Entrepreneur | Part 2 – Daily Management And Achieving Operational Excellence

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive, so if you see my wabbit 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. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. Now, knowing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Getting into that, knowing the truth, talk to me about that. Well, we talked about that earlier, too, and I say, you know, if you don’t know the truth, you can’t make the right decision. If I don’t know the truth, I’m going to make the wrong decision. And I talked about my son. I, you know, I came home one time. He was 16 years old and he was dressed on a Saturday morning. My wife and I had been out of town and it’s Saturday morning and it’s eight o’clock. I just got off the plane and I walk in and he’s standing there. What’s wrong with that? 16 year old dressed on Saturday morning. I said, Daniel, what time did you get home? I said, you may want to use the 10 second rule. We always had a 10 second rule. You get 10 seconds to decide which story you’re going to tell me. I said, if you tell me the truth, probably you’re going to have a bad day. If you tell me a lie, you’re going to have a bad year. He said, I don’t need the truth. I drank beer last night and I just got here. I said, now you’ve got to stop. Now I know the truth. What am I going to do with it? So I could have done what my mother would have done. She would have got me down to the church, AA, I would have had to see a psychiatrist, she would have gone nuts, she would have yelled about it. I said, good decision. I’m glad you made that decision. You can go to bed, you won’t hear about it when you wake up. I could have gone after the beer, I’m not going to stop that, I don’t even have any control. But I can, the next time he doesn’t drive and get killed. You know his dad beat him up so bad he was afraid not to come home. And you can call me by the way Dan and I’ll come and get you and you’ll never hear about it you’ve always made the right decision and I think about that because I knew the truth I made the right decision. In business a lot of times there’s the emotion of the situation but you have to find out the truth if you get out there you have to ask the customer what happened ask the key employees what happened. You got to ask five times. Okay. You were late to traffic. Why? Because I got up late. Why? Well, because I went out and drank too much last night. Why? Because… So basically you got drunk last night, that’s why you’re late. Not the traffic. Okay. Five times you get to the… So it’s kind of the rule of five. If you ask five times, you’re peeling back the onion to get to the core of the problem. Try it with your kids as they get older. Okay. Why? The rule of five? The first story they tell you is not the truth. That’s huge. I’m going to start doing that. Ask him five times. That’s huge. Now, you say you’re going to be a copycat. What does it mean to be a copycat? Well, I think today there’s not much new. You know, Starbucks. You know, we talked to the founder of Starbucks. He’s the biggest copycat in the world. He went to Italy on vacation, saw them drinking espressos and coffees, came back and started Starbucks. I mean, basically. Yeah, that’s where the barista came from. Copycat. The business you’re creating now, other people have done this too. You’re just going to do it. The key about being a copycat is get the idea, but then make it better. Make sure your thrive is better than the ones you’ve seen online. Make sure that your coffee shop is better than the one you saw, which you thought was a good idea. Or you had a good idea, you wanted to open a printing store. Just make it better. What are you going to do to make it better? You’re going to deliver, you’re going to open earlier, we’re going to deliver it free. Add that magic to it. Yeah, add the pieces to it. You probably won’t come up with an original idea, but you can make it better. And that’s what makes things are today. Napoleon Hill talks about two kinds of, he’s a success author, but he talks about two kinds of imagination. He says one is synthetic and then the other is creative. And he says synthetic is where you take an existing idea and you modify it and make it better. Or you take two ideas and put it together to make it better and then creative is where you just invent something out of nothing like the one guy in the history of the universe who discovered fire that’s a creative one that’s just kind of and he was talking about be done again yeah he was saying like the person who creates the creative that’s that one out of a billion person but we can all do the synthetic we can all be the copycat. It’s all perfectly said. Now it says here, fish where the fishermen ain’t. What are you talking about? Well don’t try to do what everybody else does. You know, I learned my grandfather said, if ten guys are fishing there, let’s move upstream because there’s too many hooks in the water. We’re not going to catch many fish down here. Don’t do what everybody else is doing. If everybody opens at 8 o’clock, open at 7. If everybody doesn’t deliver, deliver. If everybody doesn’t stay in touch with their customers every hour when something is supposed to be delivered, call them. Add a bunch of stuff that everybody else is not doing. How would you find out what the competition is doing? You go there, you treat them. I just did it for a company. I was a mystery shopper at a conference center for two days out in California in San Ramon recently. They hired me to go and be a customer. At Disney did you ever send up mystery shoppers? I wrote a report back in 6. You were sending up mystery shoppers? Oh yeah, absolutely. We have them all the time and not only that I set up a system where everybody I know that goes there that they were willing to give me a little report on. We even gave them a camera and told them to take pictures all day long of things that were bad. So all of a sudden you get a picture of a dirty bathroom, water fountain doesn’t work, you give the kids a camera, man, they’re great. So if I have a small business, let’s say I have a hardware store, would you recommend that I go shop my competition, see what they’re not doing well? If you’re not, you’re out of your mind. If you’re not? You’re out of your mind. If you’re not shopping your competition, you’re out of your mind. When I was at Disney, I went to every hotel in town to see what they were doing. I attended banquets there. I went to their restaurants for breakfast. Did you ever get kicked out? No. I mean, I was a customer. But what happened is I met the general manager for one big hotel here. And he told me he had never been to a Disney hotel the 10 years he worked here. Really? I said, I looked at him, are you out of your mind? How many things you could have learned from Disney, come back and put in your hotel? Yeah. You got to know what’s going on. And competitors are going to kill you. You know, while you’re having a meeting, they’re having a meeting too, taking your business. Everybody’s having the same meeting. If you go into a hotel, they’re all trying to have meetings about how to take the competitors business. So you just said it, if you’re nuts, a notable quotable, if you’re not shopping your competition, you’re nuts. Absolutely, I mean, why wouldn’t you? I don’t know, I feel like, because I know with my DJ company, I remember this, when I started, what I did is I called all my competition, I’d heard this from someone else, I called all my competition, I made a spreadsheet of all the things they offered, this is how many hours they included, this was their price, this was their guarantee, this is how, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and I was like I’m just gonna beat everything they’re doing and I remember one of the employees that said that’s so dirty that you would call the competition and actually get all their information and I was like well how do you would I mean I think there’s a healthy amount of spying that one has to do here to give you a good example speaking business so in our business right okay keynote speakers yeah so that’s that’s a lot of people doing that yeah and so I decided, first I went online, found out what they’re all doing, looked at all these sites. So I’ve been to a lot of speeches where they’re in the room. So I said, I’m going to make mine different. My fee is not for the keynote speech. My fee is for the whole day. The whole day? If you want me to give a keynote in the morning and three seminars in the afternoon and have dinner with your staff and sign the books and stay overnight and have breakfast. You can have as much of me as you can stand. Yeah, it’s the same for you. And also, I’m going to bring everybody a really cool bookmark with the seven dwarfs. They’re going to love it. Give them something. It’s one of those. Give people something extra. But I want to make myself different. And if you want me to arrive the night before, I’ll be happy to do that and have dinner with the executives or have a session with the executives after we do the main session. And all of a sudden they get one fee where they might have had to hire two or three people to get the same. And I found huge, not just the speaker that flies in, blah, blah, blah, flies out. Beautiful. You got to pick them up there, but nobody has picked me up. I can get there, don’t worry. I know how to get a cab. You don’t need to be picking me up. You don’t need to be booking my airline reservation. I’ll take care of all this. I fly economy unless it’s over six hours. I’m going to save you money. I’m going to buy the cheapest ticket. I’m not going to be a big egomaniac that has to be first class private plane. Meet me at the airport. I need a suite at the hotel. All I need is a bed. I don’t need a suite. I need a bed. Now, let’s ask you this. You said, be a wordsmith. Language matters. Sure. What are you talking about? You know where I heard that first? No. What really struck me, Frances Hesselbein, who wrote the foreword for my book, Creating Magic. Can you tell us who Frances Hesselbein is for someone who might not know? Yeah. Frances wrote the foreword for my book. Frances Hesselbein took over the Girl Scouts in the 70s when it was about to go out of business. There were one million Girl Scouts left in the US and it was declining quickly. The reason it was declining, it had become a middle class white girl organization. Nobody from poor neighborhoods, no Hispanics, no blacks, no Asians, gay and lesbian, all those were not covered. Muslim girls didn’t go. It’s like unbelievable. She went in with one vision. Every little girl in America should see herself in a Girl Scout uniform to build self-esteem, self-confidence, believe in yourself. She took it over. When she left, there were three million Girl Scouts. Wow, triple the size. And a million volunteers. Wow. So I do a lot of work with her. We were talking about language one day and she said, Lee, language matters. She said, do you ever hear somebody say, I can’t wait to be a subordinate? I really want to be a subordinate someday. Don’t call your people your subordinates or my people. They’re not your people, you’re not the pharaoh. You know? And when you think about the language or girls, calling women girl, you girls, you know, you should all come to the meetings. No, you didn’t say that to Priscilla. You find yourself in the pool. Let’s go through some of the rules. Let’s go through some of the words real quick. Some of the words Smith rules here. So if I’m going to refer to a group of women, what should I say? Women, women shouldn’t say girls parts of the country. People say a lot of strange things. So you’re saying speak proper English speak proper English and be intentional about the way I heard this morning that everybody’s really upset because you see the new song that was sung at the event or that came out it’s sung in seven languages simultaneously national anthem really American national anthem song in seven languages beautiful but Twitter went nuts people saying speak English and I will never put on my blog today most of the people say speak English don’t speak English very well themselves even that’s the only language they speak. So be careful what you want as for because a lot of people that are bigots don’t speak English very well. I’m sure if I put that on I’m going to get killed. Now you’re saying it’s really really important to make the intention about the word you use just make sure that you’re sure. Now you say you’re a janitor. Nobody wants to be a janitor. We’ve changed all those names. Team member, not employee. You’re my employee. Always be the giving one. What does that mean to you? Oh, man, that’s my favorite one. Chapter 22. Little Tristan, when I asked him what service meant to him, my 10-year-old grandson, I said, Tristan, what service mean to you? If you want to be in my book, you’ve got to give me a good quote. That little boy looked up at me with not one second delay and said, Papi, when you serve, you’re always the giving one. And I tell people now, who are the giving ones? Our military. You’re talking about giving? Military? Nurses? Teachers? People who don’t get paid a lot of money to give? First responders? Firemen? Parents? Parents are the big giving ones. Their time, effort, everything to their kids. And I tell people, we’re all running around doing a lot. Are we really being the giving ones? Or are we the taking ones in our society? Could we be better? Could you be a giver instead of a taker? Be the giving one? And my little grant, he’s wired that way. He loves to help people. Not everybody’s wired that way. We could all be better at that, you know? Be the giving one. You said here, if they say they want horses, give them a motor car. Well, we’ve learned at Disney, and that was from Henry Ford. He said if I’d asked people what they wanted, they’d say they wanted faster horses. They don’t know what they want. So I gave them a car. They didn’t even know it was possible. And we give people at Disney things they don’t know it’s possible, like free transportation from the airport. You check your bags in Tulsa, and the next time you’ll see them it’s in your room. And then when you check them, you’ll check them at Disney and you’ll find them again when you get back to Tulsa, you won’t have to mess with them. They didn’t know they wanted that. They didn’t know they wanted a meal plan where all the meals are included. 50% buy it now. They didn’t know. People don’t know what they want. Some people, you might get a little there from people. Steve Jobs taught us that. People don’t know what they want. So people don’t know what they want, how do you know what the people want? Well, you don’t always know. You just try to. That’s where the ingenuity comes out. And that’s where you get these creative people. That’s where you get the Steve Jobs and the Bill Marriott that knows people want consistency and they want cleanliness. And they if you make those the priorities and Starbucks, it’s not about the coffee. It’s about the environment. Meeting people. They are friends. Nice chairs. Beautiful. They had all 60s music on. I thought I was in heaven. Sam Cook. Yeah. And some of the young people even knew the music. I said, well, you guys know this music? They didn’t play you Send Me, did they? No. So I think that’s, you know, the dry cleaner probably doesn’t know, you don’t know what you would like to have from them. So all of a sudden, if you went, actually I told Lexotica the other day, I said, you know, you guys do a great job of selling glasses, maybe you should be selling hearing aids too, in the same place. Get everything fixed all in one. Why not? Why not? They’re in there anyway. Why not? Let me ask you this here. You had said in your book, you said don’t make promises, make guarantees. What does that concept mean to you? To me, people go, you know, you ever heard the saying promises, promises? That kind of means people are not going to do what they say they’re going to do. Explicit guarantees. Our grocery store here, it’s right on there. It says, Our guarantee. If you find any product you don’t like, you get home and you don’t like it, you can return it guaranteed, no questions asked, full refund, or more merchandise. We never ask. So I bring peaches back. And some stores, these are not too rough, sir. These are just perfect. At Publix, no problem. There’s no questions. We guarantee your satisfaction. Right, so they just, they made that guarantee and then they’re just… And every time you check out, they ask one question. Okay. Did you find everything you were looking for? That’s it. And my wife didn’t one day. Didn’t have the right graham cracker crust for her. Oh come on. Didn’t have the right brand. One hour later a guy showed up at the door with both of them. Really? Chick-fil-a. Lady didn’t get her fries. Called and raised hell with him. They said thank you and got her address. Showed up with a bag of fries at her house. I know in particular, I know with Chick-fil-a, just as an example of this kind of dedication, and I know that FedEx, I’ve heard this story too, but for Chick-fil-A, all the time people forget their wallet. They go to checkout, it’s embarrassing, their kids are with them in line, and they, oh gosh, I forgot my wallet. And at Chick-fil-A, they have given the latitude to the frontline people just to take care of it. And I know personally of a couple people, a couple people that have said they forgot their wallet, and they comp the meal, and they’re loyal to Chick-fil-A now. They’ll always come back because of it. And they go back and pay anyway. I know at FedEx there was a story about a girl who had a wedding dress that she ordered and you know and she had a hard time getting it from A to B and so because of some flight delays somebody a FedEx employee what took the wedding dress in his car or in her car maybe but drove the employee drove the wedding dress from the distribution center all the way to their wedding location so the dress could get there on time because of that guarantee. I think those are the things people remember though. And they did that because they wanted to. They didn’t have to. They could have just said FedEx can deal with that. That’s pride. Hired the right person and they’re so proud of what they do and they just got to do it. I mean that’s like you can’t stop me. I’ll get through the snowstorm if it takes me all day to get over the mountain. I’ll be there tomorrow night. So you said here treat every customer like a regular. What does that mean? Yeah, don’t start treating people nice after you get to know them. Treat them like a regular. The first time they come in, they might become a regular. As soon as you meet them. As soon as you meet them. When they walk right in the door. I told people that at Church on the Move and I told them at North Point Community Church. You got a bunch of volunteers. Make sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Not talking to each other, but watching for the family coming down that sidewalk the very first time and make them feel so welcome that they always come to church on the move. So if I want to hear Solana, I have a new customer that comes in, I’ve never seen him before in my life, how do I treat him? Act like you’ve known him your whole life. Really? What kind of words should I say to him? Oh, good to see you. You know what I say to people all the time, it’s kind of funny, some of the words you use. If I see somebody, and I see a lot of people at Disney, I don’t recognize them, but when somebody will say hi, Lee, and one time I say, I say, how you been? And that kind of puts in the mind. He remembered how you’ve been. And Tip O’Neill, when he was in Congress, used to ask. It’s funny what he would say. He’d meet you and he’d met you before, but he doesn’t remember. And he’s a good see. And he’d say, how’s your back? He said, everybody’s had back problems. I think this is kind of active, you know, treat people like it’s not a big surprise. Who are you? Where did you come from? We’ve just act like they’ve always been there. Come on in. Can we get you some coffee? Glad to see you again. Or how you been? Yeah, you’ve been. That doesn’t mean I know you. That just means maybe they know me. Now, what about the thing is serve to win, serve to win? Yeah, to me, the WIN stands for what’s important now. WIN stands for what’s important now. And I would say in your whole life, if you can get used to working on what’s important right now, you will win. So what’s important when a customer walks into the store? The only thing that’s important is to focus on the customer, not to keep talking to each other, not to be screwing around over with folding the shirts. What about texting? Texting, you know, you’re texting when a customer walks into the Disney store. I work for you at Disney, and I’m just having a good old text conversation. Well, that won’t happen at Disney because you’re not allowed to have your cell phone on you when you’re on duty. Boo, boo, boo, boo, boo. It’s an epiphany. If you take your phone out and you’re on duty, you’re in big trouble. You cannot have your phone out while you’re on duty at Disney. You can go off stage. You can go on a break. Where does the phone go? You can go in your locker, go in your purse. Maybe it’s even in your pocket. I wouldn’t know, but you better not have it out. And if you do have it out, what happens? I don’t know how many points you get. You’ll be disciplined. Can you just visualize all these Disney Cast Members? Well, I want to say this because again, I want to throw this out here for you. Did you see any Disney employees texting yesterday? No. You will in most places. But I’m going to ask you this because this is what’s huge. Again, I see this, there’s one particular business that comes to my mind, it’s on the East Coast, it’s a retail shop I did some work with. It’s a retail store, they sell retail products, and people text all the time during their shift. And I told the owner, I said, you cannot have texting. And they said, well, you don’t understand, people need to be able to reach their spouse for an emergency. I said, call the main number. They’re not having an emergency all day. Okay. So, if you’re having an emergency, tell the boss, step backstage, step in the store and do your work So in your in your in your mind no texting while on duty to win. What’s important now? It’s not you got to go with none because if you start with a little yeah, it gets out of control Boom, and it’s it’s sad. I mean it is sad what people they just totally ignore you Yeah, I mean they don’t even know you’re in the store You know it’s so it’s like driving and take people because why have it you get so deep into what you’re doing that you can’t even the environment you can’t tell anybody’s there anymore you don’t even hear them come in you don’t see them so yeah that’s a window what’s important now what’s important now so when you get home at night you should ask what’s important now when I walk in the door yeah that’s someone turn your TV on or is it pay attention to your kids for the next 20 minutes something else that I have the last three four years trying to get better and better at, is that you come home from work, you have a lot of things in your mind you’re dealing with, and your kids are wanting to say hi to you. And they know if you’re thinking about something else. And so I’ve had to get to the point where, and I don’t do it, I’m getting better at it, I’m not at 100% where I want to be, but just leaving the phone in the car, because otherwise it just won’t stop. Maybe I’ll send you a sign you can put on the garage door, what’s important now? I need to. Paint, win, and win. First and foremost, you walk in and tell your wife you love her, you missed her today, pay attention to the children. That’s what’s important now. Then at dinner, what’s important now? And I always tell them, the most important thing when a customer enters the environment is the customer, nothing else. Let me ask you this here. It says here, have a geek on your team. Now, here’s one thing I see. A lot of business owners today are 35 to 55. This has not changed. This is what the average business owner is, 35 to 55. A lot of people are not doing technology at their business. They’re not utilizing technology at their company because they feel like, I just don’t know how to do it. And you’re saying you have a geek on your team. What does that mean? Well, I’ve got one of mine. I’m not very good at all that and how to do it and how to program it and get my website running and keep it up and all the things I do. I was with him. He was online last night, remoting in to take care of some things I needed to be done. And if you can’t do it, have somebody who can do it. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money either. Sometimes it’s an 18-year-old who just wants to make some extra money, and they can do it for you. You don’t say you’ve got to go out and hire IBM or somebody to do it, but have somebody to do it because if you’re paralyzed with your systems and you don’t have a really smart person that tells you what’s possible and what apps you should be using and how you can get your website to be more effective and get it higher up when people do a search. And these all things matter. I can’t tell you how often I do business just on a search and I pick the one that comes up and I call them and it turns out and they get a piece of business. And they ask, where’d you learn about us? And I said, I Googled you. Yeah. So you need a geek. Need a geek. Geeks get it done. Geeks get it done. We need a geek. And you’ve got some here. You’ve got geek people. Whoa, man. Right? Offending the geek. Would you… Would you be able to do what you’re doing without them? No. I would honestly say that I… Could you set these cameras all up and do this? No. I will say this. The one thing I’ve discovered, and I mean this, is that… It might not be the best way, but I say every business, you need to have that intense person, you gotta have the geek person, you gotta have the organizer person, you’ve gotta have, everyone has, there’s different roles. And if you’re saying. I’m just saying it tugs the cheek, it’s an endearing term, have a geek on your team, because they get it done, and you’re not gonna get it done, because you don’t know how to do it. Full disclaimer in editing, he means that as a fully. Endearing term. Okay, now next thing here, and I think this is huge. And there are some famous geeks, Bill Gates. Geek. Does anybody have a problem with him? Or? Wozniak, geek, Jobs, geek. So, yeah, it’s a good thing. Now, let’s hear, be relentless about details. It’s a touch of detail, I gave you a pen this morning. Yep. The back of the pen, it has Mickey on it. Doesn’t have to, just, but when you say it you go that’s cool yeah details details details cleanliness detail in your business we found that women if there’s a dirty bathroom they won’t come back men will come back women will not bring their children back to a fast-food place that has dirty bathrooms right never again that’s wild attention to detail so the attention to detail is the difference maker. The detail is the difference maker. I think the reason you have to say that, everything matters because you don’t know what matters to each customer. So make sure everything’s good. What if all the bushes are dead in front of your shop? A little lady that loves landscape is going to be like, whoa. Or somebody said, I went to Starbucks one day and they had dog bowls with fresh water in them for the dogs that people bring with them to have coffee. A hotel I’m staying in has a scale on every, beside every elevator, so you can stand on it and weigh your luggage to see if you’re overweight before you get to the airport. So the details. Who does that? Somebody thinking. It’s cool. Now, a couple other ones here. It says, don’t give responsibility without the authority. Well, it’s impossible to do. If I tell you you’re responsible for this, and I don’t give you the authority to make decisions. You’re responsible, but you’ve got to come to me every time something comes up. Responsible and authority go hand in hand. Okay. That’s all. And you can’t delegate responsibility. You can give authority, but you’re still responsible. So if you tell me, Lee, I’m going to give you the responsibility to be in charge of customer service here in this restaurant, then you gotta give me the authority to give customers a rebate, to do this, to discipline people, not that I have to call you every time. I have to have authority. So those two areas are hand in hand. Hand in hand. And Priscilla’s father is an admiral, wrote an article about it. You can’t delegate responsibility. You can delegate authority. Pretty interesting. You can’t delegate responsibility. You still own it. So what if the admiral can’t say to the captain, you’re responsible. The admiral is still responsible if the ship hits another ship. You wrote about being reliable. What does that mean to be reliable? I think a lot of people have excuses that we think are valid. I overslept, I have a head cold, I’m tired. Then you’re not reliable. Reliability, credibility, setting an example, keeping your promises, how important is that in life? We’re getting into some specifics here. Here we go. You have a grand opening of a hotel at Disney. You open up a new, because it’s happened a lot. You opened up a new property, a new something, and you’re supposed to be there, and you don’t feel well. You’re there. You’re there. You have sprained your ankle. If you’re at the hospital, you need to be there. You sprained your ankle, you can still kind of limp to work. Grand opening, are you there? Yeah, absolutely. And Priscilla gets very annoyed at me for doing things like that. It’s like me driving a thousand miles overnight. She wasn’t very happy about that, that I was there. And that’s two reasons. She knows the reasons. First, I’m very compulsive. First, I have this huge sense of fear of failure. I just can’t. I don’t want somebody criticizing me. I didn’t show up in Africa where I had five appointments. So I just do what you got to do. Now you say never ever argue with the customer. Yeah, there’s no upside to arguing with a customer. And a lot of your customers are going to be really bad people. What if they’re really wrong? Nasty. What if they’re really wrong? Like they are crazy. Still, they can, but don’t raise your voice. Just keep it low-key, calm, try to bring them back around. Keep trying to bring them around. Because again, when this is happening, 99% of the time, what they’re yelling about is not the situation you’re right there faced with. They’re upset and yelling and screaming because they’ve got 10 other problems in their life that’s driven them. This one little thing set them off. Their mother’s sick, their wife’s leaving them, they have foreclosure on their house. All these other things in people’s lives is what makes people overreact. And we told our people at Disney, don’t get defensive. Don’t try to win the argument with a customer because if we win, we’re going to lose. We won’t see them again. Let’s bring them around. Our goal is to bring them around, keep them as a customer if we can, and continue to have them come here and spend money. And professionals, stay cool, calm, and collected. The CEO of Young Brands, he wrote a system he came up with called BLAST, which is Believe, Listen, Answer, Satisfy, Trust. So if somebody’s freaking out at you, if a customer’s upset, give them the benefit of the doubt. Bill Mayer told me that way back. He said, Lee, any time you’re in doubt, go in favor of the guest. He said, Lee, any time you’re in doubt, go in favor of the cast member, the associate. Because if you’re not sure, give them the benefit of the doubt. Okay. Makes a lot of sense. When you’re sure, you can go whichever way you want. Now, you say, never say no, except no problem. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, the problem today, people want to say, that’s the first answer people give you, no. Could you order this for me, no. Could you, here’s the key. That’s the answer you give 24 hours later. After at least you… Even if you’re not going to do it? Act like you are. I mean, at least tell them, let me check on this. I’ll get back to you tomorrow. I went to a print shop recently. I wanted to order five stickers in a circular pattern. And I said, can you make these in a circular pattern? The person right away says, no. How should a person have handled it? They should have said, let me find out, let me see what I can do, let me make some calls, let me go online and see who… First of all, there’s no such… that’s not even true, you can do anything like that. That’s what I’m saying. Yeah. So that person had not been entitled, that we never say no. You know why people say no right away? Because it’s the first thing they hear from their parents. Really? And their babies. No, no, get away from the table, no, no. And then they use it the rest of their lives, it’s a short word. It’s kind of a lazy answer and it works in every language just about. And we say at Disney you’ll get a lot of credit for trying. If you come back to a person 24 hours done and said I tried I made calls I went on site we couldn’t find it anywhere I’ll continue to look for it but for right now we can’t do it. You don’t have to say the word no. When we were training DJs, people come up and ask for crazy songs. So you can imagine everyone’s dancing having a great time listening to like the bride and groom have requested an all 70s themed wedding then some guy will come up and go do you have any Merle Haggard and if you ever told the guy no he would get irate so instead I’d tell the guys to say you know that’s a great request let me just check with a couple to see if we can mix that in if we can we’ll do it it was never a problem that’s beautiful you know it’s kind of our move there now you know what song was played at our wedding in Oklahoma. What’s that? During the prayer. No. We were having a little nightclub kind of, because we, there’s no place to have it. It was 25, 30 people. One of those folding doors in a 5 o’clock nightclub kind of place. Yeah. And an old drunk cowboy put in the song, while Priscilla’s dad was giving the prayer. Oh no. You’re cheating heart. This is the song that started playing and we all laughed. You’re cheating hard. There’s a certain romance there. And the cowboy kind of staggered in to want to be with us. And it was like, oh wow. I wish you had the wedding video of that. That could be something. I don’t even think they had video cameras in those days. It was so long ago. Let’s go into drawing of that moment. Okay, let’s hear it. You said here, be flexible. What does that mean? Yeah, be flexible, you know. A guest says, I need to have this tonight at 6 o’clock. Try to figure out if you can do that. Don’t say, no, it always takes 24 hours for this kind of thing. Even my dry cleaners, when I say, hey, I’m going on a trip tomorrow, I’d like to get these back by three, because they don’t usually give them back till five. He says, okay, fine, we’ll move them up. Just being flexible, not being unreasonable. Try somebody, you know, I don’t remember the old days, you’d go to a restaurant and they’d say, no substitutions. You know, what? Well, you know, today that never happens anyway. It’s flexible. You don’t want the fry, you want the green beans, you want the asparagus, which costs, no problem. We’re flexible. And I think just in all parts of life, instead of going right to some hard rule, try to, can I be flexible here? What about the idea here of apologize like you really mean it? I’d love to be in the airlines. Southwest is flexible. Delta’s not. Well, I and you know one of the things on thrive that’s been interesting as we’ve interviewed people and met with people You hear Southwest Southwest Southwest JetBlue JetBlue JetBlue you hear these are companies that people are happy with You hear Starbucks Starbucks You hear them and then you’ll hear the people that people are not too happy with and it’s common and so it’s it’s everyone in America knows it. And so it’s easy to kind of pick on the big brands that aren’t successful. And I think the big challenge for thrivers as they watch this is to ask themselves, am I being that company that people don’t want to go to? Am I doing the things that I, you know, the things that these big companies that are easy to point out their flaws, am I as a small business owner doing those things? You know, I think that’s huge. Reflection is an important part of life. Get that mirror. Reflection. Now, apologize like you really mean it. What does that mean? I don’t think Priscilla would tell you. She said people don’t apologize. She said men never apologize, but say, to learn to say you’re sorry. And I think she’s right on that. And I think about that a lot. When’s the last time you had a problem with a business where they just said, I’m really sorry that happened. We’re going to fix it for you. What they do is they, we had a, the computer was down, there was a snowstorm, nobody ever said, I’m sorry, first of all, that happened to you, sir. Because you probably don’t really need to know or want to know why it happened. Just say you’re sorry. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy your meal. You don’t have to tell them the cook is on drugs and we just fired three people back there. Tell people all this stuff. We’re really sorry that it didn’t appeal to you or it wasn’t good enough for you. You don’t like to tell people all the details. A sincere apology. Remember when people said it sincerely? And years ago people sincerely don’t ever underestimate the power of that word and I think it’s true. It’s probably true in a marriage as much as it is in a job or with a customer. I’m sorry. The final two points that you made in your book that I thought were powerful was one is surprise them with something extra. Right. So what? So I gave you books yesterday. Yeah. Was that extra? Did you expect that? I did not. I did not expect that. I gave you pens this morning. Yeah, I didn’t expect that. And then your wife… That cost me at least four dollars. And then your wife offered to take us to lunch today. I will say that, and I mean this, growing up, you know, my dad has always had a, he’s always been encouraging of entrepreneurs and stuff, but when you grow up around different people and family members and stuff, some people will say things like, well, you know, the rich get richer, or the rich are just screwing people over, and that’s how they made their success. But what I have found when we were around Mr. George Foreman, and we were around the founder of Hobby Lobby. We were around yourself. We’ve been around all these different people. Mr. Robinson, David Robinson the other day. It’s just they always have this desire and this habit of doing more than paid for. They always do something extra. And specifically, let’s say I own a hardware store. How could I give something extra? I told a hardware store that the other day. Make sure you have a little something for every kid that comes home with dad. I don’t care if it’s a Tootsie Roll. Yeah. You just made that a guy’s gonna, the kid’s gonna, dad let’s go back to that hardware store. A little extra, let me show you how to use this before you leave. That’s what you get in a small hardware store, you don’t get the big brands. Let me come over to your house and help you with that. Let me recommend a good contractor for you. That’s not something I’m doing. If I’m a dentist, how can I do something extra? I think, as Priscilla said, be on time, run an efficient office, come and see the patients and check them yourself. A lot of little things that are different than every place else, our dentist happens to be on top of it, man. I mean, they run efficient. They’re on time. You’re never in there. When it says 8 o’clock, you’re on at 8 o’clock and it’s done, and they run that thing. If you’re a hair salon, how do you do more than expected? You know, maybe it’s give them a bottle of some new… Beverage or some new product. Could be a beverage. I mean, when I get my hair cut, they always have coffee for me or they have, if they want something to eat or if you want to… But it’s something they don’t expect, right? Something the customer doesn’t expect. Oh, and they give me a shampoo, it’s like the best. And I tell them, because she’s taught them how to just work on your head for five or ten minutes massage yeah awesome and she gets five bucks for that when I tip her yeah you know and yeah a little like and that meant my business as I said I say you can have me the whole day I’m not just gonna fly and give a speech I’ll do whatever you want me to do I’ll get five seminar I have some clients I said I’ll do three sessions today for you because you have trouble getting people in so I’ll do one at 6. I got one right now. I said I’ll do it 6 in the morning, I’ll do it 10 o’clock at night. Whatever you need to get your people in. And they go, really? I said yeah. Is that included in the day rate? The whole day? That’s all it costs? Yeah, that’s all. And I’m still shocked they pay me that much. Now, final question is keep doing it better. What does that mean? Yeah, if you ever don’t think you can be better, I don’t care how great you are. It’s never too late to get better. I don’t care how great you are, you can be greater. I don’t care how great your service are, it can be better. I don’t care how clean your place is, it can be cleaner. I don’t care how good your food tastes, it can taste better. It’s never too late to get better. You can improve your marriage, I just asked my wife, we flew in to Orlando. I asked her on the phone because she was with me in San Antonio. I said, hun, did I treat you right? Is there anything I could have done better? I asked her, and I always ask that because my wife picks up on things, and she wants me to introduce her and make sure I pull out the chair for her and treat her like a lady. Sometimes as a man, I kind of revert back to like man bear pig sort of, you know, and so I have I asked these things but I always am amazed by how I can get better and this time I got a thumbs up but usually there’s at least two or three things I could do better so I know that should become natural. Yeah. Some of these. Twelve years in it’s still still working working through it. Actually on our 40th anniversary five years ago Priscilla said she was going to stay so I know I’ve Yes, don’t try too hard. That was the last one actually. Don’t try too hard. I put in my book, don’t try too hard. Don’t try too hard. You ever dealt with those people that try too hard to sell you something? Yeah. You ever try Timeshare? You think some of them? Disney doesn’t try too hard. We, no pressure. And we sell more than anybody in the industry. So you say don’t try too hard, the pressure is the problem. Everybody tries to sell you a car too hard. Or you got to get this today, tomorrow the price is going up. You better make your divide up right now because I’m not going to offer you… It’s the last car on the planet. So when people try too hard, we don’t trust them. Okay. So be careful about… Applying too much pressure is what you want to do. Don’t apply too much pressure. Okay. Don’t try too hard. Because it can bite you, because people don’t trust that. We’ve all been there. Lee, I appreciate you letting us really just try to take over your living room here. There’s a lot of cameras, a lot of equipment. And as I’ve interviewed you, there’s just some really neat nuggets that I’ll never forget. And I wanted to kind of review these seven with you. And I wanted to see if you could maybe delve into why. And so I’m going to go over these seven that I picked up as common denominators that really, I think, make up the essence of all that is Lee Cockerell as it relates to business. So here we go. You said one is attitude. You said you have to have a great attitude two is it seemed like you just couldn’t even process the concept of someone not keeping a to-do list with them third is you kind of thought it was asinine to not have a planner fourth you have to have checklists for everything and then you referenced seven habits of highly effective people we should be reading this book you said that the effective executive by Drucker is a great book to read and then you talked about your rage system. So let’s just start with attitude. Why do I have to have a good attitude? Why can’t I just come to work and make it through the day? People don’t want to work with you, they won’t work with you. And if people don’t like you, they won’t hang around with you. And let me tell you, we all have eliminated people from our lives because of their attitude, even sometimes it’s relatives. Sometimes it’s best friends from high school because their attitude is, I mean, attitude is really your reputation and what people say about you behind your back. And are they saying good things about you? I had a lady working for me once, she said, Lee, I hear you, my number two. She took my place when I left. She said, I hear you’re saying good things about me behind my back. So even if you don’t feel like it, you have to act like it before you feel like it. Absolutely. It becomes who you are. What you practice, you become. I mean, I know that. As a leader, you always have to seem like you have a good attitude. I mean, I can get out of my car and be great, even though I just had a lot of problems. I can be great for a couple of hours until I get back alone. Now the to-do list. You talked about having a to-do list. It’s everything. For any entrepreneurs out there, if you’re talking directly to the entrepreneur who does not utilize a to-do list what are you saying to that guy? I would say besides my attitude the number one reason I got ahead in life is because I’m disciplined, I’m organized, I’m credible, I’m reliable, I keep my promises and the reason I do it is because that day planner in my pocket. Without that to-do list. My brain forgets a lot, it forgets nothing. So if you have a great attitude but you don’t have a to-do list it’s not possible. Yeah people go, he’s really screwed up. I mean, is that what you want? I don’t want to do business with him, but he is a nice guy. But he’s not reliable. He never does what he says he’s going to do. He doesn’t follow through. He doesn’t get back to you. He told me he’d call me last week. I never heard from him again. And you meant to call him, but you never did. Now what about the planner? It seems like your planner and your to-do list were the same item almost. Like your planner and your to-do list became the same thing? I hope personal life and my business life is on this plan. Okay. Anything. This is how I keep my whole life under control. Okay. All in that thing. Not just work. A lot of people just put their work, I put everything. If Priscilla tells me to go to the store and get some pickles, I put it in there. I don’t forget because if I get home and don’t have those pickles, I’m gonna have to go back out. You keep that. Okay. So everything. So your to-do list and your planner, you have to have it. Okay, moving on to checklists. Everything at Disney, the bathrooms are cleaned a certain way, hamburgers are made a certain way, french fries are cooked a certain way, and it’s not a tribal knowledge, it’s not a verbal knowledge, it’s not something that’s all written down and documented into a series of checklists. Talk to me about the importance of that. Well, you can’t remember everything. If you want attention to detail, you’ve got to list all the details, and you have to do those through a checklist. And they’ve even proven that people who use checklists are much more successful. Hospitals are lowering infection rates with checklists. Wash your hands, use the alcohol rub, rub down the room. They’re actually reducing stays in hospitals. Checklists. Pilots with checklists don’t have crashes. Can you imagine a pilot says, we can’t find the checklist up here, but I think we got most of it right. And then you hear about talking to each other and they say are those flaps so you up or down so if you’re a videography crew like these guys you have a checklist if you’re a photographer check you’ll get there without half the equipment pilot checklist restaurant on a checklist Disney executive checklist okay here we go seven habits of highly effective people by cubby why is that book so valuable because it’s just the basics again. In fact, it’s my second favorite book now. My book’s the favorite, but this is a good book. And he talks about relationships with people. Listen, if you just learn to listen better. Listen to understand. You know, that’s a pretty interesting comment. Listen to understand where I’m coming from before you’re going to tell me. And it’s seven excellent principles about… Everyone should read that, Bill. Absolutely. I love it. It came out in 89. I’ve still got it. So you recommended reading the book The Effective Executive. Now I’ve heard about this book. It’s written by Drucker who’s one of the famous, one of the most famous management theorists and strategists out there. Why should everyone who’s an executive or wants to be an executive read this book? The reason I liked it, and I read it many years ago, it’s been out a long time. It’s since the 60s. Oh, it probably was. It still hasn’t changed a bit. The advice he gave, and one of the big pieces of advice I got out of it, which I’ve applied my whole career, was you’re not going to be very effective spending short amounts of time with your executive or your people. And he said he recommended spend at least four hours with a group of people with no agenda. And let them just – things will come out that you can’t imagine. The first hour, not much. They get more comfortable with you more. Third hour, they just, as they see you’re not overreacting, you’re listening, taking notes. Fourth hour, or with an individual, it works for you. They say, if you’ll spend four hours with that individual, having coffee in your office and talking, you will probably create a new business and not even realize it, because you’ll get into it and not realize it. And I started practicing that, and it was so true. Just calm down, everybody quit having 15 minute meetings, 20 minute meetings, 30 minute meetings. Really get to know what’s going on here. And you say that too. I will say when you take one of your kids one at a time somewhere on a trip, it’s going to be so much, I mean, your relationship is going to be so much bigger. One at a time. You and me. And like even here, we spent what, 16 hours together? Yeah. And I think we probably walk away with a different relationship after this. Yeah. Well to me this has been one of the most rewarding things in my life because I’ve grown up, you know, idolizing David Robinson or looking up to Disney and be like, oh my gosh, this is the most amazing company in the world. And when you meet people like yourself and you learn of the methodical processes that you do on a daily basis to become successful, and it’s not just an event, but it’s the process. Sure. It’s the same old thing I said. It’s not magic. It makes it work. It’s the way you work. That’s all. That’s all I know. The final thing I want to clarify, and I have one little bonus question, but it’s a rave, the rave system, where you had said in your book, this is the concept of respect, appreciate and value everyone. We’re in a culture where Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, Caucasians, African-Americans, Asians, all different races, backgrounds, creeds, colors, Disney. Everybody comes there and likes Disney. Talk to me about rave and the importance of rave. Well, I think on an individual basis, if you don’t respect people, and when you think about it, it’s respect, appreciate, and value everyone. I may not agree with some of the things you believe in, but you have the right to believe them. I shouldn’t discriminate against you because you believe one thing and I was a Democrat, I don’t. I still have respect for your opinion. And I think a lot of people overreact and they they want to put people down. In fact, we have around the world. We have people that actually kill you if you have a belief. They don’t respect. They don’t appreciate. They don’t value the opinion. Christians in the Middle East. Yeah. Muslims in the United States. Jewish people around the world, gays and lesbians. I mean, you go on and on and on. And I mean, I would just ask everybody, who has the right to judge other people? You believe what you believe. A lot of what you believe you were taught. A lot of belief, what your parents taught you, or the environment you were in, or the church you go to. are. And I think people really generally I’ve learned that showing respect and appreciation and value in everyone. I grew up in Oklahoma in the 40s and 50s. You think I ever heard anything inappropriate in my house about other people? Yeah. But I guarantee you Priscilla and I did one thing. Our son never heard one of those comments in our house. And guess what? He doesn’t have a discriminatory bond in his body. I even tell people, then he married a French girl and I had to quit telling French jokes. And guess what? His children don’t either. They get it. Now let me ask you, this is the final little bonus thing here, because I feel like this is the tough lesson everyone has to grasp. All the things you talk about, the attitudes, the do list, the planner, the checklist, the seven habits of highly effective people, the effective, executive, the rave, all that, Can’t get done if you’re not working enough or awake early enough to make these things happen? For somebody who’s a young entrepreneur or a business owner out there who’s wanting to become successful, what time do you recommend said human might get up every day? Well, I know if you get up early. I get up 5.30, 6 o’clock, 5, 5.30 when I was at Disney, get to the office 6.15. And to do that, you’ve got to take care of yourself. You’ve got to go to bed, you’ve got to not drink too much, you’ve got to not stay out half the night, you’ve got to have, you’ve got to take care of your health because if you’re an entrepreneur or you’re an any, or a parent, it takes a lot of energy to do that. And you’ve got to take care of yourself and you’ve got to really think about your responsibility to those people tomorrow morning. Are you going to be in your best shape? You know, it’s kind of like a football player, are they ready? Game day, do they take care of it? Diet, exercise, your emotional stability, your spiritual placement in your life. I mean, you gotta think, it’s a huge responsibility to be in charge of other people’s lives, really. I mean, how much responsibility do you think you have for five children? Or if you got a business, 10 people now, that’s how they pay their rent, that’s how they get feed, that’s how they pay for their kids’ clothes. It’s easy, you gotta take it, and I always say, take it seriously. It’s serious, it is serious. And so you’d say, take it seriously to manage your health, take it seriously to manage your family, and also take it seriously to get up a couple hours before your employees get there, so you’re organized and prepared. If you go to bed early, you’ll wanna get up, because you can’t lay in bed forever. I mean, you get eight hours, you get up. You go to bed at nine, you wake up at four. I mean, and sure, is it fun? No, but it’s fun long-term, because you’re successful. And when other people start saying, thank you, wow, you changed our lives, and thank you for this job. And I think responsibility, it’s a lot of fun. But it’s hard work. It’s hard work. Just like, you know, being a parent. Is it hard work? And you really are out there. Five kids. You’re testing the outer bounds here. We’re beyond the cultural norm. I appreciate your time, and I appreciate you putting us into your to-do list in your planner, and allowing us to come harass you here in Orlando. Thank you very much. Good to see you, sir. Thank you. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a $15 million 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 can take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3,000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees. Would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Oh Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has a sane mind? Why would they not go to Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card to schedule a ten minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least three thousand bucks a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they didn’t understand how you said the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. Now that’s clear, okay, so that can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card Thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take ten minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t, it’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes and they’re like nah that’s not worth my time. We getting there, right buddy? We getting there, right buddy? There’s probably some someone out there. Okay. They would think that. Well I’ll just tell you folks if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard because you can compare rates, you can save money, and you know, the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. Let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this here called IPS, it’s Integrated Payment Services, and I scheduled a consultation, I don’t know if I was skeptical, I just thought whatever, I’ll take ten minutes, I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours? And in my case, in my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is, uh, you know, like, uh, groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh, God. No! 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 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s an elegant, from Ridgway, it’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock. And sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information. A member of our team will call you. They’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less. And they’re gonna compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of a 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 nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% were up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals 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 the 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. We didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. 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 percent increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with like Lee Crockerill, 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. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. In the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up. He teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. And Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time, we went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. And when we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. And he told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. And the guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve got nervous or worried about how to run the company or, you know, navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to 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. So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016 we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018 the month of October it’s only the 22nd we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrivetime Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna 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, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their call. 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 a hundred clients That’s awesome And so I would have anywhere from five clients to twenty clients on my own with networking But I had no control over it. I I didn’t without the systems You’re gonna be at the you’re gonna be victimized by your own business for the 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 grown, I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s a hundred percent growth every year I’ve worked with. Now so I’m looking, we’ve been good friends seven, eight years and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it that’s one thing but when you do it repeatedly yeah 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 new some new things in there to really help us do it but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching but it would go up and down Clay. That’s when I came to you as I was going up and down And I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down and so that’s when it needed a system So creating a system is you have nailed down Specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel no matter the results you lean into them and you do them Regardless of what’s happening you lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well, I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. The best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management. He said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. 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 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 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. Call them script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 200 and 300 calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do… if someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say 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. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing that… Oh there it was! So it 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 almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s just, 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 you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence and then as you’re called to that standard here you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life. That standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals And we help the business pursue those goals the business helps us pursue our goals as well And so I say people that are driven people that want to make something of their lives People that are goal-oriented. They’re focused And they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that 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 about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.