Entrepreneur | Part 1 – How To Price Your Product Effectively With Jill Donovan

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to get what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As the father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. Hello, Miss Jillian. Kytron, how are you? I’m doing great. I’m doing great. Hey, so we’re here talking today about how to price your product effectively. And I know that specifically when I started my first business, I priced my products ineffectively. I did it where I was pricing my products at a point where I couldn’t possibly produce a profit. And it made it where no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t really ever get ahead. And so you’ve been able to somehow find the balance, I think, of pricing your product effectively, but also offering a high value and finding that balance. And so, Jill, there’s a quote that I want to get your feedback on here. It says, in the absence of value, price is the only thing the customer is left to consider. What is your theory about pricing? I mean, what’s kind of your overall idea? How do you determine a price based upon the value? How do you go about doing that? I think, at least for the entrepreneur, when you start off, you are just so excited that somebody’s buying your product. Okay. You don’t even care if you’re losing money because somebody’s wearing my bracelet. Yeah. So when I first started off, and it was a hobby, and my friends would say, you need to set a price for this because I have 10 other people that want to buy it. I just wanted to give it. So when that didn’t work, when my husband didn’t like that theory, I set a price without ever having any prior knowledge of how to do that. And what I basically did is, okay, how much does this cost me in materials to make? And that’s what I’m going to charge you. Never thinking about my time. So you very beginning. So you took your materials. So I’m just making up a number, but you might have said, Hey, my materials are X amount. And then I’m just going to charge. Actually I didn’t because I had no like I said this was just a hobby so I just wanted to get money back for the materials I didn’t even charge for the shipping that it cost me to get the materials really right this I’m just showing you the the knowledge that I had of pricing to start with so you actually took I mean I’m just making up a number here, but let’s say that you how much did you charge for and initially I think I charge $30 $35 so you just took all the cost of materials and you just charged people that. Actually, I take that back. I put in a little bit of time even though I had no idea. I probably took the last salary of my job, which was not very much, and I probably added a little bit of time in there. So, let’s say it was $35. I seriously then would just get that money and put it back into materials, never, ever putting anything in the bank. I was just happy that I would walk around and see somebody wearing it. I didn’t care that I was or wasn’t making money initially. I want to mine into that for a second because I know if there’s somebody watching this who can relate, probably a lot of Sun buddies, but last night I was meeting with two dudes, literally till almost midnight, meeting with these guys. Totally booked out this week, had no other time to meet with them. They’re kind of in this point of desperation, where these guys are working, and I’m not exaggerating, they’re literally working like 70 hours a week, both of them, they have full-time jobs and they’re working this other job, and there’s no money being made. And they’re married and there’s health insurance, there is life to pay for. And they’re going, we just, we can’t make any money. And so, and we’re not making fun of them, we’re saying, hey, this is something what you’re dealing with, we’re dealing with, but we all deal with, but they had just taken, well, this is how much it costs us to do this. Yeah. And we’re just going to charge it back because we’re so happy that people are into our product. Yeah. And I’m saying, guys, you need to pay other people. One, because you have to hire someone to make this stuff. Sure. Two, you’ve got to have health insurance and pay for your kids and stuff. So how did you begin to move beyond this just barely break even pricing? Okay. What was your first step you took? My first step was that somebody pulled me aside and said, okay, here’s the deal. You have this many people that are starting to wear and really enjoy your product. What now there’s a perceived value that people are saying, okay, so it feels good. It looks good. There’s a lot of people wearing it, but it’s only $35. Well, that doesn’t see there’s something not right that there’s something not matching up. So people are now perceiving it to be possibly cheaper than it really is because I’ve set such a low price for it. Yeah, which I heard it and I didn’t hear it I just was like no I want people to be able to afford my product. I said okay. I’m Here’s my second set of pricing. Yeah, this is what I want to do I want to price it and was never it initially it was never about trying to determine how much money I could Make on it. Yeah, I just Really for almost the whole first year. I was just so excited that people would wear it until I realized, okay, this has to be a… If I’m going to continue to spend all my nights until four or five in the morning, I have to start thinking about the value of my time and my husband’s time and my family. And so I had to start making it worth it. So what I decided to do is set a price that when you walked into a store and bought it, that you would want it and you could afford it but yet you could afford another one for your friend. So I raised the price to the point where it had a little bit of higher perceived value but yet you could still afford to buy one for yourself and your friend. So you’re watching this and you own a company where you make custom furniture. I met one guy who became a millionaire making custom furniture and he sat me down and he’s a mentor of mine and he said well Clay here’s what I did. I wrote down on a piece of paper how much money I wanted to make. This is after like 10 years of not making any money, of barely getting by. He writes down, I want to make 100,000 years. So he writes it down. And then he says, I figured out, well, how many pieces of furniture could I possibly make in a year? And then so he figured that out. He’s like, I’m just making up a number. Let’s say he made 52 pieces a year, and he wanted to make $100,000. Well, he’s like, I just divided 100,000 by 52 and that’s how much I had to charge to get there. He’s like, because it was custom and it was limited and that’s how I did it. I’m like, really? He’s like, I made as many as I could and then people kept ordering. Then I just kept charging. I would just say this, as you’re pricing, one of the biggest things we have to look at is we really do have to make sure that we can provide for our families and provide great value to the customer. It’s not really worth doing at that point, right? I mean, if you’re just working every hour of your day to give a product away. Well, but with your example that you just gave, that he said, I want to make $100,000. So then I realized, okay, the making and the selling $100,000 are two totally different things. So I kept saying, okay, for example, I want to make $100,000. I did the exact same thing. How many bracelets do I have to sell? Then I realized making, sorry, selling $100,000 really is making this amount. Two totally different concepts. So we’re talking about how much you’re keeping versus how much you’re bringing in. Yes. So it’s like it’s not how much you make of gross sales, it’s how much you keep in your pocket at the end of the day. Right, but to somebody who’s so excited about a new product that they’ve made that people are latching onto, you’re not thinking about the, you know, I sold $1,000 worth this week. You’re not thinking I made, you’re so excited you actually sold that dollar amount. Well, confession, I agreed to DJ every single night of the week at the Holiday Inn Select for a group of impersonators. They’re Las Vegas impersonators. So people who look like Tom Jones or look like Michael Jackson, they’ve had surgeries to look like these people. I was so excited that someone would validate me and book me every night of the week. I said yes. My wife’s like, do you realize that you’re going to be at the Holiday Inn Select every single night? I’m going, yeah, but this is… Free dinner. Then she said, are you making… It’s funny. That’s what I actually asked for as part of my purchase. I’m eating lobster tails every night and stuff. I didn’t value my time. I didn’t think about it. I’m working all the time but not getting paid. I just want to encourage you if you’re watching this and that sounds like you, you can call a timeout and you can really price things properly. So we’re going to go ahead and get into the variables that affect the cost here. Okay. There’s a lot of things that factor in. And so the first thing we have to talk about here is we get into this idea of hard costs. And the hard costs actually associated with making the product. Right. So what are the costs that you want to think about when you determine hard costs? I mean, are you talking about the materials that go into it? Or what in your mind, whether it’s bracelets or any other product, what are some of the hard costs that entrepreneurs maybe need to factor in? Okay, and I just want to say that it took me, for the first two years, I never really got into this. So this is something that, and, but it’s okay, because this is something that you evolve into. So now what I realize is my hard costs are the actual materials. So let’s say the metals that I’m using, the exotic skins that I’m using, anything that goes into that product, whether it be tools that I use for that, anything that rivets things that would go into it, are what I would consider my actual… You know one thing I didn’t do, I didn’t do this until years ago, and I’m just going to list off some things that I did not do and maybe while you’re watching this you’ll go, well look, you’re stupid and I won’t make that same mistake. But I didn’t factor in the cost of my office. Yeah. So I factored in my materials but not my office. Right. So I guess I figured I would just office for free, you know, somewhere. Yeah. I didn’t factor in the hard cost of my phone. The hard cost are these things that don’t go away. Every month they’re there. So like your phone, and then your office space. Like overhead. Overhead. So if you’re watching this, I encourage you to write down, go ahead and take out a sheet of paper or type it here on the notes section of Thrive. All the things that cost you money that you wouldn’t have as a cost if you weren’t in business. And these are massive. For me it was health insurance, there’s my cost of my office, there’s the cost of my phone, there’s the cost of the cable bill because the customers we have let them watch TV while they’re in the lobby. There was the cost of, it goes on and on, the cost of waters for your guests, the cost of your furniture, the cost of just anything that is a cost of doing business, we need to factor that into the costing here. Now the next thing we get into here is the cost that actually associated with selling the product, like distribution. Can you walk me through the sales related costs? How many people do you have to pay to get your product into stores? I mean, because you’re making it here in Tulsa. But is there like a middleman and then a man between the middleman and then the man? No, we just have inside sales. You do? Yes. So, but it’s still… Okay, you’re talking about the person who makes the product. Yep. Now that you can, I mean you can go far back. You can go, me initially designing the product, then you have the production team that helps make the product, then you have the sales people that help sell the product. So there’s at least three people in there. Now, let me ask you this, because I think there’s a lot of people watching this who want to make a product someday, or maybe they have a great idea. Maybe you’re watching, you have an awesome idea, and you just kind of don’t know. I’ve heard other people, they have a salesperson, like so let’s just say that I had a salesperson who works directly for me because I’m the inventor, but then they sell it to another salesperson who sells it, like they sell it to a rep? We have, we used to have, we had a couple sales reps and so your inside sales then would contact with the sales rep, and then the sales rep would go to the retail stores and sell it to them. So there’s another channel inside there. Then the retail stores then would sell it to the ultimate end consumer. I’m just gonna make sure I’m getting this because this is huge stuff here. Because again, not knowing retail before, when I heard this the first time I’m doing it, you sell it to a guy who sells it to the guy. So the sales rep may rep for 10 different products or more. There are rep groups that actually rep your product and then a multitude of other products. And they go to the actual retail stores. They go to the store, and this is how I pictured, this is how mentally I had to understand it at first. So they could drive around in the car, and in their backseat, they have 10 different items from 10 different companies. They’ll walk into a store and say, this is what we’re showing today. This is just how, you know, the show Oklahoma, the play Oklahoma. Yeah. Yeah, the peddler. So he’d go around and he’d have, although they were probably all his, but I picture it to be just somebody going around to different retail locations and saying, this is what I have today and your product is one of them. Yeah. So they don’t, they not only work for you, but they work for other people. And I guess the advantage of one of my friends has sold millions and millions of dollars of products. And she said one of the advantages of using a sales rep is that one of her reps in particular knew he had a relationship with one of the major retailers. He was able to sell just alone through one store about $5 million of product a year. She could never get the store to return her call, but the rep had the relationship. Yeah, it’s all about the relationship. But it’s also very tricky because there’s a lot of great rep groups out there and there are some that you just don’t know until they start working for you. That’s a very, it’s very hard to go just based upon one conversation or an interview with a rep because you have to understand the history of that rep, what have they sold, what are their relationships with the larger buyers. So there’s a lot of things you’d want to find out before you’d hire a rep group. So this is kind of what, if we get into here, is it, you know, you have to selling the product you have one if you if you have to design the product that there’s a cost there, you gotta pay yourself. Then you have the production team. Now we’re gonna have an inside sales team. Now if we have a rep we have to pay the rep somehow. What is a rep charge? Well it varies but usually it’s percentage of sales. So if they sold a hundred thousand dollars for you it could vary from anywhere from 8% to 20%. Really? Yeah. 8% to 20% sometimes? I’m just giving you a range. That’s amazing, though, that it can be 20%. Yeah. Yeah. I actually probably 12% to 15% is probably more of an average of what a rep would charge. Wow. Yeah. So. It probably also depends on what they’re selling as well. Now this is huge if you’re watching this because I want to tell you about a story of a person that is really made a hard, it was hard for them, but they made an awesome product. It was so awesome. And I knew, there’s literally thousands of people who wanted to buy the product. Well she priced it so low that she never priced in a rep or priced in the distribution costs, these things. So what happened is when she took it to market, she went to a market and a rep wanted to buy it. She made it where she made such a slim profit margin on every transaction that she almost created her own perpetual hell where she was busy, busy, busy making product. The rep’s saying, hey, I got paid. The rep’s, let me tell you what, the rep’s last concern is how much money you make as the owner at the end of the day. They just want to sell as much units as possible. And this person literally was working all the time, selling a ton of products, but not having much left. And not only when you sell it through a rep, now you’re talking about wholesale. So you’re not talking, if you sell it directly to the consumer, you get 100%, you get the retail price for that. You sell it through a rep, when they sell it to the store, the store then gets that percentage. So you’re selling it for, say, 50% off. Yeah. So you have to factor, not only are you selling it now for 50% off, but the rep then also takes an additional, you know, anywhere from 8 to 15 dollars. So again, you know, getting into this, there’s a lot of layers here. A lot of layers. There’s the designer, there’s the designer themselves, then there’s your production team, that’s two. Then there’s the sales team, then there’s the rep, and then the fifth area is there’s the store itself. So I mean, there is a lot of layers. Was there a book that you had read or a mentor that had kind of guided you through how to price stuff at a certain point? I mean, did you get to a point where you were like, oh my gosh, my head’s going to explode? Or did you just kind of figure it out as you went? I am probably still at the point where I sometimes feel like my head is going to explode. I was laying in bed last night and I thought, you know what? Of all the things, and I did not read a book, I really, this is what I do, and I don’t even know that I want to say this because maybe you want to turn it off for a second. Not really. I a lot of times go on my gut, on how I feel as I put myself in the buyer’s place. When I think about pricing something, it’s not always hard fast. This is the formula that I use to create it. A lot of times I go on how I feel that product should be priced. So it’s a very, very tricky thing to do. I think even for people who’ve been in this for a very long time, there’s not always an exact formula. I would say this, and I’m not at all disagreeing with you, I think the one thing you have to look at is if you’re watching this, there are people who go out here right now every day and they charge $4.50 for a coffee in New York. I know of a business I can think of right now where they’re famous for these $5 and $7 muffins. Well, to me, a $7 muffin had better sing me a song and it had better serenade me, and just we really, a muffin better communicate with me on a friend level for $7. Sure. But they charge $7, people line up every day and pay $7 for these muffins because they’re home with a $7 muffin. Yeah. Now I know other businesses that are in the same city within walking distance of that place that are trying to sell them for 99 cents and trying to sell a ton just to break even. Sure. So I think it’s important that you, as you price your product, at least think about trying to, how you can financially support yourself, factor that in, and then factor in what the consumer wants too, and then sort of figure this out. Now, yeah. I just want to say one thing. When I say I go on my gut, I only say that now, based upon what I’ve learned, that I am now going, I’m in the business of actually making some money, and then I decide. So I’ve learned how to factor in all the hard costs and all the actual cost of the product. And then from there, I sometimes decide, OK, this feels right at this price. But that’s only after I’ve learned to factor in the cost. Well, and then kind of skip around here just a little bit, but then we get on to marketing costs. So forget, I say marketing. What is marketing? I mean, just make sure you’re getting this. As it relates to sales and getting the product into the store, you’ve got the designer, the production team, the sales team, the sales rep, the store itself, you’ve got a factory. But marketing is you’ve got to have a great website. You have to have… I mean, what are all the things in your mind when you say great marketing? What are all the tools at a bare minimum that you need to have, really, if you want to get your product into stores? What are the bare minimum marketing? Do you need to have a great website and video? What all do you need to have before a rep will take you seriously or before a store will take your product seriously? I think you absolutely have to have a website. So website number one, factor that in. Website? I think you have to have a personality. Okay, you have to have a personality. So if you’re watching this and you have a little personality where you’re kind of not passionate about your product outwardly, maybe you want to hire someone to be… It depends on the product and whether you have to have a personality or not. You as a DJ, obviously, that your personality had to. Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, first and foremost you don’t have to have a personality to be able to sell your product, but if somebody’s selling the product for you they have to have a personality clearly. It all depends on the product as to what marketing materials that you have to have, but if you want to know, there’s so many factors that could be involved into presenting your product, but it’s hard depending on the product. I don’t want to… Can I get you a little checklist of one, you tell me whether you think they’re essential? Okay. Do you feel like you have to have a website? Again, depending on the product, but yes, for most retail products, yes, I would say you need a website to be taken seriously. Packaging. It’s everything. Packaging, okay, is everything. Now, what about cards? Do I need to have a business card, or can I say, my name is John, here’s, you know, I just wrote my name on a piece of paper? I think it’s important to have something to leave people with, and I think the quality of that is also very important. What about a one sheet? You know, like a one sheet of paper. A lot of times you hear in retail sales, or in the world of retail, they say, you do have a one sheet. A sheet that explains everything your company does on one sheet. Do you need a one sheet? I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary. I don’t think it hurts, but I don’t think it’s imperative. Okay, so it wouldn’t hurt you to have a one sheet, but it’s not into the world? No, it doesn’t hurt that. No. Okay. Anything else you can think of where you say, before you’re going to market your product, you really need at least, do you need a video? Do you have to have video? I have to have a video There are things that don’t hurt it at all that actually help it that legitimize it That if somebody if somebody told me about their product first thing I’m doing is I’m going to look at their website And their their website tells me a lot about who they are What about professional photography of the product? Do you need to have great photographer? Can you take and go BAM took that on my Samsung BAM took that on my iPhone? These are my product photos, or do you need to have some pro photos? I think that photos are as important to me as packaging. However, I do think that in this day, you don’t have to necessarily have the best, there are a lot of great photos that can be taken without hiring a very expensive photographer. So even if, let’s say, it’s not related to the budget, but you want to make sure the photos look good. Absolutely, yeah. That again, you could tell me all about your product and it could sell for X amount of dollars and it could be awesome quality and I go to your website and I see the photos and I’m turned off. A couple weeks ago I was talking to these ladies, in particular I was talking to a couple ladies just a few weeks ago, and they’re in my office getting super emotional. They’re great ladies, but they’re going, you mean we have to have a website? We’ve already priced it, though, we have such a slim margin. How are we going to go back and afford a website? And then we’re going to have to get a bit of video made? I said, you don’t have to have a video, but because of your product, you’re going to have to show people what you did. They were selling something that does something. Sure. And all I’m saying is you need to be aware of these things and kind of view this episode as a brainstorming session here to think of all these costs so that way you don’t paint yourself into a corner and price yourself. Do you remember what it felt like when you were when you’re working all the time and selling a lot of units but not making any money? Yeah, yeah, and then when somebody says you need a website and you need great photography, you’re thinking, first of all, I don’t have any time. Secondly, I’m not making any money to be able to do this. But as far as the website, it could be something as simple as a landing page. Something that when somebody types in your URL, they see something that is associated with your product. Even if it’s, and there’s a lot of easy ways to go about doing that. Okay. Let’s say this, let’s say I’m watching this and I grew up in a, you know, area where I grew up in a small town called Cocado. Population of 2,038 people. Nobody in our town had a lot of money. If I’m watching this and I’m on a tight budget… In Cocado? In Cocado, right now. Because you can make a product in Cocado. You could do it and sell it. I’m sure they do. Yeah, you can sell it all over the world. There’s actually a company that makes saunas. They’re one of the top sauna manufacturers in the world. What would be a way to go build a website on a cheaper cost? Is there a way to do that? There’s a lot of ways you can do that. One of the… I think I told you this the last time we were together, it was Shopify.com. It’s a very easy way and it can walk you through how to build your own website. It’s a great place for entrepreneurs to get started, and I know a lot of people do. You can do it yourself. You don’t have to go out and hire somebody. The thing that I would invest money in is really, really good pictures. Really good pictures. Really good pictures. And I’ve taken some great pictures with my iPhone, and there are some great even apps on photoshopping your own picture, and they can make them look awesome. But I think that is something that I would not, I wouldn’t skimp on. I just wanna encourage, if you’re watching this and you don’t have a lot of money, these are things you can do. And if you want some specific, more branding ideas, we have an awesome episode we recorded with Jill that really gets into that as well. Now, Jill, we’re factoring in our costs. We’re just adding in all these costs. And hopefully you’re watching this and you’re, I hope you’re not like crying at this point. You’re not going, oh, it’s so expensive. But these are all costs we have to think about. Now we get into administrative costs. And these are the costs where, they’re like these office expenses that we don’t factor in, but they happen. I know for me, like my highlighter budget is insane. I mean it seems like you bring the highlighters into the office and they all disappear. It’s probably me. I’m probably taking them home and forgetting them somewhere. But you know, highlighters… I have no pens because we buy pens and I don’t know where they go. And they’re probably nice pens. You buy them and they disappear. Yeah, no idea. Then we have paper, printers, we have computers. We go on and on. But as you’re watching this, I want you to think about some of these costs that are inside the office. Computers aren’t free. Is there any administrative cost that surprised you in that first year where you’re like, man it is so expensive. I couldn’t believe how much money we’re spending here. I was overwhelmed by highlighters, pens, papers, computers, printers. I was just like, are you kidding me? We’re spending this much on that? Anything else you should factor in? Gosh, you know, it’s funny because I’m sitting here learning from you because there’s so many, you know, I have 12 full-time employees now and a lot of, there’s so many things that we use that I probably don’t factor in that I should factor in. Yeah. Gosh. Well, it’s like therapy. It’s like Thrive is like entrepreneurial therapy. No, yeah. I learn from you every time I sit with you, I learn from you. So I’m just thinking, I mean, if you’re watching this, I want you to just brainstorm for a second. this is what I do. I look around the office and I think about all of the things that I have around me and what does that cost? Or I’ll go into someone else’s office. If I don’t, I’m a rust, I really had a hard time pricing one of my products. I literally went to someone else’s office and I was like, what does it cost for this to happen and that to happen? Just, I’m telling you, I spent, I think with the DJ company, I think we were spending almost $700 a month on color prints. Mailing them to schools and weddings and bridal consultants. It’s just these costs happen. I just want to encourage you to think about this. Toner for the printer. That’s not cheap. Toner. Yeah, toner. Toner. Yeah, and they’re things that just happen on a regular basis that you don’t even think about. You have to purposely sit down and think about it because you can lose a lot of money by these hidden costs. I’m going to go over this little checklist and you tell me whether you think that most business owners should factor this in. Okay. One is the unexpected legal bills. No. No? Yes, they should. They should? I think they don’t, but yes they should. Okay, and then what about just insane costs of printing and replacing computers and stuff? Insane. Yes, absolutely. Okay, computers. Okay. What about the accountant? Because I know I get a lot of joy in paying my accountant. Yes, I do. And I’ve convinced at least a dozen of them to just work for free, but most of them charge me a lot of money. Yes. Accounting is a big one. Yes, absolutely. Okay, taxes. That’s one that I didn’t factor in when I did my pricing. You did not factor it, no. I remember being like, I didn’t have to pay taxes? Yes, it’s always fun to be surprised by taxes. I like that. I remember one year I had to write a check for like 40-something thousand. I was like, I love our country so much. And with this check, I want to celebrate our country. When I first, the first time I had to pay taxes, I got the notification from my accountant, this is how much you’re going to have to pay. And I just was deflated because what? You mean I’ve worked this hard and now I’m going to, and so I called my husband and said, you’re not going to believe this. I have to pay this amount in taxes. What? And for the first time he was so excited. He said that means you make money. Boom! Yeah. Other costs. Postage is massive. Massive. It’s like shipping things. Shipping is just the postage, the shipping. That whole deal is massive. I just, and I’m just bringing these up because I know you’re watching this and we’re not factoring it in. We’re forgetting about it. At the end of the year you’re going, what happened to all my money? But if we think of these costs and we add it into our pricing, now we’re good. These are just things that have to happen. We talked about the office space, that kind of thing. What about office decor, office furniture? I know I’ve spent a ton on fixtures, super sweet, kind of green, 70s chairs, but just office furniture? Did those costs overwhelm you too? They did. We’ve expanded, so we like to do a room at a time But I’m big on having a big screen TV in every room. Yep, and so that’s something that I don’t even think about factoring in Yeah But yeah, I think the well one of my mentors. See I I hired this guy and he came in he goes hey How many DJ shows to buy all this furniture. And I was like, really? He says, well, why don’t you factor that in? And I’m kind of paying this guy to be a little aggressive with me because he’s trying to help me. Sure. But I was just, I was dying on the hill of like, well, I’m not going to factor, I’m not going to charge customers for my sweet green chairs. And so he’s like, no, just factor it in. Yeah. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals so it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there I mean is that when you have a business that’s successful and you’re in your mind your expert opinion would you need profits to get your to get you to your goals? Yeah because if you have a 15 million dollar business but you have 15 million dollars of expenses it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap. All right so the question I would have here for you if you could take like 10 minutes or less and see if you could save 3000 bucks a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Oh, crap. Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now who has the same mind? Why would they not go to thrive timeshare.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 could be a deck of be true So I would encourage everybody check out thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash card thrive timeshow.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 can 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 not that’s not worth my time. There’s probably some someone out there okay who would think that well I’ll just tell you folks if you’re out there today and you’re making less than three thousand dollars per ten minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard because you can compare rates you can save money, and you know, the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom, and in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal. It takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss. 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! Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh! Stop looking at me swan! Well let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean, I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours. And in my case, in my case, my particular case, dollars a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh God. Everything okay ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay, I’m a trained professional ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t gonna be easy So I need you to be brave. All right. What’s your name? Patricia? Patricia. All right. I need you to take a deep breath We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic So because my wife eats organic I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies. One question, what’s the brand name of the clock? The brand name of the clock, Rod, do we have it? The brand name of the clock, it’s an elegant, from Ridgway, it’s from Ridgway. Let’s buy the clock and sell the fireplace. I encourage everybody out there, go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, you schedule a free consultation, request information, a member of our team will call you they’ll schedule a free consultation it should take you 10 minutes or less and they’re gonna compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than three thousand dollars a year off of your credit card processing you were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No you don’t owe us money because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time freedom and financial freedom in order to do that you need to create additional profits. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. OK? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminex, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts, and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also, we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, 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 our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85% and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten people really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need, that script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one-and-done deal. It was a system that we that we followed with Thrive and in the refining process and that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. Everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast like Jared had mentioned that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those in that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. Okay, the last three years, our customer base has 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, and they taught us those systems, they taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely has been a grind this last year. But we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut. And if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with a business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985. Nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983, and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchised. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crockrell, head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours, where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers, and they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So, in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So, I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. And 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. And he told me, he’s like, I’m not gonna touch it, I’m gonna turn it down, because he knew it was gonna 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. Anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I got nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van, and our old school marketing, and this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to 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, two-day interactive business workshops, are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website, we’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever. We wouldn’t give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. If we go back eight years ago, think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to 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 at the, 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 grown, I have doubled every year since working with you. So I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. So I’m looking, we’ve been good friends 7, 8 years and I’ve got doubled 5 times. Which is just incredible. I mean the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, is I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads, turns into sales. Well I tell you, if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system, then every day is a whole new creation. You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do. And the best executives, Peter Drucker is a father of modern management, he said, the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. That’s really what it’s all about. With a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep right and she’s been nailing down Five and eight appointments a day somebody out there’s having on that script What’s so she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day and our relationship is weird in that we we do If someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say about a personal computer, a PC. The computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems, and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. I think it was in the year 2000 and, what was it, maybe 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road, maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012, and at that time I was five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10, 11 years. We met, how did we re-meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well, we had that speaking thing that… Oh, there it was! So it was Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help direct my life, to get some mentorship, but I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant, I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. The experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life-changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe, wherever I end up, will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. repeatable systems and processes and hold people accountable. 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. Working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall in the group interview talks about how, you know, the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory and we’re on our own trajectory. And the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals the Business helps us pursue our goals as well And so I say people that are driven people that want to make something of their lives People that are goal-oriented. They’re focused And they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is it’s unique in that I don’t know if there’s anyone else’s that can be as passionate. You know whenever a business starts working with Clay it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. You know he’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, 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 learning and adjusting parts about you that challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.