Entrepreneur | Preparing Yourself For The Legal Stuff That Typically Comes With Owning A Business With Wes Carter + Pricing 101

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, 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here We started from the bottom, and that’s what we’ve gotta do Thrive15.com and Wes Carter are providing general legal information to provide Thrivers like you with a basic framework of the terms, concepts, and scenarios found within the legal system of the United States If you are a human who is watching this video, you should seek legal advice of a local attorney before making a legal decision. If you are watching these videos from any country outside of the United States, or from any planet outside of the planet Earth, you need to seek the wise legal counsel of a local attorney who better understands the legal complexities found within your country, planet, state, or city. For instance, in some states including California, Florida, Nevada, Alaska, and Hawaii, a motorist can be cited for driving too slowly. Other states do not have this law, although Clay has actually been pulled over for driving too slow within the state of Oklahoma, which pretty much never happens. Wes Carter is a great American and a beautiful man, but the I-15.com and its partners are in no way legally liable for any fashion statements that he makes verbally or just by admitting fashionable awesomeness simply by entering into a room. Wes Carter is not related in any shape or form to Clarence Carter, a recording artist, John Carter, an entrepreneur and artist, or Joe Carter, MLB baseball player. Wes, how are you? I’m doing well. How are you? I’m doing excellent. I am doing excellent. I am excited today to talk to you about some stuff that I think a lot of entrepreneurs worry about. Okay. And it is preparing yourself for the legal stuff that typically comes with owning a business. I know it’s kind of a broad statement, but when you own a business, a lot of times there’s all this legal stuff that you encounter that you weren’t expecting. And so we’re going to dive into that. And I think that a lot of times people with legal topics sometimes get a little bit overwhelmed and a little bit mistrusting of who they’re getting their advice from and that kind of thing. So just legally, I want to ask you, are you related to the NFL Hall of Fame wide receiver great Chris Carter? No. Okay, no. And you guys can Google it. I don’t know if that’s a 100. I don’t know if we can fact check that, but we pretty much are sure that you’re not. Not that I’m aware of. Okay. So Wes, today we’re talking about the legal stuff, and I’m going to give you a whole bunch of scenarios and just kind of work with me on this. I’ve been consulting with clients for years, and it seems like the overwhelming majority majority of the businesses that I work with, you find entrepreneurs who are running into the same legal situations over and over and over. And I find there’s 11 of these legal situations that are the most common, and I’m sure there’s some I’m leaving off the list, but these are the ones that most entrepreneurs run into all the time. And I’m going to read them off to you, and then we’ll hop into them, okay? One is finding a long-term legal team. Like, who’s my lawyer going to be? That’s an issue. Second is getting incorporated. You know, just how do you do that? Setting up non-compete agreements. That’s the third. Fourth, terminating employees. Five, keeping the legal documents current. Six, getting sued. Seven, suing somebody. Eight, copyrights. Nine, patents. Ten, trademarks. And eleven, real estate issues. These are the issues that we run into most often. So I’m going to get into them and you just let me know your thoughts on them. OK, so the first one is finding a long term legal team on a scale of one to ten, your mind ten being the highest, one being the lowest. What’s the likelihood that I need to find a legal team for my business? I need to. There you go. You’re going to need something that’s going to require a legal team. It may not be constant, ongoing, but as a business plan, as a planning who your team is going to be, going into the future, that should definitely be a component. So what are the things I look for in a legal team? You want someone who’s got some experience. I always suggest getting references from other people, other small business owners that you know who they work with, or who’s worked with that attorney in the past, and someone you can get along with. Personality can be a big issue. You don’t want someone you dread calling. You don’t want someone who’s talking on a whole different wavelength than you are. You want someone that you can understand and have a good relationship with. Why do I have to find a long-term legal solution, a long-term legal team? Well, I think when we talk about you need a legal team for sure, long-term preferable because if you go hopping around different attorney every time you need a different issue then you’re not going to build a relationship and as an attorney I can, the longer I work with you or any attorney I can anticipate your needs, know where you’re coming from, know your way of doing things as far as you know your whole business plan because it’s a much easier relationship. Now moving on to getting incorporated. Every business is going to have to get incorporated at some point. If you don’t it’s kind of maybe a little bit risky What does it mean to actually become incorporated? You just mean you form a another Entity separate apart from you and why would an entrepreneur want to become incorporated? Because when you get sued if you do it properly instead of coming after you they can only go out for that new Separate being you know let me ask you on a scale of one to ten ten being the highest probability, 1 being not going to happen, how likely am I going to run into a situation where I’m going to wish I was incorporated if I were in a business? 10. Probably very soon. Okay. Yeah, and I want to add some clarity to that too. As a business owner, I surround myself with peers who are also business owners. And every single one of the businesses that I have been buddies with for years has been sued in some way or had to sue somebody. It just happens. It does. So it’s kind of like being a football player and saying, I don’t have to wear a helmet. I won’t get injured. It’s just going to happen. So just be smart. Undoubtedly. Third area here, setting up non-compete agreements. What’s a non-compete agreement? Non-compete agreement is basically I’m going to hire you as a contractor or employee and part of our agreement is if we leave each other that you’re not going to cheat on me with someone else in the same field or the same geographic area. There’s a few ways to set it up. It can be a little difficult to enforce depending on what state you’re in, but it’s a good idea to at least consider one. Why do entrepreneurs need to set up non-compete agreements? What you’re trying to prevent is really two things. Somebody coming in, working for you, you introduce them to all your customers, then they leave and go tell all of your customers, hey, I can do a better job, cheaper job, et cetera. Or they come in and you show them your business plan, your unique idea or unique process, and then they leave your employee and go start their own exact same business using all the information, the stuff that you’ve built and showed them. In the world of small business, this seems to happen all the time. I see it happen all the time. It does. Scale of 1 to 10, 10 is it’s definitely going to happen where an employee leaves and tries to compete with you. If you’re, you know, and a 1 is like it’s never gonna happen. If I’m in business for 5 years, what would you say on a scale of one to ten? I’m going to say somewhere around an eight. That’s like almost sure it’s going to happen, not completely sure, but almost sure. It’s a very good possibility. Okay, and we’re just trying to cover the things that are going to happen, the legal stuff that you need to know. Now the next thing is terminating employees. Terminating employees. Now, I remember when I was in business, I thought, man, I will never have to terminate an employee. I’m going to start my business, I’m only going to hire good people, I am never going to have to terminate people. What does it mean to terminate an employee? What does that actually mean legally? What kind of responsibility does that mean there? If you fire someone, you ask them to no longer show up to work or represent you, then it’s something you need to consider and pause before you take action. It’s something you should consult with your legal team about, because depending on the situation, the reasons, and also the state, the location you’re in, you want to make sure you do it the right way so that employee doesn’t have a claim to come back against you for some sort of wrongful termination. So why do entrepreneurs need to worry about terminating an employee the wrong way? Because you will get sued if you do it the wrong way. And that is awesome. It’s always fun. So on a scale of one to ten, ten being it’s definitely going to happen, one being I don’t think it’s going to happen. How likely, in your mind, you’ve worked with business owners for years, how likely am I as an entrepreneur, how likely is it that I’m going to have to fire somebody? Probably ten. You should. If you haven’t fired someone in five years, you’re probably not doing it right. All right. This is just, we’re just being real. This is stuff you need to know. Next thing is keeping my legal documents current. What does it mean in your mind to keep my legal documents current? What does that mean? The most important ones as far as keeping them current, most likely, are your minutes, your bylaws up to date. You have your annual election of your shareholders or your members, your officers, depending on what kind of organization you have. That’s really important because if you don’t treat it with respect, a court’s not going to treat it with respect necessarily either. So if you treat it like it doesn’t exist and you ignore it, someone comes to sue you, it’s much easier for them to convince a court that the court should ignore it like it doesn’t exist. So are you saying the reason why I need to make sure that I stay current on my documents is so that I’m staying kind of above the board and protecting like… Above the board, protected, yes. You know, treat it with respect, just keep up those little formalities that are required every year and it will go a long way in helping keep you protected. In your mind, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being whoa, this is important, this is definitely going to happen, 1 being it is never going to happen, how likely is it as a business owner that you’re going to have to keep your legal documents current? Well, to 10 that you should keep them current, yes. You have to. You have to, otherwise there’s all kinds of catastrophes that can happen. Okay, now we’re talking about getting sued now. What does it mean to be sued? Someone has filed a case in a court somewhere that they’re alleging you’ve done them some wrong that has caused them some harm. And so why do entrepreneurs need to worry about getting sued at some point? Or at least think about it. Because it’s very likely you’re going to be sued, whether it’s by an employee that left, a customer that’s not so happy, a competitor and another corporation that you’re fighting with over a brand or you know there’s just so many ways you can get sued that it’s very likely especially in our litigious sue happy society that is going to happen. So on a scale of one to ten, ten being is I am you are definitely gonna get sued if you’re watching this and you own a business you’re in business for five years, you’re definitely getting sued. One being, eh, probably never get sued. What do you think? I would say a nine. There’s a chance. There’s a chance. That you were that lucky one in 100 that slides the first five years without getting sued. If you spin it to 10, it’s probably gonna be. Okay, all right. Now suing somebody. Why would an entrepreneur wanna sue somebody? Why, if you’re a business owner, why would you ever wanna sue somebody else? Well, it’s definitely a serious decision to make. It’s expensive. You have to worry about public relations concerns, but sometimes it’s because you need to protect your business. I mean, that’s the main reason. It’s because someone’s doing something to harm your business and you need to make a stop. Now, why do entrepreneurs need to have a lawyer already in their hip pocket for those times when they’re ready to do some suing or they’re getting sued? Well, there are some things that you need to act on immediately. If someone’s out there and they’re getting a lot of press that’s either disparaging you in a way that’s not fair or they’re doing something to knock you off so they’re stealing clients online or some other way. I mean, there’s something that you just need to respond to immediately. It’s not the time to start interviewing attorneys. A real example, one of the businesses that I own, I’ll just speak in general terms, but we had a situation where we had an ex-employee that was stealing customers. If I was looking around town trying to find an attorney, that would not be good. But instead I was able to call you, you dealt with it, we’re good. Yeah, there’s some things that you just need immediate attention to. Now on your mind, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, oh man, this is going to happen, 1 being it is not going to happen. How likely is it if you’re in business for five years you’re going to have to eventually sue somebody? I would say probably a 7 or 8. You’ll be mandated. At 10 you will have the chance to sue someone. Okay. And have a good grounds to do it. And probably a 7 or 8 that it’ll actually be the right business choice to sue someone. Now what about copyrights? We’ll talk about copyrights. What does the term copyright mean? Copyright is a body of law that basically protects an expression of an idea. So a piece of art, a piece of music, a piece of a pamphlet that you did for your business, any kind of expression of an idea, literature, audio, video, that’s the body of law that protects it, says whoever creates it, no one else can exploit that work for financial gain. Why do entrepreneurs need to concern themselves with copyright law? Well, one, you want to make sure you’re not violating it, and two, you want to make sure that you can protect your own stuff. Now, in your mind, on a scale of one to ten, ten being definitely a huge probability that I’m definitely for sure within five years of being in business, going to have to deal with some sort of copyright issue, one being not gonna happen. How likely? 10. Man! As soon as you do a website, let’s say, you need to put a copyright notice on your website. Bam, this guy, it’s just, you’re creating all these legal issues, but being real though, a lot of us in business, we had a lady named Shannon who emailed us at Thrive15, and she said, info at thrive15.com, and she said, I’ve wanted to start a business for years, but I just don’t know about all the legal stuff. I have to do this is the stuff this is Shannon This is for you, so patents. What is the word patent to me? Patent is a way to again similar to copyright they protect different things a patent protects a Process an invention a new way of doing something So as opposed to an idea, it’s more scientific mechanical in nature of those kinds of things that you can protect. Or just a new way of, you know, software doing a mobile app, or, you know, you can protect all kinds of things, but it’s the idea, it’s the invention, it’s the process of doing it. So, do entrepreneurs in your mind, do you see the average entrepreneur running into issues involving patents? Is this common? It all depends on the type of product you’re selling. Okay. If you’ve come up with a unique way to do something, or a unique invention, then yes, it’s very important to protect that. Or at least consider to protect that, take the first steps before you put that on the marketplace. So on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, hey buddy, you’re definitely going to encounter some kind of patent issue in your career. One being it’s not going to happen. How, for the average entrepreneur who’s in business for five years, how likely? I would say it’s probably a 4 or 5. Ooh, ooh, yes! That’s a very little concern. Not going to pay you guys on those patents. No. Which is good because they’re very expensive. How much is a patent, by the way, Jim? I would say minimum five grand, probably closer to $50 or $20 for the whole process. Well, I wish it was more. Okay, moving on here. So now we’re going to the trademarks here. Trademarks. What does the word trademark mean? Trademark is the third big player in what we call intellectual property, copyrights, patents, and then you have a trademark, which is branding, probably the best way to simply describe it is a name, a logo, a caricature, some sort of trade dress, you know, a special, you put this on the box every time. It protects your branding. So why do entrepreneurs need to have a basic understanding of trademarks from your perspective? Well, again, one, you want to make sure there’s lots of trademarks on the books. I mean, there’s millions of companies out there that file trademarks. So when you’re starting out or you’re going into the market, you want to make sure whatever brand you pick out before you drop a lot of money into it, that you’re not stepping on someone else’s trademark and you’re going to have to turn around, eat all that money, and start all over. Ah. Now, let me ask this here. in your mind on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, buddy, it is going to happen. One being, it’s not going to happen. How likely is it in your mind that I’m going to have to be involved in some kind of trademark issue during my business career? I would say 9 or 10. I think one of the first things you should do when you’re starting to pick your name is decide, am I able to use this without violating someone else’s rights? Now real estate issues. Moving on to real estate issues. This is big. Describe the kinds of real estate issues that typically entrepreneurs are going to run into. Whether they own a building, lease a building. I mean if you’re just somebody in business, what kind of real estate issues are very common to run into? Probably the first one is you find a home for your business. Whether it’s a office in a complex to run your website out of or it’s a brick-and-mortar with a storefront because you’re in a retail. That’s the first usually real estate issue you come up with and you run into is where am I going to run my business? So why do entrepreneurs need to have a legal team already in place when they start looking for real estate or dealing with real estate issues? When you’re dealing with real estate, it’s usually a long-term contract. And it’s usually a form that begins very favorable to whoever’s not on your side. And so it’s very important to have someone that can help guide you through that, help negotiate, and you know, translate all the legalese in there to regular English. If I’m in business for five years, what’s the likelihood on a scale of one to ten? Ten being the most, one being the least, that I’m gonna find myself involved in some kind of real estate issue? A nine. If you operate the business out of your bedroom, maybe you won’t do it, but a nine or a ten if you get outside of your own house. All those bedroom entrepreneurs out there, coast to coast, you’re safe. Yeah. You heard it here. Okay, contracts. Wes, very simple. What is a contract in simple terms that people can understand? I agree to give you something and you give me something in exchange. Why do entrepreneurs need to work with an attorney to help them write their contracts, sign the contracts, approve contracts. Well, let’s say we agree I’m going to give you this pen for $5 and that’s the only thing we agree on, which is what happens a lot of times. People like to keep everything very, very simple, but the problem is there could be a hundred different ways we could get in a fight about this pen and if we don’t have a correct contract and it’s not signed, then we end up arguing your word against my word against what we actually agreed to. Well, in that case, we would arm wrestle ultimately. But you’d win, because you’re a phenomenal arm wrestler. I might have a good chance. That’s the word on the street. Okay, now, so in your mind, on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest probability, one being the least, how probable is it that we’re gonna have some kind of contract to dispute if we are in business as an entrepreneur? 11. Man! This guy is just… So you’re kind of keeping it negative a little bit today. Not negative, just educational. Okay. Now Wes, everybody watching who has aspirations of growing a super successful business, in my mind, is going to run into legal problems. Legal issues, likely problems as well. And so I think that the biggest thing we can do is proactively is find an attorney that can represent our business and our business interests. Walk me through that just real quick. Like with your firm, are you in all states? Are you just in Oklahoma? What areas can you work in? And talk to me about how I find a good attorney locally. Well there are firms. We do corporate work in all 50 states. There are firms that have offices in multiple parts of the country. The most important thing is to talk to them, see if you’re comfortable with them. And then, like I said, if you have nobody you know as an attorney, best place to start is find your mentor or someone else in business that you know, say who you use, and start there. Okay, and Wes, I appreciate you being here today. I appreciate you bringing some clarity to these legal issues. And I also look forward to suing you. My pleasure. Well, guys, we’re now going to get into pricing. And you guys had emailed in a question. I’ll make sure we get you the answers you need. So if I oversimplify or anything, I want to make sure that we get this. Pricing. The training should answer the following core questions. How do we know that we are charging market value for our services, making profit, and paying expenses while being competitive? That’s kind of core questions. How do we know if we’re charging enough, making enough money? So I’m gonna go ahead and give you the rules of pricing, and these are totally different than almost anybody else on the planet, but I would argue most people on the planet aren’t very successful, so that’s how it’s going to go. So one, your pricing should allow you to deliver a great quality product at a price that your ideal and likely buyer can afford. Second, and I want to add some clarity to this. Second, your pricing should allow you to achieve your financial goals realistically if you deliver a sufficient quality and quantity of service. So it should equal your goals. It should get you to your goals. Okay? And the third is it should allow you to over deliver. So let’s do an example. I’m going to pick on myself for a second and we’ll move it forward. My wife is a really awesome person and she has very high standards for me and our kids. First, I didn’t know this and after I was married for a while I’m like, she’s not going to stop. Like she literally, when we have kids, she said, I’m not working. And I’m like, whatever, sprite it. But then at some point I realized, she’s not gonna work. So she did work up until that point, worked all the time. Probably worked 60, 80 hours a week. Did every weekend, worked 80 hours, loading in DJs, loading them out. Worked every night, every holiday. But we had kids. So I look at her and I go, well these are my financial goals. For us to live the lifestyle we need to, it’s about 100,000 a year and I’m only making like 50 well how in the world am I gonna bridge the gap well I look and I’m like well we’re doing about 2,000 events a year so Captain Math program observer can you take 50,000 or 100,000 so take the 2,000 events and divide it by, we take, there’ll be $100,000 and we’ll divide that by 2,000 events. It should be like, what, $5,000. So $100,000 divided by 2,000, that’s like $5,000. $50, so $50. That’s all we need. So we need $50. That’s all I need to make is $50. Well, that seems pretty easy. If I can make $50 per event. Seems reasonable. Well, it wasn’t happening, though. So how is it that that is such an easy number? All you have to do is do $50 per event. So I get up my little pie chart. I’m like, well, spend this much on quality control, this much on sales, this much on, this much on, there’s nothing left! What the, you know, and I get pissed. And then my wife’s like, when the baby is born I shall not work anymore. And I’m like, oh, you’re crazy. You’re crazy, you’re crazy. And I just keep getting this. So then I said, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna raise my prices by $40 per customer. And then I shall have my money I need. Cause I was only making less money per wedding. So I’m like, I’m gonna do it. No, I’m not. I’m gonna, I deserve it. No, I’m not. I swear I’m gonna do no. I’m not so I don’t Babies here two months Wife’s like you have to be able to provide because I’m not gonna work like oh gosh. I’ll just do it. I Know we’re videoing so this will be funny if anybody from this great community watches, but the only people That got mad at all lived in Sand Springs. So we had the Sand Springs softball team. You have raised your prices by $50 an event. We worked with you for years. Why would you do that? You know how tight the budget is. Well I go through my rules. Let’s look at it. One, it’s a great product. I had to provide crappy product to satisfy them. So to do their softball party, I couldn’t pay a good DJ, because a good DJ is gonna need to be paid at least 200 bucks to go DJ for a night. I could send a crappy brand new guy out, and I often did, because a good guy wouldn’t do it. And so they wanted to charge me $350. They said the most we’re willing to pay, the most I could charge them was $350 per event. Average client should have been charged like $600. But they were like, well, we just can’t do it. So I’d have to like, well, send out the new guy. So we had one employee named, we called him Dan the Dinosaur because he for some reason like reminded us like a brontosaurus. But he’s like, what? What do you want us to do? He got up to the party, and you’re supposed to be quick-witted and go fast, and he’d always be like, what song do you want us to play? And he’d just really slow, and we’re just like, gosh. And this guy would just go to events, and he had this ability to break equipment. He was dinosaur-like, and he would just break stuff. Well, if I charged $600, though, I could send a good guy out there. Then my goals, it didn’t matter how many of these parties. I could do this party times infinity and it would still not equal my goals. So, you know, this was not happening. Then I certainly couldn’t over deliver. I couldn’t ever have really good equipment or maintain equipment or send them gift cards afterwards because I didn’t make any money. So I was confronted with like, gosh, I need to change things. So now let me show you how I price stuff, okay? As a consultant, people that hire me, this is how I do it. This is the magic. This is my system. This is why I’m building Thrive, by the way, but this is what I did. I tell a customer, my fees shall range between $2,000 and $5,000 a month. There’s no contract. This is what it is and they say why because I’m gonna build you an awesome website awesome video photography everything and we meet every week and that is my flat cost she’ll never be more than 2,000 for this person this guy wants to meet three times a week it’s 5,000 whatever just depends on what we’re doing but it’ll never be more there’s no contract they say why is it a contract because I might not like you and I might want to fire you soon and you might want to fire me I don’t want to get into it so it’s 2,000 I’m not gonna mess with legal fees and if you don’t want me to compete with you, then you can upgrade to my package where you sign a non-compete and you’ll pay me $3,000 a month. But this is how it goes. My goals. Well, I only work with 15 clients a month. Why don’t we do the math? I take my $15,000, my average client’s $4,000 a month. I make $60,000 a month every month. Why? Because there’s 12 months in a year and I want to make $500,000 a year after paying my staff so I can take my hot wife to the dentist or to the doctor or to a date or on a vacation or take my kids to ice skating or, you know, just the stuff kids do. Every time my kids go to the dentist, it’s like, just pull all their teeth, save money and pull them all at once. Then over deliver, I want to treat my clients like celebrities. When they come in here, I want to treat them nice. I want to have beverages and books. I want to be able to treat them right. If I feel like they need to go to a big conference, I want to be able to… One guy, I paid for him to fly out to Washington, D.C. to meet Lee Cockrell this year because he needed to meet him. I’m like, hey, I’ll pay you for it. Do you want anything else? No. Why? It’s in my fee. So, you know, one client this year was going through a real hard patch, so I sent out a limo to his house, and we got a chance to pick up he and his wife in a limo during the holidays, during a tough time for their family, and do a limo tour of the rainbow lights and all that. Well, why? Because it’s in my fees, you know? And so, clients have issues. One client recently, somehow, I don’t know what happened, but somehow, someone on his staff did a very bad thing and so he lost all of his documents on his hard drive. Oh my gosh, what do I do? I was able to pay somebody on my team to go in and recover his hard drive. I didn’t have to charge him more. I know enough about consulting to know that I can over-deliver. So, for you guys, what does that mean? Well, we need to figure this out. So, we need to look at it, we need to say, well, your goals, what you need to do, how much, how many windows a year do you install, how many jobs a year do you do right now? Probably 20. Okay, so let’s say we take 20. Are we able to install a great product right now? Are we happy with the product we’ve installed? Okay, I feel good about that. I’ve done a little research on you, but there’s been people like you, your service. So you’ve got good stuff. Now, what are some things you wish you could include in every service that you can’t know or that you want to do but you couldn’t do. Would that be like the thank-you gift cards and that kind of stuff? Yeah. Let’s say this. Let’s say, Program Observer sir, can you take 20 times 35. What is that? Cool, so $700. $700 times 52, what’s that? $36,400. Okay. If we raise our prices on average of $20 per customer for, we’ll call it, the profit fund for you guys. And we raised it $15 for the wow. I don’t know how many deals you’d lose. You know I don’t know. Maybe none, maybe you lose Sand Springs softball, maybe you don’t lose anybody. But I do know that you’d have $36,400 more to work with. And if in our weekly accounting meeting, we decide that $20 goes to you guys. For what? I don’t know. Just work with me for a second on this. If we were to take our 20 times 20, so we’re going to have $400 a week coming in times four weeks. So now you have $1,600 a month. What are you going to do with that? Let’s just say we had that $1,600 a month that we could pay ourselves with it. That will help with that Saturday manicure. There we go. But you know what I’m saying though? You might, and the key is to build a sustainable model, but you probably won’t lose any customers because of a slight increase like that. Right. Now, the key is don’t raise your costs with it, but I’m just saying these are like very practical financial steps that a lot of times we’re looking for new customers, new customers, new customers, not thinking about how, gosh, if we could just make an extra $35 a customer, we could generate $36,000 this year. So step one, secret shop your competition. So what does a secret shop mean? I mean, I literally pay somebody to call my competition and see how they, how much they charge for stuff. And I’ll try to find the highest and the lowest, and I’ll try to figure out where I fit in there, but I would definitely mystery shop. But at a very minimum, I would look at just things like this, of gosh, I could make an extra $36,400 a year just by raising my prices $35. Think about those small deals. But we need to secret shop, and I’m gonna write this down as an action item. We need to secret shop. Now, some people are like, that’s dirty, that’s dirty. It’s a dirty thing. Well, I can tell you this. Every one of the businesses that I have got a chance to shout at, the big billion dollar businesses. They have people on staff who do this. They shop at other stores. I can’t speak directly to Quick Trip, but I do know when my dad was a manager there, he was encouraged to go into other gas stations to find out what they were doing and then report. I do know that Israel had a pretty good idea where those members of Hamas were through a little spying. I do know that every once in a while over the weeks we bust the Russians spying on us and they bust us spying on them. But there’s a little bit of room for spying there that needs to happen. So that’s one. Two. So one, secret shopper. I would literally have someone go out there and hire your competition or do it, you know, have them come in and bid windows or whatever. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Russia, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. A lot of people have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. Off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also, this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting now we’ve had a couple presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind 9 Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. And not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches. So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this folks I don’t get this wrong because if I get it wrong someone’s gonna say you screw that up buddy so Michael Levine this is Michael Levine he’s gonna be coming you say who’s Michael Levine I don’t get this wrong this is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy award winners, 43 New York Times best-selling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like top 40 Christian music, Fulton Dixon’s gonna be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re gonna add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? What do I do? How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket, or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russelham. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russelham, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office and so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th and 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come. Who? I’m talking to you. You can just get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com and again you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford and we do have some select VIP tickets which give you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com Hello, I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life changing. I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be on. Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live-time show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeshow.com. James, one more time before you leave the studio. ThriveTimeshow.com. with me cause it could get dangerous see these people I ride with this moment Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. 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. And we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hours. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing, but I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? What was- Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just want to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using, and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. We have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super. It’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored, you’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy, they don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively. He’s pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. In the workshop, I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it’ll be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else can do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivated me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up this tactic. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. Right, this is where we used to live two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See, it’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team, I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from 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. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business. Bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to converse with people, but it allows me to learn about the people that I’m working with. I love the way that I can learn about the people that I’m working with. I love the way that I can learn about the people that I’m working with. I love the way that I can learn about the people that I’m working with. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high at Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. GroupMuseum has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on, how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. It’s real.