Entrepreneur | Creating the Perceived Value Your Product Deserves With Jill Donovan

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. Jill, the thrill. How are you? Mr. Clark, good. How are you? Doing awesome. Doing awesome. I apologize for my paleness, but I don’t go outside. Well, there’s always tanning beds for that. That’s true. So we’re here talking about branding and branding your product, really creating the perceived value that your product deserves. And I guess the best example I can give somebody of how not to brand is I started my DJ company in 1999 out of my dorm room. And I used to say, I’ve talked to brides and grooms and event planners. I did this. It’s embarrassing. But I would say, they would say, can we meet at your office to see if, you know, we’d like to meet you before we decide to hire you. Could we meet? I said, yeah, sure, let’s meet. My office is under construction, faking it until I make it, but I’d like to meet you kind of halfway. Perhaps we could meet for lunch. I would say the word perhaps, we could meet for lunch. They’re like, well, he’s a little bit sophisticated. He’s kind of a, you know, he’s sort of a wordsmith. And they said, where would you like to meet? Well, why don’t we meet at McDonald’s? Yeah, there you go. And they would say McDonald’s and most would say well, you know what? I’ll call you back. But then some people would go they meet me I show up and again I’m not discriminating if this is how you look and in for a different professions, it’s different But I had double either hoop earrings. I got the holes there. I had a Shirt that was very rarely tucked in No, no tie. No professionalism. No collar just sort of me being me, keeping it real, keeping it real poor, keeping it real and then I would be frustrated that people would never want to pay anything for my services and the only people that hired me would be the Yucatan Liquor Stand, remember that place? The Millennium Club, the Cronies, I mean all these little bars would hire me but no discernible real companies would pay me. And I felt like that my product didn’t have the perceived value that it deserved and my branding was bad. Yes. So we’re going to talk about this here. Now Michael Levine is the famous author of the book Gorilla PR and he says that a gift delivered in a box from Tiffany’s will have a higher perceived value than one in no box or a plain box. That’s because the recipient, that’s not because the recipient is a fool, it’s because our society, we gift wrap everything. Our politicians, our corporate heads, our movie and TV stars, and even our toilet paper. Tiffany paper places a higher perceived value on things. Jill, how important is branding in your mind as it relates to successfully selling a product? This is my very favorite topic. Really? I love this topic. Bam! It is everything. I have a goal that I want rustic cuff packaging to be better than any packaging in the world. Come on now, best in the world? The rest of the world. Yes. My goal is that when you receive a cuff, I want that to be an experience for you before you ever even see the cuff. Come on. I want you to associate the emotion of just excitement and thrill of the opening out of the brown box that it comes in, in the mail, when you see that box that you don’t even care what’s inside because you love the box so much. Now for any of you who are watching this right now and you’re like, what is wrong with these people? I’ll tell you what, how many of you that are watching this have a Mac product, an Apple product, and you’ve kept the Mac box? What are you doing? You’ve kept your iPad box. I have 10 of them a 10 iPhone iPad mini iPad everything boxes up They’re so nice. We don’t want to throw them away and somebody else is like whatever I buy PC So you know what buddy? I guarantee you that you’re married to somebody or you’re marrying somebody who’s kept the ring box if it was a nice one We all as humans we keep packages And you know what if our president Republican or Democrat if he was dressed like a hip-hop star We would have a hard time probably voting for it. It’s just packaging. Absolutely. It’s everything and I really mean it when I want Rustic Huff packaging I believe that it’s better packaging than Apple because and I’m serious because I know the feeling that I feel when I open up an Apple package so I want to go three steps beyond that. That’s really making a big statement I know. Now Jill once the product has been created but before we should go out there and actually mass market the product to people who actually would be willing to buy it, we’re going to need to brand our products so that people don’t reject the product because of the packaging. Yeah. I guess an example would be with my DJ company. People would look at me, and I know they did it. They would go, Okay, and they would look at me and listen, but they were ready to do it. They were counting on the seconds until they could be done talking to me. And it wasn’t because of… Yeah, they were just judging me and saying, well, probably not. I know like as a husband, you know, sometimes through my branding of my body language, I’ve shown my wife I wasn’t interested when maybe I was. It’s that first perception. It’s that first… So I think branding is sort of that initial impression. Can you define for me what branding means to you, though? I mean, I kind of tell people it’s the first impression, but how would you define branding from your perspective? I think you only get, sometimes you only get one chance to impress somebody regarding your product. If your business card, I don’t care how great your product is, if you hand me a business card that you cut or is flimsy, it tells me a lot about you and your product. Your business card, your website, and your packaging are three really big things that actually can make the perceived value and quality better than it maybe even is. Your business card, your website, and your packaging. And when I say business card, I mean any other materials on paper. I would pay more for great card stock and buy less of them. I’m going to do something that I don’t normally do. We’re going to do it. John the Destroyer, he’s on the camera. Can you go ahead and grab one of those Thrive boxes? We’re going to keep this real time here. Here we go. He’s going to grab one of these. Okay. And I want you to… Not that one. Let’s go with the ones that we send our clients there. I want you to bring… Yeah, I want to bring it over here. No, it’s one of those on the shelf over there. It’s the one we send. I want to have you pick it apart. Okay. And I want you to go through it. And I just totally rude interview. Okay. There’s no BS here. Okay. Because I think people can learn a lot. Sure. From what we’re doing well or what we’re not doing well. So here we go. So when anyone, we have select people that subscribe to Thrive. Select people. They get this in the mail for certain people. This is what they get. Can we kind of go through it? And I want you to tell me what your thoughts are on the branding here. Sure. Maybe what we can do here is, just so we get the best look possible, maybe we hold it up that way so you can see the box here. Okay. So we have this box. You get it in the mail some some of you thrivers will get randomly surprised with this So what’s your first impression going on right now? Okay, so First of all, it’s you’re the materials inside of it or what because I haven’t seen inside the ball. You see, okay Okay, I’m gonna show you the back of the box Okay. So my first impression is I like the color. I like the the The printing on I love that there’s something on the back. Okay. I’m not going to compare it to jewelry boxes. Yeah, but I just want to hear. Okay, but what you have, the box, actually the thickness of the material in the box shows me that it’s good quality. Okay, I like that. So I’m passing the test so far? You’re passing the test. Also, the other great thing is the corner, there’s not, you can’t see white and paper coming off from the corner. So I think that it’s wrapped well. I’m nervous, I’m getting nervous. No, I really, and I know, I know, I know package, I feel like I know packaging well because I inspect mine and only want the best. I’ll pay more for it. This is something that someone didn’t buy. They’re randomly getting this. They randomly got, okay. So don’t get ripped too hard. Okay, and on inside, these are the gifts that they get. Yeah. Okay, let me show you. Okay, so they get the rubber bracelets, which is great. All the color matches and coordinates what’s inside. I think this is awesome. You’re not giving, first of all, you’re not giving something that people paid money for, like a jewelry product or soaps or candles. This is totally different. I think for what it is, it’s great packaging. It actually looks better than I would expect for something like this. How could I make it better? How could you make it better? Well, you have to spend a little bit more money. I don’t think you need to for this. I really don’t think you need to. But you know the bracelets wouldn’t just be like just kind of just moving around like this. They would be secured whether it be with a one of the really a very simple way that you can make this better. And I don’t even think you need to. But there is a foam insert that you could put in here. So it doesn’t just look like okay well it’s just some boxes put foam in some books put into a box Like and you know I’m talking about like the colored foam is there that you could put in that that actually could have then an Insert for your books. So it stays more secure and it just looks nicer You know just like now like I’m saying this is this is free that people are getting and so it’s excellent for what it is But if it were a product that way they were purchasing I would think that something that was secure, they just didn’t just move around. I’m just ripping myself because I think I think no matter what we’re selling, we’re selling an experience. Yeah. And so even I mean we might even want to do foam just so the experience is good. Yeah, because I mean because something that you just it kind of looks like you just put this just in a box and didn’t put as much thought into it. But really I think for what it is, it’s great. Okay. Now I’m gonna feel really bad that I just did that on camera. I want you to on camera This is the real talk. We don’t get enough real talk out there in entrepreneurship colleges If I if I didn’t know I was getting this and I got this I would never think I can’t believe that wasn’t that didn’t Have a film is I would be so appreciative and I think it’s packaged very well. Let’s get into this here So, you know you’re saying that the first impression is everything now Jill I would I’ve heard on the planet Earth is that most customers tend not to buy products that look sloppy, poorly branded. What did you do to make sure that your product actually looked good before you even tried to start selling massive quantities of that thing? One of the things I did is I got online and I bought five similar products to what I was doing. And I wanted to see what packaging it was coming, how it was being shipped, and were they living up to the quality that they had promised and what type of materials were they sending along with the product? And so I got about five, a handful, five different ones and I set them all up and I said, okay, what of these do I like and what can I improve on? And then probably the packaging company that really, that basically they do the packaging for Tiffany’s, for John Hardy, you name it, Maui Gym sunglasses, they know packaging. And so I wanted to align myself with somebody who already does it very, very well. I knew I couldn’t do the, you know, probably some of the order requirements that were necessary You didn’t have to train them on quality. No, I didn’t have to train them. So they would bring me suggestions and show me samples of things without me having to say, I think that this could be… You’re helping somebody here. Yeah, yeah. Because I know when I hired my first web person, he was awful, but he was a web guy. And so I felt like I had to train him how to become a good web guy. And so I actually didn’t save any money by hiring him. Actually hiring the cheapest web developer possible proved to be the most expensive thing I ever did. Yes, so by hiring a company that is more expensive than if I were to you know go overseas or just do it myself, I knew it was more expensive but I’m telling you the quality that the packaging is now in is superior to anything that I’ve done that I had to redo and redo because it wasn’t done well. And I just want to make sure we’re clear, you didn’t like have a massive stack of cash just sitting around to spend on these things. How did you afford world-class branding when you were first starting? Because there are a lot of companies that when you get to know the people within the company that will take a chance on you and you don’t have to always start off at 5,000 minimum order requirement. Because people want to see other people succeed in general, companies who are, let’s just say, packaging companies. They want to see entrepreneurs and people, because they want to ultimately for you to be the person that is purchasing the 10,000, 20,000 item orders. So there are companies that will take a chance on you as finding the right company. I would say they’ll take a chance if they believe that you’re worth taking a chance on. Absolutely. And I would say also too, and I think it’s important, when people took a chance on you, they looked into your eyes and they said, your personal branding, does this woman, is she passionate about this product? Is she going to give up on us? Or is she worth betting on? When I first went to the company, I said, okay, here’s the deal. I’m not Tiffany and I’m not John Hardy. I’m not spending a million dollars on packaging a year for my branding, but I know what I want, I know what I like, so if you allow me to start at, you know, a thousand to start with, or five hundred, and I believe that it can get there, and so it has definitely grown, and we’ve grown together because they took the chance. So when it comes to branding, I know we should all have, you know, we should have the product itself branded, but are there any, you know, we want to have the product, the product itself needs to be branded and needs to be awesome. But the essentials that you’re saying, I mean, are, just to clarify, that’s the business card, the website, and the packaging. Is there anything else that needs to be branded that sort of goes around the product, any other packaging, or anything else that you, we definitely want the business card, we definitely want the website, we definitely want the packaging. Is there anything else that we need to definitely have branded in your mind? Absolutely, but before I say that, I just want to say that those three things that I said don’t have to require a large sum of cash for that. You can have a great website and a great package without investing more than you have. There are really great ways of getting a good website. I mean Shopify, we use Shopify, and you can do that yourself. And what it looks like compared to what somebody spent, you know, $100,000 on a website, sometimes you cannot tell the differences. And as you’ve had more success, I know that you’ve continued to reinvest and make things better and better and better. But the- Starting off. Starting off. There are many ways to have the basic quality, sometimes less is more. You don’t have to have all the bells and whistles at first. Can we give some tools real quick here? If somebody’s trying to make a shopping cart and they can’t find a good one, Shopify? Shopify. Shopify.com. Yep, Shopify.com. Great. And if I’m trying to just find a basic website… Business card. Let me tell you, business cards. My first business card, what I bought on Etsy.com. From people who are at home trying to make a living and who do a really great job with business cards. You don’t have to go to some big printing company to find the best quality. I have found some really, really well done cards and some even insert cards that you put into packages just from Etsy. I know that you associate that with crafts, but there are people that do things really, really well that are stay-at-home moms or entrepreneurs that choose to go through Etsy. That is great. I’m writing down here. I’m writing the business cards, the website, the packaging. Anything else that you have? I absolutely think that there’s a very huge part of branding in social media. So your logo, which I think is huge. Having a great logo that people identify you with is very, very important. For me, that’s the number one thing. If I’m starting a company, the very first thing that I’m thinking about investing in is my logo and colors of that logo. If I’m on the cheap? If you’re on the cheap, again, Etsy. How can I get a Etsy? I’m telling you when I first started off, this is crazy. I mean, I know a lot of people have paid a lot of money and I may now that if it evolves and I start another company. But when I first started Rustic Huff I spent $300 and hired a girl on Etsy because I studied Etsy and found out who I thought was the closest quality to and I never wait for anything. So naturally I would go find somebody else and say, you know what, she’s that good. I wanna wait for her. Waited three months, she came back. She gave me three choices for a logo. She, it was original and we picked that one and that is the one for $300. $300. $300. That’s worth a boom right here. Yeah, boom. Boom, awesome. So there are a lot of ways that you can do it. But social media, I think your branding in that. I think that what the content, I mean, we’re not talking about actual, you know, like packaging, but the content that you put out on social media, be it Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, also goes along with your branding. That’s part of who you are, a big part of who you are. So I’m just going to review these here again. We’re going to have a logo’s huge, business cards, huge website, social media. Yeah. Anything else that’s like a must in your mind, just kind of off the, you know, I mean you obviously, because if you’re… I want to harp on that though because I know we’re helping somebody out right now. There is a young man that I feel bad for but he came into our office about three years ago. He looked like hell. Like he had been through hell. Not that he’s a bad person. We’re not talking about anything other than just like he looked like he wasn’t taking care of himself. Yeah. And crazy, crazy, like he was going through this like ZZ Top meets Lynyrd Skynyrd not showering phase. And then a couple years later, totally different view. Yeah. And one person I would have invested in and one person I wouldn’t. Yeah. Same person. Yeah. And so I think how you take care of yourself is important. Absolutely. Making sure you at least clean up well. Yeah. And if you are the owner of a company, you’re the entrepreneur and you know that you’re part of that brand, then it really does require a little bit more, okay, when I go out into public, you never know who you’re going to run into, you never know what opportunity will arise when you are out, whether it’s grocery store or wherever. And I’m not saying, I certainly don’t go out dressed up all the time, but I try not to go out in my Mickey Mouse sweatpants anymore. You’re busting me because what I did a while back, since I said a while back, we’re talking about like, you know. Last week? Yeah, so it was a while back, but it might’ve been like in the last couple months. Okay. And so I always wear, always, every day I wear sports apparel underneath my suit. I always wear a jersey. I’m wearing Oklahoma State today. I love it. I think you should be interviewing me in that jersey. Okay, well, so what happens is I go out and I’m just wearing the jersey, you know, wearing some basketball shorts, just out with my kids. And somebody who I was talking to about a fairly serious subject was like… Is this that face? And it’s like… Did they recognize you? Yeah, they didn’t recognize me and we never talked because I was on the other side of the store. But I know and he knows. And I saw him again recently and he goes, did I see you? I’m like, yep. And so I’ve started to question whether I can ever do that again. I’m not going to be like only in my house wearing my jerseys, no. No, I absolutely think you can. I think though if you are wearing something like that, if you just take pride in it and said, so if you’re going to wear clothes like that, just make sure that they are presentable clothes instead of like holes in it. Yeah, I was doing the hip-opera. Yeah, okay. Well, I still kind of like that look too. Okay. I was just not really, I was keeping it too real. Yeah. That’s what I was doing. I was keeping it like… Jill, you know, Walt Disney, this guy, you know, he co-founded, you know, Walt started Disney World, but he had a whole team of people. His brother helped him and he built this big thing. But he says the way that we get started is to quit talking and to start doing. How do you just get started developing your beautiful brand on a shoestring budget? It sounds like you’re just finding these resources online and going? Yep. Seriously. The best way to do it is there’s so many ways online. You don’t even have to go to printing companies anymore. You don’t have to get out. You can do everything. I did every part of my branding on my stool in my kitchen late at night. From my business cards to website, everything. Now, I’m not going to ask for the packaging company because it’s probably a secret source. No, it’s not a secret source. It’s not a secret source? No. I don’t think it’s a secret source. Can we endorse the packaging company? Absolutely. Okay, who would you recommend? Chip and Hook. Chip and Hook. Okay, so the reason why I’m asking this is because I do see a lot of entrepreneurs who are like I’ve spent like eight weeks online. I’ve got like 75 different options for my logo. At a certain point you have to just do it. Have you ever hired someone online that was just terrible and you said, I just gotta hire someone else. Have you ever had that happen? Yeah, yeah. You mean hire somebody to do my logo? Or something? Oh yeah, yeah. Where you’re like, you know, it’s kind of a waste. Yeah, yeah, I have. Okay, I just want to make sure you’re watching this. You only live once and I think that you want to narrow it down to your top two or three and then just go. Yeah. And you’re going to miss sometimes, but just get over it. Yeah. And then, you know, and then it helps you actually the next time. But the packaging, there are companies out there that you can seriously, you don’t even have to go to, it can all be done online. And there’s so many ways, like I said, Etsy. And Etsy’s not just the only place to get low-cost, great products. There’s other places, but I would not skimp. It’s the one thing I would not skimp on is good packaging. If you’re an awesome web developer or packaging guy and you’re watching this right now, feel free in the comments section just to put your link to your site here, because it’s kind of funny, but we have… People ask me all the time, we have five kids, who’s your babysitter? And I say, I’m not telling you. Because I have, you know, I’m a trusted source for my babysitter. I don’t want you taking my babysitter. I have five kids. This is, you know, web developers. It’s hard to find a good one. And when you find one, some people don’t want to share that. So I think it’s important to know that I had to find a few different ones. I looked at their work and I made a decision. I made a wrong decision. I tried again and I got a good one. There are some things that I feel like it’s okay to share. Other things, because you want other people to succeed as well, there are other things like babysitters and things that you know that you can guide them in other ways, but you’re not going to take mine. Yeah, and if you’re watching this and you’re trying to figure out who my babysitter is, I’m not going to. Yeah, you’re not taking Jennifer. Now, here’s the thing, if I’m watching this and I have no idea what a well-branded product looks like. I mean if I’m like… for me I grew up in a small farm town with 2,038 people. Wow. Called Cocato, Minnesota. Never heard of it. That’s awesome. About 50 miles west of Minneapolis. No one lives there except for the people who are watching this who are now offended. You guys live there but you’re important to me. But the thing is there’s like one stoplight, okay? Okay. And that town… and so I didn’t know what fashionable city life is like. I didn’t know that. Can you describe for me what it means to have a well-branded product or maybe how I can educate myself? If I have a product idea and I have no idea what a good branded product looks like, how can I kind of educate myself here? I’d go to a major city and I’d walk into a Neiman Marcus or walk into a Sachs and take take some really great mental notes on packaging, on logos, on… because most of the products that are in Neiman Marcus have passed the test of well-branded products. I don’t want to get myself kicked off this TV show forever, but I went on a show here a couple years back and I’m just so impressed with their production systems. Yeah. I’m just banging out my smartphone being like, I’m gonna take that back to my office. Yeah I’m and this guy’s looking at me kind of like what are you stealing with your eyes, right? And I’m just taking pictures. Yeah, I’m BAM and finally guy walks over with your piece, sir We’re in a proprietary No photos. No photos here. Can you turn over your phone to me, sir? I’m like, uh Yeah, just taking some photos for the kids and he’s like, okay. Well, I got those photos back and and that helped me so much. And it changed your life. Oh yeah. I wanted to see how their work flow systems were, but I had to get out of my office, go to the big city, go to the best in the world at that and get some ideas. And sometimes, especially if you really want to do it well, I actually have invested and purchased things from those companies that I think do it really well, so I can study, okay, how do they do this and what makes them one of the top brands? What packaging materials do they send with this that make me want to buy from them again? What’s the experience that I just had with them that I can then give to my customers? This is a secret that I can say now. DJ secret! I actually hired my competitors at one point. Just to see, you know, making up parties. Yeah. Yeah. My friend Jill’s having a 22nd birthday. Yeah. And we’d like to hire a DJ and I would actually pay him. I’d go through the whole process. Let’s spend 600, let’s send them out to a thing, let’s pay for someone’s party. I wanted to know. I got a lot of good ideas. I also got a lot of ideas of what not to do. I learned a lot. Now I will say another great way, great, great, great way to get some good branding ideas and packaging is to go to a packaging show. I was recently in Hong Kong maybe two months ago and I was actually at a show where the entire sixth floor was packaging. From some just boring packaging to amazing things that I would never even thought of. And the ideas that you get from that… Can I Google packaging shows? Well, it’s part of like accessory shows. I don’t know that they actually… Actually, they probably do have some packaging shows. I don’t know if you could Google packaging shows, but I’ll get you more information on that. So the show I went to is an accessory show, and part of this big show in Hong Kong was packaging. And you saw how people branded stuff and you saw, because these companies that were doing the packaging were showing you what they had sold to some major companies. And it was amazing. So two tips. One is I can go to a best practice like an Eamon Marcus, the Saks Fifth Avenue, maybe a Tiffany’s. Or the second idea is maybe go to an accessory show. Just to get out of the office and look at some stuff. And the more you walk around the show, because it’s usually a convention center, the more you walk around the show, the more you get an idea of what you like and what is quality and what the public is into at that time. Kind of along those lines, I have met many successful inventors. One thing I love about what I do is I get a chance to spend a whole day with the guy who started Hobby Lobby. Yeah. A whole day. I mean, it was to me like gonna hang out, like hanging out with like Willy Wonka. It was awesome. And what I hear a lot from a lot of top entrepreneurs and inventors is they’ve heard this thing they call the does it fit test, where they basically picture their product, and if I’m going to grab this product, but they’ll go to the store and they’ll look at all the products that are on the shelf and they’ll mentally picture their product next to it and they’ll go, would my product fit on this store’s shelves?” And they’ll go, no. My product’s not good enough to fit on the shelf yet. I have some work to do. Do you ever do that, where you kind of do the does it fit test, and you look at it and say, would my product fit here? I was in Chicago last week, and I actually went into Neiman Marcus. And I love some of the jewelry designers that are in Neiman. And I walked around, and I was like, okay, could I see Rusticuff in case here with that? And if I, it’s very, you know, on some, on one side it’s humbling because you’re like, I don’t know that I’m there yet, and then on the other side you’re like, I actually think I could see it. If I didn’t know my product, I walked by it, I think my packaging. So I actually invested some money last week. I haven’t told my husband yet, but I invested some money into product because I wanted to I wanted to see how the whole experience was, everything that came with it, what the packaging felt like, what all the materials, and really it’s amazing because I learned so much just by watching how other people who have excelled, how they have done it. I’m not trying to copy them, I’m just trying to learn what things made them successful. This is so important And this is a life lesson we can take me on branding to I know when I was trying to build my call center years ago I went to a print company that sells Printers and I went in and watched their call center mm-hmm I mean, I’m a DJ company, and I’m going into the printing company, and I was like How do you keep how do you hold your team accountable? How do I know what to say who do they call? How do they and I learned so much by just getting out of the building, looking at that, and I started going, does my company fit in here? And I’m going, whoa, I have a lot of work room to improve. I’d be thrown out of this call center. Yeah, but not everybody wants to be in that. It depends because some people don’t want to be high end. And so it’s okay. You may never fit with those other companies. I know a dude though who invented an incredible food product whose packaging looked as though he had actually created it with the help of a third grader who might have been not paying attention. And I felt horrible because the product was so good but the branding was so bad. And I think if anything for branding we should maybe have over, we should over brand. Absolutely. I mean at least it’s. For me it’s as important as having a quality product. You cannot have a quality product without having great brand. Because I just, I don’t think it could, you could succeed numerous times the amount that you would if you sent it in a plastic bag or paper bag. The perceived value of it skyrockets when it’s sent in a good box. My main man Donald Trump, he says this, the real estate mogul, TV person, a lot of people watching this, you might know him as just being this guy who makes crazy statements on TV, but he is a very successful real estate guy, entrepreneur, and what he says, he says, as long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big. So if I’m watching this and I have very little money to think big and to pay a big time branding company and you still think big big. I do and I like I said there are a lot of ways that you can do it that are unconventional. I found when I first started I decided okay I’m going to make 50 really great boxes because I can’t afford to do the minimum order of 5,000. So I found a guy online I searched and searched. I mean it takes a lot of research to find what you want, but I found this guy who was a wood, he made wood products, boxes, all kinds of contraptions, and I said, if I gave you like a sketch to make a rusted cuff wooden box that had little places in it for each cuff and just a box of five, could you make one for me? And so he made this prototype for me. And because of that, when I would send that package out, nobody knew that I was in my back guest room in the middle of the night, just me. Because I sent out this wooden box and I would send it to celebrities and they would think, oh my gosh, who is this company that’s sending this amazing, heavy wooden box that says engraved in it, Russell Cuff. Okay, here we go. Now I’m getting wound up here. So here’s what happens is, so then you’re working on this packaging, you’ve got this box that’s looking awesome. How do you know when it’s okay to send it to the celebrities? Because Britney Spears has worn your stuff. We’ve got Miranda Lambert. We have Kathie Lee has worn your stuff. Hoda. Hoda. I just decided that you know what I I they don’t have to know that I’m in my back bedroom by myself with dye and glue and nails. They don’t have to know that because I’m going to give them a box that they don’t won’t even care what they’ll all they see is this box with these great cuffs these great original design cuffs and so what I decided to do is that for me the perception was bigger than just having pictures of me sitting back there doing this so I decided I found a guy in Tulsa who worked for himself and he I saw a video that he had made for somebody’s company and it It was like a two minute video. And I was like, wow, that was really well done. I met with her for lunch and she said, yes, this guy in Tulsa, and he does videos and this is how much he charged me. I was like, I can afford that. So I hired him and I said, here’s what I want to do. I want to go to New York City and I want to make this video that makes it look like we are this kind of a company, like a Chanel or whatever, something big that you wouldn’t know that it’s just me by myself. So for a very nominal fee, I hired him, the two of us and one girl that worked for me went to New York City and we made this amazing video. We found somebody on Actors.com, two actors, I think we paid them like little next to nothing and we spent all day making this video and it turned out to be this two minute video that made Rustic Cuff look like something at the time that it was not. Because I knew that people that were coming to the website, I wanted them to see. And before anybody judges real quick, I just want to interrupt you. Before somebody says, well, that’s kind of shady. True story, you can look this up, it’s amazing. Did you know that when the Beatles, they flew into the United States, very few people knew who they were. So their PR firm basically paid a group of teenagers to hold signs and cheer for them and to kind of fake it till they made it. People were paid to cheer for Frank Sinatra when he started Michael Jackson, it’s alleged that people were paid to faint in the concerts to create this energy and Russell Simmons who created the Def Jam hip-hop movement, he basically paid people to request the songs I wasn’t even telling the world, okay here’s something that I’m not. I just thought if they came and they saw this video of this love story that was built around Rustic Cuff, and that they would think this. It wasn’t like we were saying, hey, based in New York or whatever, but I just gave the feel that we were bigger than we were. I’ve seen this video and it is powerful. Thank you. And if we, I believe, is it still up on the site? It is, yeah. Because I believe it was. If you go up to rusticcuff.com and go ahead and buy like 10 or 50 of those, a Rustic Cuffs, but seriously, you go up there, and you watch this video, it’s up there. It’s under media, and then you go down to video, but yeah, it’s powerful, and really, and it looks like we spent a lot of money, and we really, we did not at all, and when I watch it, I think, oh my gosh, if I went to somebody else’s website, and I saw that, I would think that’s, you know, that’s a bigger company than we were at the time, so. So if we go into that question, you know, how do we know if it’s time to get out there and start marketing our product there? I guess it’s when you feel like your branding is world class, you go out there and start marketing. Yeah, but when I was sending stuff out to celebrities, I think Kathie Lee was one of the first that I sent it out to. I barely had a website, had hardly any packaging, these little brown bags that I would send Rusticuffs in, but that created the buzz that then got me more money to be able to buy the packaging. So I wouldn’t wait to send something to a celebrity just until everything was perfect. Like my favorite saying, done is better than perfect. I would send it out so I could keep the ball moving because if I waited until everything was perfect, A, I’d be broke, and B, I probably would have moved on because I wouldn’t have had enough buzz and sales to even keep it going. Jill, I know that as entrepreneurs we can learn a lot from our potential customers, but when I go out there and show my branding, obviously I’m going to get some feedback, and some bad feedback. How do you recommend that I sort the constructive criticism, if someone looks at your box and says, you know, you can make this a little better, how do you sort that feedback, the positive constructive criticism, from just negative feedback? How do you sort that as it relates to your branding? How do you sort that? Well, first of all, I think, how many boxes do I have left of those before I can make a new box? And if it was a lot of boxes, I would just kind of shelve what they’d say, because I didn’t have a choice, because I invested in that much. But when it comes to packaging, it’s a little different for me than if somebody’s criticizing my product. Packaging is something that can always get better. And you can always keep it fresh on packaging. Same thing with your product, but I think packaging you don’t have to buy 5,000 of these boxes. For me, I’d rather buy a smaller amount and then just keep it fresh and keep renewing and revising. Same thing with a website, same thing with business cards. I’m not going to buy a thousand business cards. I want to keep it fresh and keep the quality getting better. I hear a lot of entrepreneurs say, well yeah, but I can save 10% by buying 1,000. Well, really, you lose a lot of time because you’re now committed to that many. Yeah. And there’s a quote here that Seth Godin, the best-selling business author, it’s very similar to what you said, but he says, waiting for perfect is never as smart as making progress. So it sounds like just do a limited run, let’s improve, limited run, improve, the snip rate never stops. Before I even had the best packaging or branding or even a great website, one of my things is I’m going to get this out there. So I put a list of the people that I wanted to send it to. And those were the people that I made that box for. Not for everybody that bought a Rustica. Those people were getting a bag. So while I knew that it was not perfect, I was going to keep that ball moving. I was going to keep sending it out to these celebrities or just gifting them with that. And then something hits, and then you get more money to be able to better everything. So you absolutely have to keep going before it’s perfect. I know there’s somebody out there watching this who has a poorly branded product. I know that I certainly did until I encountered someone who really… I hired a mentor to help me. And I’m not perfect, but they helped me a lot. But there’s somebody watching this right now who’s going, uh-oh, I have poor branding. Can you explain to them how what they can do right now to sort of reverse course? If they already have a thousand boxes they’ve already ordered, they’re like, this isn’t very good. I mean, they believe that they need to make great branding. Is it okay to sort of revamp and relaunch? Or is that, I mean, how do you, you know, if you already have a product, is it okay to do that? Sometimes it might be your only savior to take a few steps back and then to say, okay, I think that if I just continue on as I am, I’m only gonna get so far. Take a few steps back and think, okay, how can I make this better? And then you will see a world of difference. How to change that, how to take a few steps back, I think really it doesn’t hurt to get with somebody who you think has good branding or who can help you in that area. Sometimes people just don’t know. Sometimes you have the greatest intention in the world to have the best branding and it’s not your area of expertise. So hook up with somebody who already has good branding or somebody who knows it. It’s well worth the investment for that. Jill, I think what you’ve laid out here to me, you’ve proven the case that we need to have great branding. Absolutely. Whether I’m a Target, whether I’m an Apple, whether I’m a Tiffany’s, any great company, Mercedes, Whole Foods, I don’t care, Starbucks, any great company is going to spend money on branding. And if I’m a man-bear-pig watching this and I just don’t want to invest in branding, maybe I need to get smart. Would you concur with this? Yes, absolutely, 100%. And I want to say that you are a branding mystic. And so if I want to get an example of your great branding, if I buy some of your rustic cuff stuff, what is the starting price point on buying one of your products? If you’re stuck in, if you have the mentality that you do not want to improve your branding, I would say email me. I will seriously have the conversation with anybody about branding. Yes, I would be glad to do that. Are you prepared to get 10,000 emails? I think it’s that important to the success of somebody’s company, which I sound a little fired up about this, because I really am. Because I think it can make or break a company and people don’t even know it because they’re so stuck on the quality of their product that they never think about the presentation of it or the experience of the end user of it. So seriously, if you are stuck, I would allow people to email me so I can go on to rustic cuff calm. I’ll go in there to contact us I’m gonna email like branding Question yeah, and you’d be happy to challenge me. I think absolutely I love this I would I am up for the challenge I would be glad to do it truth final final testimony I actually when I first met you I was introduced to you by a friend of a mutual friend of ours who’s a major producer and and you gave me an incredible gift of a couple of your rustic cuffs. I brought those home to my beautiful wife of 13 years as of just a few days ago. Happy Anniversary. And she just melted. She was like, oh my gosh, these are great. She wore them in New York recently. They’re like her number one accessory. But it felt like a gift. Yeah. It didn’t feel like it’s a product in a crappy bag. Yeah. It felt like it was a great gift and so you live it. And if I want to experience the Rustic Cuff branding firsthand, what do your cuffs start at price point? How can I buy it? They go anywhere for bangles from 22 to 150. 22 to 150, go on up there, buy it, you’ll experience the branding firsthand. Yep. Awesome. Hey, thank you for your time. Thank you, Clay. You’re an angel. Thank you. Alright, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goal, 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 You’re expert opinion. Would you need profits to get your to 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, ten minutes or less and see if you could save three thousand bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to 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 don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. No, that’s clear. Okay, so that could 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 10 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 then 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 probably some someone out there okay I 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 it because you can compare rates you can save money, and the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal jt’s are any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take ten minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of three thousand dollars 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 company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought whatever I’ll take 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 case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh God. 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 going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s an elegant, from Ridgeway, it’s from Ridgeway. 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 going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than three thousand dollars a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money. No, you don’t owe us money because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah, so what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now, okay? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion 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 Pescemon company in the Tulsa area, and that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now, our closing rate is about 85%. And that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten people really see that our customers are happy, but also, we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals, more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success 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 that when 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, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Oh, sorry. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. You know, they implemented those systems, 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’re 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 I just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore. I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-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 franchising. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklist, the workflows, the audits, 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. 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. 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. 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, like 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 the 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. I was really most impressed with him is when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. And anyways, just an amazing man. So anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van, and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past. And they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now, it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business. But for two days, you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems. So now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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 built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. We go back eight years ago. Think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We gotta inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their call. Okay, so Clay, it’s like, I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about 40,000 but it’s up and down rollercoaster. And so now, we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. So we’ve been good friends seven, eight years, and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean, the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. So that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, it turns into sales. Well I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. And so that’s really what it’s all about. So with a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. On that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we 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. Oh there 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 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 it’s unique in that I don’t know if there’s anyone else’s that can be as passionate. You know whenever a business starts working with Clay it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. You know, he’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that a 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 that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by, people who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people, and in short, anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time, the advice I’d give you is definitely come ready to take tons of notes. Every time Clay speaks, he gives you a wealth of knowledge that you don’t want to miss. I remember the first time that I met Clay, I literally carried a notebook with me all around. I was looking at this notebook the other day, actually. I carried a notebook with me all around, and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.