Entrepreneur | Part 2 – Raising Capital In A Challenging Economy With Sean Kouplen

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. Started from the bottom, and that’s what we’re about to do. I will say this. If you don’t get anything else out of today’s training, I can tell you that the disposition that you have, that Sean has when working on deals, is unbelievable. Just cool as can be. It doesn’t matter whether there’s two complete disagreements happening, whether both parties are completely polarizing. I feel like I would want to hire you to negotiate peace treaties with countries if I could. I don’t want to become a diplomat, but I mean, just that person I love, I love, but I think you’ve also worked at it, and I think it’s something that’s awesome. Thank you. Talking about patient capital, Dr. Sean, medically speaking, what are you referring to when you say patient capital? Not a medical patient, but, and this is another, if I do say so myself, really, really important point. As an entrepreneur, you don’t want someone who is putting their money in and then bugging you every day about what the status is or wanting their money back immediately. You want someone who is patient, who has, who is in it for the long haul, who believes in you and what you’re trying to do and isn’t just constantly, you know, what’s our return? Where’s my money? I need cash flow back. And this comes really from two things. You want to find investors who are financially strong so they don’t need the money. Most of the time what you find is when the investor is pushing you to get returns, it’s because they have something else going on in their life where they need the funds. So if you can find people that are strong financially and have a lot of savvy and experience in investing, typically they’ll leave you alone. I can’t stress again how important this is. Again, just reviewing here, making sure that you’re getting investors who have experience and are financially strong. It’s going to take the stress off. And it would be impossible to own a bank and to have 80 different partners if you had 80 people that weren’t patient with their capital. I mean, literally, if you had just, if you had a text message from every one of them every day or an email, you couldn’t possibly return all those calls. Now, I would be crazy at this point. But here’s another strategy along these lines, and that is you don’t want any one investor to put too much money in your deal. And this one, we could do an entire series on this, but just think this through with me if you’re listening or watching at home. am going to get in and raise capital, my tendency is I want to just go to one person, get all the money, and I’m done. I don’t have to deal with a lot of people. However, the downside of that is if that person has a lot of money or a lot of their net worth tied up with you, they’re going to be very emotionally involved in your deal. They’re going to be right there all the time. The reason that we have 80 investors is A, again, they’re great marketing tentacles out in the community, but they also, none of them have an exorbitantly large investment with us. Love it. So what it creates is more of a kind of a democratic feel where people aren’t too, we’ve had people approach us to try to buy us. And because each of our investors just have a small portion of their net worth with us, they’re not real motivated to sell. They enjoy being involved. They like Regent Bank, and so they don’t. We’ve been able to kind of fend off those types of things. Did you come up with that move? Is that your own thunder move, or was that something that you had been kind of mentored or you learned just over time? That’s a great move. It has worked out very well. I initially brought in the large number of investors for a marketing purpose. I really thought if I can get 60, 70, 80 movers and shakers from all over the state, man, it can really propel us. But what I’ve come to realize is I really just learned this, that because of that, it’s also given them less in the deal. And it’s similar to ventures that we’re in together. When you have strong people, they have enough money with you that they care about it, but not so much that they’re wringing their hands. It’s a perfect place to be. That might be just a firehose of knowledge. It’s overwhelming. It’s awesome. I believe this is such a great segment because not many people have ever done this. I mean, very few people have ever raised capital for an investment. It just seems overwhelming. It’s like I can’t. There’s no way I can’t. You can. There are just certain things you want to know that I’ve had to learn over 20 years that you can learn here in 15 minutes. That’s awesome. This is unbelievable. Now, ROI must exceed capital cost. Sean, who is ROI and why are you always talking about ROI during these financial segments? ROI stands for return on investment. And the reason it needs to exceed the capital cost is there is always a cost to an investor of their capital. It may be, maybe they have a line of credit and they’re going and borrowing the money and putting it with you. Or maybe it is an opportunity cost where they’re basically saying, Hey, if I wasn’t, you know, investing with you, Clay, I could be making X over here, whatever the cat, whatever that may be. There is a cost to their capital. The return on investment that you provide them must exceed that cost, or it is a bad investment for them. So you always want to exceed that cost of their capital. Love it. Love it. Now, we’re talking about capital concept number four, the 12 most common sources of capital. So here we go, kind of a lightning round. One, banks or credit unions. Sean, from your experience, talk to me about how common it is for entrepreneurs, for thrivers to get capital from banks or credit unions to start or grow a business. Not only because I’m in banking, banks or credit unions are the best source of capital because it’s the cheapest and there is no dilution. You don’t have to give up any ownership and it’s at a very low rate of interest. It’s more challenging however because banks or credit unions have to manage risk. We all function on a 1% spread as we’ve talked about in our banking 101 session here on Thrive. So you have to prove up your business plan and show that it works or you have to get a strong guarantor to be on the loan with you that basically will pay if you can’t pay. So that’s the best way to get financing from a bank or credit union. So this right here, this is the big boom right here. This is the best source of capital. If you can get it, this is what you want right here. It is. Okay, so moving on to option number two here, friends and family. Sean, I know that Jeff Bezos, the guy who started that little company called Amazon.com, he famously raised his first round of funding from his mom and dad. And Sam Walton raised money from his wife’s family who lived out in Claremore, Oklahoma. See there’s a reason to go to Claremore, Oklahoma. You got to go see the house where the Capitol was raised or something. Anyway, so I want to know, how common is this to secure money from friends and family? Do you see this often or is that just weird? No, it happens. It happens all the time. The House in Claremore literally says, house where the capital was raised on the front door. I mean, if you look, it’s crazy. It’s a beautiful. This is where most businesses start. They typically start with the money that I, as the business starter, an entrepreneur, have raised. So clearly, you know, retirement funds, home equity, savings, that’s obviously the best scenario. And then oftentimes we go to friends and family, and the reason we do is because they’re the ones that know us the best. They’re the ones that want to support us. Clearly this can be dangerous because you don’t want to cause problems within the family by being business partners. But as long as you’re dealing with people that are sophisticated, they know what they’re doing, you fully explain the risks that they’re getting into, they understand and they would welcome the opportunity many times to help. I will say this just to add some clarity. If I pick on my own family for a second, if you think about your family, as you’re watching this, just think about your family for a second. You have someone in your family that’s just a bizarre creature, and you know who they are, and you have a, maybe you’re the bizarre creature. If you don’t know somebody, maybe you’re that person. You’re probably it. Or maybe you have somebody who’s very stable, and you know that person just doesn’t bring a lot of drama, they’re just very stable. Think about who you would want to hang out with, and then also kind of think about who you’d want to have invest in your company. Because I see a lot of people that say, well, Uncle Billy’s crazy, but Uncle Billy has $5 million, and he wants to invest, and so I’ll just go ahead and take some capital from Uncle Billy, but he’s not going to stop being crazy just because he invested in your business. That’s right. And I just think that’s super. We put on the blinders sometimes when we’re thinking about capital because we need it so much to turn our idea into reality Do you see this a lot where people have that crazy uncle Billy that they get capital from and they kind of regret it I mean is this you see this off. I don’t know anybody with a crazy uncle Billy I don’t know. I don’t have a crazy uncle Billy, but I mean if you do see these no I this is a this is a basic Tenet of raising capital, you do have a tendency to do anything it takes to get the money. Okay, you need the money, you know, you’re ready to go, you will overlook about any flaw if somebody will give you money. And again, some great advice that I got early on was to be very selective in who you take capital from. Be very selective. And that includes friends and family. The second thing I would mention here is that you have to treat friends and family just like you would treat any other investor that you don’t know. You need to have full disclosure. You need to tell them what’s going on. You need to give them information. I mean, it needs, it’s a professional business relationship even though it is your uncle or your dad or whatever the case may be, my father and my wife are both investors in our bank. And they get the same reports, they get the same information that everybody else gets. This is some huge wisdom here. So again, be very selective about who you take money from. And the second is treat the family just like anybody else. It’s a very professional relationship. Love it. Moving on to number three here, clients. Sean, walk me through what you’re talking about. The clients actually invest. I thought clients are supposed to be paying us. I mean, they’re investing in the business, too? Oh, yeah. A lot of times. Really? In fact, some of my, I would say two-thirds of my investors are my clients. Really? Yes. And if you think about it, it is because they know your business. They know the way that you do business. They are typically interested. Now, again, you have to have up front, you have to agree on how the relationship is going to work. So I tell my folks, I want you to be an investor, you’ve become one of my best friends, but on the client front, we still have to function just like we did before. I can’t give every investor a special deal every time something comes up or we still have to follow the same regulations. Every loan is not automatically approved just because you made an investment in the bank. But I mean, understand your clients of your business, and this is very often the case with somebody that works at a company and is now moving out on their own, doing the same thing they were doing before. Clients are a great place to go because again, they know the business, they know the industry, and they know you. I absolutely love the wisdom there. So again, don’t exclude your clients from the potential investor list there. Private equity funds. Sean, can you explain to the thrivers out there what a private equity fund is and maybe where we can find these funds? Sure, sure. Yeah, you really have, and we’re going to hit them in successive order here. You have private equity funds, venture capital firms, and you have angel investors. And these are really three different types of the same private type investor. A private equity fund is typically a fund of private dollars that have all been placed into one investment fund, and then the manager takes that fund and goes out and tries to find good investments for those private individuals. And so this is a scenario a lot of times the challenge that you have is many times they want to make larger you know investments venture capital firms want to make even larger investments but many times these these people want to make half million to a million dollar minimum investments and so if you’re if you’re at a small scale this is difficult for you. But if you’re kind of growing, this is a good option. You know, private equity funds, there are 15 or 20 here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, alone. So in any major metropolitan, there are going to be, and you can pretty much just Google private equity fund, go to their website, and see if they’re interested in your type of company. Oftentimes, they are industry specific. They have an expertise in a certain type of industry, and so you’ll just want to check them out. Okay. So again, kind of our four, five, and six here, boom, boom, boom, is you have private equity funds, venture capital firms, and angel investors. Now the venture capital firm, that’s where a group puts in a… They usually want to put a larger investment, right? That’s right. You almost run into a problem if it’s too small of an investment you need? These are typically in the millions or tens of millions. These are very large, often Wall Street-based firms that are out there or West Coast firms that are out there. Oftentimes they are technology-related. VC firms are typically looking for very high returns. They’re willing to take very high risk, but they are looking for extremely high, 10, 20, 30, 40 times returns on their money. You know, Google, Apple, you know, Intel type returns are really kind of what these folks oftentimes are looking for. Okay. And then angel investors. Let’s talk about that. These are not spiritual beings. Those are not the types of angels. These are just individuals that have cash and are looking to make investments. There are a lot of people like myself who have kind of lost faith in the stock market because you don’t I don’t feel like I get real good information from publicly traded companies. And I feel like the analysts and the Wall Street firms know more about those companies than I do. So the chances of me making a good investment in the market, I don’t feel like are very good. However, I feel like when it comes to a small, privately held company, I can know more than anybody about it and the industry and the person running it. And so I have chosen over time to really make the vast majority of our investments into private firms. And there are many people like that. So this is really just finding one or two individuals who would be interested in investing with you. I think an angel investor, a lot of times if you do research on it, there’s a lot of negativity where people say, well, an angel investor is gonna try to tell you what to do, they’re gonna wanna be very involved, they’re gonna, and again, I can just say, if you’re gonna reach, somebody is an angel investor and they’re going to be the one big person who writes you one big check, they’re going to want to have a certain amount of control there. Just think about that. Factor all this stuff in as you’re looking for investment dollars. You really crushed my soul here saying that they weren’t winged spiritual beings. They are not. They are good people. We are good people. I’ve always wanted to meet one. We are not. Okay, fine. We have no wings. Crossed it off my list. All right. Now we’re moving on here to source number seven, personal avenues. Sean, in your mind, is a personal, what is a personal avenue? I mean, is this, what are you talking about here? Yeah, it’s not, I don’t really mean a personal problem. I mean, if I’m an individual and I have access to certain types of capital, for me personally, so I’m really just talking about money that I have saved, you know, money that maybe I’ve put back in a 401k, equity I’ve created in my home, assets that I have that are paid for that I could sell. So, and here’s the key. When I went out to raise the money for Regent Bank, I was 33 years old at the time. And when I went out to these investors, the first thing most of them would ask is, what are you going to put into it? What are you putting into it? And if my answer had been, I don’t have any money, I haven’t saved any money, I’m not putting anything into it, their interest in investing probably would have been much lower. When I told them I was putting more into it, I was going to be a bigger investor than virtually any of them, then they said, he really believes in what he’s doing and he has had the discipline over time to save and make some money So that he has money to put into it So I think I think that’s very important and if you’re watching this again You said when you’re 33, which means that you really got into banking when you’re what 22 23 to 23 So over a 10-year period of time you were able to save up enough capital build enough reputation to do something So if you’re watching this and you’re 33 right now, and maybe you haven’t saved anything, and you’re just getting going, you can, within a 10-year window of time, make huge strides financially. So don’t feel discouraged or like success is not for you. You can absolutely do this. Now, Sean, the next avenue is savings. I think with all the times when you say savings, people think maybe you’re speaking Mandarin or something. The word savings is just very, especially pre-recession, was almost a foreign concept here. Can you talk to me just a little bit? I know we talked about it a little bit just before, but can you talk to me about how important it is just to start to develop the habit of savings as it relates to raising capital? Yeah, and we can just hit on the following three, if you don’t mind, together. Sure. Because they’re really all personal avenues for investment. Savings are clearly, that’s just good old fashioned, every time I get paid, I’m gonna put X number of dollars back into a savings account. That’s really what that is, and that takes discipline, and it really shows people when you have saved the money and you’re now gonna take it and put it into an investment, that is probably the most powerful statement to an investor. I mean, A, the fact that you have the discipline to do it, and B, that you believe in yourself that much. Say that about 10% of your income is what you’d recommend, or do you recommend more than that just to make it? Yes. As you know, we have a complete personal financial management piece on Thrive, so we’ll talk more about this. But yes, I’m a firm believer in the 80-10-10 rule. Live on 80% of your net income. Live on 80% of your take-home. Give 10%, save 10%. And that should really be, I think, a minimum, but you ought to be doing that at the very minimum. And then point nine here is borrowing against your home equity. Again, it’s a home that you’ve purchased. You’re just taking money against what you’ve already sent. Let’s say you bought a house for $100,000, and you’ve paid off $40,000 of it. So now you have $40,000 of equity. You’re able to say, hey, I’m going to borrow against that and get a home equity in line. Some people call it a HELOC. But you take that money out and fund your business. The next is a 401k. Are you talking about someone trying to attempt to beat Nolan Ryan’s 1973 single season strikeout record of 383 strikeouts? Or what are you talking about? No, we’re not talking about 401ks. We are talking about a 401k, which is your retirement plan, typically through your work. Now, in our personal financial management class, we talk about this. But in most of our businesses, if you work at a large corporation and you’re thinking about going out on your own, they are matching some percentage of your 401k. If they are, you have to contribute that much. That is free money. money, that is a very quick way to amass tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars relatively quickly and you just want to max out. But what happens is whenever you leave, you have the ability often to borrow against this 401K or you can withdraw the funds if you need to. There’s just a penalty associated with that. But you can often borrow against those dollars to get started in your business. Now, the next one is credit cards. I have met a lot of successful entrepreneurs who took out like an interest-free 18-month credit card or 12 months or 6 months just to get the business going, especially when they’re first starting on a smaller investment or a smaller business. Do you see this a lot or is this sort of a bizarre thing here to use credit cards to start a business. You don’t see it a lot, but you do see it some. It’s definitely a high-risk way of starting a business because every interest-free credit card, number one, there’s always a fee on the front end. So it’s not free. There’s typically a 3 to 5 percent fee for getting that money, but there’s also always an end to that interest only period or interest free period. So you have to be very careful about this. However, if you are passionate about your idea and you just know that it’s going to work and let’s say you have guaranteed business out there that you can take advantage of if you just had capital, that may be the way to go. Okay. Now the final one is owner carry. Sean, this sounds heavy. What are you talking about? This is the one that the fewest people know about. And I think maybe of our whole segment today, this will be the one that is the most surprising to people. Often, when people sell a business, they don’t need all the money at that moment. In many instances, they don’t want it. They may not want to pay the taxes on the full amount. If you think about it, a lot of times if you’re getting a lot of cash today, there’s not a lot of great places to invest it, you know, and get a good return. So what they may prefer to do is an owner carry, which means I’m going to buy your business, I’m going to pay you $100,000 for your business, I’m going to put something down typically, you know, 10 or 20 percent down. So I’m going to pay you that up front, but then you are going to take payments for the next three, four, five years for that business. Now the benefit to you is clearly that’s less money you have to come up with up front. Yeah. The benefit to the seller is that they can charge you an interest rate that’s better than they could get in any other place. So they can charge you 6, 7, 8, even 10, 12% on that money, so they’re getting a return on that money as you’re paying it back. Now, the seller is gonna want to stay in the loop in that situation because their risk is you can buy the business, run it into the ground, and don’t make the payments to them. Having done the owner carry twice, both, actually three times. All three have worked out. But I can say one awesome thing about it is, like you said, getting consistent payments over time and being able to not have to deal with all the cash at one time. That’s great. I noticed one thing that freaked me out though, I wasn’t aware of this, was feeling like I still had to run it. Because sometimes you’re like, if I don’t get paid, this isn’t a great deal. You know, and so I kind of mentally had that. And so the last couple of ones I’ve done, I’ve mitigated my risk and made some different decisions there. But I think that’s a great option for a lot of people. It is. And again, not very many people know about it. And so if you are the person selling the business on an owner carry, I think it’s very important have your expectations be very clear as to what information that you want. That will help that feeling. So if you say up front, I want monthly financials, I want a monthly operational report, blah, blah, blah. And a lot of times you can build into your agreement that if the person doesn’t make their payment to you within 30 days from when it’s due, you get the business back. That way the business can’t disintegrate too far. So it’s definitely an art, but it can be great for both parties. Now what we’re going to do now Thrivers, is we’re moving on here to the pros and cons of each source of funding. So it’s kind of like a lightning round. Okay. So we’re going to be going, it’s like super fast, you got to put on a helmet, get on a seat belt, get yourself ready for this fire hose of knowledge. So I’m going to read off the pros and cons, and I’m going to ask you to give us an ample example for each pro and con. So here we go. Source number one, banks or credit unions. Pro, it’s the cheapest source of capital. You maintain control. You have those personal relationships, all the things we talked about. But give me an ample example of maybe where you see this most often. Just kind of what’s the most common time that you see the bank or credit union as the primary source of funding? Whenever I am working in a corporate job, I’ve been doing this for 10, 15, 20 years, I’m ready to go out on my own. I have clients who have committed to go with me, and I have a strong investment partner backing me. OK. And so we’re going to review the pros and the cons. The pros, it’s the cheapest source of capital. You maintain control. Personal relationships are not jeopardized. And then the con is it’s limited to proven business models, hard collaterals often needed, little flexibility in repayment terms. So now we’re moving on here to source number two, friends and family. The pros, it’s easy application process, more flexible terms, you maintain control. And the cons is it’s more expensive and it depends on the situation. Availability is limited and it can strain relationships. Give me an ample example of when this is most common. This happens all the time. This happened with me when we purchased Regent Bank. I mean, I really went out to friends and family and raised the majority of the money because those are the people that know you the best. So you just have to perform or it gets a little odd around the Thanksgiving dinner table. Sean, we’re not going to serve you any potatoes right now. Everybody just scowls at you. We’re all going to pray, but if Sean could leave, that would be great. Or they pray for the investment during the Thanksgiving. Oh boy. All right. So, source number three, clients. The pros, long-term relationships, knowledge of the business and industry, more flexible terms and you maintain control. The cons, it’s more expensive, availability is often limited, and it can strain those relationships. Sean, give us an ample example. Very similar to the friends and family, we see this a lot. I did about half and half. About half of my investment in Regent Bank came from clients. And again, understanding that clients are not clients that just come into Old Navy and you don’t know them and they’re just doing a transaction. These are people that you have long-term relations with. You know them well. They know your business. They know you and it can work out very well. Now if you’re watching this, when you get done watch these episodes, we want you to just know all the sources. There’s so many ways to raise capital. You’re not limited to one or two. There are so many options. So here we go. Source number four, private equity firm. The pros are more flexible terms, industry experience, and added value, large amount of capital is available. The con is it’s more expensive, like larger deals, prefer proven business models, they often take control and equity. Ample example. Well, private equity firms are nice because they have the capital. You don’t have to go all over the world, you know, giving investment presentations to 50 million people. They have the capital there. This is what they do all day. And oftentimes, they can add value to your company because they have experience in the industry. So again, I’ve had a number of clients build up their businesses and sell to private equity firms. If you’re watching this, these are all options. These are all things you can do. You’re not limited. If you got told no by the bank, it doesn’t mean that there’s no funding for you. Source number five, venture capital firm. Knowledge of the business and industry, more flexible terms, industry experience, large amounts available. That’s the pro. The cons, most expensive. Like larger deals, 5 million plus, prefer proven business models. They take control and equity. Can you maybe explain an ample example of what a venture capital firm investment looks like? These are really for your firms that are really in an advanced stage. OK, we’re successful. We’re down the road, but we just want to grow. And a VC firm will come in with substantial investment, substantial expertise and knowledge, but they expect a very high level of return, and they typically will want to take quite a bit of control in your company. And that’s kind of once the business has got a little bit of legs to it, it’s taken off, then you go see a venture capital firm to go to that next level? Exactly. Okay. Source number six, angel investors, these winged spiritual beings. They typically, the pros is they typically provide an infusion of both capital and ongoing coaching and mentorship. The cons is they typically want to provide their insight and their influence in the deals they invest in. Sean, ample example of angel investor. An angel investor is much like private equity except that you’re just dealing with one or two people. It’s typically more personal. That’s the upside. The downside is it’s typically more personal. So you have to make sure that you’re very comfortable with the person, that their motives are right. But again, this is extremely common. As you know, we’ve invested in many deals personally, really as angel investors. And the way that it typically looks is you just meet, say, once or twice a month just to get an update. The business entrepreneur asks you for advice. It’s really kind of like a business partnership. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Rheasland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field of the big question is jt how does he do it he well they’re gonna have to come and find out that i don’t know what you’re going to do is 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 gonna 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 hundred million dollar net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple of presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business it’s the yacht driving, multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness the guy behind nine round boxing. He’s gonna be here in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th JT, why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh, because he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome. He has inspired me listening to him talk. Not only that, he also 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 want to get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. You say, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t want to 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, Colton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? 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 27 and 28. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. It’s Tulsa, Russia. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russia, 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. 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 gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented, over the last 35 years, 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars, and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful, sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… Have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This 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. podcast and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today folks you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to get in 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 it’s over. ThriveTimeshow.com. Nothing rides on tonight, even if I got three strikes, I’mma go for it, this moment, we own it, ayy, I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous, see, these people I ride with, this moment, we own it. Thrivetimes 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 I mean we get into the specifics the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website We’re gonna teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re gonna teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna 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’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Well, good news. The tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money, and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person Two Day Interactive Business Workshop, all you’ve got to do is go to ThriveTimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Keosok 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, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So, Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought, since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who is my age, and I can say or cannot say. Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and 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 wanted to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. 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 a 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, acta non verba, watch what a person does, not what they say. Whoa! 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, so 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 and alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, 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. At 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. He’s 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 is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun, super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. Your competition is going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9 and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house. This is where we used to live a few years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? It’s nice, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing. And this is our old team. And by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing, and this is our new team. We went from four to fourteen, and I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past, and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October, 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Uh, right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The Atmosphere Phase office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing, I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The biggest thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me, as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group interviews has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things, and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.