m. and we cover time management, sales, marketing, accounting, personal finance, everything you need to know to start or grow a successful business. We cover, we also give you the boom playbook, the workbook, so when you leave you have tangible documentation of what you learned and you get a year’s access to thrive15.com, the world’s best business school with over 3,000 training videos, hundreds of templates. It’s a game changer. Check it out at thrivetimeshow.com. Again check it out at ThriveTimeShow.com. But the big thing I want you to do today is I want you to email us, info at Thrive15.com, any business question that you have, or go to ThriveTimeShow.com to learn more about the conference. Either way, don’t delay. See, this is your life. You’ve got one shot, one opportunity to become a successful entrepreneur like Miss Deborah over here. Or you could, you know, just kind of let life pass you by. Or you could try to get a herd of goats into a residential area and raise them. Which is really her platform. Right, that’s my platform. Which is for alpacas. I don’t know. Now Thrivers, we like to take it out as always. Three, two, one, boom! Alright JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals so it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there I mean is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion would you need profits to get your to your to get you to your goals? Yeah because if you have a 15 million dollar business but you have 15 million dollars of expenses it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! All right so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save $3000 a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has the same mind, why would they not go to Thrivetimeshit.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a 10-minute consultation To see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least 3,000 bucks a year Why would they not do it? Yeah? Why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you said the website This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas No, that’s that’s clear. Okay, so that that could be a deck of be true So I would encourage everybody check out thrive time show dot-com board slash credit dash cards right time show dot-com board slash credit Dash card what would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could Save three thousand dollars or more on credit card fees. Maybe they think it is a waste of time and then it won’t It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there. That’s making more than three thousand dollars every 10 minutes and they’re like nah, that’s not worth my time. We getting made right money. We getting made right money. There’s probably some someone out there okay who would think that well I’ll just tell you folks if you’re out there today and you’re making less than uh three thousand dollars per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard um it because you can compare rates you can save money, and you know, the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom, and in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off JT’s or any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average I Am at a loss and I cannot see the banana. Yeah, who is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really, fool? Really? Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh! Stop looking at me, swan! Well, let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually, years ago, compared rates with this company here. It’s called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours. And in my case, in my case, my particular case, dollars a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh God. Everything okay ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay I’m a trained professional ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t gonna be easy So I need you to be brave. All right. What’s your name? Patricia? Patricia. All right. I need you to take a deep breath We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic So because my wife eats organic I had to take the ten minutes needed to compare rates to save the twenty thousand dollars a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod. Brand name of the clock. It’s an elegant from Ridgway. It’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you they’ll schedule a free consultation it should take you 10 minutes or less and they’re gonna compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than three thousand dollars a year off of your credit card processing you were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No you don’t owe us money because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time freedom and financial freedom in order to do that you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion 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 Pessimon company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need, that script has been refined time and time again, it wasn’t a one-and-done deal, it was a system that we that we followed with Thrive and in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you, so last week alone our booking percentage was 91%, we actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible. But the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned, that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those 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 pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with the 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 proven turnkey marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you are 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 franchised. Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy’s just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours, where he does these tours all across the country, where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So, think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, 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. Amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. 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 you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. 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 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 ten locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops, are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. If you 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 phone. 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 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 five 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 we’ve been good friends 7-8 years and I’ve doubled 5 times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, turns into sales. Well, I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. 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. That’s really what it’s all about. 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 script. What’s so she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day and our relationship is weird in that we we do If someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC. The computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems, and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. 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 was Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship, but I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant, I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. The experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life-changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe, wherever I end up, will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn. I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how, you know, the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals the Business helps us pursue our goals as well And so I say people that are driven people that want to make something of their lives People that are goal-oriented. They’re focused And they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by. People who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people. In short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay, I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around, and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say, come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.