Business Podcast | How to WOW Your Customers + 6 SUPER Moves Including: Mystery Shoppers, Linear Workflows & More + Interview w/ Harley-Davidson Former Director of Communications Ken Schmidt

Audio Transcription

Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. In a world filled with endless opportunities, why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses altruistically invest five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use? Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show, starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body, Dr. Robert Zilman. 8 kids co-created by 2 different women. 13 multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we here. We started from the bottom, now we here. We should try. Started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top. Teaching you the systems to give what we got. Colton Dixon’s on the hooks, I break down the books. She’s bringing some wisdom and the good roots. As a father of five, that’s why I’m alive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s the CNC upon your radio. And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get there. 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 talking about creating a customer wow. A customer wow. This is so important that you create a customer wow experience. A repeatable customer wow experience. Now I’m not saying that Rainforest Cafe blows my mind, but I’m saying that Rainforest Cafe does blow the minds of their ideal and likely buyers. I’m not saying that a Harley Davidson wows me or blows my mind, but I am saying that Harley Davidson blows the minds of their ideal and likely buyers. I’m not saying that Disneyland wows me, I’m saying that Disneyland wows people year after year after year with that wow experience. And so as it relates to your business and my business and the businesses that we wanna create, we need to figure out how to create that wow experience. And so on part two of today’s show, we’re going to interview a gentleman that was instrumental in the Harley Davidson turnaround. You’re going to love part two of today’s show, and he’ll tell you about how he helped turn Harley Davidson around and take Harley Davidson from a company that was struggling to a company that was absolutely thriving based upon wowing customers. And on part one of today’s show, we’re joined by an entrepreneur and the founder of BunkyLife.com. And he sincerely tries to wow each and every customer each and every day at BunkyLife.com. David Frazier, welcome on to The Thrive Time Show. How are you, sir? I’m doing fantastic, Clay. Thanks for having me. All right. We’re going to the rapid fire round. I want to tap into your wisdom. And if people want to read along, they can go to ThriveTimeShow.com forward slash millionaire, ThriveTimeShow.com forward slash millionaire. Go to page 275 of my newest book here called A Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. And we read, these are the moves. These are moves to wow your customers. One, hire mystery shoppers. Folks, step one, you’ve gotta hire mystery shoppers. You have to know what the customer experience is actually like from the perspective of customers. David Frazier, why do you have to have mystery shoppers in your business from time to time? Otherwise, you just get too zoomed in on it yourself. You don’t understand it from their perspective. So Mystery Shopper is a good way to get an outside perspective that’s a little more accurate. Now, I find that Mystery Shoppers often tell me feedback that I would never know if I was in the store myself. I find that they’ll tell me things in our haircut chain or in some of the businesses I’m involved in that have retail locations. They’ll say things like, this is a true story. One of the Mystery Shoppers said, your front desk guy loves Jesus. And I said, yeah, they do. And he goes, you know how I know? And I said, I don’t, but tell me. He said, he has the praise and worship music cranked up so much that any customers are almost like a nuisance to his praise and worship session. And I said, are you kidding me? He goes, no, no, no. I went into one of your stores and I was looking to buy a thing and your guy was all out, maxed out praise and worship to the max. It was like I wasn’t even there. I’m going, really? I talked to the guy. I said, guy, I love that you love Jesus and I do too, but were you doing a praise and worship jam out session? The guy says, yeah, oftentimes if it’s slow, I’ll just crank it up. There’s only a handful of customers that come in. And so I go, and again, I would have no idea that that was actually happening. So I love that he’s praising and worshiping. I’m a little concerned that customers were immediately fleeing and running away as he had turned in one of our demo showcase rooms into a praise and worship rally. Again, I find Jack Astry like this all the time. So again, folks, hire mystery shoppers. Move number two, survey your existing customers. David, why do you wanna survey your customers and say, how was the experience? I just find it’s great for getting, so it’s great for getting those outlier crazy stories like the praise and worship sessions. So we always ask everybody on a scale of zero to 10, how likely are you to refer us to somebody else or like somebody you know? And a lot of people are like eights, nines, tens, that’s great, but the people that are like ones or twos, like you gotta call them up and be like, what happened? Because there’s always some crazy stories and you can learn a lot from it. So like looking for outliers, if you survey people, there’ll be like a consistent trend and then there’ll be these random stories and outliers that you gotta zoom in on because there’s a ton of awesome things you can learn from that. Now I’ll tell you another story, Eyebrow Gate. I had a mystery shopper years ago that came into our haircut chain and he said, I’ve never had a brow wax, but I thought I would go ahead and ask and stylist told me, well, you know, technically I’m not trained for that. You’d have to wait for somebody else. But I could try. And he goes, yeah, give it a whirl. And it didn’t go well. And the customer told me, the mystery shopper said, you need to tell your customers that if, if a customer asks for an eyebrow wax and they’re not trained, they shouldn’t try. They should just say, hard pass, can’t do it, don’t know how to do it. He’s like, cause I was, you know, getting a little comfortable. I love the experience. So I thought I’ll go ahead and ask for the eyebrow wax. She initially told me, you know, we don’t offer that unless I’m trained and I’m not really trained. And he, he said, I thought, come on. And he was like, the physical pain that I’m now experiencing is caused me to tell you. And again, I pay people to be mystery shoppers. I actually tell my customers or certain customers, I’ll call them and say, go in there, book your haircut, and just tell me how your feedback was and I will make sure we reimburse you. So you’re buying, but we’re reimbursing you for the haircut, plus we’re gonna pay you for your time. So again, mystery shoppers, it’s so powerful. Surveying customers is so powerful. Three, you got to install a merit-based pay system. There’s got to be some way, somehow, that everybody in your business actually cares whether the customer’s happy. I’m working with a cosmetic surgery center years ago. And the front desk lady, she made a hundred percent salary. And so if you called and wanted to schedule an appointment, she was rude, she was hateful. The moment we put in merit-based pay, where she got paid based off of appointments and surgeries that were actually scheduled and based upon positive reviews from WebMD and from Google, all of a sudden she was all about high quality customer service. So again, you’ve got to have merit-based pay. David Frazier, what happens if everybody’s on a salary and nobody has merit-based pay? Just the incentives aren’t good. So we try to always have a portion of what they make, the very, very minimum, a portion of what everybody makes based on how do they actually serve the customer. And so everybody, whether or not they know it, they’re serving a customer or a client. And so if you have some type of a way of connecting that to what their actual paycheck is, then they’re going to get it. And they’re going to be, their incentives are aligned to helping the client ultimately be served. And you got to have this next step, number three, or step number four, you’ve got to have a workflow that has the wow scripted. So last night I took myself out for a steak restaurant that I like. And this steak restaurant, you know what they do, they never move, I’ll tell you what they do. I’ll tell you what they do. You order the food, you order that steak, I love steak. You order the steak and every single time you order the steak, guess what happens? The proprietor or the lead manager or the head of the store walks up to your table and says, how’s it tasting? And they do it every single time. And I’ve been there year after year into that steakhouse. And there’s only been a handful of times, maybe one or two times total that the food wasn’t perfect. And again, the manager looks you in your eyes and actually cares. And he goes, how’s everything tasting? I want to make sure it’s perfect. He says it every time. And the one time I didn’t taste that great, I said, I ordered a medium. I think this is like well, well done. And he goes, Hey, no problem. Let me get you another one. Would you like a beverage or an appetizer while you wait? I mean, it’s that level of wow moment. And it just keeps me coming back. Krispy Kreme, baby. You can see them making the donut in front of you. That is a power move. There are high end restaurants I used to go to in New York City back in the day where you can actually have glass so you can see the people preparing the food. They have glass so you can actually watch the chefs and cooks preparing the food. There are restaurants like Show Guns where they actually make the food in front of you and they make an incredible presentation. There are Harley Davidson dealers where they actually have a demo so you can try it out. Bunky Life, how are you guys creating those wow moments at bunkylife.com? Yeah, so if you come by the factory, you can actually, we’ll take you right into the factory floor. You can see all the machines, talk with people making it. And then, so here’s the move right now. We’re trying to get this to 100%. So you come in and maybe you can weigh in on this, Clay. We’re trying to figure out how to get them to tell us what they would put on their bunkie sign. If there was a sign above your bunkie door, what would you put? And then they come in, they do the tour, da, da, da, da, da, and little do they know, we’ve rushed off the name of their Bunky Life sign to someone and he’s actually burning it into a piece of wood with their name. So it’s Bob’s Bunkier, Clay’s Cabin, or whatever they want it to say, right? And then at the end of the tour, we go, thanks so much for coming. We just want to give you this little gift here. And it’s a sign, like burned into a piece of wood with their, whatever they wanted to put on it. We’re just trying to figure out how do we extract that from them and get the name without being weird and creepy. So we’re doing it, but 80% of the time, and then 20% of the people are like, why do you wanna know that? That’s weird. Well, my initial response, and I’d have to think about it, but my initial response is I find that great ideas often start out as kind of creepy. Yeah. Like whenever I first installed the merit-based pay program at Elephant in the Room, you know, well, I’ll give you another example. When I first installed the merit-based pay program with my company back in the day called djconnection.com. We were doing 4,000 weddings a year. And I remember telling the bride, here’s the deal. We are putting in a merit-based pay program and it starts this month. So because you booked with us today, how it works is after your wedding, we’re gonna call you and survey you and ask you how happy you are. And your overall level of happiness will determine the amount of bonus that the DJ gets. You know, so we’re gonna call you and ask you how happy you are on a scale of one to ten. If you say I’m a ten, then the DJ makes more money. And if you obviously have a lower score, the DJ makes less money. So he’s motivated to do a good job. But I didn’t have the mechanics worked out. I didn’t have a visual way to explain it. And I was just saying it for the first time. And probably the way I was saying it was part of the problem. But I remember the bride saying to me, so you’re saying that a DJ could come to my wedding and do a bad job? Is that what you’re saying? And I’m like, no, no, no, the way it’s set up is that the DJ would be motivated to receive his bonuses based upon how happy you are. And she says, so they wouldn’t be motivated unless they had that. And so it was this weird, and I think it was the way I said it and the way I presented it. Because I think the initial feeling I have about the idea you’re presenting sounds like it’s a home run. However, it’s like, you know, maybe it’s like, you know, maybe there’s a bunch of signs that you have designed, and it’s like, which one of these signs is most like, which side do you connect with the most? And maybe they’re semi-polarizing statements with some moderate statements too. You know, where it’s kind of something like, I am man, therefore I will work here alone, or something crazy, and then it’s, I am woman, therefore I have my own she shed, or those kind of statements. And then there’s something maybe in the mind, I don’t know, I could just see that evolving. But I think people sometimes need, in the creative space, they need a few examples to look at and say, which of these do you most connect with? And then they respond. And then the follow-up is, if you could write your dream statement, what would it be? Something like that. So it kind of makes sense. That’s a really super good idea. Yeah, we have that when they walk in. Okay, I’m going to make that happen. And you know the thing that burns the custom embroidery, actually burns into it, you know what it’s called? What? It’s called the laser pecker. Laser pecker, that was my nickname in high school. Let’s continue. Okay, so moving on. Oh, shocker, Bob. Okay, moving on to number five here, folks. You got to install a rewards program for your customers. There’s got to be a thing where like the customer feels that like from buying from you somehow allows them to maybe win something, have a chance to be a part of something special, they’re part of a club, they get rewards points, they have a chance to win a trip to Hawaii. Man, the Hawaii move, that move is so good and I love giving away the trip. We just did it, we just, we were at a local church and I was asked by a pastor at a local church to come in and not to speak about the gospel, but to come up and basically talk about the importance of celebrating our volunteers. So the pastor asked me to come up and just do a five minute, again, not talking about the Bible, just talking for five minutes about celebrating the volunteers. He said, you know, you’re a business guy and you know how important it is to celebrate your teammates. And I think you can just come up and share. I said, fine, I’ll do it. So I go and get hop on stage. And I said, folks, if you’re attending this church and you have kids who are in a kid’s church tonight, could you put your hands up? Hands go up. How many of you were greeted by a parking attendant? Hands go up. How many of you enjoyed the coffee bar? Hands up. How many of you enjoyed the squeaky clean bathroom this morning? Hands up, great. All of the people that did that are all volunteers. And so if you guys could take just a moment today and take a second, get your phone out and leave these guys an objective review. Could we do that? Is that something we could do? Could we all do that? I just wanna celebrate them publicly. If we could all take just a second and leave them a review. And I said, folks, trust me, I won’t make it awkward. I’ll stop talking about it as soon as you do it. So go ahead and do it. And I said, I said, it was on stage. So it kind of worked, it was an inter-dialogue thing. And I said, some of you are thinking, is he talking about me? And I go, oh, I am definitely talking about you who haven’t done it yet. So get out your phone. Everybody, we’re taking like five minutes. Everybody stand up, you know, leave a review, walk around a little bit. Let’s kind of get a good mojo going. And I got the tension out of the room and everybody left to review. And then I celebrated the people, had everyone stand and give a warm round of applause to the volunteers, that kind of thing. But the thing that made it all work is I said, if you will leave an objective review, you have a chance to win a dream vacation to this particular location. And the moment that I said that, everyone was like, what did he say? What was he saying? And again, I’ve been talking about volunteers and volunteerism and celebrating, but the moment I said, if you leave a review, you have a chance to win a trip to, everybody’s going, whoa, what was that? How do we do it? Hey, now, how do we do it? And people were actually saying at the church, how do we do it? I mean, all of a sudden, you got their attention, and then people wanted to feel like they were part of this, then all of a sudden people in the room who hadn’t left the review yet started going, I don’t want to miss out, I don’t want to be the only person that hasn’t left the review. And I’m not kidding, we helped the pastor collect over 70 objective Google reviews from ongoing church members in one service, which was like a fifth of the reviews that they had ever gathered previously. So we got 20% of the reviews they’d ever gathered over a 10 year period of time at one event, at one time, because people wanted a chance to win something. So we go back to this point here. You’ve got to create an ability for somehow for people to win something, for people to enter into a program. Talk about that at Bunky, because at BunkyLife.com, I mean, you’ve tapped into the chance to win thing a few times and it’s worked well for you. Yeah. So our actually main lead generation process is enter to win a Bunky. So that’s kind of our outside the funnel leads, like our people that are like clients. And then we also do it within the client base as well. So we have a Facebook group of over, I think 1500 individuals across North America. Now it’s a great group for sharing information and learning, but we also do a yearly thing. So like two years ago, we gave away a hot tub. If you bought a Bunky and told a friend about a Bunky and or told a friend about a buggy when a hot dog. And last year we gave away a little bathroom buggy. And then this year I haven’t announced it yet, but it’s going to be something epic. It’ll be a long lines of trip to Hawaii. It’s got to be a wow. It can’t it can’t be like a a bunt. It can’t be like, you know, oh, you get a chance to win a thing that we couldn’t sell. I see a lot of entrepreneurs that do that. I see I sell. I see it all the time. It’s probably because I work with business owners all day, every day. I see this. But the jackassery of like hauling out a prize or a reward that you can’t give away to people and saying that’s the reward. That’s dumb. You want to give away something that’s exciting, something that’s exhilarating. But again, once you create this wow, what’s going to happen is people are going to start to refer you now. So as an example, we just announced that Tim Tebow was joining the business conference in June. The Tim Tebow, this is a two-time Heisman Award winning football player. This is a guy who’s been more successful off the field than on the field, very successful as an entrepreneur, best-selling author. We announced that Peter Taunton was joining the tour. This is a guy worth $200 million who joined the tour, joining our speaking event, our business conference. This is a guy who built Snap Fitness. We start to mention these other people, Michael Levine, the PR consultant for Michael Jackson and Prince and Nike and Pizza Hut, he’ll be here. Jill Donovan, the multi-million dollar founder of the company Rustic Cuff. And I start mentioning the names and all of a sudden, more and more people are requesting tickets for the June conference because there’s an excitement to it. But man, if you roll out a lineup that’s less than exciting, you don’t get those exciting results. So I encourage everybody right now, how are you going to wow your customers? Bunkeylife.com, tell us about the wow moment you have right now. What’s the special, what’s the hot deal that you have at bunkeylife.com? And I’ll pull up the website. So yeah, go to bunkeylife.com. We’re just about to start our open house, which is happening Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Come by the Bunkeylife factory, but if you’re listening, it might be a digital thing. You can also book a virtual tour and do almost the exact same thing. There’s a crazy sale on as well. So check that out. We’ll pull it up real quick here. This is BunkyLife.com, folks. Keep your fingers on the home row. Don’t click the wrong button here. Let’s go to BunkyLife.com. We’re here on BunkyLife.com. Walk us through the specials you have, the moves. Walk us through. Give us kind of a tour of the website here. Yeah. So usually, whatever we have going on, it will be at the very top. So Spring Open House, that’s what you’ll see at the very top of the fold. Whatever promotion you have, we usually rotate different things out. So we’re doing our open house, and previously it was our big winter sale that we just wrapped up. And then, you know, as things happen, more of those promotions will be up there. So we kind of have an ongoing promotion at any given time. And then of course you scroll down this information about how to book a tour, how to learn more, how to check out the products. You can do virtual tours and physically come to see us as well. I just think you guys have a hot, hot deal there. I mean, I purchased one of those. People absolutely love it. They love it. We have it set up at the mall. I purchased a bunkylife.com cabin so people could see it at the mall and we use it as a way to showcase some of the businesses I’m involved in. And for people out there that don’t know, you know, I’m involved in the irrigation business. I’m involved in the home remodeling business. And this thing, it serves as like a tractor beam. People at the mall, they can’t handle it. They can’t take it. They’re going, and they’re pulled in. They, they’re saying to themselves, I don’t want to go, but I have to. And they just, the curiosity, they just pulls them in. Next thing you know, they’re like, well, tell me what you do. And then what we do is we have a setup kind of like this one here, kind of like this one, where it’s kind of a cabana deal and we’ve got our brochures set up so people can look at all the different products and services we offer and we’re getting deals. It’s a wonderful way to create an absolutely awesome kiosk at the mall. Also probably a way to add on a bolt-on bedroom or a guest room. It really is just a great opportunity. It’s BunkyLife.com. They’re affordable. They’re well-made. David Frazier, I’m going to give you the final word there, sir. Well, I would just say, whatever you could do to wow your clients, definitely do it. It’s worth the investment, even though it’s not like an obvious thing to measure up front, but the back end of it is so huge. And the books I’ve been reading about this, this is what I’m, this is a shtick I’ve been on for the past six months. It’s a really old school book called Raving Fans. It’s a great book to read. And there’s a newer book called A Reasonable Hospitality, which is actually about some of those those New York restaurants that Clay mentioned earlier. They’re both really great books that I’m kind of swimming in right now. Brother, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for carving out time David Frazier and we’ll talk to you next week. Thanks Clay. Take care. Bye. Today for the vast majority of American motorcycle enthusiasts Harley-Davidson is known as the king of America’s roads. However, in 1985, the iconic brand found itself within just hours of bankruptcy. Overwhelmed by the Japanese competition, the recession that had hit America, and the onslaught of management missteps, the company needed to change something if it was going to survive. And in 1985, the company did just that. In 1985, Ken Schmidt was hired as the company’s chief communication officer and was charged with communicating to both customers and potential investors alike while trying to work with the leadership team to find a new strategy and a path for survival. Ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce to you my good friend, Ken Schmidt. Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show. But this show does. Two men. Eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Thriving Time Show. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom, so we’re never gonna be here. In 1985, when Ken Schmidt joined Harley-Davidson as their chief communications officer the company was making bikes that were actually winning awards So they were buying into the the lie That a great product will sell itself. They won the quality awards They were focusing on quality quality quality quality, but they weren’t selling anything They weren’t making a profit and that is where Ken started. So ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear from. Mr. Ken Schmidt Hey Schmidt. Hey. So, Ken, you started from the bottom when the company had great bikes, but you weren’t making any money. How did you fix it? I did it all in one day. I got a question for you. Where the hell are we? Tulsa, Oklahoma. Wild, man. The Disneyland of entrepreneurship. I’ve never seen anything like this. I came in from Washington, D.C. last night, and I thought this was going to be a meeting room in a hotel, frankly. So this is kind of blowing my mind, you got a band for God’s sake, and they’re dressed in Christmas clothing. This is really cool. We’re stealing from your playbook. Yeah, right on. Okay, try to keep this short. I tend to be long-winded and apologize for that. Let me tell you what I did on my first day of work at a company that had just, two weeks before I started, laid off 40% of its workforce. That’s both on the manufacturing side and that’s on the internal side. So finance, marketing, administration, mailroom, welders, painters, the blood was splattered everywhere. There was not a bank in America that would issue Harvey Davidson a line of credit in September of 1985, which is why we beat. My first official job at the company was putting together our communication plan to announce to the world that we were filing for bankruptcy, which I can tell you is a really shitty time to start a new job. Okay. Everyone says, who’d you call first, the unions? I said, no, I called my wife and said, don’t buy anything, you know, click. Ships going down. No money to spend. And that’s a very, very important element of all this. And all the more kind of magnificent about why what we started to do began working. Because, frankly, I think if we had a lot of money to spend, the company that you see and know today probably wouldn’t exist. We’d have spent ourselves out of existence because we were focused, as I’ll get to in a minute, on all of the wrong things. I was getting a lot of ideas from people inside the company about what we needed to do to change the company’s image, because the company had a horrendous image at that time. I think Hell’s Angels and outlaws and banditos and drug runners and cop killers and all that other kind of nonsense. That’s pretty bad. So I was getting a lot of ideas from people about what we needed to do and how we needed to convince people to buy the product, all of which required money. So, first day of work, I pounded out three questions on my typewriter. Typewriter, folks, it’s a communication device used for… Anyway, and those three questions, I know that they’re very, very important questions and I’ll hit you with them in just a second, but they essentially became the foundation upon which we built a global empire, a global brand. And the three questions are, what are people saying about us? What do we want them to say about us? And what are we doing to make them say it? Ken, I want to ask you this. Yeah. And I want all the Thrivers to know, on page 107, if you’re following along, Ken asked these three questions. And other companies that ask these questions would be Whole Foods. Whole Foods has asked these questions. Apple has asked these questions. Chick-fil-A has asked these. One of my favorite businesses. Starbucks has asked these questions. Most small business owners never ask these questions, so we get stuck talking about how we don’t have a lot of resources. So once you asked those questions, tell us what happened next. Essentially, the reason I was doing this was to say, look, we don’t have money to spend. We need to assess what our, and internalize and understand what our current reputation is, what people are saying about us. But then we also need to create our, sort of, plant our flag in the sand of what we want people saying about us. What do we want our reputation to be? And then third and finally, how can we harness the power of our customer base and our dealer base and our supplier base, anyone who’s important to the business, to talk about us, to spread our narrative the way we want it to be spread so that people, you know, won’t be afraid of us, will be drawn toward us, and will see us differently than maybe they did in the past. And that’s not stuff that could be done with advertising, thank God. It’s basically saying, let’s harness the power of the people that we serve and make them advocates for us. And it’s a lot easier, frankly, than it sounds. There’s a book called Radical Marketing, which basically, it’s a case study about what you were doing. Are you aware of the book they wrote about you? No. So Radical is a book that explains what Ken did. It’s really funny. No, seriously, this is a book I read about this guy before I read the book that you wrote. And so reading this book, and they were talking about how Harley customers like loud motors. Yes. You have handlebar designs you liked and apparently before you guys before you got there there was a rush to make the bikes more efficient more like compete with the Japanese bike so almost like a rush to the bottom. Can you talk to me about some of the bad ideas that Harley was pushing out that were not working before you began to ask? Well to that point is we we learned a horrible but incredibly valuable lesson that the rest of the world, especially people that manufacture, build, or sell a product, either haven’t learned or are about to learn the hard way. As we were 100% internally focused, 100%, as we needed to build a product that was, and I need fingers for this, world-class, and bulletproof, and industry-leading, and have superior quality and reliability and quality and all the stuff that people associate with a good product. Our belief was, geez, the reason people aren’t buying our products the way they did in the past is because stuff coming from Japan or Germany was seen as better than ours. So, if we made something world class, well, everybody would come and want to buy the American option. Tons of things were done, tons of improvements were made, you know, incredible stuff happening in the manufacturing plants that resulted in what you just mentioned. Absolutely world-class products coming out of Harley. Every motorcycle magazine on the planet put us on their covers and we’d never been on bike magazine covers since like the 1930s because nobody liked us. Because, you know, we sold to thugs and criminals and rapists. Profitable little market niches, though, so don’t knock it. This is where we’re about to learn the lesson, because once those bikes came out for the 1986 model year, everybody took their foot off the gas. We did it. Woohoo! Like light up the cigars because there’s going to be a stampede of people coming in to buy product and now we’re about to learn the ugly lesson. There’s all this buzz in the market, very, very positive word of mouth. People are interested, people are coming into dealerships that hadn’t before. Floor traffic was up and sales went down. 1986 was the worst year in the company’s history, after the bankruptcy. It just couldn’t possibly be a worse scenario to happen. So that’s when a lot of people thought, well, they had their chance, they had their window of time. I’m talking about people inside the company. We had our chance, we had our time, and we blew it. And the lesson that we learned here, simply put, is if you live by product, you’re going to die by product because you cannot make your product your competitive lever in a world where everyone has competition. Unless you have something that’s absolutely brand new that nobody’s ever seen before. If you are competing in an existing market and relying on your product or eventually even your service to give you your competitive advantage. You’re essentially dooming yourself because you’re going up against other businesses that have product that is equally good and a lot of times priced lower. J.T., do you know what time it is? Four ten. It’s it’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who will be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind Nine Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this, folks. I don’t get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. And you say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan. 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it. And I am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrivetimeshow and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th to 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting out shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EOfire podcast and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show business workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas and countless big-time super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrive timeshow.com James, what website is that? ThriveTimeshow.com. James, one more time for more Oh my God! Everything rides on tonight, even if I got three strikes, I’ma go for it, this moment, we own it, eh, I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous, see, these people I ride with, this moment, we own it. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. 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 you’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 It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system. When you do that research you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well first of all I have to honor you sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target and Direct TV and he said, have you read this book Rich Dad Poor Dad? And I said no. And my father may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business. And I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool, the people are nice, it’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. It was probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. In the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence, that businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference like motivates me and also give me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do this. Everybody can do these things. They’re stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. It’s everyone’s super fun. It’s super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, 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 4 to 14. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past. And they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales. Which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October, 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Uh, right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere Play’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door, and it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire year. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purpose for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.