Clay Clark | The Shoe Dog – The Phil Knight and Nike Story

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you. And they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zulman. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and now we’re at the top Teaching you the systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books Z’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As a father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the CNC, up on your radio And now, 3, 2, 1, here we go! Started from the bottom, now we’re here Started from the bottom, and we’ll show you how to get there Green country, Oklahomies, what is going on? This is your audio dojo of mojo. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. I am the father of five human kids. Five human kids. We homeschool them all. It’s crazy. Yet, my whole passion, my whole deal, my whole game is I remember growing up where I didn’t have the financial resources that I wanted to do the things I wanted to do. And so I was crazy enough to start a business. I started a business. It did very well. I started another business. It did very well. Another business. It did very well. All of a sudden, people started calling me going, can we meet for lunch? Can we meet for coffee? Could you teach me how to start and grow a business? And I started doing that. And that became my consulting company called Make Your Life Epic. But you know the guy who taught me a lot about what I do today, the guy who I studied in almost a criminal kind of way, the guy that I literally, I mean it was almost stalkerish. I would go into his business and sit there and just troll out. And some of you ladies listening right now, you know what it means to have someone troll you where you’re at Sprouts and you’re a single lady and there’s some dude who’s eyeing you all the time and you’re like, that’s so weird. And you look at him and he looks away like he wasn’t looking at you. That’s what I was doing. I was studying this guy. This guy, he is a genius. He’s a guru. He’s a brilliant man. And I will say this. My father recently passed away and I will say this. He is my favorite living adult man. It is Dr. Robert Zeller. I mean it. You are my favorite living adult man. You are absolutely a guru. And sir, I am blessed to have you on the show as the co-host. I’m honored to be here. Thank you for being here. Well the only part of that story I can definitely confirm all the accolades about me. They humble me. I can’t confirm those. But I can confirm that you were a really big creeper back in the day. And not only that, it was, someone’s asked me they go, how has he, tell me about him back in the day. And I was like, oh you have no idea. I mean, now he has a suit, he’s buttoned up, he’s robotic, he’s like Claytron, he’s like a Terminator for business, he’s like a business-nator. But back then, I mean, he was kind of like an, I don’t know if you guys remember the old rapper Eminem, he was just kind of a, well, he’s still around, but I mean, back in the day, he’s got, when he was coming into the business, he had his clothes too big, and loop earrings, a little arrogant, he’s kind of an attitude, I mean he’s one of those guys that like you weren’t sure if he was gonna throw a punch or say, shake your hand. I used to even talk differently. Oh yeah, oh you were so, oh my God, I cannot believe the transformation that’s happened with you over the years. Because that was what, back in probably. It was 99. 99, I was gonna say 2000, but yeah. 99, my whole deal was like, I wanted you to know that if you messed with me, you stepped on my shoes, it’s going down. Yeah, I tell you my whole deal I cannot I tell you what if clay Clark can go from that dude to this dude I’m an idiot everybody listen out there. You have a chance you do you have a chance? I’m trust me because well I mean I remember we came in the office and of course his wife was working for me It’s not Vanessa sweet lady. Just like an all-american. You know like you’ve apple pie and Vanessa are like in the same thing, you know, and So he would come in to pick her up. They only had one car So he’d be honest, you know on his daily come pick her up So I’m Oz the MPV with my I put a subwoofer in that Pull up when he came up and we’d be sitting around all of us be going who is that? Who is that dude? We’re like, I think that’s Vanessa’s husband. We going no way. Yeah true. That’s sweet little pretty lady there that’s a little cheerleader at ORU, that’s her dude? You know what the thing with my wife is? We watched the movie 8 Mile together with the story about Eminem. My wife loves to help people and she thought she could fix me. Well, she did a tremendous job. Thankfully she did. I’m giving her a clap. Well done, Vanessa. Well done. Because I tell you what, the transformation is incredible. And I don’t know a young man. I mean, how old are you now, 35, 36? 36, maybe. 36, mid-30s, who’s done more with his life and gets more done in a day than Clay Clark does. And he’s been now business coaching for years and he’s so successful at it and he has a waiting list of people wanting to business coach. And that’s why when you came to me a couple of years ago and you said, hey, hey bro, you didn’t say bro, but you said, hey, hey Z, there’s only so many hours in a day. Why don’t we see if we can scale this and do this online, business coach online. You know the number one highlight of my life? Oh my gosh, what was it? My personal life is when I proposed to my wife in Minnesota, in Cocado, Minnesota, and she said yes. That’s my personal life. Were you ice fishing or what were you doing up in the business? I was up there with Bjorn and Ralsch and Dorfer. We were in the Oz Heist house together and I was like, oh, you’re going to get married if I tell you. But no, seriously, when I got a chance to present at Cedar Ridge Country Club, Mr. Sean Copeland set it up. When you agreed to invest in Thrive15.com, it was the highlight of my professional career. Wow, that’s very cool, because you know, you’d shark tank me a few times before on some kind of crazy things. You’re like, it’s a Ponzi scheme, you should get in early. Put your other ground forward. You shark tanked me a few times, and I would be honest, I’m not going to be candor with you, I’d say, that’s not for me. Good luck with that and wish you well and go get them Tiger. Go get them M&M, wannabe. And each business that we did, I’m just being blunt about it, each business that I talked to you about, they all ended up doing well but they weren’t worth your time because you’d already built scalable business models. And when you start, if you’re somebody like yourself who has more money than time, what you have to do is you want to invest in something that has the ability to scale and can be a worldwide or a nationwide or a statewide something. And it wasn’t that you’re a bad guy. You’re just kind of like, I don’t know, if I want to team up and do a partner rental company that can make a million bucks a year. I don’t know if that’s worth my time right now. Well, that’s the thing about it is out there. People are, once you get successful, that success can kind of build on it. And the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur, you know, once you have some success, then the next business you open doesn’t have to have that immediate success. You can kind of invest in it, let it grow and marinate and then explode on the back end of it. So, you know, when you first open a business, it’s so stressful because it’s kind of like, oh my gosh, I’ve got to pay my, I’ve got to pay all the business bills, all my personal bills. It’s got to fund everything. It’s crazy. And that’s why sometimes it’s so stressful. But then once you get that going, you’re like, okay, I can open this business and I don’t have to make a car payment out of it. I don’t have to make a house payment out of it. Then you can really grow and that’s why sometimes people say, well, how did you go from optometry to an auto auction? How did you go from optometry to a sleep center? How did you do those things? Well, there was a little bit of a learning curve in there, but the beautiful thing about it was that they didn’t have to provide all the chili from day one. Now Thrivers, we’re talking today about a concept we’re teaching you today specifically about how Phil Knight, Phil Knight, who’s Phil Knight? We’re teaching how Phil Knight, he calls himself the shoe dog, okay, how Phil Knight started Nike and grew Nike to become the world’s most successful shoe and apparel company. You’re listening to the Thrive Show on Talk Radio 1170. And on the show today we have the perfect guest. It’s Coach Calvert. This guy mentors basketball players. He’s helped multiple players play in the National Basketball Association. He’s literally worked with a middle school kid, a high school kid, and has coached them and helped them improve their skills to the level that they were able to play at the professional level. I mean, nearly 100 people who played at the Division I level, he’s coached them. If you have a kid who’s pretty good at basketball but they want to get more playing time, Coach Calvert is your man. Coach Calvert, how are you doing, my friend? I’m doing really good. I’m really ready for Christmas, though. You are ready. Now, tell us what you have going on right now for Christmas. You’ve got an unbelievable thing going on at scorebball.com. We have our favorite camp of the year because it’s right after Christmas. Parents love it because they can get them out of the house and the kids just go crazy. Full action, scream, yell, and then they come home where they’re a little more tired. Now here’s the deal. If you’re looking for a great diversion for your kids this holiday season, and I know you are, you want to go to scorebball.com, sign up for Christmas Basketball Camp, and now we get into the life of Mr. Phil Knight. So Phil Knight currently is the world’s 15th richest person, worth $28.1 billion. Billion, wow. Look, age 17. Age 17, okay, check it out. Age 17. He attends Oregon University. Fun fact. He ran track at the University of Oregon and he graduated in 1959 with a degree in journalism. So think about, where were you at age 17? He was attending the University of Oregon. So he graduates, he’s age 22, and he serves active duty in the Army. Okay, he serves for one year, active duty. And he goes on to get his MBA at Stanford. But Z, this is when the entrepreneurial bug bit him. By the way, Z, 57% of the people listening right now, according to Forbes, 57% of Americans want to start a business. Is that shocking to you? No, it’s not shocking at all. In fact, I would think it might even be higher if people were really being honest because most people, especially from this country, love the independence. They love to do their own thing and you know they see all the capitalism I see people come over here and you people move this country for that opportunity go I can I can be oh my gosh is no class system there’s no I have to be pigeonholed in this or this or this you can actually do and create whatever it is you want to do 24 for you 24 now coach Calvert when did you realize that you wanted to be self-employed you play basketball at it over you Oklahoma University when did you decide, hey, I want to start my own business? When I was teaching school, I decided I would never want to do that for a long period of time. Not that I don’t admire teachers. They’re great. I just didn’t have the patience to sit behind a desk for hours. Was it before or after you took a stapler and stapled your own head? Was it? At least every day after school. Just every day. You’re like, well, I just… Here’s the deal. Phil’s epiphany. He’s sitting in a classroom, 1962, this is what he says, he says, that class was an aha moment. Schallenberger, that’s his professor, defined the type of person who was an entrepreneur. And I realized he was talking to me. He was talking to me? I remember after saying that to myself, this is really what I planned, what I would like to do. This is Phil Knight, he’s saying this is really what I like to do. His professor, Frank Schallenberger, teaching him at Stanford, is teaching him about what an entrepreneur is like, and he goes, this is me. So he wrote a paper, okay, he had to write a business plan as part of the class project. His paper was called, Can Japanese Sports Shoes Do to German Sports Shoes What Japanese Cameras Did to German Cameras? Essentially, it was the premise to his foray into selling shoes, okay? So he ended up, he graduates with a master’s degree in business administration from school in 1962 But this is a notable quote. This is from Phil. He says so that morning in 1962 I told myself let everyone else call your idea crazy. Just keep going don’t stop Don’t even think about stopping until you get there and don’t give much thought to that To where there is whatever comes just don’t stop so here’s the deal age 24 he gets on the phone is he he makes a cold call to Kobe Japan Kobe Japan he calls a guy whose name I cannot pronounce but he calls the guy he cut is it own it it’s own it suka what it’s who got he calls us on a suka he calls this guy and he calls the guy cold calls the guy and he says, hey, here’s the deal. I would like the distribution rights for the western United States. Real quick, he has traveled to Japan. He’s heard they make shoes in Japan. So he cold calls the guy and says, I would like the distribution rights for Tiger Shoes to be the western half of the United States. I want to be the guy. I want to be your dude. And Mr. Onosuka is like, well, you’re probably the only guy that’s called me. He’s probably thinking, enter dialogue. We’re the first guy to call me, so okay. So he goes ahead and says yes. So age 26, this is two years from the time he has the idea, he teams up with Bill Bowerman. Well, see, Bill Bowerman was kind of like what you are to me. Bill Bowerman was his track coach. Run, just run, Clay, run. Just, just, just. Oh, wait, no. When he partnered with Phil, he was 53. And you’re 52. I’m 52, yes, that’s a fact. So Phil Knight was 26 and his track coach was 53 and he goes, okay, I’ll team up. So now that I’ve done a lot of research on this, but I want to read it to you. So they each put in $500. $500 into the project. Why would they put in equal money? Well, it’s the skin of the game. I mean, that’s how you do it. You have a young man come up with an idea and you’re kind of going, I’m not going to fund all this. I’m going to make sure you’re serious about this. So in order to kind of prove your seriousness and to prove that you are a dude I want to do business with, then you’ve got to put a little skin in the game. That’s what it’s called, a little skin in the game. On January 25, 1964, they started a company called Blue Ribbon Sports Together. They did it with a handshake. They didn’t have a lawyer, they didn’t have a contract. They shook hands, they put money in. And Z, when we come back, we’re going to talk about age 27 now. Okay, this is three years after he has a big epiphany. What’s going on in the mind of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike? Stay tuned. Thrive Nation, welcome back to your Inspiration Station. We are Inside the Box that Rocks. My name is Clay Clark and I’m here with Dr. Robert Zellner. I’m going to tell you one thing that I know, Z. This moment in time is sponsored by Oklahoma Joe’s, the number one lunch destination of really humanity. Dr. Z? It should be. I’ll tell you what, you’re just on lunch break, you just got in your car, you kicked on your radio and you’re thinking, where do I go to eat lunch because my belly’s empty. Oklahoma Joe’s, if you’re in Broken Arrow or by Broken Arrow, which is a suburb of Tulsa for those of you listening around the world on Thrivetime Show. Just drive over there by the Big Bass Pro Shop, Oklahoma Joe’s, and I would personally recommend it. It’s a personal recommendation from a doctor. The burnt ends and the baked beans. Or if you’re in Tulsa, South Tulsa, you can go to 61st and Sheridan, and you can find Oklahoma Joe’s there. Just walk on in and get all that great barbecue. If you’re downtown for lunch, because now we’re at lunch, we used to be over dinner time, now we’re over lunch time. You can go in there next to the Canes Ballroom, the iconic Canes Ballroom, and yes, that’s the same Canes Ballroom you’ve heard about for years, if you’re not in Tulsa, but you can, next 11 to 2 at lunch time, you can go in there and get some Oklahoma Joes. Will you write a prescription? If I’ve got a fever, and the only cure is more Oklahoma Joes, could you as a doctor write a prescription? Call it in I’m gonna call it in right now Man, well you kind of write your name in a way that I can’t read it as pharmacist Will you do what a doctor is do that? Why do you guys when you write this prescription? Why you go? Why do you just write? Randall, why do you go I can’t you guys write your name? What’s the deal with doctors? Well because most of us we don’t know how to read or write so you know I mean there was a lot of you know I mean a log we at one point you decide to quit you signing your name in a way that was legible? No, I listen. When people see my handwriting, they’re always like, oh my gosh, that’s like an issue. Read that, because I’m purposeful in that. Because you know, I mean, if I’m going to write… What’s with your colleagues, man? I don’t need to ask them. I don’t know. I digress. I do a lot of writing, so you know. Okay, well here we go. We have a very special guest on the show today. It’s really, this guy’s a doctor of basketball. Oh, he is. I know. He’s a doctor. He’s Coach Calvert. He has built score basketball to be, and I repeat this without reservation, this is just facts, he has the most successful basketball training and coaching facility for kids. They teach kids the game of basketball, but they also teach them how to win the game of life. They mentor kids, and they’ve got an unbelievable Christmas basketball camp. Coach tell us about it. Well, actually, the mentoring part is the most important to us. And during the camp we do all kinds of mentoring stuff. We’re talking about how to handle failure, how to motivate yourself, what your workout schedule should look like, how to train your own self, what are your goals and aspirations that you want to do. So it fits along the line of what we’re talking about today. Now if someone goes to scorebball.com, how much is the basketball camp? How much is it? How much does it cost? Go ahead and shoot me straight. How much does it cost? Don’t do no smoke and mirrors, man. $99. Not even as much as a pair of Nike shoes cost right now. Ooh. Nice tie-in. Well, today we’re talking about Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. And we’re talking about he’s age 24. OK, check it out. He’s in college at Stanford. He has the idea, oh my gosh, I want to start a business. He’s 26. He teams up with his track coach, who’s 53. They each put in $500 a piece. And by the way, Bowerman is the one, a lot of people get this confused, Bowerman, not Phil Knight, was the one who’s famous for ruining his wife’s waffle iron in his attempt to make waffle iron patterns on the bottom of shoes to make them work better for, he literally poured rubber into a waffle iron and attempted to staple it to the bottom of a shoe to improve the performance of an athletic shoe. That’s Bowerman who did that. So now, age 26, they put in $500 a piece. And here we go. Z, it takes them a year, age 27, an entire year before they would get their first prototype on the market. Z, that’s so discouraging for people who go, a year? Well, the reason why we bring Coach on, and the reason why we talk about the Phil Knight story, and the reason why we look at these things is because it inspires. It’s a testimony of people. Because a lot of times you just look at Nike and go, oh my gosh, they just made a tennis shoe. And now he’s the 15th wealthiest guy in the world. It must have been easy. It must have been easy. Oh my gosh, why can’t I come up with a tennis shoe? I have a great idea for a tennis shoe. I have a lot of ideas. I drew a swish on a thing. But when you really break it down and you really look at all the moves they did. There’s a lot of learning, mentoring, and coaching moments from it, and inspiration you get from it. And some of it’s actually from failures that successful people have had. Check it out. He had another job during the entire time. He’s age 24. He has the idea. See? You’re listening to the Throckton Show on Talk Radio 11. He’s 24. He has the idea. It’s 27 until he has his first prototype, and he has another job. A job. Did you have another job when you started your Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates? Did you have another job? Did you have another job over there, Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates? Did you have a job? Yes, I did. I was working at other offices when I was starting it because I wasn’t that busy. So we had other jobs. That’s kind of the move. Sorry, we have a call in here from Bernie Sanders. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, We don’t talk about home and gardening. We don’t talk about cooking. We don’t talk about, I do like, we do talk about some restaurants, especially Oklahoma Joe’s. You talk about the weight lifting. We don’t talk about weight lifting, but we’ve got a very strong man that’s one of our producers right now, Sam. He can like lift like. He can pump it up. He can lift over 350 pounds over his shoulders. Building over his head. Huge. But the thing about it, here’s what we’re dedicated to do. We’re dedicated to give you practical, encouraging business tips on how to start and grow your business because that’s our heart and that’s our passion and that’s what we do. Age 24 is when he wanted more. He was working over there at Price Waterhouse and Cooper’s as an accountant. Age 24. Now see, I’m not super smart, but he’s 31 when he gets into his green Plymouth Valiant. Those of you who know what that looks like, he’s in his green, Google that mess by the way, Google it. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a green Plymouth Valiant. He gets in the car, and he travels in his car around the Pacific Northwest, and he finally sells shoes. From age 24, now he’s 31. How long was that? Well, I’m just using math. I forgot. For mine, it’s 7 years. 7 years? Yeah. Oh, this show sucks. This isn’t a good show. He took him seven years to sell something? Yeah, exactly. But the thing about it is that that’s encouraging, because you may say to yourself, well, it didn’t happen overnight. It’s not happening right now. Hang in there. He started his business with $500. Not that I’ve done the research, but according to the inflation calculator, which is available for you, the listener, at data.bls.gov. Write that down. Data.bls.gov. That’s the inflation calculator. If you don’t know what inflation is, we’ll get into that later. But it’s the gradual devaluation of our money because government spends more than they have. Go back to Rush Limbaugh to learn more about the points. He spent $500 that in today’s money would be worth $3,892. So if you’re listening right now and you, my hooker crook, can come up with $3,892.79, you too could start Nike. Well, here’s the thing about it is if you’ve got a guy, he found a dude to put in the same amount. So they really had, you know, almost 8K, I mean. Dude, and check it out, he’s 24, now he’s 33 now. He’s 33 and he finally, he reaches out and he says his strategy was to import sneakers called the Onetazuka Tigers and to sell them at a higher price point. Nine years later before he finally begins to create a viable business strategy. In Phil Knight’s quote, he says, like it or not, life is a game. That’s how he responds to the criticism of why did it take you nine years before you finally figured out a viable business plan. Thrivers, if you’re listening right now, it’s taken you nine years to build a successful company. You’re in good company. We’re talking about the founder of Nike. It took that homie nine years to figure it out. Stay tuned. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your inspiration station. If you’ve ever wanted to start or grow a business, you are in for an audio treat today, because I’m telling you what, some of you are listening right now, and you’re good at volleyball. Some of you are listening right now, you’re good at baseball. Some of you are listening right now, you’re good at playing cards. Some of you are listening, you’re good at making cakes. You’re good at whatever you’re good at. My spiritual gift is, my superpower is building successful companies. It’s what I do. It’s in my DNA. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but that’s what I do. And I’m telling you what, the guy next to me has built successful companies in multiple industries. We’re talking about optometry. He’s been involved in a bank. He’s been involved in a horse breeding facility. He’s been involved in a sleep center. He’s been involved in a durable medical company. What is a durable medical? An auto auction? I don’t even know. I don’t even know. Auto auction, it’s crazy. But you know what? Hello, Thrivers, and welcome to the show. Over your lunchtime, we’re glad that you’re sharing a couple hours with us. And today, we’re going to give you some practical tips because we’re deep diving into a gentleman who did it. He did it with excellence. But his story, you may not know. It’s Phil Knight. He’s the 15th richest man in the world right now. That’s probably why we couldn’t get him on the show. I think you reached out to him, didn’t you, Clay? I called him. I heard someone hang up, and I was like, uh, tell him, Phil Knight. We’d like to have you in the box at Rocks and talk about shoes. So today we have a guy who has been coaching basketball for a long, long time. And actually, when he was a senior in high school, I guess Nike shoes came out, is that right? Coach Calvert of ScoreBball.com, founder of ScoreBball.com, Coach Calvert. Did Nike shoes come out when you were a senior in high school? Yeah, they did. I didn’t like them. Why? They were not very comfortable. Were you wearing Birkenstock sandals? What were you wearing back then? I was wearing Converse. Everybody wore Converse. Really? The Chuck Taylors? Of course. You know that Nike has bought the Chuck Taylors, you know that? Oh, no, I didn’t. They did. They bought them now. So if you’re listening right now and you say, I’m not a sellout. I go old school. I get the Chuck Taylors. Well, you’re actually paying Nike. So this just in. This just in. So here’s the deal. Phil Knight gets the idea to start Nike at age 24. Now he’s 33. Okay, so how many years? Nine years. Nine years. He’s taken home nine years to get to a point where he’s realized uh… this logo, this brand isn’t working. It was called Tiger. Tiger. From Japan. Japanese shoe. Yeah. So he goes ahead and creates the Nike name and logo nine years after starting the business. The Nike logo is meant to suggest movement because it represents the wings of the Greek goddess of victory, Nike. This just in. By the way, for those of you who don’t know that, it represents the Greek goddess of victory, that’s Nike. The iconic swoosh was designed, Z, for $35, Z, in 1971 by Portland State University student Carolyn Davidson, who was hired by the founder of the company, Nike. So did you know that? It was $35. Well, it’s worth a lot more now. And here’s the deal, folks. The takeaway with that, and the important thing to learn is this, is that Phil Knight was not a graphic designer. Phil Knight was not a maker of logos. Phil Knight went to the university, found a college student that was in graphic design, and he said, hey, listen, I need a logo and got the logo done and wow look he’s done pretty well with that little swoosh Now check it out. Well, the bill is a good guy, by the way, he’s a good guy Yeah, so he comes back age 55, by the way, you’re 52. You’re looking beautiful. You’re through your 22 Facebook live it’s just wow. You’re just you’ve aged. Well, I got the face for radio stop it Here’s the deal in September of 1983 nearly three years after the company went public. Knight invited Davidson to a company lunch. So imagine you’ve been invited to this lunch. You built the logo for $35 back in the day, okay? So this is 22 years later. There he presents her with a diamond ring engraved with a swoosh, and he gives her an envelope with 500 shares, which were worth $643,000. Wow, that is really cool. I did not know that, by the way. Yeah, and she says this. She says this. She goes, this is something rather special for Phil to do because I originally built him and he paid me on time. That’s the thing. Yeah, so the notable quotable, though, is that the idea, the takeaway I want to make sure we get in your head, the thing I want you to leave with here is that, again, it took nine years to take his idea and to build it into fruition, but he doggedly pursued that because he’s a shoe dog. He’s still night You’re listening to the thrash time show on talk radio 116 so age 33. This is how he sold things, okay? He rebrands the company and he starts reaching out to many popular athletes who were wearing shoes Most of them wear shoes. Yeah, most basketball players are wearing shoes, and he says here’s the deal I want you to wear my shoes, and they’re like I don’t want to wear your shoes. I want you to wear my shoes. I don’t want to wear your shoes. You can have them for free. For free? Okay, I’ll wear your shoes. So at age 34, this is 11 years after he starts. This is when he finally begins to no longer lose. This is 11 years. Wow. 11 years. I guess that’s one way to put it, right? He goes, 11 years. Here’s the deal. Olympic athletes, you freaking athletes, just if you’ll take my shoes I’m calling the Cortez if you’ll just wear these are in a variety of colors and I’ll freaking give them to you for free just wear them they’re different colors and just ah so the Olympics happened in Munich and people start wearing his shoes there’s a glimmer of OBSI oh it’s a breakthrough oh you know and and that was the move back then now they got to pay the people quite a bit of money to wear them but back in the day he was just giving them to him free he’s the first guy to do this. Yeah, the first guy to do it. And he got the cool kids, he got the athletes, he got the people that the kids look up to wearing the shoes. How have you done that with local DJs, with your optometrist clinic? You did this move. This is a move you did. You didn’t give people shoes, but you gave them… What did you do? Well, we gave them… I mean, with our optometrists, we gave them the cool office, the cool space, the cool glasses, the cool thing, you know. And what happens is that when you advertise and you bring a sizzle to it, now it’s not only you’re getting glasses, but we’re getting glasses from Dr. Zellner’s, you know, who is, when you advertise somewhat and you get a little bit of fame behind you, and that’s part of having a business, you want to make it, you want to build up the expectations before even walking the door. You want to make a little sizzle. You want to make a little pop to it. And so by advertising on the radio, which was my first original movie, which I can still continue to do, people hear you and then all of a sudden you have a DJ endorsing you and saying hey, I go there and this place is cool. Stay in the joke man, I wear your glasses. Yep, exactly. Kelly Rush, wearing your glasses. Yeah, exactly. Back in the day. Back in the day. That’s old school. I remember that, man. I remember that stuff, bro. Yeah, and that’s the thing about it. They get on there and say, hey, listen, I’m going here. I’m wearing their Oakleys. I’m wearing their Ray-Bans. I’m wearing their cool stuff. And look at me. And then people listen and go, I’ve been listening to you for years. I trust you. You’re in my car and my living room every day. I believe you. Now, this is just in. If you go to scorebball.com, you will see that Coach Eddie Sutton, the former legendary basketball coach of Oklahoma State University, his grandkids went to score b-ball. He endorses the program. We’ve had many National Basketball Association players who were coached by Coach Calvert. Many Division I players coached by Coach Calvert. And Coach Calvert, this holiday season, people can be taught the game of basketball from you, my friend. You’re endorsed by celebrities. Tell us about the Christmas Basketball Camp. It’s the 27th through the 30th from 9 to 12, three hours of constant action. And we’ll make sure your kids learn. You mean the same program that was taught, the same moves that you’ve taught many players who’ve gone on to play professional basketball, and almost 100 that have played Division I basketball, that same system could be taught by you? Yeah, actually the same things I do with my NBA players, college players, Division 1 point guards, we do with these 10, 11, and 12 year old players. It’s got to cost thousands. How much does it cost? Only $99. $99? Are you kidding me? For a basketball coach, can Coach Z and I come? This is a special deal. Do you coach 36 year old men? Could you make me an NBA player? No, no way. This just in, we’re signing up, Dr. Z and I, we’re signing up. You heard us right. We’re signing up at scorebball.com for the Christmas Basketball Camp. We’re looking for something to do during the holiday break, and you can too. Come join us. Scorebball.com. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to your inspiration station, your audio dojo of mojo. My name is Captain Clay Tiberius Clark, and I’ve been sent here to teach you how to start and grow a successful business. And you know what? We used to do it in the dark. We used to be doing it from 5 to 7 every day. But Z, they’ve moved us to noon. They’ve moved us to noon. And so right now, Z, you could go over to the other station. You could. And you could be listening right now to Rush Limbaugh. He’s going to interview Bernie Sanders. They’re going to argue about socialism. He’s going to talk about building the wall. He’s going to talk about Hillary Clinton. Is there a recount? Is there not a recount? There’s a certain value, I guess, in learning these things. Or you could learn how to improve your own life and learn how to start and grow your own business because this just in. If you’re waiting for the government to come and help you, they’re not going to do it. But it’s not a political show. It’s not a political show. Well, I know. No politics, no home and garden, no cooking. But the thing about it, the fun thing about our show, we’re going to give you action items, action steps, give you practical business information, and we’re going to coach you up and do some stuff you can actually affect. I mean, listen to the other stuff. You’re kind of going, ah, what a year. I’m tired. I’m sorry. I keep on yelling about everything. Fair’s fair. The health care goes down. If the rates go up or down, I could probably, you know. Hey, just tell me the rules, and you know what? We’re going to adjust, and we’re going to play, and we’re going to make profit, and we’re going to be victorious. We’re going to build our business. That’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to say something offensive. If you want to learn how to make some copious amounts of cash, you need to build a money machine? Then you, my friend, need to get on the Thrive15.com routine. If you want to learn how to make a money machine, you’ve got to get on the Thrive Time Show routine. You’ve got to tune in daily because we teach you how to do it. We’ve done it. My name is Clay Clark, SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, Dr. Robert Zellner. We always bring in local Oklahoma who built successful companies, and today we’re honored to have a very special guest. This is a guy who remembers when, before he started to score a B-ball, you remember when you were a high school senior, Phil Knight was trying to introduce Nike shoes. And you players were like, I ain’t having it. I’m not wearing those things. I’m wearing Converse. Coach, what was that like? Did you just immediately reject Nike shoes? Or what was your reaction when you saw Nike shoes for the first time? Well, they were free, but they were really ugly. And they were heavy on my feet and they kind of clumped. I wanted to be quick. Plus, girls were looking at you and all that kind of stuff. They were ugly. So here’s the deal. Girls didn’t want to wear Nike shoes. You couldn’t be the man on campus if you wore Nike shoes. Now you almost can’t be the man on campus if you’re not wearing Nike shoes. I’ve got mine on right now. I wouldn’t buy anything different. So here’s the deal. Phil Knight gets the idea to start Nike at the age of 24 while attending a Stanford class. Now he’s 34 and he’s finally convincing Olympic athletes to wear his shoes for free at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Z, how frustrated is your wife or your significant other or anybody who knows you, how frustrated is everyone around you at this point? When you’ve been in business for 10 years, I mean, it’s like a biblical thing. Is it even business for 10 years and you still haven’t really done well at all? How frustrated are you? How frustrated? What’s going on in the home front when you’ve been in business for 10 years and haven’t done any success at all? If you make it like a college coach and he hasn’t won a game or he hasn’t won a season in 10 years, it’s tough for him to stay around. I’d argue that he almost still had just a vision. He still had an idea. If you say, I’m going to start a business and then I don’t sell anything for nine years. You had the vision back then. So you know what, some of you out there listening are going, I’m going to start that business and I started it. But you really haven’t because you haven’t sold anything. That’s okay. We’re going to coach you up and we’re going to say that’s okay. Now he really, arguably I would say that until you sell something, until you solve a problem, until you make a profit, you really haven’t started your business. I mean, you may have an idea. You may have your LLC that’s gathering dust on some, you know, some rich mahogany library. I’ve formed my LLC and I’ve created my, what I would call my operating agreement. And I have a business partner. A business partner. We meet, you know, once a month and we talk about how we don’t sell anything. I mean, I mean, how we have this big vision. Yeah, and that’s okay. That’s the step one. And hopefully we can help you make your step one a little shorter than seven to nine years. I mean, that’s, you know, I mean, but it’s okay if that’s how long it takes. It’s okay because if you end up being the 15th richest person in the world, that’s the earth, that’s not a bad end game, by the way. Here’s the deal. He’s age 35 now, 1973, and Nike’s annual revenue jumps to $28.7 million. In 1983, ten years later, his revenue was $867 million. So all of a sudden, Olympic athletes are wearing his shoes, things are doing well in the world of Mr. Phil Knight. Aged 41, 1979, he comes with the Nike Air technology, which was patented by the inventor, Frank Rudy. You’re listening to the Throckmorton Show on Talk Radio 1170. Now Phil Knight says this now, it’s notable quotable, he says this, the man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. Oh, I love that quote. See, why do we have to remember that here’s a guy who paid $35 to have a hand-drawn logo made nine years after founding? I mean, why is it so important that we remember that we actually, as an entrepreneur, as a potential, if you’re listening right now and you want to start a business. Why is it so important that you study how somebody came successful instead of looking at their success and going, well, what’s it like to have a million dollars? So you don’t lose hope. So you stay in the game. So you keep pressing. You keep going. I think there’s a lot of people out there with great ideas and they, you know, something doesn’t happen in the timeframe that they feel like it should happen and they give up. up and we’re here to show, to encourage you, part of business coaching, part of business mentoring is, there is a part of it, coaching, that’s why I love having Coach John here with scores, is that, you know, part of it is letting you know that you can do it and that even though it may take longer than you think it should, that’s okay. You know, because as long as we still get to the end game, as long as we get to be the 15th richest person in the world. Coach, you’ve got kind of a waiting list where you literally, you can only handle about 10 more kids to sign up for your Christmas basketball camp. They go to scorebball.com. You’re taking 10, 9 kids more than you. You’re booked out. So how long did it take you to make a profit there at scorebball.com before you built Oklahoma’s best basketball camp? Probably about three months. We started slow though. Three months? We started with one. You bet the heck out of Phil Knight! But we started with a small little beat-up goal up on the upstairs. We started with no tables, no nothing. We were, bought just a couple of basketballs. And you were a shameless user of steroids. Of course. No, but you made a profit in three months, right? Right. It took about three months. And we spent as little money as possible. We went to any kind of store we could to find a chair, some beat up chair for parents to sit in. And we did everything we could to keep our costs down. I want to ask you this, my friend. Age 41, the Air technology comes out. Do you remember when Air Force One came out, man? I remember when they started putting those bubbles in those shoes. What did you think about that? Was that whack? Was it not good? I thought it was kind of cool. You thought it was kind of cool? Yeah, then it started turning my attitude around about him. Age 43, our main man, Phil Knight, the Air Force One basketball shoe becomes the first shoe using this technology. This is what Phil Knight says, note what quote he says, what if there were a way, without being an athlete, to feel what athletes feel? To play all the time instead of working. Think about that. This is Phil Knight. He says, or else to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing. He explains that he loved working. Phil Knight says, what if there was a way, without being an athlete, to feel the way that athletes feel? To play all the time instead of working. Or else to enjoy work so much that it becomes essentially the same thing. Phil Knight loved sports. He was obsessed with it. He couldn’t stop. This was his passion. So now, age 45, he signed a guy by the name of Michael Jordan. Z, have you ever heard about Michael Jordan? Uh, yes. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it’s kind of scratching my memory. I feel like he played basketball. Was he into curling? Was he into curling? Wasn’t that the Olympic sport where you have the guys Bjorn and Sven and Rauschendorfer and they get up on the ice and they… If he was a swimmer, it wouldn’t have been like Mike. I don’t think that would have worked sometimes I dream there is he that he is me be like you got to see that’s how I dream to be Sometimes I move. Oh, sometimes I grew like Mike if Z could be like Mike near that song Nope no, okay, so here’s the deal so he says this he says this till night says somewhere This is a notable quote from Phil Knight himself. He says someone somewhere once said that business is war without bullets, and I tended to agree. So in 1985, when he was a college athlete, he begins recruiting Michael Jordan, and he signs him to a five-year deal for 500,000 a year, which by the way, in today’s money, that’d be $1.121 million. He got him for, in today’s money, $1.12 million. He got the first big number shoe deal. Z, how did that change the game for Nike, my friend? Oh my goodness, wow, that really exploded them. I know you’ve researched all this, you have all your fun facts, and I’m actually like everybody else listening on Thrive right now, I can hardly wait to hear the number because I know the number is going to be gross. Here’s the deal, the company sold 70 million dollars of the shoe. Yeah. By the end of the year they sold a hundred million dollars of the shoe. Now age 46 the company hits 1 billion dollars of sales. Unbelievable. These guys weren’t making any money five years previously and now they’re and he says this he says at first we couldn’t be establishment because we didn’t have any money. We were guerrilla marketers and we still are a little bit. But as we became number one in our industry, we’ve had to modify our culture and become a little bit more planned. So age 47, he introduces the Air Max shoe. And my friends, you’re not going to want to miss out what happens when Phil Knight’s 48, because when he’s 48, things start to get mega great, mega awesome-zy. Mega incredible. Hang in there, folks. Thanks for this is thrive time show we come back. We’ve got more on the field night story Don’t go anywhere All right, T-Town and Oklahoma, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show and your audio dojo of mojo. And if you’re on Facebook Live right now, you recognize the scenery has changed inside the box that rocks. We have a very special guest. And Dr. Z, let’s give some hints to the Tulsans out there, to the Oklahomies. Who is our guest inside the box that rocks? As we talk about the Phil Knight and the Nike story, how Phil Knight built the 50, how he became the world’s 15th wealthiest man. Give him some tips. Who do we have inside the box that rocks? Well, we have first of all, he’s a beautiful man on the outside and the inside. Oh, wow. He’s an author. He’s a poet. He could be a singer-songwriter. I mean, I wouldn’t doubt that at all. And he’s all about the chicken. You know what, Eve, I tell you what, if you like chicken, this is your man. If you’re an American. If you’re an American, apparently chicken’s a thing. Yeah, this guy owns two Chick-fil-A’s. Two Chick-fil-A’s. He’s got, what is he, 75 kids? Six kids? So many we can’t even, I don’t even know that he has an exact count. I will say he had a kid after he had a vasectomy. Yeah, which is a thing. That’s a thing. That’s never happened before in the history that I know of, but he’s had that kid after the second. He also has a Guinness Book of World Records. We’ll let him talk about it. He has several of them, actually. That’s one of his moves. That’s one of his superpower moves. It is Arthur Greenough, ladies and gentlemen. Arthur Greenough, welcome inside the box at Rocks. How are you doing? I’m doing great. How are you guys doing? Man, we’re honored to have you, and we’re talking today about the Nike story and how Phil Knight was able to grow his idea. By the way, it took him nine years to build a profitable business. From the time he had the idea at age 24 until he starts making some money, it took him nine years. We’re getting into the details of how he did it. So age 48, 1988, the company, his company, pivots and comes up with the tagline, Just Do It. And he says, I may be over the top on this, but I just don’t want to like my competitors. I want my people to believe that whenever our competitors succeed, we will be less able to do all the things we want to do. Zee, I’m going to start with you. Are you pretty competitive as an optometrist? Do you believe the pie is just big enough for all of you? I’m very competitive, and I think that’s in the nature of most entrepreneurs to be competitive. And if you don’t understand that the people that you’re competing with want the business that you have and you’re sitting there going, oh, we’re just going to kumbaya and sit around and make s’mores and we’ll just, you know, chop up the pie and we’ll all have an equal little share. Why don’t we share the revenue equally? It’s Popeye’s chicken. If I have a better month than you do, I’ll cut you a check. If you have a better month than I do, you’ll cut me a check. Okay. If I have a tough month, then you’ll make my house payment. No! Business is war without bullets. I love that line. We have somebody listening right now who is going, I own a Popeye’s chicken. Why are you so hateful? You’re so hateful. But I’m going to tell you a true story. This happened. My kids were in the suburban, and Arthur, I want you to unpack this. My kids were in the suburban. It’s a true story. This happened about four months ago. I said, hey, kids, where do you want to go tonight? And they go, Chick-fil-A! We go over there to 101st and Memorial, 105th and Memorial, and right next to it is a Popeye’s chicken. And there’s a big line around Chick-fil-A. Big line. Such a big line. In fact, you have somebody who came out there, somebody who comes out at Chick-fil-A, they come out to my car and they pre-take my order. So it’s like a drive-thru, but there’s a person who’s coming up to your car, and the line is wrapped around the business. And at Popeye’s Chicken, there’s like one person there. It’s probably the father of the employee dropping him off to work or something. And my kids, I didn’t pay them to say, let’s go to Chick-fil-A. But they love the balloons, they love the service, they love the experience, they love the play zone, they love the whole deal. How competitive is Chick-fil-A to go out there and earn everybody’s business? Walk me through. I mean, how competitive is your organization, my friend? Like compared to other competitors? Yeah. Or compared to other Chick-fil-A’s? I’m just saying, how competitive is Chick-fil-A? How much of the business do you want? Do you want all the business? We want it all. Every last chicken. Why? Because they’re ours. You want all the business? We want it all. We’re in it to make money. So walk me through some of the crazy things you’ve done in your years past to drive, I mean, when it was a winter, it was a winter, it was a cold winter in Tulsa, snow, snow had fallen over all the land. And there was not a single Tulsan out looking for chicken. It was almost like Z, it was almost like people quit looking for chicken because the weather was so bad. And then you had a vision, Arthur, to build what? What did you do? What world record thing did you build to draw traffic to your business? We said let’s make the world’s largest snow cone. Did you really do this? Absolutely. People Google the world’s largest snow cone and find this truth? Yeah. Okay and how did you do it? What was the process? Walk me through step one, step two, how did you do it? Well first of all you need to understand that Chick-fil-A is not a snow cone company. We just wanted to sell chicken. I thought it was a snow cone company. No, there’s no chicken snow cones that we know of. But we said we want to have a lot of people come and have spicy chicken biscuits because we’re going to have like three feet of snow that day. So I called an expert in the field that makes snow cones. And I said, come help me make a giant snow cone. Who is the expert in the field? This is Josh from Josh’s Snow Shack. Oh, wow. And that guy has a big line around his snow cone shacks as well. He is. We just share our lines. So you guys teamed up to build the world’s largest snow cone? We did. In fact, we painted our whole parking lot purple and it was rainbow colored. It was awesome. You were in the tallest world. You were on the news. I mean, people lined up during a winter, cold winter month to come to your Chick-fil-A because of the size of the snow cone. How big was it? I mean, now I’m just kind of curious. How big of a snow cone was that, Arthur? It was like 13 feet. 13 feet? Yeah, it was negative 5 degrees. In diameter or height or what? It was 13 feet tall. You had to get on a ladder just to eat it. Knowledge bomb. How did you get started? With Chick-fil-A. How did you get started building this world’s largest snow cone? How did you do it? Well, we said, let’s do it, so we just started making phone calls. Who’s going to help us with this? Who is crazy enough to join us and do this? Did you literally make the calls? Did you do it yourself? Oh yeah. And so you built this thing. And again, talk to me about the daily excellence of Chick-fil-A. What are some things that you have to do on a daily basis as a franchisee of Chick-fil-A to hold the standard? Because Chick-fil-A corporate wants to have an awesome experience. What are some of the things that you do at Chick-fil-A? How often are you guys cleaning the bathrooms at Chick-fil-a? Um, every time they’re dirty, which is about, um, what, every 20 minutes? How intense is your opening checklist at Chick-fil-a? Uh, if you ask my managers, way too intense. Do you have to say, it’s my pleasure every time? Absolutely. Otherwise, you’re promoted to customer status. What? See, what does that mean when he says you get promoted to customer status? What does that mean? It’s just mean. It’s just, it’s just, it’s just mean. It’s a clever way of saying you’re fired. How much time do you spend training your staff, Arthur, on how to do things the Chick-fil-A way? I mean, how much time? When you hire a new person, how many hours are you spending training them the Chick-fil-A way? We spend about 16 hours just getting them started. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 117. Now, see, I’m not asking you to make up a number. I know you’ve got a lot of businesses you’re involved in, but how much time do you spend on really trying to train? Are you perfect? No. Am I perfect? No. Is Arthur perfect? No. But how much time do you spend training your people to greet people the Dr. Zellner and Associates way, the right way? How much time do you spend training the people inside your optometry clinic to do things and to provide customer service the right way? Well, we never stop training, actually. I mean, then we do cross-training. Once you learn one area, then you do cross-training, and you’re continuously kind of training and doing role-playing. And there’s new products that are rolling out. There’s new systems that we put into place. And so we always do. But you guys have kind of a specific question within a question there, which you really like to do, I think. A question within a question. A question within a question. It’s kind of your move sometimes to me. You’re like, see, what about this and with this and that caveat and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and Responsibility of being the face of the organization face that face that’s Popeye’s. Oh, oh, sorry. Oh Had to go there, okay, here we go here we go so Phil Knight realizes he’s aged 48 This is when their company pivots. He realizes We now this is Phil Knight’s epiphany. He says he realizes that the majority of humans on the planet are not top athletes. What? What? And he says they don’t even work out in the shoes when they do buy them. He’s going, he begins to focus on creating athletic shoes that many people will wear just for fashion over function. So he launches the Bo Nose commercial. Remember those Bo Nose commercials? I actually do, yeah. The Nike, the Michael Jordan, Spike Lee says it’s gotta be the shoes. You know, how does he jump so high? It’s got to be the shoes. Yeah. The 1991 Andre Agassi in Red Hot Chili Peppers where it’s Agassi’s rock and roll tennis camp. Remember Charles Barkley, I’m Not the Role Model commercials? Oh yeah, I remember those. Remember the Dennis Hopper, the referee that was obsessed with Barry Sanders or Little Penny or Ken Griffey Jr. running for president and George Clinton was his campaign manager? The thing is, Knight begins to realize that, hey, most people are not focused on the shoes. They want to focus on something bigger than themselves. So he says this, this is what he says, he says, they began to, Nike began to transform into a marketing-focused company and not a product-focused company. Zee, that’s a huge thing, to become a marketing company and not a shoe-focused, a company focused on just selling shoes to top athletes. I mean, that’s a, Zee, what did you realize with your optometry clinic you’re going to have to focus on marketing? I mean, obviously you do great quality optometry. We’re not saying that Phil quit caring about the quality of the shoe, but he realized, I have to become a marketing company that sells shoes. When did you realize you had to become a marketing company that sells optometry and great vision and contacts and glasses? When did that occur to you? Oh, a couple, three, four years into it. I mean, you know, you start with saying, okay, now I want to grow my business. And one of the ways you grow your business is you press on the gas pedal. If your business is a car, marketing is the gas pedal of the car. And so as you press on that gas pedal, then your car goes faster. And at some point you realize that it’s okay. I remember back in the day, when professionals were like, well, that’s just, that’s not ethical. That’s unethical to advertise. Don’t advertise. You’re taking the Hippocratic Oath, bro-town. So it’s okay. It’s not unethical. It’s ethical if you do it the correct way. Of course, there’s rules in advertising for almost all kinds of businesses out there. But the thing about it is that you have to look at it just like Phil Knight did. Yeah, you have to have the quality shoe. You do. But all businesses are really a marketing company that sells a product or service. All right Thrive Nation, welcome back. We’re playing some 80s for the ladies here. Z, we’re playing, Z, we are doing, we’re going out of our way. We’re playing some 80s for the ladies. There’s a lot of soccer moms out there listening going, how come we’re not playing any good 80s music anymore and talk radio? And I’m going to tell you what, we just played some 80s for the ladies. We played some 80s for the ladies and you know 80s are great. I mean 80s are, I’ve got a lot of great memory of the 80s. One thing we’re not going to do for all the soccer moms listening right now is we’re not going to wear yoga pants. We know that you’re wearing yoga pants, we respect your rights to wear yoga pants, but we’re not doing that. We’re going to play some 80s for you. We’re not going to wear soccer, we’re going to wear the yoga pants. You continue to fight for the right to wear yoga pants. That’s the move. And we have a guy on the show who, I’m telling you what, this guy, he’s a very, very successful local entrepreneur, local business owner, local franchisee, great guy. He’s also the father of six, is it six human kids, Arthur Greeno? Six human kids? They are all human, but they smell ab-human. Well, here’s the deal, you are a man who, you have two Chick-fil-A locations, is this correct? Yes, sir. And walk the thrivers. We’re talking today about the story about Phil Knight, and we talked about how at age 24 he gets this idea to start Nike. And then he really doesn’t have any success at all until he’s about 33. It’s like nine years. Walk me through, when did you start working at Chick-fil-A and when did you start to have some success? Well, so I started working at Chick-fil-A in 1988. Back in the 80s. Back to the 80s. We’ve got to play that music and you’re going to put those yoga pants back on that you keep telling them you weren’t wearing? I’m not wearing the yoga pants. If you’re on Facebook Live, you will see that I respect myself too much to wear yoga pants. Yeah, and so I started in 88 with no yoga pants. They weren’t even around at the time. I don’t know why we’re stuck on that. But anyway, in 88, I worked at Woodland Hills Mall at the Chick-fil-A. Started there, making six bucks an hour. At Woodland Hills Mall, six bucks an hour? Six bucks an hour. Okay, so break it down for us. When did you begin to have some success? Uh, with Chick-fil-A? Yeah, I mean, you work at the Wildernose Mall. When did you finally, you know, start to make enough money to feed yourself and now live in your luxurious house and, you know, put in the pool? I mean, you’re kind of a diva. You have a beautiful house, you’ve got a great wife, great kids. Your house is gorgeous. You’ve got a great pool. You know you’re living the high life. You know what I mean? Seriously, I’m not trying to flaunt you. You’re not bragging on me, I’m bragging on you. You’ve got a great house, great wife, great kids. Seriously, you’re living the American dream. And when did that happen? It took eight years before I was even in a profitable location. Eight years? Eight years. Were you terrible at your job? No, I was good at my job, but it was hard. Arthur, was it a deal where they were going, you’re at Chick-fil-A, and you’re like, guys, to take this business to the next level, I have a new idea. I’ve brought my own live chickens into the store today. I mean, is that what was going on? Why did it take you eight years? Were you out of your mind? Well, for one, the brand was new. You’re going to say, that sounds like the back of my restaurant. Chick-fil-A was new. Yeah, Chick-fil-A was new, and we’d go around sample, and people wouldn’t believe it. They’d think we’re giving away pieces of fish. Why do you… I’m not exaggerating. They told my wife that. Really? What do you mean? Why do you think we’re giving away pieces of fish? Well, my wife was working one day and this young lady that came up and she said, I want a fish sandwich like I had yesterday. She said, we don’t serve fish sandwiches. She said, yeah, you do. I got one yesterday. Of course, being the brilliant wife that she is, she said, alright, one fish sandwich coming up. So you worked in a business for eight years before you had success. That’s correct. So someone is listening right now going, Dr. All Night was a loser. Arthur Greenard, it’s been a long time for him. That’s normal, guys. This is normal. Normal. That is normal. You’ve got to build a foundation. How long did you go to college, man? Eight years. See, this is a theme. We have eight years of college. You’ve got eight years of chicken knowledge. You’ve got… I mean, these are things. If you’re listening right now, success, Proverbs 10.4. This isn’t a Bible show, is it? No, but Proverbs 10.4, even if you don’t believe in the Bible, there’s some certain wisdom in there you can find. But Proverbs 10.4 says that God blesses the hand of the diligent and he punishes the slackered. By the way, if you don’t sow seed, nothing will grow. So if you’re listening right now, you’re going to have to sow those seeds. So we get back to the life of Phil Knight. So Phil Knight, he’s age 52 now. The company’s doing a billion dollars of revenue. Do you guys remember when the sweatshop scandal came out? It was basically the 1990s when it first started happening, where they were talking about the unethical labor practices that Nike had. Do you guys remember that? Oh yeah, I remember that. I remember it as a thing, yeah. Yeah, so this is what happened. Nike came out. This is what Phil Knight is saying. Phil Knight is saying, these are his words, he says, whenever reporters said a factory was unsatisfactory, they never said how much better it was than the day we first went in. They never said how hard we’d worked with our factory partners to upgrade the conditions to make them safer and cleaner. They never said that these factories weren’t ours, that we were renters, one of many tenants. They simply searched until they found a worker with complaints about conditions and they used that worker to vilify us and only us knowing our name would generate maximum publicity Arthur, have you ever been sued as a franchisee at Chick-fil-A? My attorneys told me not to answer that. Okay, fine. Zeve, have you ever been sued? Oh yeah, several times. I’ve been sued quite a bit. Yeah. You know what happens is once you get to the top, mo’ money, mo’ problems. Absolutely. Absolutely. And the first one you get, whenever it is in your, and hopefully you’ll never have a lawsuit. Yeah, probably not you. Yeah, you know. It’s amazing how litigious people can be in this day and age. And when you get served that first one, I mean it’s debilitating. I mean you are just absolutely crushed. I mean you’re looking for a rock to get under and just hide. Z, if I’m listening right now, if I’m listening right now and I am currently being sued, please preach it to me. If I’m getting sued right now and I’m going through a dark period in my life, I’m getting sued and I’m going, I just want to climb under a rock, give it to me. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re going to get through it. It’s okay. Make sure you get some good legal representation. Go ahead. Calm down. Take a deep breath. Calm down. And above all, above all, above all, what? When you’re going through it. Going through what? This is going to sound crazy. It’s going to be crazy. It’s crazy. I’m crazy. He’s crazy. It’s crazy. He cannot think. This man is insane. He has no idea what is going on. You got to forgive him. You got to forgive who? The people suing you. What? I’m, you’re, okay. All right. I can’t stop. I’m doing it. I can’t stop. I know. It’s so fun. It’s so fun to get in the mood. I’m telling you what, though. What will happen is you’ll get so angry. You’ll go through like grief stages. I mean, shock and denial first, then anger, then bargaining, and then finally acceptance. But take a deep breath. Don’t sit there and just re-read the dumb thing over and over and over because the stuff in it will drive you crazy. Help me out, help me out. I’m going to get into some specifics. These are kind of uncomfortable things to say, but have you ever, I mean, you ever got to a point where you couldn’t sleep? Absolutely. You’re laying in bed going, I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep. You were the first one. Because they like, because they like, because they, that’s, you know, Article 2 is a lie and that thing and the better thing. Have you ever, have you ever got to a point where, you know, you, your intestinal fortitude isn’t that strong, you sort of go, you maybe feel like you need to go to the restroom and you go, uh oh. Like you’re like, I’m a grown man and uh oh. Your stomach is so in knots. Every time that you’re going, uh oh, people are going, uh oh what? You’re like, I gotta run to the restroom. I mean, you’re just totally, I mean, Arthur, have you ever been that worked up? Oh yeah, I just read those things in the bathroom. It’s just quicker. Yeah, because you know you’re going to end up there. That’s right. The good thing about it is get good legal counsel and just turn it over to them and just say, you know, don’t sit there and get all worked up about it. Just turn it over to the professionals. I mean, when your car breaks down, you don’t sit there and go, Oh my gosh, my car is really you find a mechanic, you get your car to the mechanic and you say, analyze it, let me know what my options are and you and then you make a decision based on what the professional tells you. Same thing with litigation. It’s you know, it’s going to happen. It’s just business 101. If you are successful, there’s somebody out there that’s going to go, you did me wrong, and I want money now. Now, as advertisers, when we come back, Arthur’s going to get into the details of how Chick-fil-A focuses on marketing and quality and customer service all at the same time. Quality and quantity? You mean you can have quality chicken and a quantity of chicken? This is crazy. Is that ethical? All right, green country and Oklahomies, welcome back to the show that always gets you jacked. And in fact, if you were just listening to Michael Jack, it is the Thrive Time Show, your audio dojo of mojo, where we teach you how to start and grow a successful business. How are we qualified to do it? Well, I’ve done it multiple times. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And what I lack in a physical beauty, I make up for in my knowledge of how to start and grow successful companies. That’s sort of my thing. That’s my passion. That’s my process. That’s what I’m all about. And we have a guy on the show today who loves business as much as I do because of the fruit it can produce in your life. It is Dr. Robert Sellner. Sir, how are you? The co-host of the Thrive Time Show here. Hollering out to all the Thrivers. Thanks for tuning in. It’s Thursday and we’ve been talking about some 80s songs, a little throwback for the Soccer Moms, which was kind of nice. You gave them a little throwback love earlier in the show. Yeah, a little throwback love. But we have a guy on the show that I have been really anxious to get him on the show because he’s a great Tulsa businessman. He’s really a good dude. He’s a good dude. He’s a good dude. He’s an author. He’s a poet. He’s a world-class athlete. He owns a lot of Guinness Book World Records. He sincerely owns Guinness World Records. He does. He sincerely owns two Chick-fil-A franchises. He sincerely has written books. He sincerely is a very good speaker. He’s sincerely a good guy. It is Arthur Greno. Sir, how are you? I am great. Thanks for letting me be here. Now, sir, we’re talking today about the Phil Knight story. This is how Nike was able to grow. And at a certain point, if you missed the earlier part of the show, you can go to thrivetimeshow.com and hear today’s show again. But basically, Z, he pivots from being a shoe company. He realizes, wait a minute, there’s more people that buy shoes than people who are elite athletes. I maybe should become a marketing company and not just a premium athletic shoe company. I should focus on becoming a marketing company. Z, why is it so important that everyone listening right now realizes that at some point? Your company must become a marketing focused company. It doesn’t matter whether you’re selling pizza tennis shoes eyeglasses Chicken or chicken or you fill in the blank and even your your the say it’s just a service You know I’m not I don’t sell something, but I I’ll come out mow your yard. I’ll cut your hair. Yes, whatever you’re doing, you’re really a marketing company. You’ve got to get the word out. You’ve got to market. You’ve got to get the sizzle. You’ve got to put the cool in, you know, not the cool, not the fool in there. And then what you do is then you follow it up with a great product. Yes, of course, Nike had to have a great shoe. You know, it had to actually work and feel comfortable and fit and do all that. We get that. We get that. But if you’re just like, we’re just a high-end, we’ll only sell to Olympic athletes. That’s our whole market. If you’re on the Olympic shoe, you can qualify to buy our shoe. You can qualify to buy it. Other than that… Get him out of here, he’s not an Olympic athlete. Get him out of here. You didn’t pass the application process to own one of our shoes. Okay, here we go. I want to ask you this, Arthur. How does Chick-fil-A, what do you do on a daily basis to focus on marketing? Because Chick-fil-A does focus on marketing. What do you have to do as a franchise owner? Well, there’s nothing we have to do as franchise owners. Whatever the law is, no. It’s one of those that one of our biggest things is our customer service. And so if we excel in customer service, they’re going to tell others about it, and they’re going to come and pay full price and bring more people in. And Chick-fil-A, though, they’re doing all… You see billboards everywhere. What kind of advertising does Chick-fil-A corporate do? The guys, you know, the man. What does corporate do? What corporate does is they encourage us as operators to team up and do things like the billboards and radio advertising. But one of the things they talk about is, are we making it remarkable? Is it advertising that people are going to remark about? Why do they have a cow that says, eat more chicken? Is that because it’s remarkable? Well, you tell me. Do you remember the billboards? I do. That’s why it’s stuck in my cranium. That’s right. In fact, I know that your kids have a bunch of Chick-fil-A cows at home. And why do you guys do marketing and emphasize customer service? Or I guess, how do you do it? How do you focus on marketing? What kind of things do you do on a daily basis? What kind of are some big things that the corporate man is focused on in terms of customer service? What are some things you have to do there that are different than other places. Because by default, people are not doing what you guys are doing at Chick-fil-A. Well, let’s start with the signature phrase at Chick-fil-A. If you go there and you tell, as a customer, you tell them, thank you, what are they going to say in return? It’s my pleasure. That’s right. And see, it’s funny, because both you guys know it. You’re listening to the Thrash Talk Show on Talk Radio 11 Central. So you’re saying that Chick-fil-A, the customary move, the signature move, you have to say, it’s my pleasure when a customer addresses you. That’s right. And if they say thank you and you say my pleasure, and they say thank you again, you say my pleasure, and you just go on this cycle for hours. Oh, I’m going to try that. I’m just going to go up there and order a fish sandwich. I’m going to look at them and say, it’s my pleasure. Thank you. It’s my pleasure. You’re going to look confused. It’s my pleasure. It’s my pleasure. Don’t take that away from me. It was my pleasure. It was my pleasure. Make sure you do that at one of the other Chick-fil-A’s. You’re not slowing down my drive-thru line when you do that. OK, now I can now interview. So we focus on, again, we focus on the marketing. We focus on the customer service. And then talk to me about the product. What kind of detail goes into making awesome? How is Chick-fil-A chicken different than most chicken? Well, for one, it comes in as a fresh product. We literally bread it on site. But the thing is that our holding times, everything is about having a perfect product. You bread the chicken on-site? We do. It’s amazing. I knew there were some shenanigans going on there, Z. I like off-site breaded chicken. I like where the chicken’s been breaded off-site. I’m tired of them breading it on-site. It’s too fresh. I’m glad you like it that way, because there’s a lot of businesses that do it that way. Okay. Well, here’s the deal. I mean, you know, great steaks, when they talk about how long they’ve been aged. We age our Kobe beef for 12 years. I left my steak in the car for three months. We’re gonna spell that out to Chick-fil-A and say we aged our chickens for 12 years. Well, I guess chicken and steak are a little bit different but that’s awesome because every time I go there, it’s an awesome experience, Arthur. You guys do a great job. I’ll tell you what, we’ve talked about marketing on a lot of our shows. You can go to Thrive Time Show and you can catch a bunch of past episodes. We talk about marketing. We talk about being the purple cow out in the pasture. You guys are great at being the purple chicken out in the pen. You know what I mean? Your advertising is so fun and so remarkable. I love it when I see a Chick-fil-A commercial come on. I could quote a couple of them right now just off the top of my head because they’re so… I love the humor and I love the play on how you guys play on the the concepts the chick-fil-a has got some very compelling ads that it really Convinced us all to take that take action, but you and I we have two demands of the thrivers tonight If you’re listening right now, we have two things that we demand to we have no ability to enforce this, but we demand it Yes one if you know Sean Copeland send him a text right now You know how many text messages we can send to Sean Copeland right now. If you know Sean Copeland, you have his phone number, send him a text. That would be fun, Disney. Can we hit 100? Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s hit 100. Can I give out his phone number right now? No, you can’t do that. He is the CEO of Regent Bank. And if you know him right now, just send him a text, because they’re talking about you on the radio. And don’t tell him what it’s about. Just make a kind of hint that it might not be positive. Just kind of hint at it. Oh, no, no, no. Hey, let’s give him all the numbers. Let’s mess with him. You’re a little, instead of feisty Friday, you’re kind of a little. Send Sean Copeland. He’s a beautiful man. We love Sean Copeland. But if you know him and you have his cell phone number, send him a text. But the second thing is, get over to Arthur’s Chick-fil-A, over there at 71st and… Garnet? Get over there, it’s right there in front of Panera, right there in the same kind of area, it’s right over there by… What else is by across the street from you? There is a… There’s a Kohl’s right behind me. Okay. And come by, and I will give you Sean Copeland’s phone number. And what will you do? No, no, wow. Wow. Sean Copeland, Sean Copeland, Sean Copeland. Regent Bank, Regent Bank, Regent Bank. But here’s the thing. What’s kind of the deal? Why does somebody need to come to this Chick-fil-A tonight? What’s going on there? What’s hot? What’s fresh? What’s going on at Chick-fil-A this afternoon? Why do they need to come by your Chick-fil-A? Why is it the best Chick-fil-A in Tulsa? Well, for one, we have the best Christmas light display. You do? Oh, wow. Yeah, we do. It’s awesome. We put lights everywhere. There’ll be cows dancing around. I mean, that’s just how we roll. Get over there right now, Tulsa. Get over there to the Chick-fil-A at 71st and Garnett. You got to head on over there and make sure, if you know Sean Copeland, you send that man a text. And when we come back, we’re going to learn how Nike fought through some adversity when things weren’t looking so good. They’re starting to get sued for unfair labor practices and that kind of thing. And they have to fight through some adversity. And he’s 58 years old. Not so fun. All right, Thrivers, today you are in for a very special treat. We’re talking about how Phil Knight grew Nike into being the billion-dollar business that it is today. In fact, when he came up with the concept to start Nike, my main man was 24 years old and was attending the Stanford MBA program. It took him almost nine years to finally build a viable business. And then at the age of 58 years old, when most people are starting to go, I’m finally reaping the fruits of my efforts, he’s engaged in a massive national sweatshop scandal story. And on the show today we have Dr. Robert Zellner, my partner and the co-host of the Thrive15.com show with us. We have Arthur Green of Chick-fil-A fame on the show. Z, when you finally have worked so hard to build a business, what is it within the human nature that begins attacking and wanting to destroy what you’ve built? How frustrating has that been throughout your career? When you finally built something, you then begin to be sued or attacked. Why is it within human nature for that to happen? Here’s the deal about it is that if you’re on the bottom rung of the business social ladder in your area, nobody cares about that. You’re the carp. Nobody cares about that. You know, I mean, if you’re down here and you’re barely making it, you’ve already got a business. You, you know, you’re not doing very well. I mean, you’re insignificant. No one cares. I primarily eat fish poop. I’m a carp. I’m a carp. And the thing about you and the thing about it is when you’re when someone is suing you, they want something from you. And the old saying you can’t get blood from a turnip is so true. So if you’re sitting there at your business, just one big old turnip and someone wants blood, they’re not going to sue you. But as you grow, then people look at you and there’s jealousy. There’s other competitors that say, you know, he’s taking business from me. Instead of saying, hey, how can I fight? How can I compete? That old jealous head rears up. You know, Joseph Stalin was right. I mean, I get it. That’s not fair. Why don’t we all become carpenters? We should stop it. We should stop it. But the thing about it is, and then they start nitpicking, but when you are the top, when you are the big fish in the pond, so to speak, in your business, in your area, then the other fish go, hey, we want some of that. We want some of that. And also, too, attorneys will, when someone comes in and says, you know, I slipped and fell, you know, my car ran over this there, that happened, this, I had a bad thing of this, I mean, then they sit there and they go, oh wait a second, this person has money, this person is successful, it’s worth my time to go down to the courthouse and file a lawsuit against them. Because I’m after the money. Show me the money! Show me the money, baby. And I have plenty of time. Yeah, I got plenty of time and nothing else to do. So I’ll get in my Honda CRV and drive down to the jailhouse and I will file a lawsuit for $69 and we’ll go after him. And the thing about it is, like I said earlier, and I really do mean this, I said something we kind of rolled over when we talked about lawsuits and that is forgiving. I’ll tell you what, if you keep that bitterness in you about someone suing you, someone coming after you and doing you wrong, it only hurts you. And when you’re hurting inside, it hurts your business, but then ultimately you give them what they want, and that is the downfall or the little bump in the road of your business. So turn it over to your attorneys. Do the old Taylor Swift song, Shake It Off. Shake it off. Shake it off, baby. And don’t worry, I won’t start singing. Shake it off. Arthur reminded me that this mic is not for singing. During the break, I was singing a song. He was like, Z. Hate is gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, night goes from a negative to a positive. He gets Tiger Woods engaged in the game. And just so you guys remember, Tiger Woods had just been this dominant college player and he begins to come with this commercial campaign called Hello World. And it’s Tiger Woods announcing to the world that, hey, by the way, I’m a three-time defending U.S. amateur champion turned pro golfer. And by the way, I’m Asian and I’m African-American. I’m a mix. I’m a mix. I’m not the typical white guy who you’ve seen hitting golf balls. It was pretty much an all Caucasian sport before that. So he begins these commercials, which by the way, they distract people, and they begin to realize, people start to focus on the marketing again. They begin to focus on the product again. They begin to focus on the service again. They begin to focus on the enigma, the energy, the positive. They begin to focus on the Nike culture. And Nike, by the way, age 74 now, becomes, he’s age 74 2012 it becomes a 24.1 billion dollar business and Phil Knight says this notable quote when they ask him hey dude your business is worth 24.1 billion what do you have to say he says this America is becoming less entrepreneurial not more a Harvard Business School study recently ranked all the countries of the world in terms of their entrepreneurial spirit America Peru. Arthur, why is that so scary for you that it’s scary for us? Why are we so motivated to teach entrepreneurship? Why is it such a scary thing for people to no longer have that entrepreneurial spirit that they once had within America? You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. What’s gonna happen is all the work’s gonna go somewhere else too, like Peru. Peru? I mean I’m just telling you this is what I think in America right now. What makes America great is that we have a country with no backup plan. I mean, you guys want to talk about American history? I mean, I’ll take you down a rabbit trail. It’s crazy. Go ahead and do it today. Sam Adams, who by the way, there’s a beer named after him. I was going to say, was it the beer guy? Because he was always drunk. But no, Sam Adams, okay? So this is what happens. Sam Adams was frustrated with the taxation from King George and the Redcoats, the British, okay? So he says, well, you know, guys. I mean, he’s hammered most of the time, seriously, he was famous, he was a notorious drunk. He says, well, guys, what we’re going to do tonight is we’re going to go out and we’re going to paint a red X on the door of all the people that support, you know, the taxation and the people who are sympathizers to the British, you know, the Tories, they’re called, the Tories. And they’re going, Sam, that’s not a good idea, because if we do that, they’re going to kill us.” And he’s like, oh, it’s cool, I can’t feel my face, I’m just pre-hammered, but let’s go, let’s go! So it’s like Animal House, where he’s like, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? You know, he’s just totally out of his mind. So he goes out there and they pull an all-nighter, true story, and they begin painting on the doors of the people’s homes that were sympathizers to the British. This would be like painting a Nazi swastika on the front of a business that is owned by a Nazi. It would be pretty damning to your business if you had a Nazi swastika painted on the front of your business. I mean, imagine in today’s terms, if someone painted a swastika on your business and you were a closet Nazi. All of a sudden, people aren’t going to shop there. Yeah, bad deal. So, he created a bad problem. Well, long story short, there’s a big melee that ensues in the streets. It’s kind of unsure of who fired the first shot. But next thing you know, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, these famous people, Ben Franklin, they’re not really sure who said it, but one of them said, either we all hang together or we hang separately, but the war is on. We have no backup plan. Yeah, no backup plan. We burned the boats. We put the eggs on the doors. And that’s how America started. There was no backup plan. And there was beer. So I’m going to ask you, when you started your business, Arthur, did you have a backup plan once you finally got your store after eight Years working at Chick-fil-a. Did you have a backup plan? No, so how did you go out there and market the business man? How’d you do it? It was it was if you want to survive. This is what we’re gonna do period We have a brief interruption here on the thrive time show. We have a caller here. Go ahead caller. Yeah, this is buddy Santa’s here. I was gonna Ask Arthur, how did you ever work more than 36 hours? Did you ever find like that you found yourself working over 36 hours? Because that’s not ethical. Did you ever work over 36 hours? Bernie Sanders out. I’m going back to the Rush Limbaugh show. You mean 36 hours in a day? I mean, how many hours a day were you working? Oh, I was working 18, 19 hours a day. I mean, I’d go home, fall in bed, go to sleep, get up early, go get it done. Unethical. Z, did you ever work more than eight hours a day? Well, of course I did. When you own the business, at first, you can’t afford many other employees. You got to do a lot of stuff. But, you know, I mean, yeah, listen, the entrepreneurs will say, well, you know, I’m going to start this business and I’m going to just hire a bunch of people and they’re going to do it all and I’m going to kick back. It’s my vision, bro. It’s my God’s gift. My humanity. It’s my vision, bro. I’m going to kick back and, you know, I’m the big thinker, but I’m just going to kick back. No, you’ve got to be the big worker. You’ve got to get in there and you’ve got to work and you’ve got to just work your little fingers to the little bone and just get it done. And then once you do that, then guess what? Then you can start hiring some people. Then you can start training some people. Then you’ve got your systems, your checklist, all the things that we teach you at Thrive Time on the Thrive Time show. And if you don’t know how to, you don’t even know where to start, or maybe you have a business and you just don’t know how to take it to the next level. Z, we’ve got three options for the listeners right now. One, you can go to thrive15.com, thrive15.com, and there you will find the world’s best business school. We have thousands of videos, ridiculous amounts of templates, downloadables. We’ve captured the world’s best manager, Lee Cockerell, who managed Disney World, the world’s best PR guy, Michael Levine, who was the PR guy for Nike and Pizza Hut. I digress. The point is, it’s the world’s best business school, thrive15.com. It’s $20 a month, and if you can’t afford it, we have a scholarship program. Option number two, Z, is in-person workshops. Why are workshops so powerful, Z? It’s funny, because you can come and meet other Thrivers. You can come and meet other people that are wanting to start and grow a business, and that’s always kind of fun. The energy in the room, the energy in Tulsa, as a matter of fact, electric. And it’s a two-day shop, 15 hours. And I don’t want to call you a liar over a dollar, but it’s only $19, by the way, for Thrive15.com. $19 a month. I know. So the in-person workshop’s fun. I’m not a liar. I’m going with yours. You can break out groups. You can shake a hand. You can meet some of the mentors. It’s a fun two-day deal. One-on-one business coaching. Why is it powerful? Well, it’s powerful because you say, hey, listen, I’m serious about this. I’ve got some resources. Yes. I love binge watching, you know Your videos on friday calm, but I want to be able to talk to someone I’m gonna be able to I’m gonna sit down with someone face to face and absorb something ask them questions When I want coaching learn more at thrive 15 comm and as always the and Arthur 3 2 1 JT do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s T-Bo time in Tulsa, Oklahoma, baby! Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma. During the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024, Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma in the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business growth workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field, and off the field the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out because I don’t know. Well I’m just saying Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. The top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rustic cuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes, we’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive, December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop, December 5 and 6 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes, and then we open it up for a 15-minute question and answer session. It’s interactive. It’s two days. It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005, and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at thrivetimeshow.com simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com. You’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. 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. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it. And I 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, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It’s supposed to be Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now for this particular event folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office and so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come. Who? You! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com and again you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford and we do have some select VIP tickets which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical. It’s actionable. And it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California, in the beautiful sunny weather of LA, come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops. Because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems, so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this, and because there wasn’t anything like this I would go to these Motivational seminars no money down real estate Ponzi scheme get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything It was like you went there, and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny, but inside of it. It was a hollow Nothingness, and I wanted the knowledge you’re like oh But we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get rich quick, walk on hot coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses? Or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever. And we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money. So if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop, all you gotta do is go to Thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford $250, we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does not what they say Good morning. Good morning. Good morning, Harvey Kiyosaki the Rich Dad Radio Show today. I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona, they’re closed, but they’re completely different worlds and of a special guest today a Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric, Eric Trump. But we’re also talking about money, bricks and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man. And there’s so many ways we could take this thing but I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t what Donald who’s my age and I can say or cannot say? Well I have to honor you sir I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy by the name of Jeremy Thorne who was my boss at the time I was 19 years old working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. He said, Have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? I said, No. My father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. I owe a lot of that to you. 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. 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, 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 and doing this. I’m doing this. up and say, I read your book, changed my life. I’m doing this and doing this. I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.