Clay Clark | The High Art of Increasing Your Sales

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrivetime Show! We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom and we’ll show you how to get here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re on the top. Teaching you the systems to hear what we got. Cullen Dixon’s on the hooks, I’ve written the books. He’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks. As a father of five, that’s where I’mma dive. So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi. It’s C and Z up on your radio. And now, three, two, one, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and that’s what we gotta do. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time show during your Thrive Time home. And as always, my name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, co-hosting this show with a man who needs no introduction, but yet week after week, day after day, this guy is helping Tulsa see more clearly. He’s the founder of the Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates, the eye care center that we have two locations in Tulsa that are serving us. He’s founded the Z66 auto auction. He’s the founder of the Z’s sleep center, the Rockin’ Z Ranch. Really? Well, I could keep going, but I’m not going to. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? I’m stuffed. You’re stuffed? I’m stuffed. Did you have too much of that dark meat? Oh, the dark white pie. You know, I mean, I don’t do a lot of desserts, but how can you not? Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. What a great day. And I need to really work me out, because I went after the show. I want to go. I got a date with a pie I got to go take care of. So I need to work out, work all that turkey down. This show will not only be spectacular, but I promise it will be cardiovascular. Oh good, well then I feel better already. Now we have a very special guest in the box that rocks today. It’s a lady who, it’s kind of exciting. It’s Miss Hillary Ginny. By the way, Miss Hillary, how are you doing? I’m doing great, thank you. Now I’m going to read your bio real quick, and I just want to make sure I’m not getting anything wrong here. First off, you graduated from the University of Oklahoma, is that correct? That is correct. And Dr. Roberson loves OU. Boomer Center. Boomer Center. Already a connection there. And then you took over the management of a company back in October of 2011, which for those people who don’t remember, this is the same year that we had that crazy snowstorm that hit the Northeast during that time. So it was kind of a crazy time that the Northeast was being pounded with snow. Meanwhile you’re putting on a laser show. You helped grow the company from four employees and approximately 200 customers. Today you have 22 employees and close to a thousand customers. Is that right? That is correct. It’s been a busy five years. How did you do it? Are you on steroids? What’s sort of your secret? You know, we’ve hired really great people. We have a really, really good team. We’ve been able to really create a need and have a solution for our customers, I think better than our competitors. And you have two companies that you’re helping run here. You have Team Professional Services, is that correct? That’s correct. And what is company number two that you’re helping run as well? So Team Professional Services, we’re a third-party drug and alcohol administrator for drug testing. And then we have TPS Alert, which does contractor monitoring, primarily for oil and gas operators that want to audit their contractors to ensure they’re performing drug and alcohol testing. And their policies are the same as their employees. So today, Thrivers, we are talking about the high art of increasing your sales, OK, with the vice president here, Ms. Hillary Ginni. Now here’s the thing is, I want to make sure you’re getting this. We’re talking about the high art, the skill of increasing your sales. Because you couldn’t hire more people if you weren’t actually selling more solutions. That is correct. And so I’m excited because so many entrepreneurs, so many thrivers reach out to us all the time at thethrivetimeshow.com. Thrivetimeshow.com. And they say, how can I increase my sales? How can I do it? How can I sell more? Z, you’re an optometrist, but you’re a best-selling optometrist, and I think a lot of people say, I want to be a better optometrist, and at the end of the day, let’s say that everybody’s equal, it’s the best-selling optometrist that makes the most money. Why is sales so hard for many optometrists, Z? Why is it so hard for them to get over that sales hump? You want the truth? Yeah. Can I give you the truth on this fine Thanksgiving afternoon. Please give it to me my friend Are you sure? Dark meat white meat maybe just a little truth subtle truth I don’t mean this in a mean way and this goes for anybody out there that owns a business that is going It’s called ignorance You don’t know what you don’t know and that’s why we started down this journey a couple of years ago to provide the world’s best business coaching at an affordable price and in a scalable way with thrive15.com. So what I would tell you out there is that this show is designed for you. If someone out there going, how do I increase my sales or help me to do it better, I’m doing pretty good but I need to go a little better, this show’s for you and that’s why we do this every day. Now here’s the thing, I wanna start with a notable quotable from Og Mandino. If you’ve ever read his book, it’s called The Greatest Salesman in the World. He’s written other books, but this book really helped me as a young man. I was really struggling to figure out my sales game. And he says, no other trade or profession has more opportunity for one to rise from poverty to great wealth than that of a salesman or saleswoman. Now, step number one, you must commit to setting up a repeatable sales machine. You’re listening to the thrush on show on talk radio 11 So in order to grow a business or to start a successful company you must commit to setting up a repeatable sales Machine Z. I want to ask you this at your optometry clinic or at your auction. Let’s go to your auction We’re flying over to your auction So the auction Why is it so important that your sales systems are are repeatable and where are most entrepreneurs getting that wrong? Well, you have to be repeatable, because you want to do more than once. What? Well, I know it’s crazy. It sounds crazy, I know. Unless you want to do it every single time, then you have to have some structure, you have to write it, you’ve got to get it organized, you’ve got to do best practice, you’ve got to continue to tweak it. In sales and in the process, we were always trying to make a better mousetrap. You were always trying to bring, hey, how can we make this better? You know, and so even though you may have a good one out there listening right now, we’re going to encourage you to try to tweak it and make it even better. Now I have a lot of a lot of thrivers we talked to and I’m not ripping on our friends out there in Boston, but I hear I hear a lot of people right now listening right now. We’re going, yeah, but you don’t understand. You see, like in my business, what I do is the is I handle, I personally handle all the sales. So you see when the phone rings, I get that’s my cell phone. And then what I do is I say the things that I say and no one could possibly know the things that I say because I am me and I change it every time. And so basically I’m a sales wizard and my business can’t grow. What would you say to that kind of mindset? Yeah, I’m adapting to the client because everybody’s different out there so I gotta be dealing with something different every time. Every time it’s crazy. Every time it’s crazy, you know, and I know how to do that. Nobody else knows how to do that. I would say that that’s your limiting membrane then. That is going to keep you from having a lot of people out there selling a lot of your stuff. And that is what we’re about. We’re about getting time freedom and we’re getting financial freedom. And if you’re limited to what, you know, you only eat what you kill, then that’s not, that’s not where you’re to coach you up to get a lot of hunters out there so you can, you know, eat a lot of different kills. So now we’re, we’re moving in here. We’re moving into the knowledge bombs. Hillary is going to give us some knowledge bombs. Okay, so I’m going to ask her some tough questions here. Here we go. So here we go. Knowledge bomb number one. So you, when you take over the company in October of 2011, there’s a lot of things that are going well, but what did you do to build a repeatable sales system? How did you do it? I mean, when you take over, it’s got to feel overwhelming. What did you do to make these repeatable sales systems? Well, I think you really have to have a product you believe in. If you believe in your product, you believe in your solution, and that comes across to your client. So I think providing a solution that you believe in and really comes across to your clients. And so let’s say that I’m listening right now and I believe in my chicken. I’m a believer! I believe in my chicken. Believe! I sell some of the best chicken on the planet. I believe in my turkey this afternoon. It’s organic, it’s organic. My wife even approves. It’s organic chicken, organic turkey. This turkey is the best smoked, slow smoked. It’s great. And I’m just going to talk specifically to a Thriver who I know is listening there. I won’t mention his name because I don’t want him to feel like I’m ripping on him on the air, but he’s a good friend of mine and he has a barbecue business. And every year my wife and I faithfully buy from him. And he just, for whatever reason, can’t figure out how to teach other people to sell it. But he’s never asked me either for help. He’s just kind of every year I talk to him and he’s kind of going, well maybe he’s listening to the shows. I hope so, but he says it must be nice. What advice would you have for somebody as a product they believe in, but they can’t figure out how to teach other people to sell? I think you have to, again, you have to make sure you’re meeting that client’s needs. So if you believe in your barbecue and you are an example to your sales staff. You have to be able, whoever you’re selling to has to leave wanting more. But only they can buy from you. And I will say this, one thing I would do as a practical steps for anyone listening right now, I would ask you, if you are the flag bearer, if you will, if you’re the mascot of your company, if you are the Dr. Zellner of Dr. Zellner and Associates, if you are the- Hey, wait, that’s me. If you’re the person who can really sell well and you just started the company, I would encourage you to, step one, go ahead and write down a duplicable sales script or a repeatable sales script. Go ahead and invest the time to write down what it is that you say every time. I challenge you to attempt to teach one other person to do it. Not 10, not 20, but one. Because when you try to teach the next person, Z, what problems do entrepreneurs typically run into? Once they finally wrote the script and they’re like, I wrote this super script, the angels have sang. I wrote it. It was, it was, it was almost inspired by a divinity. I did. This script is perfect. And employee number two, go make that sales call. Follow this system. Where are they? Where does the, the, the problem typically begin? Well, the sky opens up. There’s the perfect script and the perfect script comes flying down. Actually, doves are carried in their beaks. They come down, they land on your employee’s shoulder, and they hand it to them. And you sit down with them, and you teach on them, and you train on them, you encourage them, you edify them. Oh! And then they don’t follow through with it. And then they don’t do it. You know, there’s a million reasons why they don’t do it. And what you have to do is you have to, you know what? You can’t just, you know, think they’re going to do it. You’ve got to inspect what you expect. Oh, now that. Or you’re going to have regret. Because you go, hey, I taught Billy how to do it. I gave Billy the script. And I’m not going to mystery shopping. I’m not going to call him myself and make sure he stays on script. I’m not going to have, you know, my friends call and check him out. I’m just going to assume Billy’s a good guy He’s going to do he’s he’s got this he’s got this I see a lot of entrepreneurs that say this when we come back. We’re going to be helping you fix this issue I call it the execution gap It’s the gap between the implementation or the execution and the big idea And I know there’s a lot of thrivers listening right now who are saying I tell you what Z if you ever want to sell something yourself, you got to, if you want your company to be successful, you got to do it yourself. Because when you, when you teach young men, millennials today, Z. Yeah, you can’t buy good help. You can’t buy good help. No one wants to work. In the family, I ain’t going to teach them. You’re going to be in my family, you certainly can’t be a millennial, but I’m going to do it myself. Because if I want to sell something, I got to sell it myself. But seriously, Thrivers, if that is a limiting belief that you have, we are sitting right next to Ms. Hillary, who’s grown a company fairly dramatically within a short window of time by doing this. Stay tuned. Thrive Time Show. Hello, Thrivers, and welcome back to the Thrive Time Show on Tulsa’s only local business radio show, the Thrive Time Show. During your drive time home, typically, however, Dr. Z, today people probably aren’t driving home. They’re probably at their house. Maybe you’re running, you’re trying to find some last minute items for the big meal tonight and you’re going, wait a minute, it’s Thanksgiving. Very few places are open. So I want to give a big shout out to all the QT employees out there, the Quick Trip employees. Oh yeah, khaki and red, baby. They’re like the Alamo. They’re like the last people standing on Thanksgiving. They’re open right now. I mean, I’m not sure who else is open right now, but if you need some last minute supplies for Thanksgiving, there’s not a whole lot of options for you, but QT is open. Yes, Quick Trip is open. I don’t know how much stuffing they sell there, but they might. If I want to get myself some Thanksgiving glasses, is Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates open right now? No, but we’ll be open tomorrow. Open tomorrow. Black Friday, come on in. You don’t have to go to the mall to get all the chaos. You just come on into our store and get Black Friday sales. Black Friday sales. Yeah, it’s a thing. It’s kind of a thing. You really do have some discounts going? Absolutely. Okay, yeah. You’re home with the always, you always have the $99 deal. Can you explain to the Thrivers, what is the $99 deal? Well, it’s a package deal. You get glasses and an eye exam and it’s a great, you know, it’s a great thing. It’s all included in one price, so lenses, frames, eye exam. Where are you located? Well, I have two, 69th and Memorial and 30th and Harvard. Still there, still standing. And yes, Willow Hills Mall is still next door. And do you know who is located right next to us right now, Dr. Z? Do you know who it is? Well, if you’re watching on Facebook Live, it’s a little eye candy for you, so that’s nice. She’s a great American. She’s a Boomer Sooner. She’s a Boomer, Oklahoma University graduate. Ms. Hillary Jenny, how are you? I’m good, thank you. How are you? Well, I tell you what, I’m excited on this Thanksgiving to be talking to you about something that I’m passionate about because once people learn how to do this, it can change their life. It really can help people gain financial freedom and time freedom. It’s the high art of increasing your sales. So step number one, you’ve got to commit to setting up a repeatable sales machine. Now remember has it that in October of 2011, that’s when you took over as the vice president of the team professional services. For anyone listening who doesn’t know what team professional services? Well team actually stands for testing, education, administration and management. And we manage drug and alcohol programs for primarily oil and gas companies all over the country. So we manage their program from start to finish. So if I own an oil and gas business or I work in one and I’m trying to make sure that my employees are drug free, I call you? That is correct. Yes. We will help you write your policies. We can set up their background screening, their pre-employment physical, drug tests, you name it. Why is it a thing? I mean, why do people hire you? Why not just do it themselves? Why is the solution that you offer something that many, many companies are beginning to use? Sure, because it is important that you hire the right people. So it’s important that you hire drug-free employees. And it’s also important that it’s run well. It can cost a lot of money internally for a company to hire somebody to do that so there’s no need to when you have teams. So you wouldn’t hire Charlie Sheen is what you’re saying? That’s your professional advice? You know probably not to work on a safety sensitive job site, no. That’s a good answer. Sorry Chuck. Okay sorry. Now here’s the thing. We’re talking about step one though. Commit to setting up a repeatable sales machine. Now, you’ve obviously had a lot of success, and a lot of entrepreneurs go, yeah, I made my system, I made my script, I made my pre-written email, I’ve made my processes, but I’m struggling to get my team to actually do the system. What advice would you have for them? Well, I would say coach. A lot of coaching. So when I have new people, new salespeople, I typically go in with them and I give them feedback immediately. You do? I do. What kind of feedback? Positive and sometimes things that they can improve on. Oh, that’s hurtful. Oh, that’s hurtful. You’re so mean. I want to kind of role play a scenario. Okay. So let’s say that I’m on the phone. I’m Clay. I’m your newest guy and I’m not following the system, okay? I’m just not. For whatever reason, whether I choose not to or I didn’t know or whatever, so I’m just, and you catch me, do you hear me? Do you walk around and listen or the call’s recorded? How do you know I’m not doing a good job? Well, typically for us is I will go to the meeting with you or I will listen as you’re speaking on the phone. And so here it comes. What advice, how would you say it if someone’s willfully not, or maybe unintentionally not using the system? I would first tell them how they handled it and then I would give them an example of how they could probably have handled it better. Now for a lot of people listening, giving feedback to people that’s not positive is scary. It’s scary because they may take a swing at you. They might get their feelings hurt. And that’s on you. I want to know though, Hillary, why is it so scary? You’ve helped to train people. Why is it scary? Maybe when you first started it was scary. Why is it scary to give people feedback that’s not super positive? Because you don’t want them to feel bad. I can understand that. But at the end of the day, it’s your business and you want it to succeed. Have you always been that way or have you had to kind of learn to get over that? Oh, I’ve definitely had to learn. It did not come easy in the beginning. I’m kind of curious. Okay, so you’ve got a Closure News Sales Associate right over here, okay? Hello. And you go on a sales, excuse me folks, and you go on a sales call, you get a little choked up when I think about you being a sales associate for some of the, I know. You got a job, you probably got a job. Okay, so he is messing up, he’s telling a potential client things that are not true about your business. Here is my presentation. Okay. So basically what we do is it’s like, we help people get drug free, we make sure they’re drug-free. None of us have ever done drugs, and we are probably the best company in the world overall. The name of our company is called Team. But basically, like, you know, the biggest companies in the world, like British Petroleum, for instance, probably uses us. Probably. Okay, so you’re listening to this, and you’re horrified, I’m sure of it. And so you would pull him aside. What would you say to Clay? I would say, did you listen to what the customer’s needs were? I was going to, but I was talking to him about other planetary systems and how we might be the best service out there on the galaxy, and I just felt like I was on a roll, and I just wanted to give him the education. And so you kind of information dumped? Yeah, I called the machine gun, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, but that’s how I used to do it when I worked over at the furniture store. I used to just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Machine gun. So when you walked out, how did you feel like you could, with your product, how could you make him provide a better service for him? I do not know. Machine gun. I like that. That’s what people do the whole time. Okay, another question, Hillary. Okay, so you coach him up, you coach him up, you walk him through the thing, you’re nice, you’re obviously a nice person, you’re trying to be nice, he’s a knucklehead new sales guy with a machine gun and all that. How many times, just out of curiosity, how many times would he have to go in and mess that up before you would really think about, maybe I made a bad decision hiring him? Well I think if he did that I’d make him practice in front of his peers first before he went into another call. So he would have to perform in front of us before I’d let him loose again. You sound like you do this a lot. This is what you do. You train people. And you matriculate, you coach up, you work with these people. And I see a lot of entrepreneurs out there who hire people and step number one is let’s not train them at all, let’s just get them on the phone. And I think for certain things, certain industries, certain things, it’s like the higher the skill or the higher the complexity, the more training is required. How much training is required in your business before someone can get going? It would take months before I would allow anybody to do a sales call on their own. Months? Months. Wow. Wow. Wow. This is just in months. Now Thrivers, coming up next, we’re going to be talking about step number two as we’re teaching you how to build this sales super system. We’re trying to teach everybody today how you can increase your sales dramatically. You must find three lead generation strategies on this beautiful Thanksgiving, Dr. Z. I’m playing a little Thanksgiving song, Adam Sandler. Oh, beautiful. Check it out on this segment. I heard you love Adam Sandler. Oh, he’s one of my all-time favorites. You’re going to do well on the show, you know. Oh, crank it up, Z. Crank it up. Love to eat turkey. Stay tuned, Thrive Time Show. Hello, Thrive Nation, and welcome back to your Inspiration Station. Stick on this dial for a while. It’s the Thrive Time Show, typically during your drive time home. However, today, I know for many of you, it’s the Thrive Time Show during your dojo of turkey mojo. You’re basically sitting down, you’re about ready to have something great to eat, and your wife or your husband, you know, your husband’s like, what are you watching in there? What are you listening to? We’ve got to carve the turkey. And you’re going, nothing, I’m just trying to listen to this something real quick You know and it’s okay It’s okay thrivers because if you if you want to leave and eat some food and then come back you can always listen to the thrive Time show comm again. It’s thrive time show calm where we archive all of the radio shows You can listen to it as much as you want. But today on this beautiful Thanksgiving edition We’re talking about how to build a repeatable sales system. How did we’re teaching the high art of sales and dr. Z why are you so excited about talking about sales on Thanksgiving well because I can’t imagine anything better than sitting there eating a little bit of cramp eating some cranberry sauce oh wow learning how to increase my sales I mean what goes better than increased sales and cranberry sauce and you know I’m stuffing from some gravy gravy pie pie whipped topping whipped topping what What? Did I not say it right? No, and this weekend we went to the Metropolitan Baptist Church together and the pastor apparently doesn’t like it if you bring over runny macaroni. You can’t do that. You can’t do it. It’s a thing. He’ll be upset. Pastor Ray Owens does not like runny macaroni. Don’t be bringing that to his house. Yeah, don’t. Just go by the store, pick up some good macaroni and cheese before you go by the Reverend’s house. Now we have a very special guest today and she has to put up with us within the box that rocks here on the friendly confines of the Thrive15.com world headquarters. It’s Miss Hillary Jenny. Miss Hillary, how are you? I’m doing great, thanks. How are you? Well, first off, I’m sort of intimidated because I’m reading your bio here and I’m going, graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Win for you, loss for me. Took over management in October of 2011 and she ends up growing this business from four Employees to today where you have over 22 employees things are going well and so we’re talking about sales and so I’m sort of Sort of emotional I’m excited for you to Enlighten us with some of your tips and strategies here step two. We’re talking about is you must find three lead generation strategies that work I want to ask you this. Why, Hillary, is it so essential for every entrepreneur listening right now to find some lead generation strategy that works, to find a go-to move? Because you’ve got to find something that works for you so you can continue to grow. So if you don’t have a strategy, you’re going to be in trouble. Do you guys have a move there that you use over and over? Do you have kind of a move, kind of a secret move, kind of a thunder move to generate leads over there at a team? We have several. Based for our business, we typically go… There are safety monitoring companies that do the same thing we do for drug and alcohol. So we’ll go and target some of their customers because if they’re monitoring for safety, they surely need to be monitoring for drug and alcohol. Do you buy a list? Or how do you go get that list? Is that something you have to secure? Do you have to do a lot of research? How do you find that initial group of people to target? We’ve developed partnerships with different businesses. We’ve been able to work together and share some contacts that way. You’re B2B sales. You’re selling business to business typically, right? Correct. Someone who’s listening right now, you may be saying, I’m selling B2Customer. I’m selling business to customer. Either way, I’m going to give you a notable quotable that blew my mind the first time I read it. This is from Ben Horowitz, who, oh, by the way, grew a company called Opsware, Opsware and a company that most people don’t know about, but he sold it for one point six billion dollars of cash. Cash, that’s a lot of money, not stocks, but cash to Hewlett Packard. He says this higher salespeople who are really smart problem solvers but lack courage, hunger, and competitiveness and your company will go out of business. Z, why do your sales people at the end of the day, even if they’re smart problem solvers, why do they have to have courage, hunger, and competitiveness? Well because the other people out there are trying to sell the same thing too. So the competitive, yeah, you gotta have competitiveness because you want to win. You want winners. We want a team of winners. I want to win. We’ve got to win. You’ve got to dominate. And you’ve got to be hungry. There’s a thing about the cats, the skinny cat is a better mouser than the fat cat. What about for anybody who feels like everyone should just work together and there’s no competition? There shouldn’t be anybody out there trying to sell what you’re selling. Well, I think communism is a fine thing in theory. We all sit around and everybody shares equally and there’s no competition. We’re all working, bringing the harvest together and then share equally It’s a great concept, but it’s not what made this country great competitiveness made this kind this country great So having someone that’s really smart is great, but you want someone out there. Who’s hungry hungry hungry hungry for the sale How does Hillary find the hungry people? What do you did? You just go into a line of people look for someone really skinny And you’re like you obviously haven’t sold anything in a while you my friend look hungry. I mean what’s your move? How do you find hungry sales people? Well, I interview the tar out of them for one. Do you really? I do. We have a long interview process. So they are tar-less when they are done. That’s right. They are. And I like to hire people that have been successful previously. And you can tell, you know, somebody who has got thick skin and not afraid to hear the word no because you do hear the word no quite often in sales. So you interview people until your mind almost explodes. We also do personality tests. Do you really? We do. What kind of personality test do you do? We make them take a test and based on their personality determines what position we’ll put them in. So we may interview somebody for one job and completely change their path based on their personality. Which one do you use? Briggs Meyer? We use, now I’m drawing a blank. There’s four letters. It’ll come Now for anybody who’s listening right now, I want to I want to tell you something because coming up after the break We’re gonna be unpacking we’re gonna be unpacking some of the not all of them But a few of those tough interview questions that Hillary may ask, you know A few of those questions where you’re she asks these questions She does these things and it helps her sift out the intenders, the pretenders, from the real people. So if you’ve ever struggled to find the right people to execute your sales systems, she’s going to give us a few of her tips, a few of them, not all of them, because it’s a very successful company. We’re going to give away all the secrets on this Thanksgiving. We’re very thankful that her company’s growing and see if she gave away all of the secrets, you know, it wouldn’t grow quite as well maybe. So stay tuned, Thrive Time Show Thanksgiving edition. Gobble, gobble. Alright, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your Thrive Time home. Typically, however, today, many of you are probably sitting down to eat, maybe you snuck away to listen to various portions of the show. Maybe you forgot something, you’re running up to Quick Trip here, you’re ready to sit down at the family meal, and you realize we don’t have enough holiday Thanksgiving milk, oh no, I’ve gotta go to QT, and somehow you’re listening to this show on this beautiful holiday edition. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year and the father of five human kids. I think a lot of people are concerned, are they human kids? Are they real kids? They’re real kids, five human kids. And I’m joined here with the man, the myth, the legend, the guy who has three kids, three human kids. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Happy Thanksgiving, everybody out there. And you know, it’s Thrive Time at, it’s about pie time. Thrive Time at pie time. This just in. It’s high time for pie time. It’s high time for Thriving at pie time. Wow, it’s unbelievable. Just rhyming all the time. We cannot stop it here. And we have a very special guest today, a lady who has had a lot of success in the world of business. But specifically, she’s the vice president of Team Professional Services. It’s Ms. Hillary Jenner. How are you? I’m good, thanks. I want to ask you, what does Team Professional Services, what do you guys do over there? We provide drug and alcohol testing for companies all over the country. So if someone’s listening right now and they go, well, how can you help me? I mean, what kind of business owners can you help out there? What kind of listeners could you help this Thanksgiving? Anybody that hires employees. Anybody that has a business. And you help them do what? You help them kind of pre-screen, make sure the people they’re hiring are not addicted to drugs. Is that right? We do. We also provide background screening and can do pre-implement physicals as well. Do you feel like if your team would have been interviewing, pre-screening Barry Bonds that the San Francisco Giants might not have hired him or could he have snuck through the system with all the steroids he was on? What do you think? Probably wouldn’t have gotten the job. Oh wow, see Barry you’re so lucky that you were not pre-screened. The team wasn’t on you. Had the San Francisco Giants only known. They only had known Hillary. The home run record would be safe. And listen, if you’re listening to the show right now, number one, we thank you very much for listening to the number one business talk show in Souls, Oklahoma. Actually, tell everyone. But help us. We love spotlighting successful entrepreneurs in Oklahoma. Yeah. The home of the Oklahomies. That’s right. And so info at thrive15.com. Send us some stuff. If you know someone out there that’s done well in business, has grown a business, or started a business and we can spotlight them. We love bringing locals on and talking to them, getting their little secret sauce, not all of it, but at least a little of their secret sauce to help you start and grow your business. And so we’re talking about the high art of increasing your sales today. Step number one was commit to setting up a repeatable sales machine. Step number two, you must find three lead generation strategies that work. Z, do you know the lead generation strategies that worked in my first business? Oh, I know I’ve heard one that you won your little moves You did which was kind of squirrely and I don’t know how you pulled it off to one where you would get The list of people that registered for weddings that was not supposed to be obtainable and you have secretly obtained it. Okay Well, I mean we had three moves Okay Number one is that if you registered at Target or Bed Bath & Beyond or David’s Bridal. You’re running around going, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. I want these towels. Boop. I want to get this. Your husband to be is like, I want this beer. Boop. You know what I mean? You’re registering everywhere. We would buy those lists from big box retailers and people would call us and they’d always go, how did you get my information? So it was kind of a deal. We had that going. Oh yeah. Number two is bridal shows. Oh yeah. You have your lady, you go to bridal shows, trying to find the photographer, the videographer. Fish in a barrel. It was. It was fish in a barrel. Literally fish in a barrel. Yeah, it was amazing. And then the third move we did was Google domination. Getting to the top of Google, people would call us. We used to have the biggest yellow page ad. That was kind of our move. But once you begin to make these moves, you have to execute the moves. And Hillary was telling us that with her company, you’re going to train people for like two months. I think two months before you allow them to begin to execute and get out there and do sales presentations. Is that right? Yes, that’s true. And you know, back to your point on different ways to find business, don’t you love it when your competitors put their clients on their website? Oh, sneakers, McSneakers. Wow, you’re a competitive lady. You’re actually looking at a competitor’s website? Of course. I like it. I like it. Let me ask you this. When you’re trying to hire people who are going to execute your system, what are some of the pre-screening moves that you do to find out if somebody is the right fit or not the right fit for your company? You’ve obviously hired well. You’ve been perfect. I mean, you’ve probably hired some people that aren’t the right fit over the years. But what are some of your moves that you do to hire the right people? Well, I think I’ve learned these moves from hiring the wrong. So I have hired a couple of wrong people and I’ve known fairly quickly. And you know what we did is we took their word for it. So if somebody would say, I am dependable, taking their word, and then putting them in the job and they just aren’t the person they sold themselves to be. So what we’ve decided to do is really do a good job, heaven forbid, checking their references, speaking to people who have worked with them. We also, I have my whole staff interview anybody we’re considering hiring and I leave the room. Really? I do. Now, Z, I want to ask you this question, okay? Okay. Tell me if I did this wrong. Tell me what I did wrong. Alright, alright, good. Back in the day, I used to hire people that I knew. Oh, so… To work for the DJ connection business. Right away, if I knew you, you’re it. That was the only threshold. Yeah, I mean, basically, if I knew you… I had a media, you had a pulse. I’m not a celebrity, I didn’t know everybody. And not everybody. Now if you had a pulse and you said you were ready to go, I would hire you. Well of course. And a guy would get up there. We hired one guy, and this is a story that makes me feel horrible, but the bride sent me video footage of our DJ so I know he did it. Oh no. But he would get up there, and as a DJ, your job is to put the focus on the bride and the groom and to facilitate the events, but at no point should the focus be on you. So you’d say, alright ladies and gentlemen, coming up next, our beautiful bride and the handsome groom. They’re going to be cutting the cake. Once again, they’re cutting the cake. Let’s hear it for them. And you put the focus on them. Right, right. He got up and goes, now, ladies and gentlemen, the cake, a lot of people don’t understand the tradition of the cake. Now, cake cutting comes from the and then we’re talking like set your watch five minutes later. He’s like, and so basically one of the main things I want to articulate today is marriage really. And he just keeps going. Oh, God. And so the bride, someone’s filming and he talks. I’m not I’m not exaggerating. Probably four to five minutes in between every particular thing. The guy getting up there giving a history of the first dance. Oh no. And so I talked to the guy and the guy is like a friend of mine from college. Well apparently of course. That was my move. That was your move. I decided if you knew me then you were in. You’re in. And I said hey were you doing that at the wedding? He goes no. And I said well I got video footage. He’s like well. That’s because various people were encouraging They loved what I was doing they were asking me to do it more and so it became kind of a thing they became a Thing I’m like we’re the people who were telling you this paying you or yeah There’s one lady who just sitting right up closer She’s an elderly lady, and she just loved the story love the story on the history of cutting cake Do you think that’s a wise move for entrepreneur out there starting their business just to hire family friends and people they know? It can be yes, and no oh wow is a good thing about it you hiring people you know you know them. Yeah. You know them. Shame on you. You’re like well I knew he was always late to class but I didn’t think it always be late to the weddings. I mean come on. Here’s the deal. I will say back in the day because I was an idiot everyone I knew was also an idiot. Yeah there you go. You’re running with the pack. I mean sometimes starting off you get family because they’ll work for the right price. You know it’s kind of like, help me I’m starting a business. Uncle Zellner, so you’re saying if I work for 12 hours you’ll give me a pizza? Yeah, exactly, per week. Wow. Yeah, so you know the thing about it is knowing someone is not necessarily pre-clue them from working for you. I mean that’s, you know, shame on you for knowing them and then still, like you, like Hillary just aptly pointed out, sometimes in the interview process they’ll tell you things you want to hear, you know, like, you know, what’s a, what’s the worst thing about you? I will tell you overall, basically, it’s that I have what we would call over diligence, where I do so much work that people are, it irritates the other people around me. Exactly, yeah. So they tell you what you want to hear to get the job, and then it’s good for you that you quickly flesh them out and say, mistake, red flag, out of here. And that’s the thing, you’ve got to hire fast, but then fire fast. That’s right. Hillary, what else do you do to make sure you don’t hire the wrong people now? What are some other moves you do? What are some other moves you’re doing to make sure you don’t get the wrong people on the bus? I like to ask a lot of situational questions. So make them kind of talk about different situations rather than just talk about themselves. So talk about maybe a really difficult sales process and tell me their experience from start to finish. I like to hear about their failures, too. I like for them to, and if they can’t admit to any, a red flag. That’s a failure. Oh, now this just in, this just in, a little notable quotable from Stephen Covey, the bestselling author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He says, an empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success. Now this is the deal, Thrivers. You’re listening right now, this little mystic statistic I want to share with you from Gallup. It says that today’s small business owner, on average, is working 52 hours per week, okay, and 57% are working six days a week or more. Many, almost over 20% are working seven days a week. If you want to basically duplicate yourself, because you’re already working seven days a week, if you’re already working six days a week and you want to begin to duplicate yourself so that you can be celebrating some Thanksgiving next year, so you can be celebrating the successes of your team, stay tuned. Thrive Time Show. Hello, Thrive Nation, and welcome back to Talk Radio 1170 and Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s the Thrive Time Show. We’re broadcasting from the left coast of the Arkansas River at the beautiful Jinx Riverwalk facility and within that facility we’re within the thrive15.com world headquarters and within that facility we are in the box that rocks. My name is Clay Clark and I am joined here with a guy who has been a mentor to many many people online with our online platform our online business school called thrive15.com he’s the CEO of thrive15.com he’s the co-host of the program it’s Dr. Robert Zellner sir how are you on this beautiful Thanksgiving? I am great I am still a little bloated from Thanksgiving lunch. Yeah yeah. Do you do the big lunch or the big dinner? What’s your family move? Here’s our family move. I have a very detailed itinerary of all the things that we do. So it’s like you wake up and there’s a certain set of activities we do. There’s a certain meal. And then once we do that meal, then we do the next thing. And it’s very like every hour. We had to add the show into it. This today, this time. Yeah, it’s thrown off the whole space time. I’m sorry. Sorry about that. We’re working with Dr. Brown to create some time to do what was it to eat the time time machines? Yes, time machines are the thing. They’ve allowed different time and space continuums to happen. But at the end of the day, we’re having a great time at the Clark House in our prayer. Favorite tradition here is where all the ladies make pies. Oh, yeah. And is it, dude, I just try to scour for meat. I’m running around just roach. Yeah, I’m just eating as much meat as I can. That’s my plan. Yeah. Well, you know what? Today is also it’s not only a national holiday, and a lot of people, some people’s favorite holiday, it’s the first time we’ve filmed in the box that rocks. It is the first time. Notice in the background here on Facebook Live, there’s a lot of people who are typically working here, but today it’s sort of a vast. They’re gorging on pie right now. Yeah, they’re having their pie right now. But we did trick one lucky lady, or one unlucky lady, from her perspective. We did get her into the box that rocks today. It is Miss Hillary Ginny. Hillary, how are you? I’m great, thank you. Now for anyone listening who doesn’t know who you are, how would you, if you’re at a networking event or you’re trying to explain to your mom or family, what do you do? What do you do? You’re just sitting around the Thanksgiving table and they’re going, what do you do, Hillary? What is it that you do? How would you describe it? We manage drug and alcohol programs for companies all over the country. So we pull their randoms, write their policies, just provide full service. Wait a minute. You said pull their randoms. You pull their randoms? What does that mean? I get a hat. No, just kidding. We, companies will randomly drug test their employees throughout the year. And we provide that service to them. So I’m the girl you want to know. One of the things that Z and I started doing last Thanksgiving as a tradition is we just randomly drug test each other during the week. We just like, you, right now. Yeah, right now. I’m done right now. I swear, you do it right now. You pass the test. Okay, okay. No, but seriously, what kind of companies hire you guys? What kind of companies have chosen to use a team to help them make sure that their workforce is properly screened and drug tested. What kind of companies typically work with you? Any company can. We specialize primarily in oil and gas and we do a lot of work with DOT employees because they are regulated by federal law to be drug tested. If you take the D and the O and the T and you sound out dot, are you talking about the Department of Oklahoma Transportation? No, not of Oklahoma, just Department of Transportation. Oh wow. It’s all over. It’s a big thing. All over. That’s right. Not just in Oklahoma. It’s Big Brother. That’s right. Wow. So anybody driving a big truck. So if someone wants to get a hold of you right now, they go, I’m tired of trying to figure this out myself. I want to hire you. How can they get a hold of you? And they go to our website, teamprofessional.com, and all of our information is listed right there, or they can give us a call at 918-970-2323. Boom. All right. Now we’re talking about the art and high art of increasing your sales One sell turkeys and tell the world it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow That’s that’s a tip number one But seriously step number one you want to commit to setting up a repeatable sales system sales machine step two You must find three lead generation strategies that work now Z I want to I’m gonna fire off a whole bunch of these real quick But I’m just gonna try to get the minds of the thrivers go in here. Get you activated. All right, all right, activated. Thrivers, if you’re listening right now and you’re doing advertising on Facebook and it’s not working, ask yourself, what’s the next idea? And keep trying something until you find a repeatable system. You’ve got to fail faster. To quote Thomas Watson, the former CEO of IBM, to increase your rate of success, you must increase your rate of failure. You’ve got to find out what works and what doesn’t. Z, I know you’re very thankful for the success of your businesses now on this beautiful Thanksgiving, but what are some of the sales systems or marketing strategies that you’ve used over the years that did not work? Ooh, that did not work. Somewhere you go, whoa, swinging a miss on that one. I’m trying to think because we were very purposeful in all of our systems. He’s judging us. Yeah. I’ll tell you what, here’s the thing about it is, if you’re if your ad isn’t working, and people is getting in front of humans, yeah, and it’s getting in front of your your high and likely buyers, if you’re doing okay, you first of all, you know, you’re high and likely buyer, you get the message in front of them. All right, and it’s not working. It’s not because the modality is because of your message. So that’s a big thing to kind of get your head wrapped around. If you don’t have a good call to action, if you don’t have something that reaches out to them, grabs them, rips them off the couch and forces them to walk through the front door of your business, then you’re the problem. It’s not Facebook. Say, oh, Facebook didn’t work for me. Oh, the radio didn’t work for me. Oh, TV, that’s not a thing. You know? I mean, the newspaper, nobody looks at the newspaper anymore. And I’m going to use it. Direct mail, billboards. I’m going to use an example. With your auto auction, you’re only selling to, what, a thousand people in Oklahoma have a used car roughly, but then now we do online So it’s the nation, but yeah, mostly the people that you walk in that door and far physically there There’s about about a thousands our target. These are used car dealers used cars dealers So you’re not out there necessarily pelting the airways with commercial Down soccer moms and their minivans come to the auction, but your optometry clinic you do run commercials I like soccer moms and their minivans. So again, every business is going to have a different go-to move. Right. Everyone’s going to have a different go-to move. So if you’re listening right now and you’re looking for go-to moves, go to thrive15.com and we have hundreds of trainings about just this specific subject. Now, step number three, you must document your lead conversion system that produces results. You’re listening to the Thrashtime Show on Talk Radio 1160. Whether it’s documenting a sales system or documenting any system, Hillary, why do you have to at some point have to document systems? In your business, what are some of the things that you have documented now that you use over and over again? We document all of our processes and procedures because you have to hold your employees up to a specific standard. You have to ensure that they are all following the same processes. I have a question. Do you get your hair cut at the same place all the time? I do. And does she kind of know the flow? Does she know what you’re looking to do? She knows. Are you changing it up right now or is this the normal you? It’s the normal me. Okay, so I saw your press photos. So you’re looking good in both occasions. But here’s the thing. If you had to switch stylists tomorrow, would it freak you out? It probably would, yes. So I’m going to give you an example. We have a men’s grooming lounge called Elephant in the Room. It’s one of the businesses I’m a part owner of. And we have three locations. And Z, do you know how we solved this issue about people being freaked out about changing stylists? Z, do you want to guess? Well, you gave them such a low entry level to get in that they were like, okay, I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Well, first it is a dollar for your first haircut. Boom. But let’s say now you’re in and you are a member. You love it. Right. Which, by the way, a little over 60% of the people who come in for the $1 first time become members. We have thousands of members. Okay. When they come in, how do you think that we go from stylist to stylist every week, maybe a different stylist, maybe the same, but we keep them loyal to the brand. How do we communicate the hair, the look they want? That’s a good question. How do you do that? Do you take a picture? It’s just in. We document. We take photos. Oh. You want that mop to look like that. You don’t want that look of your mop to ever stop. You want it to look like that all the time? Don’t stop the mop look. We take a photo of it and we document it so that way next time you come in, it’s like, hey, I want to go with that look. And then it’s the same every time. I have a funny story to tell you about my trip to San Diego, it’s beautiful. I go there to San Diego because I’m always spying on other barber shops. I go in there and this guy says, so do you want the wet look or the dry look? And I said, he’s an Italian guy, seriously. And I go, I’m going to go with the dry look, you know, because my hair is like fine hair. Anyway, he goes, all right. He goes, and he puts this like, I don’t know what you put on someone’s hair, but he slicks it back. And my wife looks at me and she goes, good job, Guido. Like she’s just like laughing. Seriously, when the guy walks out, my wife’s like, he slicks it back, it’s wet. I just told him I’m going to dry. So I said, hey, can I get my hair like shampooed? I kind of want to have a speaking event today, I want to get the dry look.” He goes, absolutely. So we do the shampoo. I’m not kidding. We come back and he goes, so do you want the wet look or the dry look? And I’m like, I definitely want the dry look. And he’s like, he does it again. So I had to walk it out, looking like my hair is like a slicked back Italian producer’s or whatever. No, but I’m not kidding. And this was a thing where there’s a communication gap and it obviously wasn’t a repeatable system. I don’t even think he thoroughly understood what the wet look or the dry look was. Yeah, you could do the same thing. Either way, I tell you, you look good with the wet look. That was the thing is we’ve got to be able to document our systems. Otherwise, you’re going to repeat the same basic things over and over. Now, step number four, once you have developed a high quality system, a quality system, you must recruit A players to execute your system Guy Kawasaki This is the venture capitalist the best-selling author and a member of the Apple marketing team that introduced the Macintosh computer Into the planetary system in 1984. He’s the one who helped market the Apple computer, you know made the legendary Super Bowl commercial He says ideas are easy Implementation is hard. I would even say the implementation is impossible if you don’t have good people. Z, why is it so important for everyone listening right now to not settle for okay people? If they have a great system, why is it absolutely important that they must not settle for okay people and aim for great people? You know what, okay, I tell you, this is going to sound weird, but you have great. You know what the opposite, you know what the killer of great is? It’s not bad. Bad? No. Terrible? You would think it’s bad. Horrible? The good thing about bad is just like Hillary said, it’s recognizable and you cut it out, it’s like a little cancer and you get rid of that thing. But good. Oh. Good. That’s the killer of great. You’re saying good is the enemy of great? Yes, I’m saying good is the enemy of great. And when we come back I’ll tell you why. Now, for anyone listening right now on this Thanksgiving edition, if you are finding yourself, one, you’re hungry, I encourage you to go in there. If you already had lunch earlier, there’s a lot of, the way the turkey works is you’ve had the official turkey, but there’s always leftovers. You’ve got turkey sandwiches all week, you’ve got turkey, maybe even all month if you freeze it, I don’t know. But there’s a lot more to be had. Get back in that refrigerator, find yourself something good, and then come back here. It’s Thrive Time Show. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the special holiday edition, the special holiday Thanksgiving edition here of the Thrive Time Show. Typically, it’s during your drive time home, but today, it’s probably you’re at your house. You’re probably marinating. Maybe you’ve spent a lot of time with family. I don’t know if in your family, maybe your family’s perfect, and you never have a situation where you have a confrontation With an aunt or an uncle who’s trying to high-pressure you on a new multi-level marketing scheme They’re a part of but Z This is the thing that I’ve had back in the day Z have you ever had that where you’ve been a high-pressure? Pitched by a family member for multi-level during the Thanksgiving meal has this ever happened Absolutely, and I just I just made a little gift for everybody watch out there on Facebook live. What is it? Well, it’s just my little Thanksgiving thank you. It’s a hand turkey. A hand turkey? I just made it. Oh, wow. And you can enjoy that on Facebook Live. That’s beautiful. Yeah, thank you. You’re like the Picasso of Thanksgiving hand art. You might be right. Z, have you ever had a political quarrel, a political disagreement that has occurred at your Thanksgiving table? Over pie, and that’s the worst time to have it. I mean, you’re sitting down, you’ve just got your whipped topping on your pumpkin pie, and you’re sitting there, you’re about ready to take a fork in, and some uncle walks up to you and just says, the thing, and just trying to poke a fight. See, I believe this is what happens, is I believe everyone is excited, the meal, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Oh yeah. But you sit down, there’s a big anticipation, we’re thinking about all the food we’re going to bring, all the food we’re going to eat, we’re going to see everybody, and the meal starts, it always starts good. Oh yeah. It’s a good deal, you’ve shared the Thanksgiving story. You’ve said your prayer You’ve passed out the accoutrements. You’re all eating. Oh, yeah Now once once you’ve stopped eating and the conversation begins, this is where I’ve seen it take a left turn Many times in the past because what happens is after people have eaten and they’ve talked about like, how are you? What major are you studying? Oh my gosh, it’s good to see you Is that a new hair color after they’ve had that it somehow gets into that political and religious discussion. And here’s what I tell you to do. Just come back out here in the garage, listen to the Thrive Time show, and then go back in. Do not participate in the religious or the political discussions, or you’re going to end up with a divisive situation. Don’t take the bait. Don’t take the bait. Your uncles and aunts and maybe a grandparent, oh, they go fishing. Thanksgiving’s fishing time. Somebody has already said it at your table. I heard, I was reading a book called Why Donald Trump was the Antichrist and I discovered that he basically could be the Antichrist. What say you? And you’re going, whoa, I’m going to go to the garage and listen to this live show. Now you know one of the most non-divisive people I’ve ever met, a lady who’s a great lady, a lady who’s been super endorsed by one of my good friends here. Do you know who it is? Janaye. She’s in the room here. Hillary Janaye. Yes, Miss Hillary Janaye, how are you? I’m doing great. Now, you run an office, you manage a lot of people, and as you built the sales super system over there at Team, you’ve developed these systems, but now you’ve got to recruit top quality people. How have you been able to do it? What tips do you have? Enlighten us. Sure. Typically, one of three ways. My best hires have been people I have just met in life and immediately was impressed with. When you say life, are you at yoga class and it’s like yoga, music, and then you’re like, hey, do you want to come work here? Or what do you mean? Sometimes, yes, possibly. Really? Are you into yoga? No, I do that CrossFit crazy stuff. Really? Okay. I met somebody who was a trainer for an organization, a charitable organization. I thought she was fantastic. And she was one I took. But I also like to look at my competition and who does really well for them. And sometimes I’ve taken a couple. You hire people from your competition? I do. You have no boundaries. You’re a sick freak. Hey, I need good people. Okay, all right. So one is you’re out networking. I’m networking. Do your competition. What’s move number three? Three, I use LinkedIn a lot. I found some, depending on the type of role I’m looking for, but sales, I’ve been successful on LinkedIn. Really? I have. Do you ever use MySpace? Oh, that is aging you. You ever use Bookface? I’ve logged into my MySpace. I haven’t been on there for like a decade. I go in there. I’ve got some great people. I don’t think you’ve got a red job offer. I’ve got three job offers. Yeah, I’ve got some guys who are saying, if I wire the money right now, I could instantly be successful. I’m like, okay, are you a Saudi prince? Obviously I will send it right now. So, no, but seriously, so those are your moves. Those are my successful hires. I’m going to read you again a notable quote. This is from Guy Kawasaki. He says, ideas are easy. Implementation is hard. Z, do you remember life before point and click, back in the day in the computer, before you could point and click on a computer before the house? I’m so old, I remember, yeah. Do you remember the screen with the green letters on it? Oh yeah. Remember Oregon Trail, that video game? I don’t think I saw that one. Did you ever play that game? I did Pong, I remember Pong. Pong, yeah, well Oregon Trail was a game, back in the day you’d have like a librarian who was the default now IT guy at your school. Yeah. And they’re trying to convince us that the internet was something we needed to learn about. Okay. And his kids were like, yeah, like anyone’s gonna actually use the internet no way bro, right? And so our librarians try to convince us that computers are a thing You got that floppy disk you put in the drive and when you’d hit enter it would go You’re listening to the thrush on show on talk radio 11 seconds It was the thing where back in the day you do want to type You’re gonna get your computer to do something you had to type a line of code and then hit enter And so all the high school kids I went to school with and middle school were like, uh, I’m definitely not going to type a line of code. I’ll move on. Yeah, I’ll just get the book. Yeah. And so Steve Jobs is going, hey, here’s the deal. I he he stole the mouse idea from Xerox pieces. Here’s this new idea I had. I stole. And we’re going to tell the world about this new computer called the Macintosh. And so Guy Kawasaki was the guy who helped introduce that computer into the into the workplace, into the workforce, into America. But I will tell you this, is that he could not have introduced his computer into the world if he didn’t have great people. He had Guy Kawasaki, he had Wozniak, he had a great team of people. So if you’re listening right now and your product isn’t taking off, but it’s a great product, maybe you have some loons, maybe you have some crazies, maybe you have some non-compliant people working with you. Maybe you need to upgrade that team and maybe you need to implement the moves that Hillary just shared. I’ll tell you what, and this is going to be hard to hear, but sometimes you’ve got a good employee and what you really should have is a great one. And that’s why I was saying earlier Clay, that bad is not the killer of great. Because bad is easily recognized and go, okay, you’re bad, you’re a bad dude, you’re out of here. It’s that good that’s not wanting to go to the great and you go, why am I not growing? Why are we just stagnant? Why? You know, and they don’t have the hunger. They don’t have the competition. They don’t have the courage, you know, and they’re not great at what they do. Firing someone who’s good or replacing someone who’s good is probably one of the most difficult things to do as a job owner. This is why I love the New England Patriots, though, because what happens is that every year it’s like a fresh roster, and they honestly are constantly pruning that tree and trying to improve that roster. Oklahoma University, where you two got, you know, Z, you’re a big fan, and Hillary, you graduated from OU. Every year, Bob Stoops has to upgrade that lineup. He has to make the best, most winnable, he has to put the best product on the field, period. He’s gotta do that every year. And there’s somebody out there who he’s gotta go, hey, I’m not gonna offer a scholarship to you this year, but I am gonna offer it to this person because I only have a limited number of scholarships and I’ve got to give one to the best players. Those are tough calls you have to make in the world of business on this beautiful Thanksgiving. Step number five, you must identify your biggest limiting factors and eliminate them one by one. Jack Welch says this, face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. That is a tough thought to have. Here’s the most successful CEO in the history of American business arguably he grew GE from fourth grew GE by 4,000% during his tenure remember GE was a big company that had become stagnant He takes over it grows the thing by 4,000% And he says you must face reality as it is Not as you wish it to be and I think one of the hardest things there is when you see a limiting factor or a limiting Membrane having the courage to confront it. And so we come back, we’re going to talk about these self-evaluations. I’m going to ask you a bunch of rhetorical questions, and I want you to rate yourself on a scale of one to 10. And if you give yourself a low ranking, then you need to fix that. But we’re going to come back to the Thrive Time Show. We’re going to have a very honest self-assessment here on this beautiful Thanksgiving Thrive Time Show. Hello, Thrive Nation, and welcome back to the Thrive Time Show, this beautiful Thanksgiving edition. You are in the right place to learn how to start and grow a business. And on this Thanksgiving edition, we’re broadcasting from the box that rocks. And one of the things about the box that rocks is that it gives you that transparency. You can look in Z and you can see the thrive15.com world headquarters. And one of the things we can see right now is my son. We’ve never given him the talk about not looking into the window during the show. And so there he is. It’s Thanksgiving, so no one’s here, just us. Just us. And there he is looking into the window in the box that rocks. Did you bring a pie by the way? I didn’t bring a pie over. We should celebrate our first show in the box that rocks by having a pie. Chep, why didn’t you bring a pie? Eric, Chep, our show producers are just so… You know, some producers all they do is focus on producing. Yeah. We’re asking you to be a pie specialist and you’re refusing to do it this just in so now Thrive Nation We’re talking about the high art of increasing your sales with the vice president of team professional services And it’s miss Hillary Jenny miss Hillary Jenny. How are you? I’m doing great now today. We’re talking about again This is the sales system. We’re talking about move number four which is once you’ve developed a quality system You must recruit a players to execute your system now step number five you must identify your biggest limiting factors and eliminate them one by one Now to kind of help you here thrivers on my table of awesome here on Facebook live You’ll see a copy of the start here book Which really is the world’s best business book because it’s a concoction It’s a it’s a a cornucopia of of evidence-based case studies, notable quotables, mystic statistics. It’s a linear path on how to start and grow a business. People say, how do I start and grow a business? This book explains to you how to do it. And one of the things in the book that’s awesome is it has these self-assessments. And I’m gonna read a few of them to you, so the listeners, so you can start to kind of marinate on this, okay? So on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the highest, rate your ability to consistently produce a steady volume of leads without your direct effort. Okay, 10 being the highest, who wouldn’t get out a piece of paper? On a scale of one to 10, rate yourself on your ability to have a step-by-step lead management and organizational system. One more, on a scale of one to 10, rate yourself on your team’s follow-up system to consistently follow up with inbound leads. See, why do people have to be self-aware and really kind of either rate themselves or take note of it, of how highly they would rate themselves on a scale of one to ten in these areas? You have to be honest with yourself because this gives you the blueprint of how to fix things and make things better. You know, I tell you what, the people out there that go, oh, I’m a ten on all those things and my business is, I don’t understand why my business isn’t doing better. You’re not being honest with yourself. So step one, you got to look in the mirror, you got to be honest with yourself, you gotta really evaluate, step out, step out, go through the list, the checklist, evaluate yourself, and this will give you the blueprint of what you need to fix. I just thought of something real quick here. My wife is a 10. She’s a wonderful lady. She’s smart, she’s gorgeous. How did you get her? I’m like a 2. I’m like maybe not a 2, maybe like a 1. Mysteries of the world. Yeah, and the thing is, I realized that pretty quickly in life. I’m like, I’m a two, I’m maybe like a 2.4. So I’m gonna have to have like a whole series of moves. My wooing process, my courting process is gonna have to be over the top, off the charts to land her, you know, as an incredible wife there. So you just gotta be honest about these things. That’s right, or you can’t fix it. So I’m gonna ask you, Hillary, when you came in and you took over as the vice president of the business. What did you see as some of the areas that needed the most improvement and how did you go about fixing them? We actually didn’t have a sales team, so we were only getting business based on referrals. Our technology didn’t allow us to grow as fast as I would like us to. When I first started, I invested in both areas. So you said when you first came in, you were aware of the problems, and you went after those first. Correct. Why not just focus on the areas that were already good and just making them even better? And what was your strategy? What was your mindset going into that? I knew we had a good product to sell, and I knew we had good people on staff already, but we needed to change things to grow. We needed to become more electronic and allow technology to do more of the work versus everything so manual. Now on a scale of 1 to 10, Thrivers, I want you to rate yourself right now on a scale of 1 to 10, your ability to generate leads through search engine optimization. You know, Google, Google is a thing. Is it a thing? Well, it’s a thing. I mean, some people are using the thing. I mean, when you go up on your smartphone, some people go to this thing called Google. They’re not on MySpace anymore. They’re on Google. They go up there and they’ll type in a thing they’re looking for apparently, and whatever comes up top, they’ll start to call those things. You want to rate yourself on a scale of one to ten right now, Thrivers, on a scale of one to ten, your ability to generate leads through search engines. If you’re not doing well, this just in. We have unbelievable in-person two-day workshops, Z, where we teach people how to optimize their website, how to build a linear work flow. So you’re saying it’s not a rigged system? It’s not a rigged system. I mean, they could actually do something to get to the top of Google. I’m going to give people the Google challenge right now. The Google challenge. Okay, let’s do it. Get out your phone. Here we go. I like challenges. And go ahead and type in Tulsa men’s haircuts. Spell it wrong, spell it right. Just Tulsa men’s haircuts. And who comes up top? Boom! Elephant in the room. That’s one of my businesses. Okay. Why? Because we know the system. Let’s type in Tulsa cookies. Tulsa cookies. You know, cookies. It’s the holiday season. Who doesn’t like cookies? We want some great Thanksgiving cookies. They’re already closed. We should have thought that. But for Christmas we could have… Can we get some turkey shaped cookies? You could get some turkey shaped Christmas cookies because it’s already Thanksgiving and we’re closed today. But if you Google Tulsa Cookies, you’re going to find Barbie Cookies. Again, a client we work with. If you Google etc. etc. and we can teach you how to do that, but you have to be aware of Your biggest limiting factor a couple more on a scale of one to ten rate your team’s ability to generate leads through cold calling Oh On a scale of one to ten rate your team’s ability to generate leads through business development Where you have a partnership with someone who pitches you leads? These are all areas where you can rate yourself on a scale of one to ten But Z if you don’t know there’s a problem, it’s kind of hard to fix it. Absolutely, and that’s why you have to be honest with looking at your business. You know, and if you can’t, maybe you can hire someone to come in. You can ask the people that are around you. You can have some other people take a look at it, but you’ve got to get, you’ve got to figure out what the problem is. You can hire somebody like Hillary to come in and change your culture, but she’s not available. But stay tuned, Thrive Time Show, learn how to sell more stuff. Hello Thrive Nation. Welcome back to the holiday edition, the very special holiday edition of the Thrive Time show here where we are broadcasting from the basically empty Thrive 15 dojo of Mojo. And if you’re on Facebook Live, you can see Dr. Zellner, he’s created some incredible hand-based turkey art. It’s handmade. You could say it’s handmade there. And Thrivers, if somebody’s just listening to this for the first time, maybe your family got into a big political debate or some religious debate, and you’re like, that’s it, I’m going to go get some gas, which is code for calm down, calm down, they’ll all leave soon. It’s like the Griswolds. It’s like a Christmas vacation moment where your cousin Eddie has come over and he’s, well Clark, I’m sure going to hate leaving next month. I mean, you’re starting to like, so you’ve left to get in your car, you’re trying to free up your mind space. What you’ve discovered here is Tulsa’s only local business radio show. It’s Business School Without the BS. I’m Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. To my right is Dr. Robert Zellner on Facebook Live, if you’re watching. And we have a very special guest, Dr. Z. We have the fabulous, the fabulous, and I’ll tell you this, this just ends it. A little over half of the listeners to 1170 are ladies. Wow. And so we have made a concerted effort, a specific effort. We’ve said, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to scour Tulsa for some of the top, most successful female entrepreneurs, business owners out there, and we’re going to bring them on. These mompreneurs, these gurus, they’re going to come in and educate us. They’re going to bring kind of that business success knowledge, but with a little bit of that estrogen to it. They’re going to balance this out, Z, a little bit here. Wow. And so we brought in a lady, a guru, she’s putting up with both of us, Miss Hillary Jenny, the Vice President of Team Professional Services. How are you? I’m doing good. I appreciate you stepping into the box at Rocks. I know there’s like four dudes and one lady. It’s a little bit, it’s kind of like the Smurfs. But thank you for being here today. We’re talking about specifically the high art of increasing your sales and I know there’s a lot of people listening today who are going hey I’m thankful I’m thankful that I’m healthy I’m thankful that I I’ve made it this far this year I’m thankful you know so you’ve gone through some health issues this year some of you’ve gone through some personal issues some of you are just struggling you’re going hey you know I’m just thankful though that I’ve made it here to this day but you go you know what 2017 that you the new year is right around the corner, and I want next year to be much better than this year. I don’t want to get stuck. I want to ask you this here. Jenny, what advice would you have, or Hillary, what advice would you have for anybody who’s listening who is kind of stuck in their business. They have a great product, but their sales just aren’t happening. What advice would you have? Sure. Keep in mind, it’s typically 10 no’s before you get a yes. So don’t give up. You’re going to hear no. Really we’ve been successful by need-based selling. Ask the right questions. Make sure you’re providing a solution to a problem the customer may not have even known that they have. So if somebody is listening right now, and I will just validate what you’re saying because I see this a lot. Years ago I worked with a caterer, a caterer in Tulsa. Neat guy. And you know what his problem was, Zeke? He couldn’t make a cake? No, the food was great. Oh, his food wasn’t even checked. Well, then he should have been able to sell a ton of them. Well, the phone would ring. Boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Thank you for calling such and such. And no exaggeration, Thrivers, this is what we taught him. When people ask, how much, because when we answer the phone, thank you for calling such and such, the customer almost always says, how much do you guys charge for your… That’s what they always say. And he used to say, well starting off at $10 a head I can do… And they go, thank you very much. Done. So I taught him, I said, no matter what they ask you, say, well great, what day are you looking at? And they said, well June 5th. Okay great, what facility? They go, Harweld and Mansion. And I said, no matter what the venue is, compliment it. They go, oh Harweld and Mansion, I’ve heard good things about that. So how many people are you expecting? And they tell you. I say, let me ask this, are you looking for more fine dining or more casual? And they begin to find those needs. And you say, so let me ask you this, how familiar are you with the world of catering? Not really. A lot of companies in Tulsa, they charge very low price, they nickel and dime you, they get you for a lot of costs. Ours is an upfront cost. And what we do to get you a specific price right down to the dollar, there’s no overcharges, there’s no overages, there’s no extra fees, hidden fees. What we do is we meet with you, we do a 30 minute face to face consultation and a taste testing so you can test the items that we have and see if it’s the right fit for you. Do you like Asian or barbecue? We ask them the questions, they say, oh I like barbecue, he might like a little bit of, we go, hey I know you guys have some different styles and different palettes we’re gonna go ahead and prepare some samples and let’s meet this Saturday at 1 o’clock and we’ll go ahead and have you guys do a sample you’re listening to the thrash time show on talk radio 116 once people are sitting down doing a sample and they’re asking all those right questions they begin to discover he says now who’s gonna assist the bride and cutting the cake so what do you mean says well you know most brides haven’t cut the cake before. They need someone to kind of show them how. Who’s going to serve the cake? Who’s going to make sure that the leftovers get put in the right spot? Who’s going to decide on the table linen, the decor, the up lighting? Who’s going to? And as you said, they’re discovering problems that the customer didn’t even know they had. And I’m not kidding. Didn’t change the food. Didn’t change the location. Didn’t change the website. Didn’t change anything. Guy was able to go from about $200,000 a year of sales to almost $2 million of sales in about a two year window just by implementing that system. So that’s a big thing. Right. Providing that customer a solution that they left, think they couldn’t do without. And Z, there’s a lot of optometrists out there who are listening. They’re listening in tall so we don’t want to give them too much advice because you want your optometry clinic to be super dominant. But you’ve been successful in many, many niches. And one recently that you’ve invested in, a lot of people don’t know, but you’ve invested heavily in a local bank called Regent Bank. And Regent Bank is a neat local bank that can’t compete with Bank of America. It can’t be more Bank of America than Bank of America. It’s a boutique business bank. What is that like? What make you do, you can’t refuse, just come and make, no, it’s all about customer service and all about for the startup businessman or professional. And so we give a lot, high level of service. We don’t really advertise for the drop-in, checkbook savings account, the check-in accounts of all the drive-by, we only have one location in Tulsa and we go to them. We don’t have a bank on every corner. And so we’re just kind of that boutiquey, customer service driven bank to business owners. But see, I want to know if I’m a business owner and I just, I feel like all banks are the same. Every bank is all the same. What makes your bank so different? Bank? What makes your bank so different? Is it all the suckers? Do you guys have better suckers? Toasters. Toasters. No, it’s customer service. It’s what makes it better. Our people and the way we approach the business side of it. You know, we try to, you know, we move very quickly. We try not to have a lot of clients. We try to focus on the few that we have and take very good care of them. I mean, obviously we’re growing and we opened up Oklahoma City. Wow. And we have our original one was in Nauwata. Nauwata? Yeah. Nauwata’s huge. It’s the home of the fighting Nauwata. It’s right next to a lot of water. But that’s what we do. I’m a customer service, you know, and that’s how you kind of judge it money is money, right? I’m right to rate I’m gonna interrupt you with a truth canon of questions. We’re gonna fight we’re gonna fight So are you? Optometry are you God’s gift to optometry? Do you know something about the eyeball that other humans don’t know? No, no What about banking? Do you guys know more about banking than anybody else? You know about bank and bank, you know, mr. Banks To be honest. No, what about auto auctions? Do you know more about the automobile and the unbelievable knowledge of the vehicle? No. So all the businesses you’re involved in, it comes down to sales, marketing, and customer service. Shh, don’t give away all my secrets. All right, fine, we’re moving on here. So step number six is you must create your step-by-step system. Now Steve Jobs has a notable quotable, which we documented in my incredible book called Start Here, the world’s best business book, which by the way is available on amazon.com and I promise you it’s 550 pages of just awesomeness. It will blow your mind. But here’s the thing, Steve Jobs says this, simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there you can move mountains. I want to ask you this because this is kind of my final question here for today’s guest and our guru here. Hillary, why do you have to try to keep your system simple? Why do you have to try to keep them simple and not let them get too complicated over their team? Well, because you want to keep it consistent for your customer. So the more complex and different for the interaction with that customer, the more room for error, I would say. And how do people get a hold of you? If they want to hire you to help their company, to hire you guys to help their business, make sure they’re bringing on drug-free employees and making sure they’re bringing on the right recruits, how do they get a hold of you? What’s your website? How can they call you? Teamprofessional.com. And our phone number is 918-970-2323. We have offices in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa, but then again, manage all over the country. Now, see, there’s a lot of people listening right now who say, I want to learn the specifics of workflows, of how to build sales systems, sales scripts. I want examples. Okay, I want an example. I want a template. I would like to have video examples. I would like for you guys to coach me and show me. If it’s really just about marketing, sales, customer service, then I want you guys to show me. And Z, we’ve got two options for them. Two. Option number one, they can go to thrive15.com and they can become a thriver. Oh, I love it. And for $19 a month, they can have the world’s best business school experience without the BS, got downloadables, templates, we got that all, or they can come out to thrive15.com workshops and see why should they come to this beautiful space? Why should they come here, my friend? Well, number one reason, because it’s just a cool space. It is cool. I mean, it’s just, you look out on the river, we got a little teak huts out there. We’ve got the bar from the restaurant that was here before to just belly up to and have a good time. And all these workstations, and then we have the mojo of excellence over here. Our workshops are detailed, they’re specific, they’re 15 hours of power, they’re every week. Thrivers, they will change your life. And this just in, they’re affordable for everybody. Thrive15.com. All right, JT, so hypothetically, in your mind, what is the purpose of having a business? To get you to your goals. So it’s a vehicle to get you to your destination. And would you need profits to get there? I mean, when you have a business that’s successful, in your expert opinion, would you need profits to get you to your goals? Yeah, because if you have a $15 million business, but you have $15 million of expenses, it’s kind of pointless. Holy crap! Alright, so the question I would have here for you, if you could take like, I don’t know, 10 minutes or less and see if you could save $3000 a year by reducing your credit card fees, would you do it? Yes, absolutely. Holy crap! Why would somebody out there who’s listening right now, who has a sane mind, why would they not go to thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card, thrivetimeshow.com to schedule a 10 minute consultation to see if they can reduce their credit card fees by at least $3,000 a year. Why would they not do it? Yeah, why would they not do it? Maybe because they don’t understand how you set the website. This tree is a symbol of the spirit of the Griswold family Christmas. No, that’s clear. So I encourage everybody to check out thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card thrivetimeshow.com forward slash credit dash card What would be another reason why someone would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save $3,000 or more on credit card fees? Maybe they think it is a waste of time and that it won’t. It’s not possible. There’s somebody out there that’s making more than $3,000 every 10 minutes and they’re like, nah! That’s not worth my time. There’s probably some someone out there. Okay. I would think that. Well I’ll just tell you folks if you’re out there today and you’re making less than $3,000 per 10 minutes I would highly recommend that you go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash hard because you can compare rates you can save money, and you know, the big goal, in my opinion, of building a business is to create time freedom and financial freedom, and in order to do that, you have to maximize your profits. Holy crap. Now, one way to maximize your profits is to increase your revenue. Another way to do it is to decrease your expenses. It’s a profit deal takes the pressure off. JT, is there any other reason why somebody would not be willing to take 10 minutes to compare rates to see if they could save a total of $3,000 a year on average? I am at a loss and I cannot think of any other. Conditioner is better. I leave the hair silky and smooth. Oh really fool, really. Stop looking at me swan. Let me tell you a good story here real quick. I actually years ago compared rates with this company here called IPS. It’s Integrated Payment Services. And I scheduled a consultation. I don’t know if I was skeptical. I just thought, whatever, I’ll take 10 minutes. I’ll compare rates. I can’t tell. You can tell me I’m a doctor. No, I mean I’m just not sure. Why can’t you take a guess? Well, not for another two hours. You can’t take a guess for another two hours? And in my case, in my case, my particular case, I save over $20,000 a year. Holy crap! Wow. Which is like groceries when my wife goes to the organic stores. Find everything you need today? Yeah. Great. Okay. Oh God. Everything okay ma’am? It’s just that you’ve only scanned a few items and it’s already 60 bucks. I’m so scared. Okay I’m a trained professional ma’am. I’ve scanned a lot of groceries. I need you to stay with me. It’s just that my in-laws are in town and they want a charcuterie board. This isn’t going to be easy, so I need you to be brave, all right? What’s your name? Patricia. Patricia, all right. I need you to take a deep breath. We’re about to do the cheese. You know, that’s the difference between eating organic and not organic. So because my wife eats organic, I had to take the 10 minutes needed to compare rates to save the $20,000 a year on credit card fees just for one of my companies one question what’s the brand name of the clock? the brand name of the clock Rod, do we have it? the brand name of the clock, it’s an elegant from Ridgway, it’s from Ridgway let’s buy buy the clock and sell the fireplace I encourage everybody out there go to thrive timeshow.com forward slash credit dash card you schedule a free consultation request information a member of our team will call you, they’ll schedule a free consultation, it should take you 10 minutes or less, and they’re going to compare rates and see if they can’t save you more than $3,000 a year off of your credit card processing. You were hoping what? I wouldn’t owe you money at the end of the day. No, you don’t owe us money. Because at the end of the day, at the end of the day, the goal of the business is to create time, freedom, and financial freedom, and in order to do that, you need to create additional methods. The number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. We are Jared and Jennifer Johnson. We own Platinum Pest and Lawn and are located in Owasso, Oklahoma. And we have been working with Thrive for business coaching for almost a year now. Yeah. So what we want to do is we want to share some wins with you guys that we’ve had by working with Thrive. First of all, we’re on the top page of Google now. OK? I just want to let you know what type of accomplishment this is. Our competition, Orkin, Terminix, they’re both $1.3 billion companies. They both have 2,000 to 3,000 pages of content attached to their website. So to basically go from virtually nonexistent on Google to up on the top page is really saying something. But it’s come by being diligent to the systems that Thrive has, by being consistent and diligent on doing podcasts and staying on top of those podcasts to really help with getting up on what they’re listing and ranking there with Google. And also we’ve been trying to get Google reviews, you know, asking our customers for reviews, and now we’re the highest rated and most reviewed Pessamon company in the Tulsa area, and that’s really helped with our conversion rate. And the number of new customers that we’ve had is up 411% over last year. Wait, say that again. How much are we up? 411%. Okay, so 411% we’re up with our new customers. Amazing. Right. So not only do we have more customers calling in, we’re able to close those deals at a much higher rate than we were before. Right now our closing rate is about 85 percent and that’s largely due to, first of all, like our Google reviews that we’ve gotten. People really see that our customers are happy, but also we have a script that we follow. And so when customers call in, they get all the information that they need. That script has been refined time and time again. It wasn’t a one and done deal. It was a system that we followed with Thrive in the refining process. And that has obviously, the 411% shows that that system works. Yeah, so here’s a big one for you. So last week alone, our booking percentage was 91%. We actually booked more deals and more new customers last year than we did the first five months, or I’m sorry, we booked more deals last week than we did the first five months of last year, from before we worked with Thrive. So again, we booked more deals last week than the first five months of last year. It’s incredible, but the reason why we have that success is by implementing the systems that Thrive has taught us and helped us out with. Some of those systems that we’ve implemented are group interviews. That way we’ve really been able to come up with a really great team. We’ve created and implemented checklists. That way everything gets done and it gets done right. It creates accountability. We’re able to make sure that everything gets done properly, both out in the field and also in our office. And also doing the podcast, like Jared had mentioned, that has really, really contributed to our success. But that, like I said, the diligence and consistency in doing those, and that system has really, really been a big blessing in our lives. And also, you know, it’s really shown that we’ve gotten a success from following those systems. So before working with Thrive, we were basically stuck. Really no new growth with our business. And we were in a rut, and we didn’t know. The last three years, our customer base had pretty much stayed the same. We weren’t shrinking, but we weren’t really growing either. Yeah, and so we didn’t really know where to go, what to do, how to get out of this rut that we’re in. But Thrive helped us with that. They implemented those systems, and they taught us those systems. They taught us the knowledge that we needed in order to succeed. Now it’s been a grind, absolutely it’s been a grind this last year, but we’re getting those fruits from that hard work and the diligent effort that we’re able to put into it. So again, we were in a rut, Thrive helped us get out of that rut, and if you’re thinking about working with Thrive, quit thinking about it and just do it. Do the action, and you’ll get the results. It will take hard work and discipline, but that’s what it’s going to take in order to really succeed. So we just want to give a big shout out to Thrive, a big thank you out there to Thrive. We wouldn’t be where we’re at now without their help. Hi, I’m Dr. Mark Moore, I’m a pediatric dentist. Through our new digital marketing plan, we have seen a marked increase in the number of new patients that we’re seeing every month, year over year. One month, for example, we went from 110 new patients the previous year to over 180 new patients in the same month. And overall, our average is running about 40 to 42% increase month over month, year over year. The group of people required to implement our new digital marketing plan is immense, starting with the business coach, videographers, photographers, web designers. Back when I graduated dental school in 1985, nobody advertised. The only marketing that was ethically allowed in everybody’s eyes was mouth-to-mouth marketing. By choosing to use the services, you’re choosing to use a proof-and-turn-key marketing and coaching system that will grow your practice and get you the results that you’re looking for. I went to the University of Oklahoma College of Dentistry, graduated in 1983 and then I did my pediatric dental residency at Baylor College of Dentistry from 1983 to 1985. Hello my name is Charles Colaw with Colaw Fitness. Today I want to tell you a little bit about Clay Clark and how I know Clay Clark. Clay Clark has been my business coach since 2017. He’s helped us grow from two locations to now six locations. We’re planning to do seven locations in seven years and then franchise and Clay has done a great job of helping us navigate anything that has to do with running the business, building the system, the checklist, the workflows, the audits, how to navigate lease agreements, how to buy property, how to work with brokers and builders. This guy is just amazing. This kind of guy has worked in every single industry. He’s written books with Lee Crocker, Head of Disney with the 40,000 cast members. He’s friends with Mike Lindell. He does Reawaken America tours where he does these tours all across the country where 10,000 or more people show up to some of these tours. On the day-to-day he does anywhere from about 160 companies. He’s at the top. He has a team of business coaches, videographers, graphic designers, and web developers. They run 160 companies every single week. Think of this guy with a team of business coaches running 160 companies. So in the weekly, he’s running 160 companies. Every six to eight weeks, he’s doing Reawaken America tours. Every six to eight weeks, he’s also doing business conferences where 200 people show up, and he teaches people a 13-step proven system that he’s done and worked with billionaires, helping them grow their companies. So I’ve seen guys from startups go from startup to being multi-millionaires, teaching people how to get time freedom and financial freedom through the system. Critical thinking, document creation, organizing everything in their head to building it into a franchisable, scalable business. One of his businesses has like 500 franchises. That’s just one of the companies or brands that he works with. Amazing guy, Elon Musk, kind of like smart guy. He kind of comes off sometimes as socially awkward, but he’s so brilliant and he’s taught me so much. When I say that, Clay is like, he doesn’t care what people think when you’re talking to him. He cares about where you’re going in your life and where he can get you to go. And that’s what I like him most about him. He’s like a good coach. A coach isn’t just making you feel good all the time. A coach is actually helping you get to the best you. Clay has been an amazing business coach. Through the course of that, we became friends. My most impressive thing was when I was shadowing him one time. We went into a business deal and listened to it. I got to shadow and listen to it. When we walked out, I knew that he could make millions on the deal and they were super excited about working with him. He told me, he’s like, I’m not going to touch it. I’m going to turn it down because he knew it was going to harm the common good of people in the long run. The guy’s integrity just really wowed me. It brought tears to my eyes to see that this guy, his highest desire was to do what’s right. Anyway, just an amazing man. He’s impacted me a lot. He’s helped navigate. Anytime I’ve gotten nervous or worried about how to run the company or navigating competition and an economy that’s like, I remember we got closed down for three months. He helped us navigate on how to stay open, how to get back open, how to just survive through all the COVID shutdowns, lockdowns. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just wanna give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey guys, I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just wanna say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys. We appreciate you and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean, it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing. And this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14. And I took this beautiful photo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past. And they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd, we’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. The Thrive Time Show, two-day interactive business workshops are the highest and most reviewed business workshops on the planet. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. We get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re gonna leave energized, motivated, but you’re also gonna leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur, I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter Bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, but I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see it. We go back eight years ago. Think about the number of clients you had back then versus the number of clients you have now. As a percentage, what has been the growth over the past eight years, do you think? We’ve got to inspire somebody out there who just doesn’t have the time to listen to their phone. Well, okay, so Clay, it’s like I would go up and down from about $10,000 a month up to about $40,000, but it’s up and down roller coaster. And so now we’ve got it to where we’re in excess of 100 clients. That’s awesome. And so I would have anywhere from 5 clients to 20 clients on my own with networking, but I had no control over it. I didn’t. Without the systems, you’re going to be victimized by your own business. For somebody out there who struggles with math, if you would say that your average number of clients was 30 and you go to 100, as a percentage, what is that? I have doubled every year since working with you. I’ve doubled in clients, I’ve doubled in revenue every year. That’s 100% growth every year I’ve worked with you. We’ve been good friends seven, eight years, and I’ve got doubled five times. Which is just incredible. I mean, the first time you do it, that’s one thing, but when you do it repeatedly, I mean, that’s unbelievable. We’re working our blessed assurance off this year to double. We’re planning on doubling again. We’re incorporating some new things in there to really help us do it, but we are going to double again this year. I started coaching, but it would go up and down, Clay. That’s when I came to you, as I was going up and down, and I wanted to go up and up instead of up and down. And so that’s when it needed a system. So creating a system is you have nailed down specific steps that you’re going to take no matter how you feel, no matter the results, you lean into them and you do them regardless of what’s happening. You lean into them and it will give you X number of leads. You follow up with those leads turns into sales Well, I tell you you know it’s if you don’t have a script and you don’t have a system Then every day is a whole new creation You’re creating a lot of energy just to figure out what are you going to do right and the best executives Peter Drucker’s a? father of Modern management, he said the most effective executives make one decision a year. What you do is you make a decision, what is your system, and then you work like the Dickens to make sure you follow that system. That’s really what it’s all about. With a script here, we have a brand new gal that just came in working for us. She nailed down the script, and she’s been nailing down appointments. Usually we try to get one appointment for every hundred calls. We make two to three hundred calls a day per rep. Right. And she’s been nailing down five and eight appointments a day. Somebody out there’s having a hard time. On that script. So she’s making how many calls a day? She’s making between two and three hundred calls a day. And our relationship is weird in that we do… If someone were to buy an Apple computer today, or let’s say you bought a personal computer, a PC, the computer is made by, let’s say, Dell. But then the software in the computer would be Microsoft, let’s say, or Adobe, or whatever that is. So I basically make the systems, and you’re like the computer and I’m like the software. It’s kind of how I would describe our relationship. Tim, I want to ask you this. I think it was in the year 2000 and 2010? Is that right? 2011 maybe? Or maybe further down the road. Maybe 2013? 2012. Okay, so 2012 and at that time I had five years removed from the DJ business. And you were how many years removed from tax and accounting software? It was about 10-11 years. We met… How did we meet? What was the first interaction? There was some interaction where you and I first connected. I just remember that somehow you and I went to Hideaway Pizza. But do you remember when we first reconnected? Yeah, well, we had that speaking thing that… Oh, there it was. So it was Victory Christian Center. I was speaking there. My name is Robert Redman. I actually first met Clay almost three years ago to the day. I don’t know if he remembers it or not, but I wasn’t working with him at the time. I asked to see him and just ask him some questions to help, you know, direct my life to get some mentorship, but I’ve been working with Clay for now just over a year. The role I play here is a business coach, business consultant. I work with different businesses implementing best practice processes and systems that I have learned here by working with Clay. And the experience working here has, to put it real plainly, has been just life changing. I have not only learned new things and have gained new knowledge, but I have gained a whole new mindset that I believe, wherever I end up, will serve me well throughout the rest of my life. Since working with Clay, I have learned so much. I mean, I would like to say almost everything about business in terms of the different categories. I haven’t learned it all, but I’ve learned all about marketing. I’ve learned about advertising. I’ve learned about branding. I’ve learned how to create a sales process for organizations in any industry. I’ve learned how to sell. I’ve learned how to create repeatable systems and processes, and hold people accountable. How to hire people. It’s almost like every aspect of a business you can learn, I have learned a lot in those different categories. And then, again, the mindset that I’ve gained here has been huge. Working here, you can’t be a mediocre person. You are a call to a higher standard of excellence, and then as you’re called to that standard here, you begin to see those outcomes in every area of your life, that standard of excellence that you want to implement, no matter what you’re involved in. I would like to describe the other people that work with Clay are people that are going somewhere with their life. Marshall, in the group interview, talks about how, you know, the best fits for this organization are the people that are goal-oriented. So they’re on their own trajectory, and we’re on our own trajectory, and the best fits are those people where there can be a mutually beneficial relationship that as we pursue our goals and we help the business pursue those goals, the business helps us pursue our goals as well. And so I say people that are driven, people that want to make something of their lives, people that are goal-oriented, they’re focused, and they’re committed to overcoming any adversity that may come their way. Clay’s passion for helping business owners grow their businesses is, it’s unique in that, I don’t know if there’s anyone else that can be as passionate. You know, whenever a business starts working with Clay, it’s almost as like Clay is running that business in the sense that he has something at stake. He’s just serving them. They’re one of his clients, but it’s as if he is actively involved in the business. Whenever they have a win, he’s posting it all over his social media. He’s shouting it across the room here at Thrive. He’s sending people encouraging messages. He can kind of be that life coach and business coach in terms of being that motivator and that champion for people’s businesses. It’s again unique because there’s no one else I’ve seen get so excited about and passionate about other people’s businesses. The kind of people that wouldn’t like working with Clay are people that are satisfied with mediocrity, people that want to get through life by just doing enough, by just getting by. People who are not looking to develop themselves, people who are not coachable, people who think that they know it all and they’re unwilling to change. I would say those are the type of people and in short anyone that’s content with mediocrity would not like working with Clay. So if you’re meeting Clay for the first time the advice I’d give you is Definitely come ready to take tons of notes every time clay speaks he Gives you a wealth of knowledge That you don’t want to miss I remember the first time that I met clay I literally carried a notebook with me all around I was looking at this notebook the other day actually I carried a notebook with me all around and I just took tons of notes. I filled the entire notebook in about three or four months just from being around Clay, following him and learning from him. And then I would say, come coachable. Be open to learning something new. Be open to challenging yourself. Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you Be open to learning and adjusting parts about you that need to be adjusted.