Clay Clark | Start Here Book – 4.0 – 4.1.3 – The Practical Steps of Turning Your Dreams into Reality

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 Five nation. Hello, Josh Merrill here. We’re on four point. Oh The practical steps of turning your dreams into reality. I’m here with the main man, the man that I wish was my biological brother. He’s unfortunately not. I don’t know, maybe we could adopt you into the Merrill family, but it’s Clay Clark over there, the world’s best business coach. Clay, good to see you. Well, hey, and I don’t mean that you, the thing is, when you’re on me after the intro, you don’t introduce the guy who introduced you. Yeah. But here’s what I’ve been working on, I’ve been thinking about this for like an hour. I’ve been getting ready, so here we go. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you the co-host with the most, the man with the plan, Never Sterile, Josh Merrill. Baby on the way. I love that. It’s true. Baby number two on the way. And you know how they do that. True that. True that. This guy’s a DJ over there. I can’t rhyme like that. No, you can’t. Let me start with a notable quotable, okay? Get down to business. This one’s from Jim Rohn, bestselling author and world famous motivational speaker. He says, discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. I want to start by saying this, Clay, that the first thing that we want everyone out there to know is that everyone in the world cares about their business and their success and that that statement is absolutely not true, you just call BS on it and then right here live. Cool. But about three weeks ago, I was sitting down, and I wish I had done it more, but I’ve worked with you for about four years on some things. And I look down, and I always have to make a, it’s kind of a point value sheet. Sure. I know that sounds really weird, but I look at what we pay people, I do it every Friday, and I look at the value they bring. And I looked at your name, as I often do, and I go, this guy is a valuable member of the team. So I call, boop, boop, boop, boop, and I’m like, hey Josh, check it out. I’d like for you to, I’d like to find a way to help pay you more, to help you make more money, to do what you do, because I don’t know how that works yet. Let’s talk about it. Sure. And then my dad, he’s losing this battle with ALS, and it’s just not going very well. So I kind of was off the grid for about two weeks, and then I came back and we decided to meet, and we met up. And that was the first time, being real, I’m a horrible boss, but in four years that I had maybe cared about your success as much as you. Would you agree or you disagree with that statement? Yeah. What an awkward, yeah, you’ve been a terrible boss for the last four years. No, but I mean, no. But you’ve, that’s, I guess, the first time you’ve put a specific interest into me, sure. Yeah, and it wasn’t that I don’t care. Right. It’s just that, like, I care about the people that I see in the office a lot, and because I have more face time with other people, and you tend to work off-site, and so therefore I only would see you on, like, maybe a monthly basis, and just for whatever reason, I was really, really dialing into, I want to, as Thrive is growing, I wanted to increase the quality of every aspect of Thrive 15. One of the things I wanted to do was I wanted to have fewer, higher paid people on camera who can just bring the ruckus, who can really are talented. I was like, man, I need to… What I’m just saying is, Thrivers, nobody out there cares about your success as much as you do. Meanwhile, the last four years, you’ve had a lot of neat jobs. You’ve done a lot of neat production jobs. You’re doing commercials for people. I think you actually do videos for different churches, like your in-service announcements. You do some cool stuff. But if you were waiting on me to get you those gigs, you wouldn’t have had them. It wouldn’t have happened. But you had to go get them, right? Yeah. And you had to do follow-up calls. You’ve had to call people, hey, do you want to go ahead and have me shoot that video? Hey, do you want me to go ahead and do that? You had to prompt those deals. Right. I mean, have you have you in the last four years picked up the call to close the deal? Oh, all the time. Yeah. And I’m sure as it’s starting out, though, when you were starting out your career as an actor, was there a point where you were kind of disappointed that people weren’t calling you the way you thought they should be? You know, I thought I’ll just put up my my demo reel on Vimeo dot com and it’s going to blow people out of the water. Did you honestly think that? Oh yeah! Oh yeah! See, so did I. So I had this DJ company, I thought, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to rock a wedding. I’m going to rock it. I’m not kidding. I got to the point where I would finish the wedding, and I had little goals, and I’d say, at the end of this wedding, I want it to be so good that people will literally cheer. They’ll stand up and cheer at the end of the wedding. I’m not kidding you. Yeah. I started to get where people would do it. At the end of the wedding, people were like, yes! They would come up going, you’re the man! You’re the man! Now, guess what, though? They’re drunk. This is what they’re saying. Dude, you’re like, you’re good. Can I have your card? It’s like a client. Card, and I go, yeah, here’s my card. And they go, here, I have a card. And I give them the card. And then they would go, ah, it’s so good. And then their wife would go, honey, you can’t drive home. We have your uncle drive you home. And then they would put the card on the table and they would put their clothes on, they’d put their jacket on, their stuff, and they would shout out to their car. Their uncle’s like, guys, come over here and get in the car. I can drive. No, you can’t. I can definitely drive. Get in the car. And I would see my card there on the table and I would go, the man who loves my party the most didn’t even bring my card home. And then I had two decisions. I could either A, make my life worse by listening to this NPR interview. Or I could, I mean, I thought about it, so I would, you go home and you just listen to NPR and you light some candles and you just complain about your life. Or you get out there and you start getting traction. And you have to understand that nobody cares about your success as much as you. We’ve got to understand that, Thrivers. We care. You call us, we’re going to care. If you call, that prompts me caring, but the moment you put down the phone, we quit caring as much as you, right? We’re on the phone, we do care as much as you, but no one’s going to care as much as you. And secondly, the discipline is what makes you care. The discipline is what makes your caring into reality. You’ve got to hold yourself accountable. So you’re consistently sought after for commercials and neat things. By the way, shameless plug, if someone did want to hire you for a commercial, how do they get a hold of you, man? They call Clay right now. They call Clay Clark. You just directly, you call me. You call Clay Clark. Yeah, you call me maybe, okay? But anyway, but seriously, what would happen is that people who are not disciplined, who want to become an actor, can’t do it. But you’ve had to discipline, you’ve been in practice. Right, and you have to, you know, for me, you have to go out to auditions, you have to go where the people are, you have to put your talents in front of them. I can’t just stay in my room with my, you know, three impersonations and, you know, say them to the mirror and hope that someone’s going to find me. What kind of discipline have you had to start doing to get better at your craft? That people wouldn’t know that you’ve had Duke’s you’ll say it looks so easy like you’re just having fun up there What is like a discipline that you have to do when you’re up on stage or your practice people don’t realize? Maybe the script writing or the practice where they were what’s up you do behind the scenes that requires discipline that people don’t realize you Have to do I think for me probably it’s the length of time that it’s taken to get to a certain point, to a certain acting ability. The first time I was up on stage, awful, horrible. I was like a 15-year-old, couldn’t say a line worth anything. And it took me like five years to understand, okay, this is acting. But then there was five more years after that where it’s like, okay, I’m starting to kind of get better, people kind of believe me when I act. And then it was like five years after that, that I actually felt confident in what I was doing. So it was just actually the work, the long work of getting better every day as an actor. And that discipline of practicing was the bridge, to quote Jim Rohn, between your goals and where you were in your goals. And I just ask you as a Thriver right now, what is the discipline that you need to do? What are the daily actionable items that you need to do to improve your craft? I’ll tell you this, it might be looking at your numbers and doing your accounting. That might be the discipline area. It might be the managing of your website. It might be the training of your staff. It might be just, I’m asking you right now, what, put it in your notes section, what is it that you need to do? And then the next question is when? When are you gonna do it to turn your big idea, your big goals into reality? What kind of discipline do you need to have in your life? What are the steps that you’ve got to take? What are they? What are the things that you have to do? Absolutely. And who are the people that are going to help you get there? That’s big, and that’s why Thrive15, why I’m so proud to be a part of this, is that we literally have made it available where you just email info at thrive15.com. There’s no upsell at all. We’re not going to go, well, have you heard about our mystical weekend trip in Hawaii where you can pay $7,000 if you qualify to get into our program? You know, we don’t do that. What we do is we say, hello, thank you for calling Thrive 15. And you’re like, I have a question. And you’re like, yeah, well, you got the answer. And then you go, what about the upsell? There’s no upsell. People always, I mean, literally, we had one guy, it was so funny, he goes, what the H? And I said, what? He goes, you’re the founder of the thing and I’m on the phone with you. I don’t understand. And I said, well, I mean, if you want to pay for premium, like one-on-one coaching, you can upsell yourself if that’s what you need. But I know for me, I didn’t have the money starting out, so we’ll be available. He’s like, why are you on the phone? I’m like, well, our customer service team felt like I could help you the best, and that’s why we started this. So it’s like Zappos. When you call with a customer service question, call Zappos. Everyone calls Zappos right now. Do it. Call Zappos, and you’ll be on the phone with them. It’s a shoe company, but their call center treats you like you’re a prized family. And that’s a discipline that Tony Hsieh decided. We’re going to be disciplined and hold ourselves accountable to really caring about you regardless of whether you buy a shoe or not. And they’ve built this legendary customer service. That’s what I aspire to create here as we mentor millions. Selling shoes. Yeah, really it’s all about selling shoes. The Thrive 15 shoes, which I would buy and purchase. Yeah, absolutely. You don’t want them though because they’re being handmade by me and I have no discernible shoe making skills, although you might think I would. They’re only size 15 as well, just to go with the name. Absolutely. So it’s a very small market that we’re going after. Very niche. The Thrive 15 shoe market. Here’s the thing though, you’ve got to commit to taking massive action. That’s what we’re talking about. Absolutely. And that’s what 4. from now on is all about, is taking these massive steps. And that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to begin that process in the next session. All right, Thrivers. We are talking about stage one, which is giving birth. True. You have to formalize your business plan, raise the capital you need, create your logo, create your website, create your initial marketing materials, and then go out there and see if the world is even willing to pay for the solutions you provide. Clay Clark, the world’s best business coach, please explain that process of giving birth. Well here’s the deal. When you, and I can’t relate, you have a child, but I can’t, I’m not obviously a woman, I don’t know what that’s like. I just know my wife had five kids and because she did, I’m like, I’m sorry I did that to you. And I’m sorry that that had to happen. And anything that you want to do henceforth, it’s justified. Right. So sometimes if she gets to that level where she’s like… My husband gave me a similar speech too. You gave birth, so henceforth you’re kind of a hero in my life. So here’s the deal, when you start a business, it is painful emotionally. Oh, that’s so good to hear. Most people don’t talk about that. It’s painful emotionally. Painful emotionally. Why is it so painful? Well, buildingthrive15.com is an example. I was building it and we had this team photo. One person on my team goes, Let’s take a team photo of everybody who’s on the team. Because it’s a good team. And I said, let me tell you something. You see the people in that picture? And they said, yes. All the people in that picture will not be here 36 months from now with an exception of the diligent. And they said, why are you paying? Every person will be held accountable to doing what they say, and those who do that will be paid well and will be here. The ones who do not will be fired because the customer is not willing to pay for an inferior product. that picture we still have. Well, let’s just say that it came to reality. We weren’t out there firing Lee Cockrell. I’ll tell you what, Lee Cockrell ran Disney World because he’s diligent. We’re not out there firing Dr. Zellner because he’s diligent. I’ll tell you what, we went through some people. Because in the videography world, if you have a video skill, there’s thousands of people like you. But you’ve got to be diligent and be a part of a startup right this growing pains. Yeah, so Systems are changing all the time. Yeah, cuz it’s a startup right? It’s the beginning, right? Mm-hmm have to travel all the time. What do you hired me? He’s never said I would have to tell everyone one guy goes you never said I would have to travel you told me you’d ever Said you said I would a videographer to record in the studio like bro Bro, I had no idea that Michael Levine, the PR guy, the PR representative for Michael Jackson and Nike and Pizza Hut would ask for us to come out to him and he happens to live in California. I did not know that would happen. That is a good thing. Yes, we’re going. Well, I just don’t like to travel. Well, guess what? So again, the pictures change, but the mission remains. So the birth pains that you want to have a child. Oh, really? Yeah. Asking you a little personal question. Yeah. When you wanted to have a child, was there a minute when you were having a child where you didn’t want to have a child anymore? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you have that moment where you’re like, what have I done? But it’s too late. You know what I mean? It’s like we’re here. It’s got to go. But you’re wondering, how’s a Cadillac going to drive through a lemon and like the lemon’s going to still be intact? I don’t understand. You know, the visuals are amazing. Now, what about now? What about what about what about two months before the baby is here? Did you ever feel like, did you ever look at O’Neal and go, look what you’ve done? Yeah, two months before. I think I actually, and this is a true story, I actually belly bumped him about two months before. I was just mad and he was on my nerves and I used it as a weapon to get him out of my way. I was very cranky and irritable and swollen. So yes. So here’s the horrible part every entrepreneur has to go through. Let’s go ahead and get into it. One, you’ve got to make a business plan. We have this thing called a pitch deck. I want to make sure we put a link up to it. We have a pitch deck. We make it available for all the thrivers. And that’s the first thing? You want to have a business plan, aka a pitch deck. Pitch deck. You’ve got to do it. And a pitch deck, we have the best one in the world was outlined by Bessemer Capital. And we have it. It’s in a book called Pitching Hacks by Naval. We’ll put the book title in there, Pitching Hacks. But we want to make sure that we you have that available You want to follow that template? It’s huge the next is you had to raise capital Do you want to like going out there and asking people aka? Begging yeah, I mean that’s what I was gonna say is it how does that go give me a little well if you’re if you’re On like a street corner. That’s what you do. This is what you do. You’re on a street corner Let me get my let me get my street corner music just real quick This is what happens if you’re on the street corner what you do is you start to say, Look at me, I’m the amazing, I’m playing the buckets. Right? And you’re just like… I’ll be your dancer. I’ll be your backup dancer. And then your buddy is playing the trumpet, and you’re like… And you’re playing and no one’s giving money. So one of your dudes is like, Hey, real quick, we probably should ask for money. Right, right, right. And the other guy’s like, No, we’re just going to keep playing. I’m going to need an answer. I’m not going to ask. I’m not going to ask. We’re just going to keep playing. And then pretty soon, someone’s like, I’m so hungry. And then someone’s, now pretty soon, Noma, all of a sudden, finally goes, that’s it. That’s it. We’re going to start asking. OK. So you say, hey, guys, if you could be donate, if you guys could donate, if you’d be willing to donate. Now, let me tell you what. On the third day, this is how it happens. Pretty soon, some guy’s like, Please give me somebody just to sign up and be in my family. And some guy walks up and goes, Stop begging and here’s a dollar. And then someone else is like, Get a freaking job. And someone else says, You know what your song reminds me of? Vomit. And then pretty soon you start to say… okay ladies and gentlemen up next we have an amazing show. If you’ve been to New York City you’ve seen this show. This is a live street performance. This is what we’re going to do. If you are amazed by the audio wonderment of tonight’s performance, you my friend are going to give us a cash donation. So everybody we’re going to start this amazing performance. You watch these street vendors in New York City. They know how to hustle. They work it. And they do know how to work it. And they are able to get a big crowd, and they start to get people to cheer for them, and they get hundreds of people to give money all at the same time. But that is not a natural thing. You start off playing the buckets, or the drums, or the horns, and you have to learn to get to… I mean, if you’ve ever been to New York City, you’ve seen this. You start to learn how to gather a crowd, how to get the audience to cheer. You do rhetoricals where you’re like, everybody, when I say this, you say that. And everyone starts. And if you go to New York City and you go to Times Square and you watch this, there are street vendors that know how to hustle. Nice. And I’m telling you, at first it’s like asking, then it starts begging. And when you are raising capital, it’s like begging. And nothing is more uncomfortable than asking and then getting no. So you have not because you ask not. But you also have not because your business plan is terrible. So then you go back and fix your business plan. Then you ask again and again. You go back in that cycle of refining your business plan, asking. Finally, someone says, literally, I had one investor that said this to me, he goes, if I do give you $50,000, do you promise to never ask again? Really? Yeah. What did you say? I said, yeah, absolutely. He goes, okay, I’ll meet you tomorrow. I’m not kidding. That’s one of my investors I got. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, at first, that’s how you have to start. Now, the next thing is you have to create your initial market. Now you have money in the bank. You got fifty thousand in the bank that you owe somebody. Right. And now you have to create a marketing plan. And people say, well, yeah, you just go out there and tell the world about it. I’ll make a Facebook page. So many entrepreneurs. I’ll make a Facebook. So you ask the entrepreneur, how are you going to get customers through social media? How? Well, just there’s billions of people on social media need you to 1% buy it. They’ll be millions Oh, dude, let me tell you what nothing is harder than Marketing. Mm-hmm when you are not having any traction Yeah, and people are like maybe your products terrible now people like it. I’m telling you they love my cookies I just am bad at marketing. Yeah, and then your investors call on he calls you. Hey, how come you haven’t sold anything yet? And then your wife’s like hey, you gotta go to bed because it’s like 2 a.m. And then your friends start to say, can you come over? And you say, no, I can’t because I’m trying to raise money so that I can bring in some you. They say, what I’m trying to sell something so I can pay back the guy that I borrowed money from. And your friends go, why’d you borrow money if you didn’t know if it work? And then that’s what you’re in. That’s what marketing is, right? Full emotionally, the house of pain. You got to go out to see if the world’s willing to pay for your solutions. And that, my friend, is what giving birth means, in my mind, when you’re out there starting a business. That’s the stage one. It is terrible. But once you get past that, the little baby comes out. Oh, he’s beautiful. Smells like heaven. Cute, cute kid. You forget about all the pain. Cute kid. Now the kid’s 13. Yeah. Now adolescent. Now you say, hey, it’s time for bed. I don’t, I’m not sleepy. Yeah, I’m not sleepy. You’re like, buddy, it’s 13, you gotta go to bed. I hate you, he says. Listen, I made that mouth. I’ll break that mouth. I will snatch your life. That’s what I told my son the other day. He was getting smart with me. I said, boy, it just came out. I will snatch your life. Yeah, I’m just telling you. So I’m just telling you, then you got the adolescent business. You got all these unruly employees. And then you get into the maturity phase where you’re like, my business is doing really well. But I’m old. I’m getting older. I’m going to die soon. I better enjoy my life.” I’m just telling you, it’s the different phases of life, the different phases of business. To give birth, you want to have a baby without giving birth? Weird. Yeah, and just to know that it’s painful emotionally, like you said. Absolutely. I’ve got a great notable quotable. It’s from Steve Jobs. I love Steve Jobs. He says, here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world are the ones who do. And that’s Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, founder of Next, and the former CEO who turned down Pixar. Rest in peace. What a great quote. Well, this is how I relate to this. One of my favorite books I ever read was called Life and Death by Russell Simmons. And I read it when I was in college and it changed things for me. But what happened was is poor kids, inner city kids of all different races and backgrounds, they basically didn’t have enough money to have access to instruments. And they had record players. And a guy named Cool Herc, was the DJ named DJ Cool Herc, and Grandmaster Flash, they discovered that they could adjust the turntable in a way where they could play back the beat. So like this right here, if I hit this button right here, I could get that right there. And then if I took the turntable and I played it back, I could go… And I could do it. And I could… And I could do it. And if I had a buddy who could rap or could say… They call it toasting. But if I had a guy who could rhyme, he would rhyme over what I was doing. So they took a song, it’s an old song, songs like this. This was the one that came out a little bit later But just an example So you take a song that people knew and they would play the song and they would loop it So you hear this song for a second even you the crazy ones do this stuff But just listen to the the beat first I get to come in there and you’re gonna notice how repetitive it is So just listen for a second. It’s not like Hip-hop is repetitive. Okay, so these people said We want a way to tell our truth and make it rhyme and express ourselves but we don’t have instruments and people thought that’s not music. Well then they took a song that no one listened to anymore and they recycled it. And so they started doing is they started rewinding these songs playing different breakbeats and they recorded stuff like this. Well what happens is is Russell Simmons he had a lisp. His brother was the lead rapper for Run DMC and he couldn’t rap. And in his book he explains is he had a lisp so he couldn’t rap. But he was like, I believe I can change things. I believe I can take the art culture that we have of rhyming and the limited access to instruments we have. We can reproduce it, remix it, redo it. And my buddy can rap over parts of the song or rhyme over it while I’ll make sure the music is played a certain way. And then I’m going to promote it. And the radio stations wouldn’t play it. So he paid people to call the radio stations and request songs. And the first song that was played was called These Are The Breaks by Curtis Blow. And these are the breaks. Turn it up, turn it up, turn it up. And what happened is that song became the first song on the radio. Then the Sugarhill Gang followed with Rapper’s Delight. Hip hop, hibby, hibby to the hip, hip hop. And that was the bass line they grabbed from a song called Good Times, and they played it, and all of a sudden it started to take off. You know how it came about. One is a guy was sitting in his apartment without a musical instrument, but the desire to express himself musically. Love it. And he actually messed up a turntable, adjusted it, so that he could… Scratching wasn’t a good thing. He found a way to play it back. Then he had the innovative mindset needed to go out there and to hustle and to call the radio station and go, could you play these are the breaks? And they’re like, what song is that? Oh, everyone’s here. Everyone’s playing it. It’s huge. And they had to keep doing that until the radio station’s finally like, fine, we’ve had 50 requests for the same song. We’ll play it. Now once they’ve played it, he’s like, we have to have 500 people ready to go to call and say, that song was awesome. Can we hear it again? And that’s how they created the hip hop movement. And so you had to be crazy enough to believe that what was crazy could become the normal. And if you have an idea that God has put in your heart for a product or a service that you believe can really, really impact the world, don’t extinguish that flame. Don’t live once. You’ve gotta go out there and you’ve gotta say, am I crazy enough to give birth to this idea? And if you are crazy enough, if you are just abnormal, because remember, people want success, but success is not normal. So if you’re just abnormal enough to go out there and to have success, to leave mediocrity aside, to leave mediocrity and to go for something big, then do it and we’re here to help you. And if you get stuck, you just call us and we’ll coach you, we’ll help you. But if not, it’s okay to run back to the crowd. But just understand that the difference in income and fulfillment is vastly different when you fear giving birth. But when you give birth, I can tell you so many moms told me, I’ve talked to so many women about this, they say, literally they go, my wife’s friends with all these ladies and they talk and they’re like, oh my gosh, giving birth is so terrible. But I can tell you all of them look back and go, I’m so glad I did that. Oh, definitely. And that’s how I feel about the business. Definitely. I look back at it and go, it was worth it. Yeah, definitely. Good word. It’s a love-hate relationship. Good word. Totally worth it in the end. Boom. No videotaping while people are giving birth. But as we take it out, if you’re out there filming while your wife’s giving birth, it’s not cool. You got that camera ready to go. Yeah. Put that away. Don’t want to see that. When they want people to watch it. I’m like, what is that? I don’t need to see that. My uncle Jim, he accidentally played a family video. And in the beginning of that video was my aunt giving birth. And I’m going to tell you what. No, I’m not kidding. That’s what happened and as a 12 year old Stop it! I was a 12 year old, I just sat there and I was like Hold me. Scarred. I literally, I was like looking away and like, sorry, sorry, sorry. And he queued it up on the VHS, the videotape. And I remember just looking down going Ah, ah, ah, ah. Did you see that? No, I didn’t. But to this day, it’s seared in my memory and I will never think of my aunt the same way. Bonnie? Yeah, how you doing? Sorry, I saw that. Stop recording the birds, but give birth to your business. Hello, Thrive Nation. We are back talking about this powerful and efficient book. Clay has written full of wisdom, business coaching advice. We’re in the section today that’s talking about forming a limited liability company. Yeah. LLC, what can you tell us about this? How do you know when is it time to start one? Do I have to do it before I start a business? When do I do that? It might seem really, really vague, but basically after you’ve sold 15 somethings. 15 is the magic number. 15 somethings, that’s when you really want to go out there and start an LLC. I’ll tell you why. Let’s just say that you are really, really good at plumbing. For whatever reason, your dad was a plumber, you like plumbing, and you go, oh, I’m going to plumb the heck out of America. I don’t have to wear the pants where your crack shows, though, right? You would not, but males have to. So what happens is, then you go out there and you go ahead and you say, I’m going to start plumbing. I’m going to get my business card, and I’m going to start telling people at work or at church or at the community center, wherever you see people, you know, at the coffee shop, hey, I can plumb. And they go, you can plumb? You’re a fruit? No, no, I’m a plumber. But it takes you a while to start to learn how to tell people what you do. I fixed toilets. Oh, you’re the sink guy. Okay. So now, and your cards are terrible. People go to your website. No one’s buying. Yeah. You don’t need an analysis. Gotcha. Now you start to get the card a little better. You start, instead of saying I plumb, you say, I fixed sinks. Oh, I get it. So you’re a plumber. Right. Right. So now you fix your sites. Instead of it saying, I plum, it says, I’m a plumber. And it says, I fix sinks. And pretty soon, people at church and work and in the job and coffee shop, they start to say, hey, could you help me with my, I have a sink that leaks. Pretty soon, you start getting one customer, two, three, four, and about 15, you start to go, okay, I want to limit my liability. That’s the point of an LLC, it’s a limited liability company. And so you have to embrace the fact that you’re going to get sued. I don’t want to embrace that. You have to. Why? There’s never, that stresses me out. Last night I was talking to Dr. Zellner about the dark arts of entrepreneurship. It was fun. And one of the things we have talked about in the past is that you’re just going to get sued. It’s just going to happen. No way around it. I have a friend of mine who’s probably the most ethical man I know. He is just very, he’s one of those guys where I would say that he, you know those people who are like very religious or litigious about others? Yes. He’s that way about himself. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, he’s always just, you know, he’s very worried about how you perceive his intentions and all this. He runs the most ethical restaurant in town. And he had a lady who went into the restaurant and pretended to fall. It’s on camera. Stop it. She’s like, I have hurt myself. I don’t know what I need to do, but I would be willing to potentially meet with an attorney if you could set that up. Wow. So he had that lawsuit. It’s horrible. Then a couple of years ago, by his employee who will just, I won’t get into the details, but he brings a smartphone to work. The employee, he tells employees you cannot have a smartphone foot on the floor. Right. Employee is watching said video, not an appropriate video, shows inappropriate video to a co-worker who happens to be a female. She’s now sues for harassment. Two, three, pretty soon. Wow. No exaggeration. He probably has five or six ongoing lawsuits right now. Stop it. And every time. Wow. I’ve never, I’ve never been around the man where he doesn’t have a lawsuit. Stop it. And he sees, you know, probably, you know, 400 customers a day. So this is a reality of being an entrepreneur, owning a business. You need to accept the fact that you’re going to get sued. All the time. Okay. Often. Like I get sued probably or some sort of law issue or with other companies. One of our businesses is getting sued at all times. I don’t know if I don’t know the time right. Like right now, I think the photography business, I think we’re in the process. We have a company here, a person who violated their non-compete agreement. They’re at a wedding and the bride says, oh my gosh, you guys are so great, what can I do for you? And they go, well, you could pass up my cards for my new business. No. We had that, so we got that going on, in the haircut business, we have somebody who violated their thing, we’re going after them. We had somebody who we had to terminate for violating various laws. They claim that’s not why they were fired, they were fired for other things. Right. I think they’re claiming they were fired for ageist or something, ageism. Well, because they were too old, we fired them, or you know what I’m saying, it never ends. Okay, so I have a question about that. So I can, in my mind, accept the fact, you know, based off the stories that you’re telling me, but like emotionally, I don’t like that. How do I deal with the emotional side, you know? Well, one, you need to get Whitney Houston’s emotion, where the, I get so emotional, baby. That’s a good song. Every time I, you wanna get that song and you just want to sing that okay but to to is I you just have to learn as an entrepreneur how to put things over here and Put things over here. Okay, just see Whatever like I mean just real just telling you yesterday just yesterday. Mm-hmm Wrapping up the workday and I just was confronted with a truth bus bus. You were there, but I’m working on it. It was a bus. I’m working on stuff. This is what it is. I’m walking across the road of entrepreneur. I’m on my journey. Got my backpack. I’m chewing some gum. And I’m like, hey, kids are walking through the forest and there’s a look at the red one. And then dad, look, oh, I just, oh, the truth. So then I, you know, and I’ve been, I’m in real. I recovered from the truth bus this morning. Okay, good deal. At about 4 a.m. We’re glad you’re back. Yeah, the truth bus hit me from about 6 p.m. until right now, but I’m good now. That was a truth train. Oh, there’s no way to play it off. When you see someone get hit by a truth bus, you just, look at the little pony. You know, it’s just so, that’s not very fun. That’s how you do it. You just got to break it up into, you know, kind of waffle. And you say, put it in this section over here. I’m going to break it, you know. Now, when you make an LLC, I want to walk you through this. There’s two real concepts here. One is you have to accept emotionally that you are going to be sued. We talked about that. The second is you have to find an attorney. Now, you and I were talking about this a little bit off air. We were. Why do you need an attorney? Because I see where you can do it online sometimes. You know, with companies that say they’re reputable. Are you ready to fight? Yes, they say they have lawyers. Are you ready to fight? Yes. Okay, so here’s the deal. This is, I know you shouldn’t draw things on the show because it’s just like, but this is my house. Wait a second, I’m drawing my house. And Thrivers, we’re working on some incredible camera technology that will soon capture mine. But this is my, this is the house, okay? It’s a great house. It’s awesome. Now, if I built this house, the point of the house, the house is my LLC. Okay. It’s like a roof over my head that protects me from the elements. Okay. When you have a attorney who works on your behalf, people don’t realize this, but when you have an LLC, there are certain duties that you have to do to keep your LLC active. So one of the LLC duties to keep the roof over your head is you have to have minutes that you take for your annual meeting. You have to have an annual meeting where you meet and with your team and you talk about whatever and you document it and it has to be filed a certain way. Then you pay 25 bucks a year, and in some states it’s more or less whatever, to keep your LLC active. And then you have to have a registered agent. You could be your own, but it’s like if someone needed to reach you because you’re being sued, there’s a system for that. You have to have an operating agreement, and the operating agreement has to be compliant. It can’t be close enough. There’s a lot of specific things you have to have. I have never met somebody who keeps the roof maintained. They don’t have the operating agreement. If you look at it, the operating agreement can be like one little part of it. And then over here, this could be the minutes and this could be the filing. But your roof, over time, anybody who’s owned a house, you buy the house and you know what? You know that your air conditioner is going to go out when it is hot. Whenever you don’t have money, whenever you just paid for the wedding or you just moved in or you just closed or you just had the baby, guess what happens? Something. And that’s why you have insurance. And the attorney, their job is to keep that roof maintained and to keep the elements from leaking in. Right. And I trust your wisdom on this, so I just want to touch on the fact that there are companies online that say, we are lawyers, you know, we have a whole staff of lawyers, a whole bevy of lawyers, I still don’t understand why I can’t trust them to do it. Well what will happen is when you do get sued, I want you to reach out to Mr. 1-800-LAWYER. And you say, Mr. 1-800-LAWYER, I am being sued. And he’ll go, now what was your account number? And you’ll go, 2432. Oh, okay. And you go, they said I didn’t have my minutes maintained. And I’ll tell you a funny story that worked good for me. It’s somebody who did form an LLC online, was super shady, and he was causing me problems and I went for the juggler with this guy. And I went for it all because he was totally like Bob Vila, this guy was screwing me. And I was like, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go because I know he didn’t maintain. So I get a hold of my attorney. He goes, oh, homie hasn’t filed his this. He hasn’t filed that. He is way exposed. OK. And you, my friend, can go after his house. Wow. True story. So I went after his house. Now, in Oklahoma, it’s a homestead law. Basically, you can’t lose your house in a lawsuit, but you can lose your other house. So I called the guy, and I literally said on the phone, I noticed that you failed to file your amendments, and I’m just saying, I’m taking the lake house. So you get it done, or I’m going for it. And he was like, oh no. And so he knew that he was doing Mr. 1-800-ONLINE-LAWYER-GUY. So you can get an LLC form, but you better have an attorney to maintain it. Okay, gotcha. Now, Winters and King is a firm. We have a lot of great attorneys who are on Thrive as Thrive members. And in the community section, if you’re a Thriver and you love your attorney, please feel free to share their name or connect with other Thrivers. But Winters and King, they represent Joe Lowstein and TD Jakes and some of the bigger people. They represent us. And they’re neat, neat people, and I highly recommend checking them out. Wes Carter is one of our mentors. But the third thing about LLCs, you have to select the business name for your LLC. So the name of your LLC must be in compliance with the rules of your state’s LLC, rules and regulations. So as an example, you can’t choose a name that someone already has. So I was working with a dentist just two weeks ago, and he had this name. Oh, he was like, I’m gonna be named such and such. And how I got hit with the truth puzzle last night, it felt so bad. But I called Wes, our attorney, I said, Wes, will you do a check? And what you can do is you can pay for a really in-depth check where they really get into it, or you can do like a kind of a softer like a quicker check and they have Databases they subscribe to okay, so he pulls and he goes can’t do it. Um, so I had to call my buddy to poop Hey, bud, you gotta be real You can’t use that name So perfect in fact that someone else already chose it yeah, but they’re not even using it I’ve looked no not using it I’m like they’re what you call a squatter. Back in the day people would do a land rush and squat on land and they’d say, I’m not going to have it but you can’t either. This person has chosen a bunch of names and they bought them and you cannot use them. And does that go back to having an attorney? I guess you can really sift through that information. I’ve actually in the past, earlier in my career, I formed an LLC for something that I thought for sure was going to be the hot stuff. Then I found out that another homie owned the domain and it claimed legal rights. The thing was called Lifeshow.com. So I ended up having to buy the domain for I think like $8,000 and get a release from the guy that I could now use the name. And I later sold it for a copious amount of money. It was a good thing. But I just want to make sure everybody gets it. You need to, the attorney needs to select the business name for your LLC. And the fourth thing is you need to have your articles of incorporation. What are those? Is that like bylaws or rules? We have a template for all the thrivers they can download. Sweet. But it is basically a lot of legal mumbo jumbo that you’re required to have. Okay. And if you don’t have the legal mumbo jumbo, then you’re… I mean, some people go, you know, why… Have you guys ever watched… Have you ever watched C-SPAN? Not in a long time. You shouldn’t watch it. No. If you watch it, it’s always, first off, not to throw Congress under the bus, but where are you guys? Yeah. I mean, you watch C-SPAN, there’s like two people in a room of like 700 people. And you know, the guy gets up there and he’s like, I’m going to call this session 4702 of our honorable congressional yada yada together. Here we are going to, not that we’re, I know the Lord’s offensive to some of you, but anyway, the year we are here and does anyone motion for, and they have these parliamentary rules from the Parliament, not George Clinton Parliament, but like Parliament. So what happens is, is then after this, after they’ve done this parliamentary rule, then they start and it says I motion, I, nay, and someone like me walks in and goes, why can’t we just say screw that? Well because it’s the way it works. So you’ve got to learn those rules. So anyway, the next thing you have to have is you have to create an operating agreement. Now I’ll just give you a little tip here. If you’re in a partnership, eventually you’re going to have to buy someone out. Right, it’s gonna go bad. You’re gonna sell it. Someone’s gonna buy your business, you’re gonna sell it. They’re gonna get married, they’re gonna want to move, they’re gonna get divorced. Something will happen. Yeah, so just today is Saturday, so Thursday night a young man says, hey I just want you, I’m gonna be moving soon to New Hampshire. And because of this move I will no longer be a partner in this business we’re involved in. Can you buy me out? And it’s stated in our operating agreement how that is. There’s no like debate. That’s good. So you deal with those things that could come up. You’re probably not thinking about that. You’re not thinking about it. And no one does. They always online. This is what happens is, you know, your partner, so let’s say that I want to make my plumbing business with you. Yes. So you and your husband, I know that you guys are awesome people. I’m just a super plumber. Yeah. So I’m like, hey, let’s just form one online. Yeah, let’s do it. When we form it online, are we going to sit down and really have the talk about how we’re going to break it up? No, probably not. We went to college together. We were friends. We were going to break it up. Oh, really? Well, then what happens is when someone moves, people are going, well, actually, I think my Catholic company is worth a million. Bro, we only do 100,000. Yeah, but it has the potential to do a million. So you want to get that in the operating agreement. The next thing, number six, is you want to basically push out a notice in the states that require it. So like if you’re in a state, many states require you to tell the world in the newspaper. Okay. Wow. In the newspaper. I mean, do you know there are states that have different laws? Like in Oklahoma, you can’t buy alcohol from a liquor store on a Sunday. Right. You can’t buy cold alcohol ever from a liquor store. I know. I’ve been in Arkansas one time and they had it chained up. Like, you know, it’s like, you can’t buy it. Have you ever been to like California where you can just buy alcohol all the time anytime anywhere pretty convinced it could be you know anyway you can just do Oklahoma it’s like hey hey we don’t mind you buying alcohol on Saturday but after 8 o’clock on Saturday done you can go to a bar and buy it right my mom says we live in like a pseudo prohibition states yeah so who makes these I don’t know but I’m saying each state has their own rules right and so in your state it’s gonna say you have to put a notification in the newspaper that you’re operating. And no one’s gonna read that, but you have to because it’s required. Some states say you don’t. And I don’t know all the rules, but your attorney does. And if he doesn’t, you don’t use that attorney anymore. So that’s a big, big thing. The next thing is you have to get the appropriate licenses and permits. I have some music for this. This is this is what getting a permit is like. If you live in New York and you are in the installation business, it’s a big, deep thing. You’re going to walk into a room and when you walk into that room, there’s going to be a man and focus with me. And I need you to write me a check. And that’s about as deep as it is to get a license. And I’m telling you, there are some places I thought I was going to have to like scale a mountaintop. No, that’s what I do. Or like, no, but some states you have to take a test stopping. But I’m telling you, like in New York, this is a real deal. A very good and I’ll check the boxes and you have your license. Stop it. Not kidding. And I’m telling you, that is in most places I see this process. And there’s a thing called a permit. Yes. So I live in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. And a permit is what? Another tax. Right. So you just, with the power of a checkbook, you could too get your permit. And by the way, there’s some online degrees you can do that way. True. True. So all I’m saying is don’t over complicate it. But you have to have all of this stuff. And I do take your point now, okay, about the online thing. I get it. And check it out. Why would you want to have 15 sales of some kind before doing all this? I’ll tell you why. Yeah, why? Because this is like a momentum killing. Look at this. I mean, step one, we’ve got to first go, okay, I’m going to be sued. Okay, that’s pretty quick. That was just like a real decision. But finding an attorney, that takes time. You can take our recommendation. I’m not allowed to make any money as a result of it, although people might say, are you making money on that? I cannot make any money as a result of it. But I’m saying Winters and King is a firm I could recommend to you. Right. But you have to find an attorney. Then you have to select the name of your business. Can I use the name? That takes time. It’s probably going to take your attorney a couple of days. Then you have to write your articles of incorporation which requires you to sit down and think about it Then you have to create an operating agreement which requires you to think about it Then you’ve got to push out a notice in the newspaper. Then you got to get the licenses This is all time-killing stuff. You know what? It might all be not needed at all if you can’t sell anything Gotcha, so you don’t waste time doing it if you haven’t proven that this is a viable product And I would say that eight out of ten people that I know who are excited about a business After they determine they can’t sell it, they’re no longer excited. Okay. So how many people, it’s truth canon, how many people do you know who have made an LLC for something that is not, they don’t do it, they don’t do anything with it? I do. And because we feel like that’s the first step to being a business owner, I need an LLC. No, no, the first step is try to sell something. Okay. That’s so good to know because yeah, it is a common thought. I know I felt that way. Sign up, get your LLC going, get your name, pick your name. So it’s good to know. You have to make sure, can you sell anything? And this is different, but I want to give you just one little final thought on this. I would argue, if you’re in college right now, I know people have written and they say, do you want everyone to drop out of college? No, I mean, if you want to be an attorney or a doctor, don’t just try to hack your way through by reading some blogs. Right, right. But what I’m saying is this, if you want to be an attorney, don’t go to school first. Go intern for six months. Right. And just work there and go, is that what I want to do? Good word. Or if you want to be a, you know, my wife wanted to do broadcast journalism and then she interned there after getting the degree or right before and she went, oh no. Yeah. Well, in college, in my mind, the internship should be first. I agree. So you could learn whether it’s worth the time. I agree. But so many people then do spend four years and they feel obligated. This happens with LLCs. People spend six months, six months, Shark, trying to get their LLC and their name and all their documents. And they’re like, well, since I’ve already done this, I feel obligated to continue with my plumbing company. If you try to sell it first, someone says, that’s illegal. What if you get sued? It’s 15 customers. You have no money anyway. What are they going to get? I mean, if someone sues you, what are they going to get? Nothing. You got, I got a six bucks in my account and I have a wrench. Yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? Take it all. Most people start in a business, don’t have copious amounts of money. Now, if you have a ton of money when you’re starting a business, do this first, but most people don’t. Gotcha. This is so good. Thank you so much for breaking that down, explaining why you don’t need to go online and you need an actual attorney who is representing and working with you. We have some trainings that can help our thrivers with learning how to form an LLC. We also have other legal training documents, a template for an operating agreement. We’ll put all the links up on the screen. Clay, thank you so much for breaking down this section of your awesome business coaching book that tells us about forming an LLC. I like to break it down like Robert. I’m breaking down like Robert Downey Jr. Yeah. Do you have the Ironman suit? I don’t, I don’t, but that’s kind of what I think being an entrepreneur is. You just try not to break down, put the Ironman suit on. Put it on, put it on. There it is. Put it on. Till next time, Drivers, thanks for joining. Drivers, Guten Tag, hello there. So good to see you. Josh Merl here with the world’s best business coach. And apparently the world’s, not the world’s best linguist. What is Guten Tag? Guten Tag, Guten Tag, F-Roll line. Like hello. In German? Yeah. Okay, I wasn’t sure if that was referring to a new NBA draft pick from Germany or if that was a… George Guttentag. Six foot seven, forward, he’s great. Clay, we’re on 4.1.3 here, and we’re taking a break here. We’ve started our business, we’ve given birth here, and now I have a question for you. Do we need a business plan at the beginning of our entrepreneurial journey. Now I’m going to, it’s not appropriate to probably make you write things down, but I’d ask the thrivers to write things down. This is kind of how you look at it, okay? When you’re starting a business, you just have these four basic, very simple parts. Don’t get stressed, don’t be overwhelmed. You should write it down. If you want to call it a business plan, I’m not going to argue with you, but you need to write it down. Here it is. Step one, marketing. How are you going to get customers? How are you going to get in front of your ideal and likely buyers? Who is your market? How do you get in front of your ideal and likely buyers? Two, if you are marketing, so you make the ads or you make the marketing pieces, how do you sell things? A lot of people can be great at marketing, getting attention, but they never sell anything. My video went viral. Oh, really? Did you make any money off it? No. No. So marketing is one thing. A lot of people confuse that, I’m sure. And you’re a creative guy, so a lot of times you make a video that has 4,000 views, it feels good, but then did we make any, sell anything? So there’s marketing, then there’s sales, right? Then the third is can you deliver on it? Can you deliver? Can you actually make the product? A lot of people can. Have you met a web guy before who’s ever, have you ever met a guy, I’m not saying that you know these kind of people, but these kind of nefarious people who they make, they can sell you on the concept of making a website for your business and then as soon as they get your money they disappear? Yes. Or the contractor who’s like, I’m sorry I’m going through some stuff. Oh yeah. You ever had that? All the time. Okay, so one is marketing, two is sales, three is can you deliver, and the fourth is accounting. You know, how much money are you going to have left? Can you account for it? How much money do you have left? Yes. That’s really all you need to focus on at first. People are like, well what about PR and HR? Homie, you don’t need to hire anybody if you can’t sell anything. What about PR? What about LL? What about legal? No, no. So the business plan, I would write down your plan right now, this is one, two, three, four, is how do you market your product? How do you sell a product? How will you go out there and deliver the product and how will you account for it? And if you can do that, that’s as big as a plan I would have. That’s like a one sheet of paper. That’s maybe each paragraph is probably a hundred words, a maximum of 400 words. But don’t go out there and make a 28-page dissertation and someone says, you talked about pitch decks and business plans and you’re just not being honest. Well, if you’re going to raise like $3 million of venture capital, that’s a different thing. But I’m talking about 9 out of 10 real talk businesses. You need to write it down because you’re going to pivot all the time, bro. You’re going to say, I’m not giving you an example, one that just right now is just hot in my mind. Working with this guy, and he is an attorney, and he is convinced that you and I, we want a legal membership. So he’s got this epiphany, listen, people don’t want big bills, they want, I said, okay, who are your ideal and likely buyers? He says, everyone. I go, being real, would you want this? So this is like, it’s like Netflix, but for legal. Yeah. No. Okay, all right. But his market, I said, who are they? He goes, everybody. I said, homie. So he went out there and tried to market, and he found out the only people who wanted it are who? Business owners. Yeah. And I go, great, so business owners at your market. Have you sold one? Well, Cindy said she would buy one if I had the business, she would buy it. Why don’t you go ahead and get her credit card, let’s see how real it is. He goes, I can’t take her credit card, I can’t even deliver. I said, well, then why don’t you figure out how to deliver? So he’s like, good point. So he comes back, so I said, what would you, so he makes the scripts and all that, and he says, what I’ll do, he’s an attorney, I’ll answer her phone unlimited times, any legal questions she has, for a thousand a month. And I go, well, as a business owner, for me, that’s much less than I spend on legal bills per month. So I’m going, you know, okay, we’ll see. She said she would pay. Okay, great. We’ll go get her credit card. So it goes over to her. Hey, Cindy, you want to go and buy? And she says, it’s too much. I thought you said you would buy for a thousand. Well, if it was 450, I’d do it. Yeah. Okay, fine. So he gets the credit card for 450. He’s got one customer. Then on accounting side, his phone is ringing all the freaking time. She’s like I have a question page two of my LLC Not really my I thought when I’ll see technically it’s what I’m thinking about but on page two the one that’s in my mind I have an employee do you have an employee? Well, I have one that I was thinking about hiring and I don’t know I mean, I was wondering to know if I wanted to hire someone what is the way and she wearing him out? Yeah, so we had to go back and refine the product and say, okay, this is how it’s going to work. I will do up to 30 minutes of coaching calls a week with you, and if you’re being sued, I will represent you. And that kind of thing. Anyway, we refined the package. It’s about $700 a month-ish. It’s unlimited representation. It includes X number of calls per month, and he sold, I want to say, maybe 200 memberships. Doing very well financially now, doing really well. But what would be the point of having this massive plan that you just keep adjusting every day? So in my mind, no, you don’t need a business plan. You know, what you need is you need those four points. Again, how are you gonna market? How are you gonna market? How are you gonna sell? What are you gonna deliver? And then how will you account for it? And that’s about as deep as you need to get. Right. Because I mean, we’re trying to impress somebody with this thing, what do we do? I’ll do it. I know you’re done. Your professor told you to make one. And why is your here you go. And why is your professor? Well, first off, why do you have a professor? Here we go. Here it is. I’ll tell you. I’m your professor. Yeah, he is your professor because he can’t get a job as an entrepreneur. Oh, so if he was really good being an entrepreneur, I mean as an entrepreneur you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions. Why if you’re so good as being an entrepreneur, why are you on the campus making $38,000 a year? He’s giving back, you know, right? I bet you that one out of 20 of them are. Right. I bet you there’s a guy who’s made a lot of money, a lady who’s made a lot of money, they want to help, they want to give back, and that’s great. But as a general rule, they’re like, well, what you want to do is you want to make a 22-page business plan, and you want to follow the rules that are set up. Page 47, no. We’re talking about real life here. Define how you’re going to market, define how you’re going to sell, define how you’re going to deliver, and then you’re accounting, and boom, it’s all one sheet of paper, one, two, three, four. Because it’s all changing. It’s changing, especially in the beginning. You’re finding out what works, how it works, and this stack of papers over here that says what it’s supposed to go like, it’s not gonna go to plan. How long have you been married? Ooh, four years. Okay, so four years. Yeah. When you decided to get married, what was the first time where you realized, hey, and you have a great marriage, a great lady, but what was the first time where you realized, hey, this is not what I thought it was. Or it’s a little different. It’s a little different. Just a little different. When was the first time where you went, this is not something I expected? You’re putting me on the spot here. Well, I’m going to give you one. I’m going to give you my deep, dark confession. Yeah, your confession is better than mine. So here’s mine. I go to put my stuff up in the cupboard, and I discover that everything is not linear. Okay. In my world, everything labels out Perfect like a retail store or I am angry and I realized Most people don’t do that. Yeah, I wake up like at 3 a.m. Like I’m like a bat. I’m up all night like you’re there, you know Yeah, and I wake up at 3 a.m Like a bat hanging upside down in my cave or something and I realized my wife’s like can you just turn off the lights? And I’m going I can’t I’m getting up. I’m turning off the lights. I got my music playing. She’s like, baby, it’s hard to sleep with John Legend playing loud at 3am in the apartment. And I realized real quick, that’s different than what I thought it was, right? I’ve got something. This is important for me. When you use the microwave, if it doesn’t run all the way down, you stop at like 17 seconds, you’ve got to hit reset on that thing. You can’t just let it sit there for 17 minutes. I can’t see that number there. Like, honey, this has got to change. This is a huge issue. This is what’s keeping America. It’s a fork in the road. This is what you talk about divisiveness. This is what’s dividing America. But all I’m saying is when you’re married, if you went in, you wrote down all these rules, you’re going to change. So quit trying to make a freaking… The whole point of putting it down and writing it down is so that you have a vision and you’re staying clear to your goals. So that’s why you sign a marriage license. And here’s the marriage, here’s the one piece of paper we’ve signed, right? I’m going to be with you basically forever. I’ve been committed. You get in front of a group of people who know you and you’re like, till death do we part, you know? Good times, bad times, whatever. But you’re not going to go, and just so we’re clear, while we have Julie Beloved, while we’re gathered here today, Clay Clark and Vanessa Clark, I remember Vanessa more, they’ve chosen to come together as man and woman, leave the families. But really we need to clarify some things. There’s 147 points, it’s 22 pages we’re going to cover. The first is, in the event that he does wake up pre-9am, what is the situation, what will define, how will this be addressed? And now we need to talk about the microwave. In the event that the microwave is used with seconds left, we will agree, you don’t sit there and do all that because it’s too dynamic. Yeah, which that might be good for some couples to actually do that beforehand. Yeah, absolutely. Well, currently, 65-55% of the couple things are not working out. Right. So maybe they just need to watch more Thrive 15 videos. Is that the same in the business world? Are 65-55% of the business is not working out? 80%. 80%? According to the SBA, it’s called the Office of Advocacy, and to make it easier for our program observers to research this, Forbes has some great articles on this. We’ll put them up on the screen. But basically, 8 out of 10 businesses don’t make it. And so rather than wasting all your time forming LLCs and running around making these ridiculous business plans, I know people who’ve spent six months working on a business plan. No, go out there and get 15 customers, just 15 closed deals by, one, defining your market trying to sell it three making sure you figure out how can I deliver and for doing that accounting boom absolute that simple can I hit my bomb button do it I see it I feel like if I just let me I don’t hype it enough let me do one more time okay oh see that right there boom bomb and I think that’s I think that’s really good I think and here’s the thing is we have in-depth lessons on how to do your business plan yeah later on yep but this very beginning stage get those four things and we can we can make it better as we go it’s more important that you learn to sell something you market you sell you learn to deliver the service you do accounting and then it’s more important that you listen to the beer barrel polka with some of your dearest friends good then it is for you to waste your time writing a business plan. It’d be better for you to listen to this on repeat for 12 hours every day than it would be to spend… I mean, people say, Josh, are you using your time wisely? Shouldn’t you be writing a business plan? You’re like, no, actually, this is actually more important. Yeah. You know what I mean? You have all your good German friends over, talking about your Guten tag. Yeah. That’s why I think we should end. Yeah, you know what I mean? I agree. Business plan? Maybe. Maybe. Guten tag. JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Roseland, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award-winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Hmm, well, they’re gonna have to come and find out cuz I don’t know Well, I’m just saying tip team is gonna 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 gonna be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslan also this is the first of thrive time show event that we’ve had where we’re gonna have a man who has built a $100 million 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 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 $100 million 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, Russell, Tulsa, Russell, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th JT Why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taunton has to say? Oh cuz he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome He’s 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 got to come learn from him. Also let me tell you this folks I don’t get this wrong because I get it wrong someone’s gonna say you screwed that up buddy so Michael Levine this is Michael Levine he’s gonna be coming he said 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 bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes! Colton Dixon’s in the house. So if you like Top 40 Christian music, Colton Dixon’s 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. 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 am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27 and 28. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, 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? You. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company it’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s Tebow time right here in Tulsa, Russia get those tickets today at thrive timeshow.com again that’s thrive timeshow.com dot 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 Best Sellers. 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 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, Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show business workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life changing. Get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com. James, what website is that? ThriveTimeShow.com James, one more time for the four enthusiasts. ThriveTimeShow.com Shining, everything rising tonight. Even if I got three strikes, I’ma go for it. This moment, we own it. I’m not to be played with because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment we own it. Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re 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. 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. I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big, get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. And I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We 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 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 Kiyosaki, The Rich Dad 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. The 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. As a Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man and there’s so many ways we could take this thing but I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say Well I have to, 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. He said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said, no. 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. I went from being an employee to self-employed, to the business owner, to the investor. 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, but I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. 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 King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using, and I haven’t been using for the last nine years So what they’re teaching here is actually way Better than what I got at business school, and I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school The linear workflow the linear workflow for us and getting everything out on paper and documented is really important Like we have workflows that are kind of all over the place to the 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, and I’m trying 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. The biggest takeaways are you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business, whether it’s marketing, 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 roadmap out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference 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. They’re stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else is going to do it for you. I can see the marketing working, and 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 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 good. 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. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time Workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere of today’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business, bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned, 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. Everybody. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.