Entrepreneur | Discovering Your Big Niche That Will Help You Achieve Your Big Dreams

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. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, today we’re talking about startup. But specifically, we’re talking about discovering your big niche that’ll help you achieve your big dreams. We’re trying to help you discover your big niche. Some people call it a niche. Your big niche that will help you achieve your dreams. What’s a niche? It’s kind of like where you fit in. Your specialty. Your thing you do, where you fit in the world and your own little specialty that you can do to make some money there. Step one here to discover your big niche that will help you achieve your big dreams is we have to define our goals. We have to define our goals. I want to make sure that everybody who’s watching this, that you do this. If you need to pause it right now and do this, that’s fine, but you have to do is you have to one define your spirit goals your mind your body your relationships and your final one Your finances you have to do it If you do not have these goals written down, I promise you you will not achieve them. Oh, that’s hard. If you don’t have these goals written down, you cannot achieve them. You have to write them down, you have to write them down, whatever you’re doing, please write them down. Spiritual goal. And I’m going to give you a time limit. One year from now, where do you want to be with your skills one year from now? Body, in terms of your fitness, your physical fitness, where do you want to be one year from now? In terms of your relationships, maybe you have a brother you haven’t talked to or you have a girlfriend you want to marry or maybe you have a dude you want to get closer to or you have a partner you want to meet or a mentor you want to get to know. Relationships, where do you want to be one year from now, and financially, where do you want to be one year from now? One year. You have to define those goals. That is absolutely important. Now why is it so important that we do that? Somebody’s watching right now saying, you know, I don’t know what my goals are right now. I’m just kind of, I don’t know, I don’t know. Well, here’s the thing, you have to have some sort of goal because step number two, step number two in our system here is you have to put a price on it. So as you ask yourself, what does it cost for you to achieve that goal? What does it cost for you? Now, you’re saying relationships, I can’t put a price on that. Well, I think you can. Going out to coffee, going out to eat, maybe taking your girlfriend on a date, maybe paying for the wedding, paying for a vacation, maybe taking your kids to the pool, maybe taking your kids to a country club, maybe taking your kids to a movie, maybe taking your kids to a park, maybe taking your kids to… I have five kids, so I’m thinking about a lot of kid things. Maybe you’re single, maybe it’s just taking someone out to eat, meeting people, maybe it’s having an apartment, I don’t know. But you have to, it costs you money. It costs you money to stay in shape. What does it cost to go to the gym? Or does it cost for supplements? What does it cost for a trainer? What does it cost to be in a class? What does it cost? What does it cost? What does it cost? Things on the planet Earth, not Earth, the planet Earth costs what? Money. Mind. Skills. I mean, is it healthy to go to a workshop? Yes. Does it make sense to pay $1,000 to go to a workshop? I mean, let’s say you’re a sign printer. You’re in the printing industry. Or you’re an insurance salesperson. Should you pay to go to a seminar occasionally to learn some new skills? Yes. And certain professions, does it make sense to go back to college? Yes. Does it make sense to get certain certifications? Does it cost money? Yes. And spiritually, some of you guys go to a church where you tithe, you give 10% of what you earn. Some of you have a faith where you give back. Some of you have, you know, certain, you want to travel to a place on a kind of a spiritual journey, but what does it cost? That is the question is, what does it cost? So step one, you have to define your goals. And then, too, you have to ask yourself, what does it cost? Now, as we move on, phase number three, OK, so again, step one is to define those goals. Right. Step two is to ask yourself, what does that cost? What does it cost? Now moving on to step number three. Step number three is you want to find a problem that you can solve. You want to find a problem that you can solve better than anybody else in your area. You want to find a problem. Find a problem. I’m just going to give you a few examples, but I know of a guy I’ve done some work with who’s a dentist. And he has said, gosh, you know, a lot of dentists aren’t open on Saturdays. So he’s out there in the West Coast and he says, I think I’m going to be open on Saturdays. That’s a problem. People like me have teeth. They need to get their teeth taken care of. They work at the job 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and they need to be able to get in on a Saturday. So what he did is he opened up his place on Monday through Saturday 9 to 7. Why? Because most people get off of work at 5. And so all he did was extended his hours till 7. He opened it up on a Saturday, and he’s like, boom, that’s my niche. That’s my thing I do, that’s my problem I solve. I find a problem, right, that I can solve. Now, another example. My company I started was called DJ Connection. Well, DJ Connection, brides and grooms, coast to coast, all around the world, are used to paying a DJ by the hour. You pay a DJ for four hours of his time. You say it’s this much money it’s like six hundred dollars for four hours. It’s a thousand dollars for four hours. It’s you pay for the hour. Also the DJ you had to choose from his song list. Also you never had an opportunity to sit down with the DJ to help plan out your event. So I said for our company you know what the problem that girls have is they want unlimited time. Brides and grooms want unlimited time. I say girls because it was almost always the bride booking her wedding. It was almost always the lady booking the holiday party. But they wanted unlimited time. They wanted to meet with an event planner. And that was a problem. And so I solved the problem. So if you’re watching this right now, you have to ask yourself, step number three is find a problem that you can solve in the marketplace. Now, this should be like a sort of a game. This should be a deal where you’re constantly asking yourself, what’s a problem I can solve? What’s a problem I can solve? What’s a problem I can solve? You want to ask yourself that question over and over and over. And then, you have to make sure this is a problem that someone’s willing to pay to have solved. Okay? So, step three, find a problem that you can solve but that people would be willing to pay for. Now, moving on to step number four. This is where it begins to get a little bit exciting because you’re going to have some business action steps that you can do here. You’re creating a business model. You’re going to define a rough business model. What is a business model? A business model is a system with which we do business. It’s how we do business. It’s the specific steps, the nuances, the differentiators. It’s what makes us different. It’s the processes that we use to deliver value to the customer. This is how we solve problems. We define a rough business model. Okay, this is how we charge the customer for solutions. And this is what you do if you want to make a business model. These are their steps. One is you want to define your rough costs. Your rough, these are your rough, very, very rough hard costs. Okay? Your rough, hard costs are items that don’t go away if you start a business. Those are hard, they’re fixed costs. They’re costs that don’t go up, they don’t go down, they’re just a hard cost. Example, like your phone bill every month for a business would be a hard cost for a lot of people. It’s like a hundred dollars a month, it never goes up, it never goes down, it’s just your hard cost your Lease for your office space you might pay $2,500 a month every single month for your office space. That’s a hard cost So let me just write down some of these hard costs for you. That would be your lease That would be your phone That would be maybe your insurance That would be anything like accounting maybe, anything that’s a fixed expense. This does not go up, this does not go down, it is a cost associated with just being a business, being just open, having your doors open. Even if you don’t sell anything, this cost does not go up or go down. I hope I’m helping you here, that’s a hard cost. Now the second thing we have to do to make our business model, again roughly, we want to come up with, these are called the variable expenses, okay? Variable expenses. We need to figure out what our variable costs are. We have to figure out per transaction what does it cost us. So let’s just make up an example. Let’s say you sell cupcakes. Well if you sell a cupcake for let’s say four dollars, how much does it cost for the eggs that go into one cupcake and for the mix, the cake mix, and what does it cost to actually bake it in terms of the electrical costs? You’re like, you need to measure the electrical costs needed to make one cupcake? Yes. Um, frosting, what does that cost? What does it cost in labor to pay someone to do it? What does it cost, those little, little tins, those little tins that you put your cupcake mix in, you know, that keeps the cupcake from sticking to the pan, you know, that stuff. What does that cost? I mean, all this stuff, what does that cost? You have to add up all of the costs because every time you sell a cupcake, you have to pay these costs. Make sense? You have to add up all these costs every single time. If you’re a builder, that would be like every time you build a house, I mean, you’ve got to build what the cost of the wood the cost of the sheetrock the cost of your Labor the cost the cost the cost you have to think about your variable cost the costs that per transaction Happen these are costs that do not happen if you do not actually sell anything does that make sense I hope you’re getting it if any questions email us at info at thrive 15 calm. I’ll help you, but that’s what that is okay variable expenses that’s what that is it’s a cost per transaction it doesn’t happen unless you actually sell something whereas a fixed cost even if you don’t see any customers at all you have the same fixed cost so you have the hard cost versus a variable cost so we are we losing anybody out there if you’re lost it’s okay I took algebra three times I promise we’re gonna help you on this okay so now we’re moving on This third element, this third element is very important. We have to figure out our break-even point. This is all on our rough business model. Just go with our business model, okay? We have our break-even point. So the question is how equals break even. So going with the cupcake analogy, let’s say that every cupcake was $4 and after taking out the cost to make them, we have a profit of $2. But yet, we need to do at least a thousand sales a month just to break even. Well, I don’t know where you’re officing if you’re only going to pay two thousand dollars a month and that also includes your insurance and your I mean maybe you have a loan for your company and that includes I mean your utilities. I mean that’s a pretty low cost but you’d have to, if you own a cupcake business that sold cupcakes at four dollars a piece, you’d have to sell at least 1,000 of them a month just to bring in that sort of, you know. So you wanna ask yourself, what’s my break-even point? How many transactions do I have to do just to break even? How many sales equal break-even? Okay, make sense? How many sales do I have to do just to break even? And then finally, you want to figure out after your break even, what is your profit per customer? So how much profit do you actually make per customer? So after you break even, how much do you make? So once you’ve paid off the bills, let’s just assume that under this model, that it was 1,000 cupcakes just to break even. Well, every cupcake after that, how much do you make? Well, in this model, we would make under this model two dollars of profit per cupcake after we break even. Am I helping somebody? So here’s the deal, two dollars of profit per cupcake is what you’d make. So let’s just say your goal, let’s say we go back to our goals, remember our goals? Hopefully we didn’t forget our goals. If our goal was to go see our mom who lives in Michigan and to work out every week at this gym and to feed our kids and to learn a new skill, and to, so let’s say our goal was to make a hundred thousand dollars a year and we have to divide that by the number of cupcakes we have to sell after our break-even point that would mean what? Well it means we have to sell 50,000 Cupcakes After the first thousand a month to break even so we would have to sell 62 Thousand Cupcakes. Now again, we know that it takes at least a thousand cupcakes a month just to break even. That means it takes fifty thousand cupcakes at two dollars profit per to hit our goals. So we’re going to sell sixty two thousand cupcakes a year. A year just to make a hundred thousand dollars. Let’s do the math on that. Okay, hopefully I’m not losing you here, okay? So if it’s 62,000 cupcakes a year, let’s do the math here, guys. 62,000 cupcakes. Some of you, some of y’all, some of y’all folks have gone to some college and you’ve done some math and you can figure this out, but here we go. I didn’t graduate from college, so if I can figure this out, I want you to clap for me while you’re watching okay you’re just like man this guy I don’t know how he does it without that degree he’s just able to somehow just oh man that’s where it gets tough I say roughly I’d have to sell well let’s go to the calculator let’s do a calculator I’m doing calculator because I feel like it’s gonna be a really dirty number here. It’s going to be like a huge… How do we operate this phone? So the phone… We have one of our camera guys who’s doing the math here for us, but I’m going to go ahead and do it here. We have the one, the one, and the nine, and the zero. I mean, right here, I think it might be like… Oh my gosh. Oh, see, oh man, I didn’t have it agreed, but I almost got it done here. So right here. 1,192 cupcakes a week. Now, how many per day? Somebody with a calculator, help me out here. We divide that by six, cause we’re, no, no, no, you do it by five. We divide that by five, cause we’re only working five days a week, cause we’re like, uh-uh, I’m only working five days a week. Come on now. 238. Okay, 238. So you have to sell 238 cupcakes a day. Now we’re open for business 10 hours a day. How many per hour? 23.8 cupcakes per hour. Am I helping somebody? 23.8. I met a person far off on the East Coast who had this idea to build this big cupcake business. And when I broke this number down to her and I showed her, hey, it’s 23.8 cupcakes per hour you would have to sell to achieve her goal to achieve your goals she said well we don’t even have the capacity to make that much per hour let alone sell them BAM get out of that business all right all right I mean that’s a stupid idea then and she’s like well the most we ever could sell in a day is maybe 25 a day get out of there what are you doing you know you remember Star Wars or Luke he’s you know He’s going into the end of the trench and the Death Star, you know And he’s trying to blow up the the you know, the whole Death Star thing I’m telling you here like avoid the Imperial ships here man pull up. What do you know and get out of there? You know, they’re blasting at you. You’re not gonna make it You got to get out of there if you can’t sell twenty three point eight get out of there. And I don’t care what business you’ve decided on, if you don’t know this answer you must stop. You must not move forward. Now we’re moving on here okay. So again, one we have to define our big goals. Two, put a price tag on it. What does that cost? Three, find a problem that you can solve and people are willing to pay for. Four, draw up the rough business model. Five, determine how many transactions, which requires action, how many transactions per day do you need to achieve your goals? Don’t get emotional. Okay, here’s the deal. It’s a simple yes or no. Is it possible? If it is not possible, then move on to a different problem to solve you know the guy who invented sky vodka his name is Maurice can bar Maurice can bar and he is a guy had an opportunity to work for he actually invented a Technology years ago, and he told me it’s kind of funny. I was reading it is his book by the way it’s called the inventors handbook by Maurice can bar we can put a graphic on the screen here, so you can see the book, but it’s phenomenal. Maurice Kanbar, he invented Sky Vodka, he invented the modern traffic light. He’s absolutely phenomenal. Well, he explains that he actually invented numerous things that couldn’t possibly be profitable. So, if you have a problem you can solve and it can’t be profitable, don’t feel bad, just move on to a new one. You got to move forward, okay? You can’t get stuck. You cannot move stuck. Now point number six. Point number six. Point number six. This is big. I don’t know if I’m gonna freak you out a little bit but this is huge. You have to fail in a what? In a survivable way. You have to fail forward in a survivable way. So let’s look at this. This is a man. He is standing. He falls, meaning he fails. He fails forward. He is laying on the ground. Is it believable to think this man falls and he falls forward so you fall you boom does it hurt I mean when you bonk your head bonk is the word that I use bonk when you bonk your head that hurts right but then you get back up but when you get back up where are you standing you are standing further ahead than where you were when you started. And then what you do is you fail forward again. Now here’s the deal, here’s the deal, put a helmet on there, get yourself a good helmet, get a good helmet with a chin strap, put that helmet on there, and then you’re gonna fail. Somebody help me. Where are we We’re failing. We’re failing backwards? No. Bonk. We’re failing where? Somebody help me. We’re failing forward. We’re failing forward. You fail forward in a survivable way. Why? Because you have a helmet on. You wear a helmet so you fail what? Forward. You fail what way? You fail forward. And you keep failing forward in a survivable way. You’ve got to have a helmet on. So you don’t want to go out there and open up your cupcake business without doing the math. You don’t want to start your building company without doing the math. You need to know how many transactions do I need per day to achieve my goals. But you’ve got to be able to have a little bit of a cushion so you can fail forward. A cushion meaning a helmet. Cushion meaning having a little bit of money in the bank. Cushion meaning you’ve thought about it and you’ve decided, hey, you know what, honey? I say, honey, I’m talking to my wife or girlfriend or something. Hey, we’re gonna start a business here, but because we’re gonna start a business, I’m gonna go ahead and sell one of the cars and we’re gonna move into a small apartment so when we have some issues, we can survive. I want you to know that Walt Disney lost it all, twice, that we know about. Henry Ford lost it five times. Entrepreneurs fail all the time. But the thing, the reason why that you read about them now in Forbes magazine and you read about them in Inc. magazine and Entrepreneur magazine is because they failed forward in a survivable way. You don’t want to set yourself up where you have no cushion at all. Elon Musk is famous for starting Tesla Motors. He’s famous for starting SpaceX. He’s famous for being part of the team that started PayPal. Well, he’s had some failures. They tried to send three rockets into space and they didn’t work. But what was he doing? He was failing forward. He was failing, yes, but he was failing forward. He wasn’t failing backward, but he had a little bit of cushion. He had money that he could put back into the company and then yeah, he spent almost every dime He had to keep his company alive, but if he didn’t have enough money in the bank to survive Multiple failed attempts of his rocket. He wouldn’t have made it He had to have a little bit of a cushion He had to have a helmet for some of us it might not be having a hundred million dollars in the bank to fall back On but it might be you know Maybe you talk to your parents and you say, mom and dad, can I live in the garage for a few months while I start this business? Because when it struggles, I need to be able to survive the failing. You need to be able to fail forward. This is the system. So in review, let’s get into it real quick and let’s make sure that we all get this idea. One, you want to define your big goals. Define those big goals. Okay, so let’s draw this up here for us so we don’t leave without any action steps. Okay, so one, you want to nail down your goals. Okay, two, you want to put a price on it. What are your goals? What’s the a problem you can solve for profit. Now, don’t be discouraged if you can’t come up with it immediately. We’re in a microwave society right now where people are like, I want my burger right now. I ordered it 92 seconds ago and I deserve it now. We’re in a culture where we say I want my Netflix, I want to hit enter, and I want my video immediately downloaded. We are in a culture where things happen quickly, but we need to understand that some of this takes time. It’s a process. Okay, we have to define our goals, figure out what it costs, find a problem that we can solve at a profit. Okay, now moving on to point a rough business model. Rough. Operative word here. Rough. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Okay? No one’s going to grade the paper here. Alright? We need to make sure that we’re… it’s rough. You have a rough idea of your hard costs, your variable costs, your break-even point, your profit per customer. Now, next, we have to determine the number of daily transactions we need to achieve our goals. The number of daily transactions we need to achieve our goals. Why do I always say daily? Because daily is where it gets real. Yearly goals, quarterly goals, I don’t even know what that means. I can’t process that. But daily I’m like man 23.8 cupcakes? I got a lot of cupcakes. Per hour? Oh no. I can’t do it. I mean daily. You’re gonna break it into the daily goals. Those daily goals. And the final thing is we have to go ahead and fail forward in a what way? Survivable way. You don’t want to go out there and start a business with your last dollar. Some of you have been watching this, you’re watching it, and you’ve done it. You’ve taken your last dollar and you’ve started a business, and you’re like, but I failed. Well, because you didn’t have anything to survive on. You got to wear a helmet, man. You’re going to fail, okay? And I want to leave you with this drawing because this is probably my favorite drawing of the year right now. You’re this guy and you fail. Where do you fail? Somebody help me. You fail forward and you do what with your head? You bunk your head. And what did you learn? Oh there is a stone here. So you’ve learned stone. The thing you’ve learned is avoid stone tripping. That’s what you learned. Are you dead? If you don’t have a helmet you probably will be dead. So you got to wear a helmet so you can survive. You’re gonna have a little bit of a cushion. You might need to downsize. You might need to move into a smaller house before you start your business. You might want to move in with your parents into the living room when you start a business. You might want to have a roommate when you start your business, but you have to be able to fail forward in a survivable way. Are you going to fail? Absolutely. This is the process that we need to do if we are going to actually find our niche to achieve our big dreams. If we’re going to actually go out there and discover our big niche to achieve our dreams, if you’re watching this and you’re like, man, I just don’t know where I would do. I don’t know what kind of business I would start. I want to start a business. I just don’t know what kind of business to start. If you’re looking to find your niche, this is how we do it. I’ve done it. I never grasped algebra. I took it three times, never really got it. I took my ACT multiple times to get into college. And I know that if I can do it, you can absolutely do it. So do not be discouraged. Whatever you’re dealing with right now, run right through it. We are here at Thrive to help you do it. We are so excited to help you and again, look at me. Look at my paleness. Look at my lack of skill. If I can do it, you can do it. Alright JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a $15 million business, but you have $15 million of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right, so the question I would have here for you if you can take like 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 ho crap why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has a sane mind why would they not uh… go to thrive timeshare dot com forward slash credit dash card thrive timeshare dot 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. That’s clear. Okay, so that can be true. So I encourage everybody to check out Thrivetimeshow.com board 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, everybody. We getting there, everybody. We gettin’ that right money, we gettin’ that right money There’s probably some, someone out there, they would think that Well I’ll just tell you folks, if you’re out there today, and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thronetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard Because you can compare rates, you can save money, and you know, the big goal in my opinion of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom. And in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap! Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal! It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Shampoo is better. I go on first and clean the hair. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh, really, fool? Really? It’s good. Huh, huh, huh, huh. Stop looking at me, swan. Well, let me tell you a good story here real quick here. I actually, years ago, compared rates with this company here. It’s called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical, I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes, I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours? And in my case, in my case, my particular case, 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. Everything okay, ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional, ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t gonna be easy so I need you to be brave all right. What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia all right I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock. It’s an elegant from Ridgway. It’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card. You schedule a free consultation, request information. A member of our team will call you. They’ll schedule a free consultation. It should take you 10 minutes or less. And they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom and financial freedom. In order to do that, you need to create additional profits. Perfect. 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, asking our customers for reviews. And now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pest and Lawn Company in the Tulsa area. And that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with 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 percent, 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. That has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. Last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually 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. And it’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews, that way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Okay, 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 were in a rut. Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s gonna take in order to really succeed. So we just wanna 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 from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. And Clay’s done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with like running the business, building the systems, the checklist, the workflows, the audits, 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 Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with like Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly he’s running 160 companies. Every 6-8 weeks he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every 6-8 weeks he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13 step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires helping them grow their companies. I’ve seen guys from start-ups go from start-up to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system of critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. That’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best 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 years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from four to 14 and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts, and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 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 today interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13 point business systems that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also 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 with 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. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. We go back eight years ago. Think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to our calls. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from five clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t, without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s a hundred percent growth every year I’ve worked with. Now so I’m looking, we’ve been good friends seven, eight years and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when they 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. Right. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. So, 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 100 calls. We make 200 to 300 calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. Call them script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between 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, yeah, and or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC. The computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. You and I reconnected, I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well we had that speaking thing. Oh there it was! So it’s Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help, you know, direct my life, to get some mentorship, but I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. The experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe wherever I end up will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say it was everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. You know, how to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. You know, working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence and then as you’re called to that standard here you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life. That standard of excellence that you want to implement no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall, in the group interview, talks about how the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship, that as we pursue our goals, and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I’d say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know, he’s just serving them, they’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by. People who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people, 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.