Clay Clark | Public Relations | Why PR Is What You Pray for & Advertising Is What You Pay for w/ World’s Most Successful Public Relations Experts: Matthew Faraci (PR Consultant for The Chosen, Tuttle Twins, Etc.) + Michael Levine Levine

Audio Transcription

Today we are joined by Matthew Farici, the founder of the InspireBuzz public relations PR firm. And on today’s show, he shares why people want to align with brands that align with them. What public relations actually is. How effective public relations can actually help to grow your business, why he believes that public relations is a lot like surfing, how public relations can help improve your brand and why his business was created to make good popular. Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ve ever wanted to know about public relations and its potential impact on your business’s bottom line, then this is the show for you. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. Started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. 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. Cutting dictions on the hooks, operating the books. Please bring in some wisdom and the good look as a father of five. That’s what I’m a dive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s me and see up on your radio and now three two one Yes, yes, yes And yes Thrive Nation on today’s show in a world where most people will do anything for the almighty dollar, today’s guest makes me want to holler, because he is what I would describe as the real definition of a baller. Today’s guest, Matthew Faraci, he actually wants to make good popular. Matthew Faraci, welcome onto the Thrive Time Show. How in the heck are you doing, my friend? Well, now I’m fantastic because I’m here. So how could I complain? Can you explain to listeners, because many of our listeners are going to go to inspire.buzz.com right now, or actually just inspire.buzz. It’s actually a new kind of extension,.buzz, believe it or not. When you go to inspire.buzz, if you’re going there right now, you’re going to see a website that is a laser show of… How would you describe this? How would you describe what we’re looking at here? I describe it, Clay, as if Monty Python went into the web design business. That is fair. That is a fair assessment. Yeah. How does that sound? You know, look, when I designed it, usually, you don’t actually, people say, oh, check out my website. But these days, you don’t really check out websites except to get basic information. Although I should say, your website is awesome, by the way. Love the big epic picture when you get on there. But most websites, you know, you’re just going there to look for info, not to have an experience. And I just thought, you know what, look, I’m gonna make it as wacky and crazy as possible. I’m gonna push the designer to the limits. And if people don’t like it, then they’re not the right people for me to work with. And if they like it, then they are. So it’s like, you know, it sorts itself out. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense, because I think in a lot of ways you and I are very similar at the core. Yeah. And I think you run the same frequency. So, you are an innovator in the world of public relations, and you’re the founder of InspireBuzz. It’s a marketing and media strategy agency that exists to make good popular. Could you break down what that means, and also explain what public relations even is? Yeah, okay, that’s great. So first of all, I really mean that we live in a society today that unfortunately all too often, especially our media and social media culture, all too often advocates vice over virtue, right? And so I started to think, well, what really started me was many years ago, I heard a guy give a talk, and he talked about how politics was downstream from culture, and at the time I was in politics, we’ll get into that. And when he said that, that thought arrested me because I thought, well, how are we ever going to fix our politics if our culture is broken? And so at that moment I just decided I wanted to be part of the solution. And so that’s kind of what got me started on this crazy trade. So we literally work with brands, technology, entertainment projects, other people who are, and it sounds trite almost, but they are doing good things and they are trying to make the world a better place because that’s my passion. And you can’t be passionate about money, you have to be passionate about what you do and then the money comes in behind it, right? The money comes in to support it. Your second question, Clay, was, I’m trying to remember your second question. Yeah, yeah, I’m sorry to do two-part questions. I’m a horrible, horrible host. As a horrible host, one of the things you do as a horrible host is you want to paint your guests into a corner by asking them multiple-part questions. And I apologize, I just was thinking, just kind of out loud, a lot of people don’t know what PR means. They don’t know what the P stands for. They don’t know what the R stands for. They don’t know what public relations is all about. What does public relations do? What do you do? Well, so I use the term PR only because that’s what people use, but I personally hate it. I prefer the term, you know, relationship marketing. I’ve been throwing out some other terms there, but this is one thing. But traditionally what it means is it was birthed at a time, think about the word social media, before there was social media there was just media. So if you wanted to get your message out to the world, the media was your only way to do it. Now you have multiple. We’re on one right now, right? But I’ll give you a very specific example. If you think of somebody like Denzel Washington, who is incredibly well known, but he’s very much a creature of sort of that other era of Using the media to get out his message Right these days like you need to do both So in his case, he’s very strong in the former and probably not as strong on the social media game, right and then you have Influencers and creators a lot of them who might know they’re really strong on their social game, but they still need the credibility of being covered by the media, if you will, the traditional, we could call it the traditional media, but again, these terms, they get all messy because the traditional media is not really traditional, but that’s a whole other conversation. But you use this stuff to get your message out to the world. And that’s, I think that’s probably the best way to describe it. I want to go a little off-roading here with you, just for a second. I love it. I love it. Let’s go. You’ve worked with some big clients, and I know you’re not going to sit there name-dropping and brag unless I kind of prompt you to do it. I brought two guests on the show here. Corey Minter is the founder of Trinity Employment. It’s a staffing company for professionals, like hospitals. If you need a professional, that’s who you’re going to go to, Trinity Employment. Then we have Josh with Living Water Irrigation. These are both Christian business owners. I want to ask you a couple of questions, and I know they have questions for you as well. What are some of the big clients that you have worked with, maybe the names that some of our listeners would know? Well, I’ve worked with a streaming company out of Utah called VidAngel. And VidAngel came up with a fantastic idea which had actually had several iterations before them. In other words, other companies had tried and I can tell you the whole story. But basically what they allow you to do, what they allow parents to do, is to take content, say Game of Thrones, I’ll give you an extreme example, and you can go through and actually filter the various things that you don’t want your kids to see. The better example are pieces of content where, excuse me, Clay, where there’s certain content where, and I’m trying to think of a good, oh, I know, The Martian was a great example with Matt Damon. It’s one of those movies where I almost would let my kids watch it but it’s just a couple things, some language, some nudity, some other things where it just I couldn’t let them watch it. So VidAngel created the technology to allow you to remove and filter the things that you as a parent object to. So again they fit that sort of rubric of they’re making the world a better place by making more content family friendly, right? So they’re a wonderful example of the kind of client that we love to work with. And then what kinds of work would you do for that kind of client? I mean, to get them more exposure, what would you do? Well, okay, so the whole, every single client that I work with, and this is one of the things, Clay, that is very important, I think, for your two guests to understand. I was trained in political strategy, so that’s where I came out of and that’s not that dissimilar from the training that I had over the years from some incredible mentors to what people learn in the military. And the idea is that you really, and so if you don’t come from this, this background, it’s very hard to see PR this way. Even I’ve found people that have business training, business training doesn’t train you for this. So I’ve often met people in a business setting who are PR people for companies and they’ve never had this training. And so for them, they go, wow, this is amazing. But the idea is to create a strategy. So you look at where am I right now? Where is the narrative right now in the public space? Where is it going? Where do I want it to go? And how do I get there? So these are some very key questions. And then you write, you create a very, very comprehensive strategy to do that. And then you discipline yourself over and over and over and over again, every day to work towards that. I usually do this in 90-day increments because I believe that you can’t really think beyond 90 days effectively. So any person that’s listening that would be like, you know, from a political background, they would just say, oh, yeah, this stuff’s obvious. Because if you look, candidates, right, you’ve even heard this term used on Fox News and CNN and other places, candidates are always, you hear this term about them being on message, right? It’s very important for them to be on message. So they’re familiar with this discipline, and that’s what you see in the political space, is that really, really successful candidates are extremely disciplined. And so it’s operating on strategy, and it’s having the patience to see that strategy through. So a lot of people, they want to be famous in the next 15 minutes, and that’s the problem with 15 minutes of fame, is that’s all you get, and then you go away. Our goal is to create long-term, to create long-term what I call ubiquity, so that you are the go-to person on, you know, you mentioned one client does irrigation, right? So off the bat, I would say, okay, my goal for you is, we want you to own that conversation completely, and that’s the goal. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. And I want to go a little deeper as well, if you’ll let me. Because I want to talk about Mitt Romney. I want to stay on brand. I want to talk about Mitt Romney. I love Mitt Romney. I love people who have strong values. And if Mitt Romney was looking for a job, I would hire Mitt Romney, because I love hiring Mormons. I love hiring Mormons. I’ve never had a Mormon ever call in late to work, ever. Not one minute late, ever, ever. And I’ve had dozens of them work for me. Never had a sick day either. They don’t drink caffeine as a general rule if they’re practicing. They don’t have a lot of extramarital issues going on. It’s just great. It’s a great thing. Can you tell us about working with Mitt Romney’s political campaign? And if you can’t, I get it. Or maybe just tell us about some of the political work you’ve done. I just wanted to say I also share your opinion of people in the LDS community. I think that they get a bad rap sometimes and they’re excellent people. I mean I think that’s the word I would use is that common thread of excellence, honesty, integrity. One of the few times where you can actually have a handshake deal and people will do what they say they will do. I feel the same way you did. My role was not strictly – actually, I would like to tell your listeners a story about Mitt Romney that speaks to his character, if you would. One day I’m at work. I was working at a place called the U.S. Council on Competitiveness, which is a wonderful organization that’s still around and their goal is to keep the US competitive versus other countries in the world from a business standpoint. In fact, Clay, I think a future interview for you. I saw the phone ring and it said Ann Romney and I don’t know why, I just didn’t connect. I pick up the phone and I hear, hi man, it’s Mitt Romney. I thought it was a prank, right? So, I just, I don’t know, he caught me in the wrong part of the day. So I said, hello, governor, how are you? Just in the off chance that it was him and it actually was him. So, yeah, thank you, thank you. So anyway, he was looking for some research that we had done on some international competitiveness issues. And I spent a day or two going through this research with him. This was for his book that he was writing, No Apology. And, you know, that was kind of it. I got him the piece of data he needed, and I saw him a little bit later, and he was extremely thankful and gracious and everything you would expect Mitt Romney to be. And, you know, that’s the end of it. That’s all I thought. So, I get a call from the New York Times a couple months later, because I believe when he called he was he was running for president, but he wasn’t the candidate, right? He was it was still during the primaries. Yeah. And I get a call from the New York Times and they want to know what it’s like to work with Mitt Romney. And I said, well, what exactly are you referring to and how did you get my name? And they said, well, he credited you in his book. And I said, What? So I went, I went, I looked in the back of the book, because he hadn’t sent yet sent me a copy. And just for helping him for two days, he’d written, he’d credited me in the back of his book. And what that speaks to is the character of Mitt Romney, the fact that he cared enough, you know, with somebody that he just worked for two days on his book, to make a little note in the back and say, hey, I want to acknowledge this person. To me, that spoke volumes to his character. Now I want to get into the weeds, the details. Let’s work off the assumption. Can I tell you a true story that you and very few other people know? Are you prepared? Of course. Breaking news. Go, go. Recently, I signed an agreement to be represented by Foundry Media. And if you’re in front of a computer, you can look them up. Foundry Media, and they represent Elon Musk’s book that he did with Ashley Vance, the subtle art of not giving an F, Chris Kyle, American Sniper, Stan Lee’s new stuff. And they’re representing me on a book project that is called The Mastermind Manuscript. So think like Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich 2020, where we have the world’s top branding expert, teaching branding, let’s say Michael Levine. The world’s top restaurant, Wolfgang Puck, teaching about how to run a restaurant. The world’s top leadership expert, John Maxwell, teaching leadership. So I’ve got all these people in a book now. This is a true story. They’re all in the book. I’ve got releases from them all. So it’s all going to be coming out here soon. If I were to hire you to help me do public relations, what does that look like? What does it cost? What are the steps? Talk to me about this, because I like what you do. One of the things that I’m going to use some boring words, and I’m going to try to… I’m thinking of that famous scene from Robin Hood, Men in Tights, where the sheriff of Rottingham tells King Richard the bad news in a good way, and he laughs, and he says, Robin’s trying to kill you. I’m going to use some very boring words and try to make them sound exciting. So one thing that’s very important is process and I think anybody that’s talking to an agency they should ask about process. Why? Because the question is this, you can have all the great ideas all day long and let me tell you, we have some great, incredible creative ideas that we’ve had, not because of us, but because the thing called Divine Providence exists, and that’s what we believe. But there’s the idea, and then there’s the execution. So at a very basic level, what I would do is we would do a very deep dive into your book and to you and to everything, and just figure out, make sure that we know everything there is to know. That’s number one. Then number two, we’d come to you with a strategic recommendation. We’d say, based on your book, based on what we see in the marketplace, and let me pause on the marketplace thing for a second. Good PR is like surfing. And this is like all you gotta remember. You’re looking out there at the waves, and you’re trying to see which wave you can get on and ride home. Sometimes you are the wave, and that’s when you really know that you have become successful, is when you are the story. That’s down the line when you become so big. You mentioned Elon Musk. If Elon Musk eats a Snickers bar, now that’s a story. But Elon Musk had to claw his way up there to become the story. So what you’re looking for is you’re looking for other stories that, so for example, one meta-narrative that’s taking place right now, as you know, in the corporate culture, Wall Street Journal led off the year with this story, was the lack of trust. Right? Facebook, Boeing, Volkswagen, we could go on forever. The polling research shows that people have less trust in corporate America and frankly in other institutions than they almost ever have. So you look at that and you say, well, is that a place where the leadership could come into the conversation where you talk about how can you use proper leadership to restore trust? I’m just shooting as an example. But what you’re trying to do is say, Clay, you fit into this larger narrative. We think you fit into this larger narrative and so and so we’re gonna let we’re gonna go for that angle and This is this is kind of our Thrust. Okay. So then you you come up with a strategy you guys approve it It’s collaborative and then the final phase is we go and we go out and one of the things that happens When you’re testing, let’s say a pitch which you know, you’re you’re you’re it’s almost like sales, except instead of selling a product, you’re selling a person and a story, is then you go out there and you find out how is the media reacting to what you’re saying. I’ve gotten to the point after doing this for so long that typically my instincts are usually almost mostly correct, but still I have to tweak and pivot and go, okay, maybe that wasn’t quite right. Maybe we’ve got to adjust this a little bit. Who are you pitching to? Who do you pitch to? Are you pitching to journalists, reporters? Are you, is it fast pitch, slow pitch? How are you pitching? Okay, so again, this is why in my little booklet that you can download on our website, I talk about the new way to succeed is the old way to succeed, is that the idea is we look at PR as anybody with an audience. So this could be an established reporter like the Wall Street Journal. This could be a mom influencer who has a really big audience around homeschooling or some other topic that she’s very important with. And what we really work hard to do, and Gary V talks about this a lot, but I so believe in this, is to provide value. So it’s not just, hey, look at me, we’re cool, cover our story. It’s to really build relationships with people, get to know what their priorities are, understand what value looks like to them, and provide value. So just as an example, I have a number of folks that I work with that I call with no agenda. It’s just to say, how you doing? What’s going on? Why? Because I wanna know them. I wanna know their kids. I wanna know what they’re really about as people because I happen to like people. And it’s a people kind of an industry. And so it takes that innate sense of knowing and understanding and really celebrating and appreciating people and when you do that you can figure out where the value comes from on both ends and come up with something that works. And I say that Clay because in the modern environment where you have again everything from the Wall Street Journal to somebody with a big Instagram channel, you have to really really understand how to be nimble to understand these different influencers, if you will, call them influencer channels, and how to collaborate with them. I 100% agree, and for anybody out there who’s not experienced public relations or worked with it, I want to give you some Google searches you can do to prove that I have messed with this and I know what I’m talking about. So, if you would Google search everybody, Google search Clay Clark, that’s my name, C-L-A-Y, C-L-A-R-K, and the phrase Tulsa World, that’s our local major newspaper, or Clay Clark Kanbar, K-A-N-B-A-R. Maurice Kanbar is the inventor of Sky Vodka, who bought one-third of downtown Tulsa, who hired me to help him market his unleased real estate, his unleased commercial real estate. When you Google search that, or you can Google search, Tulsa man buys eight billboards to profess love for his wife. Tulsa man buys eight billboards. There you can see the story about another guest we have on today’s show, Josh with Living Water Irrigation. And Josh was- Look, if that was Josh, I would just like to get off the show right now because he’s making us all look bad. Okay, how am I supposed to go back to my wife and respond to the man that bought eight billboards? So I guess you saw the story then, Matthew. How do you compete with that? How does somebody compete with that? If you’re embarrassing us. Well, I think it turned out really well for me, and hopefully it encouraged, it hopefully encouraged a message of positivity for others out there as well. I think it was a great idea that Clay came up with. We were able to execute and it obviously did a great PR thing for us. But you were featured on the Kelly Clarkson show. Yes sir. That’s a mega point. Yep. You were featured on… Good Morning America. Good Morning America. Mega point. You were featured on… Washington Post. Washington Post. People Magazine. People Magazine. Channel… Channel 8. Channel 8, Tulsa. Fox News. Fox 23, Tulsa. The Thrive Time Show. The Thrive Time Show. This just did the most humble show in America. So you’ve had some success with that. Yes sir. Now you’re familiar with PR. Yes sir. And then Corey Mentor, if you Google search Corey Mentor, M-I-N-T-E-R, Corey, C-O-R-Y, Mentor, M-I-N-T-E-R, Corey Mentor, Tulsa. What you’re gonna find is that Corey has been featured on what, Channel 8. You’ve been in Fox, I believe, 23. Corey, where all have you been featured? I write for the Tulsa World on occasion. So you all of us are familiar with this conversation. So I’m going to start with you, Josh. Yes. What question would you have for Matthew? And then I’m going to let Corey ask a question there. Hey, Matthew, thank you so much for taking the time with us. First of all, I love your message, Make Good Popular. I absolutely love that. I guess for me personally, or to be kind of selfish here, you mentioned earlier about kind of controlling the conversation as far as irrigation is concerned. Or for our other listeners out there, what’s something on a local, actionable level that we could do to control that conversation? Well, tell me which conversation you’re talking about. Can you give me an example? Let’s say he has Tulsa, it’s called Living Water Irrigation. They do sprinkler systems. And I think what you’re saying is you might want to be the go-to guy in a conversation related to sprinkler systems. Am I correct? Absolutely. Is that where I’m? In our market, yes, sir. OK. Does that make sense, Matthew? Yes. So there’s two routes you can go, the conventional route, which I find boring. So I’m just going to say boring. And Clay, you should play some sound effect like wah, wah, wah. I’ve got that for you. Okay. Yes. Thank you. But what I’m always asking is, but what can you do to have an authentic, heartfelt conversation with people about what you do? And the other thing I would say is, becoming an expert or an authority on a particular topic and that topic, like in the case of irrigation, right? Or you said sprinkler systems, I’m sorry. And the topic, okay, is connected to ultimately what you do. So let’s say, for example, that there’s a national story about water shortages. And this, you know, remember here in California that was a thing some time ago. So again, I’m just riffing here, okay? So often we need to be more thoughtful about this, but just to shoot from the hip here, I’d say, okay, so why don’t we slowly position you as an expert because of your irrigation, or your sprinkler, sorry, keep going, because of the sprinkler expertise, you understand these different topics about water more than other people do, just like because of Ryan’s expertise growing up in a family where he had to have professional security, he instinctively understood these security issues, right? Then we get you into news stories that are about these other topics, like let’s say the drought that’s taking place, and then people see you. So let me give you a real tangible example of this that happened to me, which is somebody – you guys are familiar with the company Warby Parker? Yeah. Okay. So a friend of mine told me, oh, you should check them out. Another friend of mine told me, oh, you should check them out. I went to their store on Sunset Boulevard. I walked in, I didn’t do anything. Then I read an article in Forbes and they talked about how Warby Parker was basically transforming the eyeglass industry. They were kind of like the Apple computer of the eyeglass industry. And they talked about all these innovative things that they were doing in the vision space, which I’m very interested in. And so even though I knew that a really great PR person had placed that story, I was like, yeah, I was like, that’s so cool. And I ordered some glasses just because I was inspired by the fact that they’re more than just an eyeglass company, they’re an innovator and they’re telling that story. That’s what you want to do is you want to find a way to take what looks like a boring topic and make it interesting and share with people your personal passions that they’ll connect with. Let me ask you this here. I know Corey Minter has some questions for you, so I’m going to go to Corey in just a second with TrinityEmployment.com. My question for you would be this, and I know our listeners are asking, what does it cost? What, what? Because here’s the deal, I’ve hired, I’m just throwing it out there, Matthew, you just throw it back. I’ll throw it out, you throw it back. I hired a PR firm back in the day, and they were good. They were good. Oh, they were expensive, right? Expensive, good, what’s the, you know, and so it’s, I was probably 20 years old, and I hired a company, and I got a few good wins. I got featured in the Tulsa World, paid about eight grand for that somehow to shape the narrative. But I got Boeing, I booked Boeing Airlines for their holiday party from that deal. I booked Quick Trip, convenience stores. I got Warren Caterpillar. So I probably brought in $4,000, probably spent $8,000. And then that led to other events and that kind of thing. And then I hired another firm when I was 25, and they were expensive. They were really expensive. They were very expensive. It was like a restaurant where you don’t ask the price kind of thing, but they were like that with the PR, where you mention the price. If you have to ask, Mr. Clay, we’re sorry, but you’re not for us. Exactly! Every time I would ask, I would get this like, well, it’s different because we’re shaping the narrative. And they didn’t talk like that, but I felt they were talking like that. And I got nothing. I got nothing. I didn’t get a single hit, not a win, nothing. It was bad. So the third time around, I hired myself, and I went out there and did certain things, and it worked. But I also see tremendous value in hiring a good firm. How much do you charge? Well, Clay, first of all, you’re a rare breed, because I most often tell people, dear God, don’t do your own PR. Part of that is just because there is a, but you’re you. So you’re in it, Clay is in a different category. Mostly because there are these unspoken rules in this business about like, you can’t pitch yourself but somebody else can pitch you. It’s kind of a thing. I would just, I’d give some very specific advice to, I wanna be super specific about this for people. Number one, number one, just like a lawyer, like we actually operate on a model much like a Deloitte, where we’re very transparent with our clients about, this is what you gave us, and this is exactly what we did with our time, and these are the results. These are the people we talk to, so that if we’re not successful, you see how hard we worked, although thank God, we’re always successful. And if we are successful, you see how hard we worked, but we believe in transparency, like here’s who we talked to, here’s who we pitched, here’s the results. And we’re always showing measurable, like here’s exactly what we did, because transparency is what you should expect from an agency. Why? Because why not, right? So if they tell you, hey, we’re working on it, we’ll get to it. Hey, wait real quick. I have a rude, rude, rude host here. No PR firms, I mean this, very, very few PR firms, almost no PR firms do what you just said. They do not show who they’re pitching to. They talk in circles. So that’s, I’ll give you one mega point. I know, it drives me nuts. It drives me nuts. I’ll give you one, you have one mega point so far. Continue. Yeah. So I think that’s important. Now, the other thing is, you don’t want, I have a personal bias against the big guys because they’re big, dumb, and slow. Okay, so they’re very, you know, I worked in DC and some of the big firms in DC will charge you like tons of money just to create a press release or just to do very little things. Now, if you’re a big Fortune 500 company, and which is a lot of their clients, you probably don’t care about those kinds of budgets. But if you’re an entrepreneur or a startup, you care very much about those kinds of budgets, right? So I always tell people you’re better off to work with a boutique firm that has a specific niche, and that’s what they do. So like we said, we’re going to specialize in this very specific vertical that we’re in, and when other people come along and say, hey, you guys are good. I’m like, let me refer you out to somebody else that does that because that’s not what I want to do. That’s not my focus and that’s not where I want to be. Your focus is helping brands that make good popular, right? You focus on clean, right of center, morally solid, constitutional, kind of biblical-based companies, am I correct? Yeah, I mean, we want people that are going out there and trying to, like we work with, you know, you spoke to them the other day, Clay, Harmon Brothers, right? Yeah. What do they do? They do all these super popular ads, but the thing that nobody notices is they’re all clean and family friendly. So we’re like, hey, you guys are awesome because you are, again, you’re adding, you’re making the culture better, not worse, right? So anyway, the point is that you want people that have a specific vertical that is your vertical and they’re specialized in your vertical. So that’s also super, super important. And then the other thing, and this is the final thing is, look, if some firm is not willing to agree to some goals and metrics and measurables. You know, when I send a proposal to somebody, on the first page we say, this is what this is about, and these are the specific goals that we have. Do you agree with these goals? Because if you don’t agree with these goals, we need to change them. And once we come up to a place where we agree with this goal, these goals, I want you to hold us accountable and ask me in 90 days, did we deliver on the things that we told you we would do? What I’m trying to educate everybody here is just, these are the things you need to look for when working with an agency, and that should give you, those are the signs. If they look at any of those things that I just shot you, and they sort of veer away from them, that’s your warning sign to say, okay, this isn’t the firm that I’m going to work with. What kind of money ballpark are we talking about? $7? $70,000? Well, I’m sorry. Thank you. You left out my last point, which is, though I hate talking specifics with finances, here’s what I would say to people. First of all, if somebody is too inexpensive, you probably don’t want to work with them. For example, if somebody says, for five grand, I’m going to make you famous. Total. I’m sorry. I’m just, I don’t believe that. But they’ll get rich. If somebody tells you 25 grand a month or I walk, I’m like, okay, look, dude, again, depending on what you’re doing, that could be possible. But like, you really got to be doing some world changing work to be at that level, right? So people, but you don’t, you certainly don’t want to hire somebody that says we’re the cheapest or we’re the most economical because that’s a red flag for me, right? Like, oh, that’s not going to work. And then again, a lot of the big firms, they charge a lot for what a boutique firm would charge much less to do. And in the boutique firm, you know, you have actual like people that really get in there and they specialize in their niche doing that kind of work. And so obviously that’s us, but I mean, I’ve always had that bias with, come on, Clay, cross different verticals. I’ve always wanted to, whether it’s a lawyer or whatever, I’ve always wanted to be able to pick up the phone and talk to the principal if I want, you know, I’ve never liked the bait and switch where I think I’m hiring Clay and then I get, you know, Clay’s college intern, and that’s the person really doing all my work. That has happened to me on two different PR firm occasions, where you hire somebody, and you get stuck with the underling. Dr. Zellner and I actually flew all the way out to Chicago to do an interview with a huge publication, and the lackey for the big PR firm, after we got there, said, �Oops, it looks like it wasn’t confirmed. Do you guys want to have lunch while you’re here? And I was, I was so pissed. So I took my anger, I turned my bitterness, I turned it into betterness, and I bought my wife a very expensive salad. I almost killed us all while driving. Dr. Z took the wheel, said, can I drive please? Because I’m a terrible driver, downtown Chicago. And that happened, true story. Clay, I want to ask one more thing too that hasn’t come up in this conversation that should. Have you ever been in a situation where you had, for lack of a better word, kind of a crisis PR situation? A lot of my clients have had crisis PR situations. I have not, personally, but I think it’s because people who don’t share my world views get off of my podcast, because I say such motivational things like, if you don’t share my worldview, get off my podcast. And so I think I don’t have a whole lot of that because I quote Bible verses on the show and that kind of thing. But I could see where if I were like a Fox News personality, I would have a crisis PR situation almost every day. Yeah. So I ask because that’s just another thing that people need to think about. Again, coming from having done 35 political campaigns in my life, you gain both skills, both the outbound getting the message out and managing the incoming, uh-oh, how do we deal with this situation? But it’s something else to think about because as your profile raises, so do the haters. And so, you see this in social media. So the more famous you become, there’s a positive, but there’s nobody that becomes ubiquitous in their vertical and nobody is a hater. In fact, I often tell clients, you don’t matter until you have some haters. True. Right? Because until some people just say, I hate Clay and I hate Clay’s podcast, you’re not having an impact. And so it’s something else to be thinking about in the back of your head because it’s very important because just hoping you don’t run into an incident or a legal thing, that’s not a plan. You have to plan for that with your PR agency and say, are you guys prepared? What are you guys going to do if we run into a problem? Are you prepared to handle that? Some of them may say, that’s not what we do. We would prefer you to our crisis partner, so and so. That’s an honest answer, but it’s a question that every business owner and organization needs to ask because as you guys know there’s these crazy things that happen in the media and people get all ginned up and you know we had a client of ours that got involved in a very, a celebrity had, you guys probably remember this, I won’t get into huge details, but had taken a picture of the president that was, it was inappropriate. And we advised them right away, like, you need, I remember calling the CEO and saying, he had just gotten off a plane. I said, you need to get out there right now and make a very strong statement that says that this is not, this is not the civil discourse that you condone as a company. And to his great credit, he was very strong, very decisive, came out and said, this is not us, this is not our values, this is not what we stand for, regardless of political party, regardless of background, there’s a certain level of respect that we require as a company. And they, to their great credit, people on the left and right came out and said, wow, you know, you guys are great because you did the right thing. And the reason I credit that CEO is because he was willing to act decisively. I’ve worked with other people who weren’t, and then they start getting hammered because the media is rightly asking, where are you on this? How come you’re not responding? Isn’t this a problem? Don’t you object to this? Or if you don’t object to this, tell us why not. And in our modern culture, that can happen within a number of hours. And so it’s something people just need to think about. Corey Minter, founder of TrinityEmployment.com, Trinity Employment Specialists, but the website is TrinityEmployment.com. Sir, what questions would you have for Matthew? Hi, Matthew. I have a quick question because there are so many different platforms and channels that you can put a lot of effort and energy into when it comes to PR. I have a question for the average small business person. When you’re out looking at small businesses, are there certain things that you look at and you’re like, you know, I think it’s really important that they would put efforts in this particular area, in this particular area, and it would be the most important use of their time. What are some ideas that you might have from some of our small business guys out here? Yeah, one of the things for small business folks is, you know, there’s that, and I don’t know who the heck said it, so forgive me, but there’s that great brand statement about all great brands have two things, right? The claim of distinction and proof of performance, right? I was taught that by a friend of mine who’s a brand expert. So think about Nike, just do it. And so for a small business, start thinking about your brand. And this is something we get into too, because again, traditional PR is just telling your story. I work backwards, this is why we call it relationship marketing, and I look at what is your story? How do you tell your story? Are you telling it the right way? Could we tweak this? Could we change that? Because we really need to see, do you have the pieces in place? There’s a lot of people that contact us every day and say, hey, we’d love you to work with us. And I’ll look at their stuff and go, look, you’re not ready. You know, some basic stuff. You don’t have a nice tight bio on your website. You don’t have a place for the media to contact you. It’s not very clear on all your social channels, your branding is confusing. We go through a tune-up to say, do you have a coherent story across all platforms that makes it very easy when the media does come calling to see who you are, what you do, and what you’re about. And so that’s number one. And then as a small business, do you have a person on your team that can deliver the message effectively? And this is really big, okay? Right. When you’re fighting in the beginning to get attention, which is what it is, it’s a clawing, scrapping fight, right? When you’re trying to, Clay, you know what I’m talking about. Like, you gotta hustle, hustle, hustle for every opportunity, right, Clay? And by the way, I’m still there, I’m still there. That’s how I operate, I love that scrappy honey badgerness. Back to you, sir. Yeah, so when you’re doing that hustle, okay, whoever your spokesperson is, they have to be willing to do that hustle. They have to be willing to do those annoying radio interviews at 5.45 a.m. drive time. They have to be, in other words, they have to be willing to hustle and do the work to get in there, and it’s inconvenient. I remember asking a YouTuber friend of mine, I said, so tell me about like when you work, what’s the hours of a YouTuber? And he looks at me like I’m crazy. And he says, YouTube is not a job, it’s a lifestyle, right? I’m always shooting videos, which is unfortunately why some YouTubers actually burn out. But when you are trying to build your media profile, you guys would not believe some of the places I have done interviews. You know, in bathrooms, in the backs of cars, walking around a parking lot, you know, because if somebody, when I was working on different things or when I’ve had clients working on different things, you know, when I tell them, hey, so-and-so called, Wall Street Journal called, and they want to write a story on you, I tell them, you step out of that meeting, you stop what you’re doing, and you make this the priority. And I realize when you’re running a business, you have to have other priorities, okay? So I’m always going to argue, stop everything and spend all your time on PR. But just to be reasonable, it is one of those priorities where when, and this is a mistake I think a lot of small business owners make, because they have so much on their plate. When somebody comes calling, right, and wants to do an interview, if you equivocate and you go, well, I don’t know, maybe next week, I’m going on vacation, whatever, if you do that, they’ll just go talk to somebody else and you’ve lost the opportunity. I once worked with a guy who was really, really fighting hard to be the authority on this particular issue and we got him to the point where he was, everybody was calling and they were asking him for his opinion and then he told me, you know, I’m going to go away for a couple of months and then we’ll come back and I said, oh, that’s a mistake, not because I need you to keep us working with you, I’m just telling you as professional advice, that’s a mistake. Comes back a couple of months later, says, I’m ready to go again. I said, I’m sorry, these two other people have now replaced you because all these media outlets called and asked for you. I didn’t have you, so they went to somebody else, and now they think you vanished. And so all the work that we’ve done to get your profile up to a certain place, we’d have to start from scratch. I want to say this real quick. I want the listeners to know this. This is interesting. When Matt and I talked, Matthew, you can verify this, you said, how come I don’t know you? Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. And this is interesting. Because my wife and I have achieved all of our financial goals, I am no longer willing to travel ever or to pick up the phone for anything urgent. That’s the rules I have. So I’m like the reverse PR guy because I lived in that world for a while and I just don’t want to do it anymore, you know, at all. But wait, but wait, Clay, but wait. This is very important. You did it to get where you are. I did. That’s what I want to share with everybody. I did it, but I’m done with it. But what you just said is 100% correct. I went to Bloomberg to do an interview. I was featured in the New York Times, an interview about Glenn Beck being parallel to Ludacris. I was in the Fast Company. I did all that and I was willing to do it, but my wife and I very clearly knew where we were going. So, on this new book we’re working on, the thing that is interesting is I’m willing to do podcasts because you and I today met. We set a time. We committed to a time. You’re on the show. I’m on the show. We’re on the show together. This is great. I can set a time. I love that about podcasts, but the mainstream media I probably will not make much appearances on because of that but what you just said is a hundred percent. It’s exhausting. It is exhausting and you have to be ready to go and they’ll say Josh we need the Kelly Clarkson show they were nice to you yes sir but they wanted to do a call and they wanted to do the call and it didn’t really matter when you had to install those sprinklers. Not at all it was it was on their schedule. And you’ve got to have your fact sheet ready to go and let me tell you one way to lose kill your credibility is to talk off the cuff without a fact sheet in front of you. Seriously. Because you get kind of nervous, you know, Matt? You get kind of nervous. And so that’s why having a good PR coach like Matt is so important. But I would encourage you, if you’re out there and you feel like you aren’t standing out in a cluttered marketplace, this could be, PR could be a big thing for you. And Michael Levine, my PR consultant back in the day, who’s represented Michael Jackson’s estate and Prince and Nike, he said that branding is analogous to gift wrapping. He said, brand is just a perception. Elon Musk actually said, brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind, but brand is simply a collective impression that some have about a product. How would you describe branding there, Matthew? Look, I totally agree with that. And I think it’s interesting too because our culture is so perception-driven now. I mean, think about this. Facebook is a highlight reel of your life, right? It’s causing psychological problems, right? Because people look up their feed or Instagram, and they’re like, how come Josh’s life is so great? He put 12 billboards up for his wife, and my life is terrible, right? People don’t put up on their Instagram feed what a terrible day they had, right? Right. So you don’t, right? So this just goes to show you that even your, every average person understands instinctively this idea of branding. It’s kind of like when you’re on a job interview, right? You’re presenting the best version of yourself, right? But one of the things I think that the great brands do is they give you a feeling. It’s like why I love Apple so much, and I know it’s in vogue to say you like Apple, but I’ve loved Apple ever since the goodness, ever since I was a kid using the Apple 2C computers because Steve Jobs sold me on this vision. And it even helps you to, you know, you become such a brand fanatic that like, I’m talking to you right now on my AirPods Pro and guess what? I don’t really like the, I love the sound but I don’t love the controls, right? But I’m such a fan of Apple that I’m willing to go, oh, I don’t really love this product, but I’m willing to overlook it. No, you can’t buy anything else. You don’t buy anything else. You can’t buy anything else, because you feel like you’re breaking the trust you have with this big company. Right, right. So I think that brands, the best brands, really do make that emotional connection with you. And I think also in the marketplace today, and this is really important, there’s all kinds of market research on this, and for both of you guys, we call it cause marketing, and I believe in this passionately. People want to align with a brand that aligns with them. And so if you look at HomeSafe and Cove, why is that a good match? Because the people at Cove happen to say, hey, we think people of faith are good people, and we think that people in the faith community don’t always get the recognition that they deserve for the good things they do of all different kinds of faiths, you know. And so what does that do? So people in those different faith communities can say, hey, those guys like me, you know, those guys, I could know those guys. It’s like they always say you vote for the president who you’d most want to have a beer with, right? You vote for the candidate who you’d want to sit down with because it’s this idea, and this is why I think this is so important, guys. Relationships, relationships, relationships, relationships. In a culture where relationships can just exist digitally, I think people either want to experience real relationships, which is why live events like yours, Clay, are so popular, or if they can’t have as much of that as they want, they want to feel like the brands they’re working with actually get it. That’s why we say, make good popular, because guess what? If you’re saying, we do this, this, and this thing, we go, well, that’s not a fit for us. That’s cool. What you’re doing, go do it. We, even as a PR agency, have to feel an emotional connection to what you’re doing. Why? Because when you’re in the middle of a campaign and you’re frustrated, the money isn’t what matters. It’s, I love Clay. I love what Clay stands for. I love what Clay believes in. And that’s what motivates me to keep going. What we’re going to do now is we have time for three rapid-fire questions. I want to ask you about your tiny book that all the listeners can download for free. Josh, you have time for one, one fast… It’s a quick question. It’s a 30-second answer. It’s like a bonus round. It’s like the bonus fry. You’ve been to McDonald’s, you’ve got that extra fry. I did not expect this bonus fry. This is exciting, there’s one bonus fry. Here we go, let me cue up my bonus fry music. Let me get it restarted, here we go, here we go. Let me get that thing, okay. Let me get it all, oh there it is, perfect volume. I’m ready, Josh, what is your bonus fry question? So when you’re saying that relationships are everything, you know I believe that in our business and and what it is so how would you what’s a tangible way to get that personal connection that you would recommend from a PR basis as opposed to Facebook or Instagram or all the social networks? Meet with the meet with the principal of the agency and see if you guys are resonant and compatible and also ask them about their relationships hey where are your relationships? That is everything. Okay, awesome. Corey Minter, Hot and Fresh. It says, I’ve read a little bit about you, and it looks like you have a spiritual side, a faith-based side to who you are. Uh-oh. How do you incorporate that when you’re dealing with business who are not faith-based? How are you alike to those? Oh, taking it to the bottom. Well, you know, this is why we talk about value, like when we’re working with content, we talk about values, because values are universal, okay? And all values are inspired, okay, by, you know, like if you look at many different faith traditions, they have a commonality, and that there are very important virtues and values, okay, that are part of the fabric of what they are. And so, we’ve worked with people that may not care about a particular faith tradition or the other. That’s not really the issue. The issue is, are you trying to advocate for virtue over vice, and if you’re pro-virtue or pro-you. My final question is, I know you have some free stuff for the listeners, and you’ve got a really cool tiny book, where it’s animated, it’s got facts in there, it’s fun to flip through. It’s somewhere between a booklet and a book. It’s free. I think it’s hilarious. I think it’s jaw-dropping. I love that you call it a tiny book, Clay. I’m going to use that word. That’s awesome. It’s like a tiny home. Well, my tiny brain processes. It’s not a free booklet. It’s beyond a booklet. That’s bad branding. It’s beyond a booklet. This thing is. But it’s not a book. I mean, it’s a tiny book. So it’s called How and Why the New Way to Succeed is, in fact, the Old Way to Succeed. What can we find in there if we download it? Where do we get it. So if you go to inspire.buzz, first of all, please make sure there’s a movie marquee at the top. Type your name up in the top of the movie marquee. If you don’t do that, you don’t really get the full Muncie Python experience. Also, click all over the place, because there’s something like 20 hidden items all over the website that you can try to find, and we did that just to mess with you. Like an intelligence test, right? But the tiny book, I love tiny book, I’m going to use that. Clay, you’re awesome. The tiny book just lays out this idea that a lot of these ideas that I’m talking to you guys about, and that’s kind of like the real final big thing. If you talk to me, one of the things I loved about talking to Clay for the first time is Clay was fun, right? If you’re not, fun is again, it’s like a cheap word and people overuse it. But let me go a little deeper. You really need to be enjoying yourself, okay? So if you’re working with a PR agency, you have to have fun with these guys because here’s the thing, they could be really good, but if you don’t enjoy working with them, you’re not going to do it long term. You’re just not. True. Okay? And so it’s got to be an experience. And that’s why on our website we try to create a fun experience because what we’re telling you is this is who we are. If fun is not a priority for you, go to somebody boring because with us you’re going to get fun. And for some people, honestly, they’re like, too many jokes, too much fun, that’s not how we roll, we’re all straight-laced and whatever. And that’s fine for them, it’s just I can’t help but be myself. I’m old enough to have realized that. And so if you want, this is our personality. And so we show you that by saying, if you don’t like that web experience, eh, you won’t like working with us. If you do, you’re gonna have a great time. And Clay, I felt like that’s how you and I connected. Absolutely. I was like, ah-ha, the light’s on, this guy’s fun. And from that flows so much. Today’s interview was a blasty blast and a laser show and I appreciate you so much for being on the show. I thought today’s show was a bromantic. It was fantastic and I just I am I was honored to have you on the show and thank you so much and helping me get closer and closer to my quest to reach Mitt Romney. I’m just getting closer and closer to the fumes, to the aura, to the essence of Mitt Romney. We’ll have to send this over to him. Yeah, so that he can… because he’s got nothing else to do except work in the United States Senate. I’m ready for a fast pitch. I’ve got the mitt ready. I’m ready to catch mitt here. He just throws it at me. I’m ready to go. Everybody check out inspire.buzz. That’s inspire.buzz. One more time. Because, because, because. You’ve got to remember inspire.buzz. Matthew have a great rest of your evening. Thank you for investing your time with The Thrive Nation. Clay, I look forward to your special edition episode of Dry Bar Comedy. Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. All right, you take care. Bye. And now, without any further ado, three, two, one, boom! Hi, this is Jen from Body Central Physical Therapy in Tucson, Arizona. We’ve been using the Thrive 15 coaching platform since April of 2017 and have grown exponentially since that time. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom, and we’re also seeing the financial rewards of that. We went from owning three locations in 2016 to now we’re up at eight locations and still growing. The training that we’re getting from you guys is invaluable, and we hope to keep growing with your help. Thank you so much. There have always been people who don’t believe. They don’t believe in hard work. They don’t believe in responsibility. Ultimately, they don’t believe in themselves. They believe in shortcuts, in luck. They believe that outside circumstances control who succeeds and who doesn’t. It’s just the luck of the draw. But you? You are not one of these people. You believe that no matter what your circumstances tell you, success is still possible. And you accept You accept this responsibility because you want to achieve something great. You’re hungry for it. You chase it from the moment your eyes open in the early morning. You chase it into all hours of the night. When others have given up. When others have said that it couldn’t be done. You’ve kept pushing. Because you believe that success is not a game of chance. Success is a choice. A choice that you make every single day. That’s what you believe. Discover the world’s most affordable and effective business school today at Thrivetimeshow.com Alright Thrive Nation, on today’s show at 710 in the morning. On the day of my birth, I’m recording this show actually, I’m going to be discussing the deepest subject in the history of the world. No actually I’m not, it’s just that when you play deep music, it all of a sudden makes it seem as though what I’m saying is somehow more profound, more incredible, more enlightening Folks what I’m going to talk about today is perception and public relations, and why do people actually trust the media? You see on today’s edition of the thrive time show I’m going to be Interviewing Michael Levine Michael Levine is the best-selling a PR Expert in the world he’s called the Michael Jordan of PR And he’s the founder the inventor the creator of what’s called the Tiffany Theory. Let me read it to you. Michael Levine says, actually, let me not read it to you, because if I read it to you and you don’t know who he’s represented, you won’t care. So let me read it with a deep, kind of a deep announcer voice. Here we go. Throughout Michael Levine’s historic career, he has represented 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors. Comedians George Carlin, Joan Rivers, Sam Kinison, and Rodney Dangerfield. He’s represented musicians Michael Jackson, David Bowie, and Ray Charles. As I mentioned earlier, he’s considered by most PR enthusiasts and experts as the Michael Jordan of entertainment PR. So who is Michael Levine? Okay, Michael Levine was born in 1956 as a dyslexic, he’s become a dyslexic best-selling author. What? Yes, he was born in 1956 and has become a dyslexic best-selling author, a public relations expert who over time has become my friend. Michael Levine is the best-selling author of one of the most incredible PR books of all time, titled, Guerrilla PR 2.0. This book forever changed the way that I view the press, the media, the news, branding, and public relations. Throughout Michael Levine’s legendary career, despite being dyslexic. As I mentioned, he’s become a best-selling author, an entrepreneur, a publicist, and he’s worked with countless big-time celebrities. And his theory goes like this. He says, if you give someone a present, and if you give it to them in a Tiffany box, it’s likely that they’ll believe that the gift has a higher perceived value than if you gave it to them in no box or a box of less prestige. That’s not because the receiver of the box is a fool, but instead because we live in a culture in which we gift wrap everything. Our politicians, our corporate heads, our movie and TV stars, and even our toilet paper. Public relations is like gift wrapping. Oh, I screwed that up. Public relations is like gift wrapping. Did that echo work for you? So, now, how does public relations work? Well, okay, if you have a product or a service that you’re trying to sell to humans on the planet, for whatever reason, most people will reject the product or service that you’re pitching. Yes, when you are selling a product or service to your ideal and likely buyer, most buyers who have a sound mind simply will not believe you or the offer you’re making. Why? Ask yourself. Why don’t you believe most advertisements, product claims that are made during late-night infomercials and commercials? Are you trying to tell me that the shake-a-wait doesn’t work? However, for reasons that I cannot fathom, most people trust the media. They believe the news. Thus, for whatever reason, people choose to believe that you and your product is more credible if the media the media Celebrates your company endorses your product or praises the products and services you offer So on today’s show Michael Levine’s gonna walk us through six key points of how public relations works Point number one when you score a public relations win, it gives your advertising more credibility. When you get featured in the news, when it says, as seen on Forbes, for some reason people think I’m more credible because I was the entrepreneur of the year at the age of 20 for the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce. For some reason, people think I’m more credible because I know Eric Trump. For some reason, people think I’m less credible because I know Eric Trump. You get the idea though, right? Point number three. If you have a good story or message, you’re transparent and are authentic. If you can say words. If you are authentic, you can be effective. Point number four. PR brings forth a kind of credibility that ads don’t. Point number five. How Michael Levine got started in the world of public relations. And point number six, we break down Michael Levine’s Tiffany theory. We break it down like fractions. We break it down. We break it down like a car that’s got flat tires. We break it down like a smartphone that you just dropped into a toilet that was slightly cracked. We break it down like the Western civilization when you allow woke ideology to spread on college campuses Folks we break it down. Oh, yeah, we break it down We break it down like Miss Wilson was breaking down sentence structure to me in second grade was you see you had a diagram sentences Yes, folks. We break it down folks we we break this show down like a like a 1989 Ford Escort when my transmission went out when I was in college. Folks, today’s interview is with Michael Levine. From me to your ear holes, here we go. And we’re still going. We’re a Gold Star member, which allows us to have unlimited towing. We can tow our vehicle and just get on with our lives. We can drive for another 30 miles and break it down again and just call AAA again. It’s unlimited because we’re a Gold member. That’s how we’re going to break down PR. We’re going to break it down, folks, like… Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one, boom! Alright, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the conversation. It is a rare opportunity to interview the actual man behind what is known in the PR world as the Tiffany Theory. If you don’t know what the Tiffany Theory is, the Tiffany Theory… I’ll go ahead and… Jeff, can you read the notable quotable to describe this is the notable quotable from Michael Levine the most successful Arguably the most successful PR consultant in the history of the planet. He is a guy who has worked with three presidents He’s the guy who’s worked with Nancy Kerrigan. He’s worked with Cameron Diaz. He’s worked with Pizza Hut He’s worked with Nike and he wrote the Tiffany theory which has totally changed the game for PR and we had a chance to sit down with him and have him break it down for us. Peel back that onion. Peel back the onion. But raise the notable quotable for us my friend before we hop into it. Whenever I first heard this when you know years ago when I started working with you this really connected with me it makes so much sense okay. So the Tiffany theory if you give someone a present and you give it to them in a Tiffany box it’s likely that they’ll be believe the gift has a higher perceived value than if you give it to them in a box, in no box or a box of less prestige. That’s not because the receiver of the gift is a fool, but instead because we live in a culture in which we gift wrap everything. Our politicians, our corporate heads, our movies and TV stars, and even our toilet paper. Public relations is like gift wrapping. Michael Levine breaks down the Tiffany Theory and how he got started in the world of PR. Well, we have a kind of humorous way of discussing it in our industry, which is to say that advertising is what you pay for and PR is what you pray for. What that means is that if you take on an ad in Time or Newsweek or People or U.S. News and World Report or USA Today or the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, you get a certain cost and the ad has a certain believability by virtue of the fact that it’s an ad. On the other hand, if you had a story in the Wall Street Journal or USA Today or the New York Times or the LA Times, its believability would be at a rate of at least 10 to 1 because it would come with the imprimatur or the authority of the Wall Street Journal or USA Today. So I think that is what you pray for. And today, the world is so cynical. People start with the assumption, they start with guilty until proven innocent, not innocent until proven guilty. You educate your customers about the potential value of your product or service and you do it through the media. You get a believability that is significantly greater than if you do it with, you know, an advertiser. But if you have a good story, a good message, and you’re transparent, you’re authentic, and I think you can put forth a message that can be very effective. With PR, you get, it brings forth a kind of credibility that ads don’t. you say about yourself is not nearly as important as what is said about by others. How did you get started in the PR business? How did you get started? All my life as a youth, I had two passions. I was interested in the entertainment industry, and I was interested in politics. So now I’m 17, scared and skinny, dyslexic, no money, no job, no education, I’ve got to figure out what to do. And when you’re 18, scared and skinny, I think you’ve come to conclude what I came to conclude, which is, Washington is Hollywood for ugly folks. And I come out here. See, I just look stupid, Clay. I just look stupid. I come out here where the pretty people are. And that’s how the whole damn thing began. So, in a nutshell, now that you’ve kind of ascended to the point where you’re known as one of the top publicists of all time, one of the top PR guys of all time, you came up with this thing called the Tiffany Theory. And the Tiffany Theory, and this is from your book, Guerrilla PR 2.0, which by the way, I bought about 35 copies of. So I probably made the $35. I call that 35… decision to purchase 35 copies a good start. I absolutely love your book. Guerrilla PR is the most widely used introduction to PR in the world and it’s not because of its brilliance nearly to the degree of its accessibility, which is what you’re talking about. Yeah, you really teach the concepts of the third grade level which my mind can grasp. You say here, I define what I do as gift wrapping. If you package a bracelet in a Tiffany box, it will have a higher perceived value than if presented in a Kmart box. Same bracelet, different perception. How does this story pertain to small business owners across the country? Let’s say I own a plumbing business. How does this apply to me as a small business owner? Okay, so let’s first, let’s take your question, which is a good one, and let’s cut it into some pieces that are bite-sized and we can think about. OK, so first of all, I had a problem when I began my career in PR. May I tell you about that? Absolutely. First of all, I didn’t know how to do PR. And second of all, I didn’t know what it was. Other than that, I had to create for myself and for others an understanding of what PR was. And I said that PR is analogous to gift wrapping. And so if I come to visit you today, I come to visit your wife today and I give her a gift and I give it to her in a Tiffany box, in her mind, the gift would have a higher perceived value than if I gave it to her in no box or a box of less prestige. Now the reason that’s true is not because your wife is a jackass. It’s true because she lives in a culture in which we gift wrap everything. So we gift wrap our politicians and our corporate heads and our movie and TV stars and even our toilet paper. I’m Michael Levine and I thought I’d tell you this story, maybe it’ll be of some value to you. You know, about 25 years ago, our PR firm was running hot as hell and we had six of the top 20 musical artists in America on the billboard charts. No company even had two and here we are with six. So we had the most number of successful artists in the country by far. But I still wanted to sign another musical artist who wasn’t been on the charts for a while but I loved and respected greatly. I wanted to sign the great Ray Charles. Ray Charles. I decided that even though I had all these big stars, I was going to go after Ray Charles. And I called him. And I ultimately did sign him. I did sign him. But I’d like to ask you, listening to this right now, to try to guess. Just close your eyes and try to guess how many times I called Ray Charles before I sign. Are you gonna… all right let’s try to close our eyes close our eyes. Here we go. Now we’ll do it multiple choice. Did I call them A 10 40 times or E more than 40 times. Now close your eyes now write down your answer. Write it down. Don’t you cheat now. Write down your answer. I’m gonna give you the correct answer in three seconds. One, two, three. Alright, here we go. Correct answer is 46 46 times. I called Ray Charles’ office 46 times. You want to hear something crazy? I didn’t even need Ray Charles. Here I had all the tenacity required to go after your big dreams. I’m talking about little dreams, talk about big dreams. Anyway, I’m Michael Levine. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show. Three, two, one, boom. All right, Thrive Nation, here we are back on a special edition podcast where we had an opportunity to sit down with the legendary PR guru, Michael Levine. This guy is the PR consultant of choice for President Bush, President Clinton, Michael Jackson, Prince, Pizza Hut, Nike, and he’s talking about how to be broke in America. Chup, is this exciting for you? Have you found yourself wanting to know how to become broke? This is on the top of my to-do list is actually I need to figure out today how to become broke. So it’s kind of a topic that obviously it’s kind of sarcastic in nature, but he’s such a grinder I think he just wants to lay out for the listeners out there, hey do this and you will definitely lose and do this and you’ll be successful. Well he’s an intense guy you know when you’re listening in he’s been there and so it’s good to listen in and pay attention to what he’s saying. I tell you what Thrive Nation, you might want to put on a helmet when you listen to this exclusive interview with the Michael Levine. If you want to prosper, if you want to, listen, here’s the number one rule. If you want to be broke in America, I’m going to tell you how to do it. Okay. Tip for the bottom. Okay. In case any of your audiences listening to us now, they’re saying, gee, I want to know how to be broke. How do I be broke? I am going to tell you how to be broke in America. Ready? Here is the number one thing you have to do if you want to be broke in America. Ready? Boom. Think like a victim. That is what you have to do. If you think like a victim, I promise Now, people listening, discussing, arguing about ideas and our civilization, maybe you’re talking even about income inequity, which is a very, very, very, very serious problem. You say, wait, wait, wait, Mr. Levine, everything you’re saying is kind of interesting, but you know this game you’re talking about, this game, this game here, this is a rigged game. I know, you’re right. The game is not easy. The game is not fair. But with enough burning maniacal rage and focus, the game is winnable. The game isn’t easy. The game isn’t fair. And here’s what you got to do. Spend, don’t sign up when you want to say, why isn’t the game fair? Don’t sign up for that class. What would victory look like? If it’s successful, what would that be like? What would happen if this was out? Usually what happens with ideas, Clay, one of three things usually happens with ideas. It’s a strikeout, it’s a single, or a home run. If it’s a home run, you don’t need a plan. If it’s a single, you better try to figure out how to steal second. If it’s a strikeout, you better march your sorry ass into a room and figure out how, what the lessons are, lessons learned the hard way. So let’s say there’s a small business owner right now, I see this all the time, there’s small business owners who are like, here’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to come up with this great PR campaign, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, we’ll do this, she’ll do this, he’ll do that, she’ll do this, and then you’re saying if you add it all up, if we’re successful, if it’s just a single, it’s probably not worth doing. You better be a little resourceful or figure out how you’re going to steal second. You’re just saying look at the outcome of where it would take you if it was a success and see if that’s worth your time. Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrive Time Show. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We got grill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather, and man people are so excited as they come in. Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the grill gun. Hi, I’m Bob Healy, I’m the inventor of the grill gun and the civi gun. Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005 and a lot of people, you know, they follow Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. Off the field the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Hmm, well they’re gonna have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying Tim Tebow 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 going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast at Tulsa Ruslim. 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 presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of Snap Fitness, the guy behind 9 Round Boxing. He’s going to be here in Tulsa, Russel, Oklahoma, June 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, and not only that, he also has, he practices what he teaches, so he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you’ve got to come learn from him. And now the best-selling author of The Carnivore Diet and the multiple-time Joe Rogan guest, Dr. Sean Baker, joins our two-day interactive business growth and life optimization workshop. 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 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 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, 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 is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russia, Oklahoma. I suppose 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 in 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 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 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 out shows day after day. And now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast and he’s traveling all the way from Prince Hill Rico to Tulsa Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show two-day interactive business workshop if you’re out there today folks you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast a broadcast you want to 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 Everything rides on tonight Even if I got three stripes 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 going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the Edith Bick 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, uh, get rich quick, walk on hot coals, a 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 Kings Point in New York, octa 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. As 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 is 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 Direct TV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed, to the business owner, to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just want to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, you know, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life. I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, 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 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, 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 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, they’re pretty friendly, helpful, 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 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 got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. 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 can do it for you. I can see the marketing working. It’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivates me. You’re a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m a great person. I’m back again because it motivates 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 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 wanna thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. Music If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. Music The Atmosphere plays 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. I 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 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 completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing, and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me, and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get opportunity to see that it’s real. Hey Flyover family come join us June June the 27th and 28th, 2024 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’re gonna be there with Clay Clark, an amazing group of individuals that have made such a difference in so many people’s lives. Do you wanna increase your production in a job? Do you wanna make more sales? Do you wanna own your own business? Do you wanna have breakthroughs financially? The key to that is knowledge. Clay Clark is anointed to help people in business. We’ve watched him over the last couple of years and we’ve been blown away. He’s part owner of over 160 businesses. 2.4 billion dollars in sales. Before politics and the great reset came into Clay’s life, he had the number one rated Apple podcast and he interviewed people like Anthony Robbins, Seth Godin, the top authors, the top business minds in the world. At this specific event, there’s an interesting cast of characters that come from gangs to American Idol. Some of the guests that are going to be there, Michael Levine, Colton Dixon, Peter Taunton, John Lee Dumas, Mondo De La Viga. And Tim Tebow. They’re there to share what they’ve done and their breakthroughs and what their story is. And then Clay lays his map of business success, called The Path, for every person to follow. So you may be sitting there thinking, okay, okay, I get it, I get it, what do I have to do? Go to thrivetimeshow.com. When you get there, the tickets are $250 or whatever you can afford. Yes, you got that right. $250 or whatever you can afford. You can name your price. So there are no excuses. You have to join us there. There are only a few VIP tickets left, like David said, special dinner and special time with the speakers. That is $500, why they last. So $500, only a few left if you want a VIP ticket. We want to meet these speakers as well. So we got VIP. I want to meet Tim Tebow. I do too. The date is June the 27th and 28th, 2024 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Go to thrivetimeshow.com to get your ticket. Hey guys, Luke Erickson here with the Thrivetimeshow. As you can see behind me, we’ve got all kinds of energy going on. People are starting to show up for the conference and it is hot in this place. We’ve got drill guns over here, we’ve got people playing the drums, we’ve got a fire breather, and man, people are so excited as they come in. This conference is kicked off, this house is packed, we’ve got Aaron Hanzel from the showroom up there, we’ve got Steve Murray, Tim, and the total editing concept up there. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement, when you implement, when you do that, it’s so exciting, people are going crazy. Michael Levin, writer of many many PR books. The man who represents people like Michael Jackson, Harper Streisand, George Bush, Stanley Pond. He is speaking to people here at our conference, talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here on conference talking to entrepreneurs. We just wrapped up day one. It was incredible. We had some remarkable speakers. Michael Levine. We just finished with a lady named Jill Donovan who owns a company called Rustic Cuff talking about the power of the Dream 100. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds. Come on in! Welcome to the Thrive Time Show, come on in! Day 2! Day 2, that’s right, you know it’s Thursday! Come on in! Hey guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day 2 and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, you go, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me. Well, our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable. It’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break, and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15-minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them, bathroom break, and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. Right behind me, we’ve got Bob with his grill gun, melting an ice sculpture. It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. We are outside. You can see a line behind me. What’s going on is that we partner with different companies to help them implement the proven systems over and over and over again, and one of those companies is Master Machine. And so what we like to do is partner with these companies to also help them give samples to other people as they come to the conference and truly get their name out. I just wanted to recap some of the amazing things that have happened today. We’ve had entrepreneurs like Paul Hood, the good CPAs. We’ve had Jill Donovan and Michael Levine come up and just impart so much wisdom and knowledge. We’ve got an incredible giveaway for one of our TV’s. Hey there Thrive Nation, one of the things that we love most about our business conferences is that we want every entrepreneur to leave with their questions answered. So what we do is we let them put the questions up on the board here so that they can ask their specific questions and Clay will not end the conference until every question is answered. Behind this, Clay Kilargi is answering all the different questions that entrepreneurs have brought to the conference. Whenever someone comes here and starts to hear this information, especially for the first time, it just brings about so much anticipation of wanting to actually implement the proven systems and processes. And so the play always wants to make sure that they answer all of their questions and that they’re the most set up to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at ThriveTimeShare.com. Hello, I’m Wes Carter. I’m one of the shareholders at Winters and Keen. My favorite thing that Thrive has helped me accomplish here in our firm is thinking a little bit outside the box. They do SEO, they do printing, they help us with a lot of things from the day-to-day marketing for the firm, but they also help us think of things that as attorneys we probably wouldn’t normally think of that help us market our services to our clients. things I love about working with Thrive is that they make it enjoyable to actually do work with them. It’s not dry, it’s usually fun, but it’s always very enjoyable and practical. They give me things and ideas that I can put into place. It’s not just some theoretical spiel that they give me. We get practical steps that we work on together to do my job better. So me personally, I would easily recommend Thrive 15 services to my friends, my families. I recommend them to my clients. I think they do a good job. They’re passionate. They care about their clients. And I think it’s actually a valuable service they provide to people that are in the business world. My name is Jeff Thomas. I’m originally from Atlanta, Georgia. It’s all about getting to the grindstone. It is about putting the… It’s one thing to have a specific vision or a dream, but knowledge without application isn’t knowledge at all. That’s nothing. It’s really funny. The atmosphere is very lively. Everybody that is working for Clay is very upbeat and not tired, not sluggish, not complaining, not whining. They don’t have anything to do with those types of characteristics. It’s all about getting to the grind and having fun while you do it. I haven’t actually been to any conferences in the past, but what I will say from what I’ve seen on YouTube and what from other friends have told me is this isn’t like a motivational kind of thing such as you know hoo-hoo rah-rah gets you motivated, but it’s like practical steps that if you do take them, which most people aren’t willing to do, then you will grow and you will achieve the specific things that you want. Well, for one thing, I will say that this isn’t necessarily for everyone, so if you’re not willing to work, this isn’t for you. But I will say that if you are willing to work and you know you’re just getting started, but you have actually taken a step in that direction, then this will actually help you grow further exponentially than you could ever imagine. My name is Taylor Hall. I’m the general manager of the Tulsa Oilers professional hockey team. You know, our goal every night here at the BLK Center is to try to fill the seats with lots of people and create an exciting environment so when somebody comes to a game, they want to come back. Working with Clay and the staff at Thrive, they’ve really helped us in many, many ways. Website and graphic design and video production and a lot of things that go along. And a lot of businesses, including ours, doesn’t have a staff or a full-time videographer or graphic designer. But the biggest thing that we noticed was the needle mover. More sales, more attendance, more successes in business. We had a record year last season working with Clay for the first time. Our average attendance is higher than it’s ever been. So there’s a lot of really cool things that we did and they worked. That’s the nice thing about working with Clay and the team over there. It’s just not one person. You get the entire team. If you need video design and editing and production, they’ve got that. If you need graphic design, if you need some coaching, your sales people and call scripts, PR, they offer all that. Clay was instrumental in helping guiding us and getting us on the right track so that we could really raise the bar and become ultra successful. So it’s been an amazing experience for us. My name is Caitlin. I own a tumbling gym called Justice Tumbling Companies, we call them. Working with Clay is so helpful. Being diligent with everything and making sure we execute our goals and really make things happen. It’s fun and it’s high. It really gets you energized and going. It makes you really want to work. To get the momentum going, to really just like get that buzz, to really give you the energy to get up and make it happen. I’m Bob Healy. I’m in the charcoal grilling industry, and the name of my business is Grillblazer. How will I apply what I’ve learned so far into my business? I’m learning at this conference and my regular weekly attendance that it’s helping me establish the business and get it off the ground. Clay’s presentation style is just blatant disregard for what anybody wants. He just has fun, it’s him, everything that you see is authentically Clay. It’s a great deal of fun. Everybody enjoys it. They know when you walk in, they think they’re coming into a carnival, and frankly they are. It’s just great fun. There’s not another conference like it. You just don’t go to a carnival atmosphere and learn what to do here at the Pride Conference. It’s great. The reason people should attend at least one of these conferences is because it’s common sense. And everybody’s said an entire line about the way you should run a business, but until you actually experience running a business, which is, candidly, what you learn here, how to run a business, you don’t know what you’re doing. My name is Tyler Hastings, and this is my wife, Rachel, and our company is Delricht Research, out of New Orleans. During our time working with Thrive, we’ve had numerous successes. When we first started, we were working with one physician. We had one research site, and we were seeing, on average, between 10 and 15 patients a week. Since working with Thrive in the last 18 months, we now have four research sites. We work with over five physicians, and on average, we’re now seeing over 60 patients per week. Recently, we’ve been the top enroller worldwide in seven studies, which is just incredible considering where we were, you know, two years ago, 18 months ago. Thrive really differs from the other conferences that we’ve been to and the other kind of programs that we’ve been through because they actually really practice what they preach and they implement the same systems and the processes that they teach you about and they give you real-life examples that it really worked for them and show you with the training how to implement that yourself. For example, Tyler and I actually got the opportunity to come out to Tulsa and we were fortunate enough that the Thrive team took us out to some of the businesses that they own and we really got to see in real life, real time, some of the systems and processes and it was just incredible. A real life example of some of the businesses and the things that they’re implementing. Having a coach is important to us. They act as not only an accountability factor, but they’re someone we can talk to on a daily basis as we go through the problems of running a business that inevitably come up. They always understand what we’re going through and they’re always there to help us or guide us through the problems that we experience. The best part of our experience working with Thrive has just been seeing our relationship grow. So at each step as our business grows, we know that they have something else to provide us with. They’ve got the resources, whether it be marketing, graphic design, website development, or even in accounting practices, maybe we need a new insurance policy. If they have someone they can connect us with or they have the direct resource we need to speak with for any of the problems we face. If someone is thinking about signing up for the coaching program, I would highly recommend that they call in for a free 30-minute coaching session and see exactly what the team can do for you. Just speak with someone, let them know what you’re going through, and I think you’ll find that regardless of what you need, there’s someone there that can help you. Clay’s presentation style is very real and raw. Like, it just gets real down to the bone of it and the real purpose of it. There’s no, like, fluffy vagueness about it, you know? So, he really gets to the point. I’m always reminded about how important it is to be intentional and to really pay attention to how you schedule your time and really honor it. Because whatever gets scheduled gets done. That’s what he said from Lee Copperill. So just constantly hearing that and getting reminded helps me to reinforce that in my own life. It always helps to get an outside perspective and especially from a guy that’s grown so many multi-million dollar businesses. It doesn’t hurt. My name is Nick Guajardo. I heard about the Thrive Time Show workshop through Andy Mathren. He’s my, Andy Mathren and Larry Montgomery, they’re my bosses at Restore Home Health. So I work with a home health company called Restore Home Health. And my role is pretty much to bring in business. So I was hoping to learn kind of the sales process on top of just kind of the responsibilities and help understand what it looks like on the SEO side and just kind of an all-around what it looks like to own a business because that’s something I want to do in the future for sure. How I would describe the atmosphere here at Thrive is high energy, great professionalism, great people. It’s just, it’s a place you definitely want to visit in the app. Plays delivery style, humorous, professional, hilarious. Just, he does it, I haven’t seen someone do it better. So he does a great job. Most valuable thing I’ve learned so far? A lot of it has been extremely valuable. So, but one thing that’s always really stuck out to me is learning the SEO stuff. I mean, that is, I think, things you don’t really even think about, and then you hear it, and you think you know it, but you don’t know it. So I feel like that was the most valuable. Well, they’re missing out on just coming down to just basic applications to be a business owner. I mean, I feel like it’s like an absolute necessity, you know, to come here and learn the ins and outs and maybe come here once or twice if they, you know, take good notes, that kind of thing. Why, to just, it’s the experience here and what you can learn, like absolutely. So, marketing and SEO seemed like something that would be very scary, but then, in the way that Clay and his team described it became very clear and concise and something that’s very accessible to any business owner. I’ve learned a lot about marketing at this conference, a lot about business management and HR, really everything, the key components of anybody’s business they’re going to give you the best tools to be successful at it. So most workshops or conferences can be really boring, really one note, or they just seem so theatrical that it’s a joke and it’s not even giving you the tools that you need or that you came there for. But here it’s still high energy, it’s still fun, everything’s to the point, but it’s very professional and yeah, you’re missing out on easy steps to use in your business that are very accessible and very clear. My name is Abigail McCarter. The best thing I’ve learned so far is definitely organization, schedule-wise, always keeping a to-do list, keeping your calendar organized. I’m kind of all over the place, so that’s always good to know. So Clay’s presentation style and the atmosphere is electric. It’s so energetic, it’s so fun, plays hilarious, but also knows a ton. So it’s just really great all around. This conference is much different than any other conference I’ve gone to, again, because it’s fun. A lot of other conferences, it’s really quiet, really cold, and you just kind of get bored. But this one, you’re always engaged, you’re always learning something, and the staff is amazing. They’re always super helpful. So it’s just been really great. and getting Google reviews. And so all those things we can take back and really apply that immediately. So it’s really cool to see not only how to do it, but really the relevance and importance of it in the long-term strategy of your business. Now, it’s amazing, actually, the way in this morning and yesterday I was videoing as I was walking in the front entrance. And actually me, I go to a lot of seminars. I go to a lot of conferences, massive ones. I’ve been doing that since I was like 22 years old, so gosh, almost 20 years now. And this is by far the most entertaining, not only the content, their content is amazing, but Clay and you guys do a great job of mixing in entertainment where it’s fun, it’s fresh, it’s lively, you never get bored. And I heard a study one time that the reason that children learn so much quicker is because it’s fun, learning is fun. So obviously Clay is nailed that. It’s very fun to be here and it keeps you awake, keeps you energized. So I’m having a blast. Yeah, I think any business owner or someone that wants to own a business or considering owning and starting a business should definitely come. I know that I was referred here by friends of mine and clients of mine and I’ve referred other people. Again, just to understand what it takes to make a business successful, to have a good time, obviously, you’re not going to stay and have fun. And that works. There’s a lot of people here you can learn from and there’s a lot of breaks you can talk to other people. So I think this is a must-attend training by the whole business for the ones who are starting this. My name is Jamie Fagel. I’m with Jameson Fine Cabinetry. I heard about the conference through Andrew. He’s the coach that I deal with here at The Thrive. The most valuable piece I found even working with Andrew, but it’s been solidified when it came here, was the fact that I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. I was able to get a lot of people to come in and talk to me. here at the Thrive. The most valuable piece I found even working with Andrew, but it’s been solidified when it came here, was you got to actually do the things that they’re telling you. With no action, you’re not going to get anything from it. I would highly recommend this to almost anybody in business today. I have recommended it to some of my other business partners. It’s phenomenal. It’s really something that if you want to start a business, the old way of doing things is gone. This is what you got to do. It’s the only way it’ll work. Hey, this is Charles and Amber Kola. We’re the owners of Kola Fitness. The way we’re able to do that is working with Clay for the last three years. He has really readjusted our thinking and taught us that our business is here to serve us. And by doing that, we’re able to live the lifestyle we want and take off on a random vacation last minute. We had totally planned on being at the conference. So wish we could be there and meet all of you. We know you’re having a great time. Yes, Clay in the last three years has helped us build all the necessary systems, checklists, workflows, task lists, time blocks, audits that are always running and the right capable lieutenants to keep track of all that so that you too can get time freedom, financial freedom, and that’s what we have done and Clay has helped us do. We’ve got multiple companies in multiple states and they’re all doing very well getting ready to go to more locations in this next year and Co-op Fitness has a really big future. We’re teaming up with a couple other groups and we should scale the company here shortly. Hopefully we’ll open like 50 locations in the next 10 years. So but yeah we’re on the way. We’re gonna probably more than double our company, maybe triple our company in the next eight to nine months and it’s just awesome God is working in our business and we’re making Jesus and changing lives We’re a strong Christian company that focuses on making Jesus famous and changing lives in the fitness field And this is Charles and hammer Cola. Thank you thrive hit your action items. We love you guys. We wish we were there Bye-bye industry and also we control fertilization and my business is platinum pest and mold. Some of the things that, I’ll be able to apply a lot of the things that I’ve learned in our business because this is not my first conference and so a lot of the things that we learned we’ve put into place and now we’re doing the next level of refining the processes for just a different concept and so it’s getting better and better. Things that were just big processes before. We have the foundation laid and now we’re able to make it better and better. And I’m hearing different things now that we’ve implemented things and so we can just make it even better, implementing it in our own business. A play’s presentation in the atmosphere is very exciting and fun. It keeps you awake. It makes it interesting. You have a lot of information, but if it’s not going to be entertaining, your brain is going to tune it out. But Play makes it just entertaining enough that you retain what you learn. Lots of rhyming and catchy things so that you remember stuff. Something that makes this conference different than other workshops or conferences that I’ve been to is that there’s a lot of people here in my same situation. situation where all, most of us are pretty small businesses wanting to improve and we want real life information and something that will work and that’s attainable and not just some crazy magic formula but actual action items that we can implement in our business and actually see a difference. Everyone should attend a drive type business conference whether you’re a business owner or not. A, if you’re a business owner, it has practical applications that you can apply to so many different parts of your business. And then you need to come back for more so that you can keep doing more of the wonderful things that you learn. But secondly, I am also a mom of three kids, and a lot of the concepts can actually be applied to home, like getting routines and getting, setting systems at home has just seriously made a huge difference in my life at home. So I’ve been able to improve our business, but I’ve also been able to improve things at home. And so that’s why everyone should come, no matter what your station is in life. My name is Nolan Khoo. I’m originally from San Francisco, California. The industry that I’m in is financial services. I’ve learned a ton so far, but what I can best apply from this conference is the opportunity, that hunger to go out there and make a big difference in my industry. Blaze presentation style is amazing. You’ve got an endless amount of energies. It’s contagious. And yeah, by being here, I really do want to go back and be able to face all the adversity that the industry has. Yeah, this conference, the thing that makes it different is that it’s special because it has a unique set of individuals that all share that same energy. I think he typed it as dragon energy, but yeah, that’s what we do. Everyone should come to a multiple, but their first would be very special. Yeah, you’re welcome with a lot of enthusiasm. That’ll last for a long time. My name is Gabriela Cruz. Our business is PCS Electric. My husband is the owner, but I’m involved with that, and so we’re a electric company. Well, here at the conference they talk a lot about consistency, and so just staying consistent with different things from the business, and I feel like applying that to our business model will really help us grow. The atmosphere is very positive, uplifting, and then it’s very fun and energetic. It gets you pumped and it gets you excited. It encourages you to do big things. I probably like how real they are. They tell you up front what you need to do and what’s a no-go. Some conferences, they kind of sugar coat things. I like how real they are here. I think if you want your business to grow, this would be a great experience and then not only that, it’ll encourage you and inform you on so many things you don’t think about on a daily basis. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I’ve definitely learned a lot about life design and making sure the business serves you. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. Like we have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Play is hilarious. I literally laughed so hard that I started having tears yesterday. And we’ve been learning a lot, which, you know, we’ve been sitting here, we’ve been learning a lot, so the humor definitely helps. It breaks it up. But the content is awesome, off the charts. And it’s very interactive, you can raise your hand, it’s not like you’re just listening to the professor speak. The wizard teaches, but the wizard interacts and he takes questions, so that’s awesome. If you’re not attending the conference, you’re missing about three quarters to half of your life. You’re definitely, it’s probably worth a couple thousand dollars. So you’re missing the thought process of someone that’s already started like nine profitable businesses. So not only is it a lot of good information, but just getting in the thought process of Blake Clark or Dr. Zellner or any of the other coaches, getting in that thought process of how they’re starting all these businesses, to me, just that is priceless. That’s money. Well, we’re definitely not getting upsold here. My wife and I have attended conferences where it was great information and then they upsold us like half the conference and I don’t wanna like bang my head into a wall and she’s like banging her head into the chair in front of her. Like, it’s good information, but we’re like, oh my gosh, I wanna strangle you, shut up and go with the presentation that we paid for and that’s not here. There’s no upsells or anything, so that’s awesome. I hate that. It makes me angry. So glad that’s not happening. So the cost of this conference is quite a bit cheaper than business college. 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. I would definitely recommend that people would check out the Thrive 15 conference. The information that you’re going to get is just very, very beneficial. And the mindset that you’re going to get, that you’re going to leave with, is just absolutely worth the price of a little bit of money and a few days worth of your time. 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. Here’s the house. This is our old neighborhood. See? 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 been another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from four to 14. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past. And they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome. But Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place we’ve gone from one to ten 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. Hello, my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise. Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the systems, the checklists, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day, he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, and graphic designers, and web developers. And they run 160 companies every single week. So think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing reawakened America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, making it, putting it into, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. Like one of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. So, amazing guy. Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best of you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it, I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyways, just an amazing man. Anyways, impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate any time I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s, like I remember, we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns, because our clubs were all closed for three months and you have $350,000 of bills you’ve got to pay and we have no accounts receivable. He helped us navigate that and of course we were conservative enough that we could afford to take that on for a period of time. He was a great man. I’m very impressed with him. So Clay, thank you for everything you’re doing and I encourage you, if you haven’t ever worked with Clay, work with Clay. He’s going to help magnify you and there’s nobody I have ever met that has the ability to work as hard as he does. He probably sleeps for maybe six hours a day and literally the rest of time he’s working and he can outwork everybody in the room every single day and and he loves it. So anyways this is Charles Kola with Kola Fitness. Thank You Clay and anybody out there that’s wanting to work with Clay it’s a great great opportunity to ever work with him. So you guys have a blessed one. This is Charles Kola. We’ll see you guys. Bye bye. Hi, I’m Aaron Antis with Shaw Homes. I first heard about Clay through a mortgage lender here in town who had told me what a great job he had been doing for them. And I actually noticed he was driving a Lamborghini all of a sudden, so I was willing to listen. In my career, I’ve sold a little over $800 million in real estate. So honestly, I thought I kind of knew everything about marketing and homes. And then I met Clay, and my perception of what I knew and what I could do definitely changed. After doing $800 million in sales over a 15-year career, I really thought I knew what I was doing. I’ve been managing a large team of salespeople for the last 10 years here with Shaw Homes and I mean we’ve been a company that’s been in business for 35 years. We’ve become one of the largest builders in the Tulsa area and that was without Clay. So when I came to know Clay, I really thought man there’s not much more I need to know, but I’m willing to listen. The interesting thing is our internet leads from our website has actually in a four month period of time has gone from somewhere around 10 to 15 leads in a month to 180 internet leads in a month. Just from the few things that he’s shown us how to implement that I honestly probably never would have come up with on my own. So I got a lot of good things to say about the system that Clay put in place with us and it’s just been an incredible experience. I am very glad that we met and had the opportunity to work with Clay. So the interaction with the team and with Clay on a weekly basis is honestly very enlightening. One of the things that I love about Clay’s perspective on things is that he doesn’t come from my industry. He’s not somebody who’s in the home building industry. I’ve listened to all the experts in my field. Our company has paid for me to go to seminars, international builder shows, all kinds of places where I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the experts in my industry, but the thing that I found working with Clay is that he comes from such a broad spectrum of working with so many different types of businesses that he has a perspective that’s difficult for me to gain because I get so entrenched in what I do, I’m not paying attention to what other leading industry experts are doing and Clay really brings that perspective for me. It is very valuable time every week when I get that hour with him. From my perspective, the reason that any business owner who’s thinking about hooking up with Thrive needs to definitely consider it is because the results that we’ve gotten in a very short period of time are honestly monumental. It has really exceeded my wildest expectation of what he might be able to do. I came in skeptical because I’m very pragmatic and as I’ve gone through the process over just a few months, I’ve realized it’s probably one of the best moves we’ve ever made. I think a lot of people probably feel like they don’t need a business or marketing consultant because they maybe are a little bit prideful and like to think they know everything. I know that’s how I felt coming in. I mean we’re a big company that’s definitely one of the largest in town and so we kind of felt like we knew what we were doing and I think for a lot of people they let their ego get in the way of listening to somebody that might have a better or different perspective than theirs. I would just really encourage you if you’re thinking about working with clay. I mean the thing is it’s month to month. Go give it a try and see what happens. I think in the 35 year history of Shaw Homes this is probably the best thing that’s happened to us and I know if you give them a shot I think you’ll feel the same way. I know for me the thing I would have missed out on literally an 1800% increase in our internet leads. Going from 10 a month to 180 a month, that would have been a huge financial decision to just decide not to give it a shot. I would absolutely recommend ClayClark to anybody who’s thinking about working with somebody in marketing, I would skip over anybody else you were thinking about and I would go straight to Clay and his team. I guarantee you’re not going to regret it because we sure haven’t. My name is Danielle Sprick and I am the founder of D. Sprick Realty Group here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After being a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and my three kids started school and they were in school full-time, I was at a crossroads and trying to decide what do I want to do. My degree and my background is in education, but after being a mom and staying home and all of that, I just didn’t have a passion for it like I once did. My husband suggested real estate. He’s a homebuilder, so real estate and homebuilding go hand in hand, and we just rolled with it. I love people, I love working with people, I love building relationships, but one thing that was really difficult for me was the business side of things. The processes and the advertising and marketing, I knew that I did not have what I needed to make that what it should be. So I reached out to Clay at that time and he and his team have been extremely instrumental in helping us build our brand, help market our business, our agents, the homes that we represent. Everything that we do is a direct line from Clay and his team and all that they’ve done for us. We launched our brokerage, our real estate brokerage, eight months ago, and in that time, we’ve gone from myself and one other agent to just this week, we signed on our 16th agent. We have been blessed with the fact that we, right now, have just over 10 million in pending transactions. Three years ago, I never would have even imagined that I would be in this role that I’m in today, building a business, having 16 agents. But I have to give credit where credit’s due. And Clay and his team and the business coaching that they’ve offered us has been huge. It’s been instrumental in what we’re doing. Don’t ever limit your vision. When you dream big, big things happen. I started the business because I couldn’t work for anyone else. I do things my way. I do what I think is in the best interest of the patient. I don’t answer insurance companies. I don’t answer to large corporate organizations. I answer to my patient and that’s it. My thought when I opened my clinic was I can do this all myself. I don’t need additional outside help in many ways. I mean, I went to medical school. I can figure this out. But it was a very, very steep learning curve. Within the first six months of opening my clinic, I had a $63,000 embezzlement. I lost multiple employees. Clay helped us weather the storm of some of the things that are just a lot of people experience, especially in the medical world. He was instrumental in helping with the specific written business plan. He’s been instrumental in hiring good quality employees, using the processes that he outlines for getting in good talent, which is extremely difficult. He helped me in securing the business loans. He helped me with web development and search engine optimization. We’ve been able to really keep a steady stream of clients coming in because they found us on the web. With everything that I encountered, everything that I experienced, I quickly learned it is worth every penny to have someone in your team that can walk you through and even avoid some of the pitfalls that are almost invariable in starting your own business. I’m Dr. Chad Edwards and I own Revolution Health and Wellness Clinic. The conference is being done. This house is packed. We’ve got Aaron Anders, the shop owner, up there. We’ve got Steve Murray, Tim Hilton, the concept’s up there. We’re talking about what is possible when you just implement, implement, implement. You do that, people are going crazy. Now Michael Levine, writer of many many PR books, the man who represents people like Michael Jackson, Arbor Street, George Bush, is standing behind me speaking to people here at our conference talking about branding. One of the greatest branding experts alive today is here at our conference talking to entrepreneurs. We just wrapped up day one. It was incredible. We had some remarkable speakers. Michael Levine. We just finished with a lady named Jill Donovan who owns a company called Rustic Cuff talking about the power of the Dream 100. I cannot wait to see what tomorrow holds. Hey guys, welcome to the Dream 100. Day 2! All right, that’s right, Luke, that’s right. Come on in. Hey, guys, Luke Erickson with the Thrive Time Show here with you. It is day 2, and the energy is high. People are so excited to be showing up. The team is ready. Come on, let’s see what it’s like to go on in for day 2. Follow me. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. Come on in. I’ll tell you what, people are so excited to be here for day two. It is going to be incredible. Cannot wait to see what today has in store. Right now, here at the conference, we’ve broken into groups going over search engine optimization. I know for most of us, myself included, if you hear that term, you go, what is that? What does that mean? That’s too techy for me, well our experts are breaking it down for people so that you can clearly understand how to come up top in Google. It’s doable, it’s possible. Now we’re in the middle of a break and what we like to do is we like to give you as much tangible and relevant information from about the start of the hour for 45 minutes. Then we take approximately a 15 minute break to allow people to connect with other entrepreneurs around them, bathroom break, and also use this time to just really digest all of the good information that you’re receiving the whole time. Right behind me we’ve got Bob with his grill gun melting an ice sculpture. It is awesome. The ice sculpture represents our life, right? It’s here for a time, but we all need to have the sense of urgency to implement the things that we’re learning so that we can make the most of the time that we have. We are outside, you can see a line behind me. What’s going on is that we partner with different companies to help them implement the proven systems over and over and over again. And one of those companies is Master Machine. And so what we like to do is partner with these companies to also help them give samples to other people as they come to the conference and truly get their name out. I just wanted to recap some of the amazing things that have happened today. We’ve had entrepreneurs like Paul Hood with Hood CPAs. We’ve had Jill Donovan and Michael Levine come up. It just imparts so much wisdom and knowledge. We’ve got an incredible giveaway for one of our teamies. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. I’m so excited to be here. one of our teamies. Hey there Thrive Nation, one of the things that we love most about our business conferences is that we want every entrepreneur to leave with their questions answered. So what we do is we let them put the questions up on the board here so that they can ask their specific questions and Clay will not end the conference until every question is answered. Behind this, Clay Kilarke is answering all the different questions that entrepreneurs have brought to the conference. Whenever someone comes here and starts to hear this information, especially for the first time, it just brings about so much anticipation of wanting to actually implement the proven systems and processes and so the play always wants to make sure that it answers all of those questions so that they’re the most set up person to be able to go home and start implementing. If you have any questions, email us at info at tribe.share.com We have come to the end of the 2019 Christmas Conference. It was incredible. These entrepreneurs have gotten so many tangible things that they can go and they can implement. Check us out for more information at thrivetimeshow.com. And as we always like to do, we want to end with a boom. 3, 2, 1, boom. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I was looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the F6 in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively. He’s pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. In the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. Biggest takeaways are you know you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business, whether it’s marketing you know what are those three marketing tools that you want to use to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the roadmap out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do, and he gave me the road map out step by step. He 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 motivates 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. Music If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. Music The Atmosphere Plays 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 completely eliminates that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands-on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business is real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real.