Clay Clark | The 12 Core Tasks of Your Accounting and Financing

Audio Transcription

Get ready to enter the Thrive Time 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 the father of five, that’s what 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 3, 2, 1, here we go. We started from the bottom, now we’re in. We started from the bottom, and that’s what you gotta do. What is going on there, Thrive Nation? Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. It’s a fantastic Friday. And for many of you, many of you, you are headed into a super weekend. Many of you have got plans to grill. Some of you have plans just to marinate and chill. Some of you are going to go over next door and talk to that neighbor about who knows what for an hour and a half. You’re just going to have a relaxed weekend. But Z, Dr. Zellner, before we get into this great weekend, we have got an action-packed show for the Thrivers. Sir, how are you doing on this Friday? I am fantastic. And it’s not just any Friday. No, it’s not just any no, no, no This signals they say the signals capitalism’s profit March to the end of the year That’s that nasty word P the profit Here’s the deal like Friday So they say that you know really from here on out the sales of the end of the year for most companies If this is their profit for the year, they go from red and being operating in a loss Yes into the black. Yes. Operating at a profit all during one month. Yes. And that’s what’s called, that’s why it’s called Black Friday. Oh, see this just in from our home office. A lot of people listening did not know that, my friend. They did not know that. Well now they do. And that’s why they listen to the show, to get little nuggets. To get a little knowledge bomb nuggets like that. There we go. There’s the bomb. Oh, nice. Knowledge bomb number one. And we’re just getting started. Now see. And a lot of people are driving home, I just want to correct you. A lot of people are driving away from the mall after they’ve slept overnight to get the Black Friday deal, or they’re in Best Buy right now streaming us. I was trying to be politically correct. Okay, here’s the way, let me reset. Many of you are on your way driving home after you spent the night in a tent to get a Samsung 72-inch TV half off for $100. Many of you are just now waking up from that all-nighter, that entire night of time you’ve invested in getting those Black Friday specials. And some of you are recovering from injuries because a lady was trying to grab an item off the shelf before you. You went in there to get a little nice gift for your grandson or niece or something, and that woman tried to grab that item off the shelf before you, and so you started to throw a little kung fu kick. Now you find yourself injured. You’ve got a chipped tooth. You’ve got a chipped tooth. And these are just the kind of go-getters. These are just the kind of go-getters that are looking to start or grow their business, Clay. And that’s why we know that those are the people listening to us today. Absolutely. Now, Thrivers, listen to this. Now, we’re talking today about the 12 core tasks of your accounting and finance team. So why should you listen? I’m going to ask you a few questions here. Do you ever feel like you are never on the same page with your accountant or bookkeeper? Like you just never quite know what they’re thinking, what they’re doing? It’s so confusing. And I think a lot of times you know the jargon, it’s overwhelming for some people. Is this you? Do you ever feel like you’re missing something in the accounting department? Like you’re just going, did we pay Barry? Did we pay Billy? What happened? Did Billy get paid? Billy? Billy, why did we pay Billy? Do you ever feel overwhelmed by your company’s accounting needs? Do you ever feel like, file this, file that, I’ve got to do this, I’ve got to do that, I’ve got to talk to the state, I’ve got to get my LLC re-updated. Do you ever feel overwhelmed? If you do, then today’s show is for you. We’re talking about the 12 core tasks of your accounting and financing team. Now I’m going to give you a notable quotable, coming in hot from Erica Reese here. This is what he says This is the author of the lean startup method. He says After more than 10 years as an entrepreneur. I came to reject that line of thinking I have learned from both my own successes and failures and those of many others that it’s the boring stuff that matters the most Oh Friday, boring stuff. Startup success is not a consequence of good genes or being in the right place at the right time. Startup success can be engineered by following the right process. Oh, you mean you take the luck out of it? What? That doesn’t seem fair. Now, which means it can be learned and which means it can be taught. Now here, Z, I want to dwell on this because a lot of people right now, you’re getting into the holiday season. You’re being very thankful. You had a great Thanksgiving, but some of you are starting to look at other people who are successful and saying, wouldn’t it be nice if I was successful? Because you’re thinking that it’s basically that they are successful because they were born into the right family, the right genes, the right… People believe that though. A spoon of silver. And we’re going to teach you the proven systems. Yes. But I want to ask you, growing up, did you have a, did you grow up with a silver spoon? No, we didn’t. We had sporks. That way we could double them as a fork and a spoon, and they weren’t silver. I think they were kind of a brown. How many kids were in your family growing up? Seven. Seven kids? Six boys and one girl. Wow. And then you had basically three different kind of pseudo-dads, right? Three different dads? Yeah, yeah. I guess you could, but now you’re just throwing math out there. Now you’re just throwing math. So you, you, and you, you had a, would you consider it a stable childhood? Was it unstable? Did you move a lot? Did you live in the same house a lot? Well, every time the police showed up, we had to move. I’m teasing. Okay. This just in. Jokey, I’m Joker, Jokey McJokerson. That’s right. No, I mean, I would say it was stable. I would say, I would use the word stable to describe my childhood. Yeah. And we didn’t move a lot. We moved a few times. Did your family, when you wanted to start your business, did they go, well, here’s the first $100,000. Here you go. I wish they did. Boy, wouldn’t that have been nice? Wouldn’t that be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice? So you started with… You want that cash or a check? So you started from the bottom. Started from the bottom. Okay. And so you’ve learned these systems. You’ve learned how to become successful. You have to if you’re going to be successful. You have to listen to Today’s Show and master these moves if you want to be successful in business. So you believe anybody who’s listening could learn these skills and if they applied the same systems that you’re applying, they could have success? Absolutely. I 100% guarantee that in my mind, I know that to be an absolute factoid. You’re listening to The Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 11. So core task number one here, Thrivers. Core task, you ask, what is core task number one? Okay, here it is. Core task number one. This is big. You must have a system in place to verify that your team members are being paid on time. Oh yeah, they will fuss if you don’t make sure they get their money. Now we had a young lady today, I feel bad, but this is a true story, a young lady today, and you go, why do you tell us these bad stories? It makes us lose confidence. Because I’m being real. I’m trying to help you, okay? She comes up to me, and apparently she turned in something to be paid last week, and apparently she did not get the payment she was expecting. And so this has never happened to her before. Excuse me, Thrivers. I’m very, very emotional about this. But this is the first time it’s ever happened. It hasn’t happened in a long time in the business, but she didn’t get paid for something she was expecting. Yeah. And so I saw the look in her face because whenever you talk to your boss about not getting paid for something, you almost don’t want to upset the boss. You don’t want to, but you’re also upset. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you think there is, there’s something nefarious going on here. Yeah. Is this just all some big shale game of sham mockery? Is this a sham mockery? They tell me one thing and now they’re giving me something else? I mean, what is going on here? It causes a whole host of questions to be asked. And so all you need to do here, Thrivers, this isn’t a complicated thing. I want you to go ahead and set a time, if you own a business, to pay your team members. A set time. Not just like if you get a chance, because a lot of you are listening right now. You are the marketer. You’re the salesperson. You’re the product provider. You’re the recruiter. You wear a lot of hats because you’re a business owner. Sure. But you have to have a specific time set aside, block it out, to pay your team. Yeah, you have to. See, when you were growing your optometry clinic, how quickly before you began to delegate the bookkeeping? How quickly was it before you started to delegate that payroll and that whole thing? How many minutes, how many weeks, how long were you in business before you? About six months before I, you know, I mean, it was me and I had one employee and probably the first six months I did everything. I kind of had to figure it out and it wasn’t fun and it’s not my skill set. So it was gnashing of teeth and pulling what few hairs I have left out of my head out. You have a beautiful head. Thank you. But about six months and I had a family member come in who had the skill set and took it over and helped me out on that. And then finally we got so busy where I had to go up to the family member and say, you know, I appreciate you helping, but between the kids, your kids I should say, and tennis and all the things you’re doing, you’re not getting my accounting done in time. So I’m going to hire an accountant. So AKA your services are no longer required. But if you’re listening right now, I’m just telling you, if you have someone that you, if you’re the business owner and you’ve hired someone to do accounting, you have to have a set time to follow up with them. You just have to have a set time to make sure things are getting done right. Absolutely. And, and go over your P and L’s and all the other things that you have set up that we’re going to cover today, but you’ve got to have that, you have to have that system in place and uh, you know, really now partial CFOs and partial accountants and guys that do your books on, on, you know, small scale are very affordable. You may see that thing go, I can’t afford an accountant. I can’t afford a CPA. I can’t afford that. I can’t afford that. Well you can because they can dummy it down into a part. They can do a part. I mean they’re not, you’re not, they’re not your full-time staff members. I mean now I have some that are full-time staff members, but it took years to get to that point. What I call, you know, critical mass to where it made sense to hire someone full-time. So now Thrivers moving on to core task number two. You must have a system in place to verify that your team members are paid accurately. See, the first part is on time. The second part is accurately. And you’ve got to make sure because, Z, have you ever had employees who’ve turned in false expenses to be reimbursed for, false mileage, false anything? Have you ever, in the years of employing hundreds, maybe at this point, thousands of people, have you ever had an employee turn in false information and say, has it ever happened? You know, your sound effect came in before my sound effect, but this is my sound effect that I want to hit. Oh yes. Have you ever had an employee mislead you with dishonest reimbursements? Yes, I have. In fact, it happened when we set up all the payroll happened to set herself up at one and a half times the salary that I had agreed to. That’s a hot move for her. It’s a hot move for her. And until you go in and verify and you check and you get the payroll statements, which she would be the one to get those statements, and she would be the one to verify it. I’d meet with her and go, everything verified, everything good, you know, she’s my controller, everything good? Yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom, okay, great. Except she wouldn’t tell me that, and then I finally figured it out. I said, what were you thinking? And after the break, I’ll tell you what she was thinking. Now, Thrivers, you have a notable quotable. I’m going to sneak in here before the break. Checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains, and between our, the gaps between our brains and between our brains. That’s a tool go on day. Stay tuned. Payroll. Excitement. Alright Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time show during typically your drive time home, but for many of you, you’re just starting to drive home from a fabulous day of shopping. You’re not driving home from work, you’re driving home from shopping. You’ve been out there buying various accoutrements that you… you know, you go in there first with the altruistic goal of getting some discounted items for your family and friends, your loved ones, but then you get into Best Buy and you go, or Sam’s, Sam’s Club is the worst. You go into Sam’s Club and you go, I might need a blender too. And all of a sudden you’re buying stuff. I might need a huge sausage too. I might need a big old cheese selection as well. And now you’ve bought all these items for yourself. You bought everything you don’t need in bulk at Sam. You’re headed home feeling guilty. You’re going to wrap half of that stuff for those people. The other half you’re going to keep for yourself. And Z, really that’s what Black Friday is all about, my friend. Yes, spending money. That’s what it’s about. Copious amounts of spending. You’re helping America’s retail sector get profitable. Amen to that. Now here’s the deal, Thrivers. We’re talking about a subject today that I know a lot of people, we need to be talking about. But we’re not going to talk about it because it’s not exciting. We need to talk about it, but we don’t talk about it because it’s not exciting. That’s why we’re the number one business show in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Absolutely, the number one of all the shows. Because we’ll tackle the subjects that just aren’t sexy. We’re going to tackle the subjects that you need to learn, you need to go through, and yet you’re like, that’s not fun. But you know the reason why we can tackle a not sexy subject, Z? Why’s that? Because you’re sexy. Oh. And so you bring a certain sexiness to any subject. So we could be talking about anything. We could be talking about chlorophyll. We could be talking about nomenclature and chlorophyll and there’s still a certain herbal essence. You see kids, Corophyll, that’s what makes oxygen. Yeah, you’re right. Now here’s the deal, Thrivers. We’re talking about core task number two. Before the break I teased you with a little notable quotable. But here’s the core task number two. A system is in place to verify that your team members are paid accurately. You must have a system to make sure they’re paid accurately. But Atul Gawande, my main man who wrote the Checklist Manifesto, he has a quote that at first pass might not make a lot of sense, but we’re going to get into it, okay? He says, checklists seem lowly and simplistic, but they help fill in for the gaps in our brains and in between our brains. Z, the checklists free up our mind. They do free up our mind, and let me finish my story that we went into the break on. Give us the story. So I sit down with this lady, and I figure out that she’s paying herself one and a half times the agreed salary. Not good. I’m just like, this is, ahhhhhh. My brain was exploding. So I sat her down, calm as I could be, and I asked her why that was the case. I don’t know why I’m taking one and a half times my salary. It’s just something I feel like is good. And she said to me, she looked at me and she said, well, I’m working more than I thought I was going to be. Basically one and a half times what I was going to be. So I just justified it that I’m working more than I decided that I was going to or thought I was going to. So therefore it only makes sense. Only intelligent people can justify Dr. Zellner. It only makes sense that I’m paid more. I mean, you know, it’s no big deal about that. I look like I’m sowing seeds at your business and I’m sowing a lot of seeds so I get paid more, you know? Yeah, exactly. And so I just went, you know, get out of here. And I took the high road. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t press charges. I didn’t do, you know, I figure what comes around goes around. So for the most part. So basically we took the high road so I rode Ikeda cars I get the job a cause I pledged this a lot and I slash your tires that was all I did I basically I will tell you this but to me you know the things I wrote on Facebook may may not have been appropriate and I met him at the time I meant him at the time and she will have no problem walking back from the middle of the woods where I left her. That is if she’s able to walk. If she’s able to walk. Boom. Boom. No, because Vinnie drove her out there. No offense to any man named Vinnie out there. No offense man, but seriously, you’ll be sleeping with the fishes if you mess with his payroll again. I get excited with my left pipe. The point is, business owners listening out there, and soon to be business owners, that that the person I had paid to verify and check to make sure the accuracy of the paychecks was going out she was the one that gave herself a raise and didn’t even think to talk about it. Which leads me into the Andy Grove quote this is the guy who is the CEO of Intel you know the guys who make the processor the chips in the computers. He says that only the conspiracy theorists survive. And I believe as a business owner, you really do. I mean, at all times, this is what a business owner hears in their head all day. You’re going, what’s going on, guys? What are you guys talking about? It’s kind of, seriously, as a business owner, I’ve been self-employed starting some kind of business since I was 16 years old, basically. And I’m telling you, with my t-shirt business back in the day, here’s the move. I bought a t-shirt for five bucks. I agree on a design. I sell the shirt for 15 bucks. It’s like $3. I press it on there with my… What’s the move? It’s the silk screener, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you silk screen the shirt. You sell it. 15, cha-ching, boom. That’s the move. I’m going, well, if I sold it for 15, and the shirts are five and it’s two dollars to press the thing how do I not have eight bucks? Yeah how do you it’s just math. Now you just keep doing math. You start finding out there’s a guy who’s helping me press t-shirts in my basement and he’s going well basically I could I could give away two t-shirts for you know for my buddy over here for my buddy over there pretty soon that’s like four buddies but we’re all buddies. Yeah. You bet you know so what happens is that over time you realize wait a minute they’re stealing. Are you guys giving away our t-shirts? What we are doing is a benevolence. We are wanting to do an outreach to give sheds to high school students who otherwise could not afford them unless they were to get a job. Yeah, and we don’t want to put that on them. You have to have that sort of mindset. So Thrivers, the action step for you, core task number two, is get a checklist. You have to have a checklist. I’m telling you, look at the checklist, know what everyone should be paid, and every week when you do payroll, it’s like war. You sit down and you go, whoa, whoa, what was that random expense? What was that random payroll? I’m telling you, every week people play those games. Oh, they can’t stand it. Somebody turned in last year 18 hours, 18 hours, to clean the cyclorama, which is maybe a surface area of 15 by 15 square feet. Well, they were very diligent. I guess that was a clean space when they got done. And I talked to this person and they were like, well, I just didn’t know how cleanly you wanted it overall. And I guess it was a lack of expectations. I just wasn’t sure. And I’m going, no, there’s no way. But they do it. Oh, yeah. We had a young lady about six weeks ago. We do marketing. We help local doctors in Tulsa do marketing. And you’ll see they have these pharmaceutical reps that go from business to business. Oh yeah. Well, a lot of these doctors will outsource my crew and we drop off stuff for them, right? Yeah. So what happens is the person will turn in miles. This person turned in, I’m not exaggerating, my wife looked at it, over 240 miles in one day in Tulsa. Oh wow. That’s a lot of driving. So you went to Dallas. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And they’re like, no, I just went to Harvard and I went over to Yale and I went you’re going there’s no way Oh, I guess it was twenty seven point four miles. Yeah. Oh, I got the point. Oh Dot he’s just a little dog. They never mess up to the short. They never like oh, I meant two point four two point Four miles. Oh, I meant 24. It’s always never short themselves. They always go long. How is that? Why is that? I don’t I don’t know but I’ll tell you this, Thrivers. When we come back, we’re talking about core task number three. Core task number three. And this is all about helping you get your accounting and your finances together as a business owner. This is the time of year where everyone’s spending copious amounts of cash on things that you probably don’t need, buying gifts for people they’re probably going to return in a few days. But the thing is, it’s the Thrive Time Show on this beautiful black Friday. All right, Tulsa, Oklahoma homies, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show during your drive time home. And for many of you, you’re driving home from a day of shopping. You’ve been shopping, shopping, and shopping. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year, and I’ve got Dr. Robert Zellner right here. Sir, how are you? I am fantastic. And if you’re looking on Facebook Live right now, you just got a little treat. Yeah, you got a little eye candy there. Mr. Tim Bredman right there live on Facebook Live. Live on Facebook Live. Broadcasting from the left coast of the Arkansas River here in the box that rocks. He’s a beautiful man and if you’re on Facebook Live, you just got a little visual treat. You know what? You’re welcome. You’re welcome. You don’t owe us anything extra. Now here’s the deal, Thrivers. We’re talking about how to get your accounting systems in place. Specifically, we’re talking about core task number three. A system is in place to verify that your vendors are paid on time. What? What? Pay them on time? That’s crazy. Now here’s the deal, Thrivers. You want to have a system in place to verify that you’re paying them on time. So I’m gonna give you a notable quotable again. Coming at you here. Here it is. Good checklists, on the other hand, are precise. They’re efficient to the point and are easy to use even in the most difficult situations. They do not try to spell out everything. A checklist cannot fly a plane or pay a vendor. Instead, they provide reminders of what only the most critical and important steps, the ones that even the highly skilled professional using them could miss. Good checklists are above all practical. That’s from Atul Gawande, the author of The Checklist Manifesto and the guy who is a medical professor there at the Harvard Medical School. And so he’s talking about checklists. You’ve got to have them in place, Z, because, see, your businesses today, they’re so complex. You’ve got an auto auction going. You’re an investor at a bank. You have an optometry clinic. Do you have any idea the name of any of your customers that came in today? Do you know the name of one customer that you know for sure came in today of any of those three businesses? I don’t think so. What percentage of the employees that work there could you name? If you had to. You want in there? Oh, don’t put me on the spot. Now, my next office meet, I’m going to be in trouble. I’m going to report myself. When I went into the Elf in the Room last week, we have 44 lounge coordinators. That means when you go there for your haircut, there’s somebody who goes, hey, welcome to Elf in the Room. Are you Robert? Hey, good to see you for your appointment. Let’s go get you, let’s bring you back for your haircut. These people who greet people, there’s 44 of these people. Okay, so okay, question right back at you then. I didn’t know any of them. Not one? No, I’m serious. Last week we did the training and Abigail was the one who facilitated and I literally had to write down everyone’s names because I have no idea who they are. I only fellowship with the managers and with the founder, Justin, who I’m partners with and I care about everybody but I’m writing down everyone’s names. But I mean literally if I were to spend every minute of the day just trying to meet all the photographers taking wedding photos and all the grooming professionals, I wouldn’t get anything done. And so eventually I had to decide, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to focus on the leaders and try to coach up the leaders and they can coach up their people. I don’t think I’m a bad guy, just I realized I was out of time. And unless I wanted to have no downtime to chase my wife around and to procreate, I’d have to stop and learn to meet everybody. Stop and do the important thing, and that’s learn everybody’s name. Yeah. So I’m just saying, Thrivers, if you’re listening right now, you’ve got to have a checklist in place to make sure that you’re paying everybody on time, your vendors. And to follow up on that, also what you need to do is always verify with the vendors. Some vendors will give you a discount if you pay early. And then the ones that don’t, and if they have a payment, they’ll tell you when it’s due. Don’t pay it long before it’s due. I was talking to one of my accountants the other day, and I said, wait a second, we get 2% quick pay on this one, and this one says the 90 days, it’s 30, 60, 90. Holy cow. Oh my goodness. Wow. Oh, there we go. Holy cow. So you need to follow up on that, because sometimes they don’t always tell you and you have to dig around a little bit. Do you have a quick pay discount? And sometimes you might even educate them to say, oh, we don’t, but that’s a great idea. We’re going to put it in place. Say, well, if you pay by, you know, in 15 days or if you pay in 30 days, if it’s good for your cash flow and you can do it, you can take advantage of savings right off the bat. I mean, it’s just free money. I’ve got it. It’s just free money. Just free money. It’s free money. Free money. Holy free money. The thing is, the Cubs went to the World Series this year. They won 108 years. They hadn’t been for 108 years. No, no, they had been. They’d been. In 71 since they’d been, they hadn’t won it in 108 years. This just in. This just in from our Chicago Cubs home office. And Harry Carey was the voice of choice for that team that could not win for years. So I’m going to try to sneak in as many Harry Caray references today. Holy cow! Okay, but I want to give you a little move, a little bonus move about paying your vendors. This is a little sneaky move. You tell me if this has ever happened to you. Okay. Have you ever had a vendor that you’re not working with send you an invoice that says pass due? All the time. All the time. And they’ve done their research. They’ve done their research. There’s companies out there. That’s all they do. That’s all they do, scammers. And they’ve done the research and they know if it’s a small enough bill. Like $44. Yeah, or whatever, they’ve done the numbers on it. I need to look that up. They know that they’ll get some people to pay it. Yeah, so here’s the deal. I hired my dad years ago to do accounting. My dad’s all about, like, bill comes in, pay it the same day, boom. Boom. And my dad’s all about being honest, being accurate. When we get this bill in for a bridal show that I’ve never, by the way, it’s not the Tulsa Wedding Show with Vicki Taylor. Great wedding show. Not that show. We get an invoice in for a bridal show saying that it’s past due. We’ve got to go and pay this thing. So my dad says, hey, I want you to know, I’m pretty frustrated. I said, why? He says, well, because we’re late by like 60 days on this bridal show and I went ahead and paid it today because I was just frustrated. I said, well, how much did you pay? He’s like, well, it’s like $2,000. I said, what? What bridal show? We look it up. It’s not even a show we’ve ever gone to before. Oh yeah. So I call up the business and I said, hey, my dad just paid a bill for a bridal show that I’m not even in, but I definitely know you invoiced. And they’re like, um, we, I’m sorry, we thought you wanted to do it, but that’s their move. That’s their move. They always say past due, urgent. It’s a move. So Thrivers, if you’re listening right now, you might be being taken advantage of the super move. It’s one move that people are doing to scam people. If you’re listening right now, you don’t want to get scammed. Also, don’t pay those bills early, Z. And if you do pay them early, make sure there’s a little savings there. Absolutely. I mean, it’s your money. You be in control. But you tell it where to go. Oh. You tell that money where you say, you go here. You go there. Money, where do you want me to go? Where do you want me to go? Oh, I’m going to take this money and build a brick house. Hey. That’s what I’m doing with my money. Oh wow Rick house throughout time show Alright drive nation welcome back to the inspiration station your audio dojo of mojo where you go To learn what you need to know to start and grow a business Faux show my name is clay Clark the former SBA entrepreneur of the year the entrepreneur of the year not entrepreneur of the Year in your ear. And I am broadcasting here from the left coast of the Arkansas River. Very excited to be here today. And as always, I’m joined here with a man who’s an optometrist, right? You go, he’s an optometrist. He’s an optometrist. You know, he’s an entrepreneur. OK. He’s in the horse. He raises horses. OK. He’s involved in a bank. OK. What does he do? What does he do? It’s the man, the myth, the legend. What do you do? I’ll tell you what I do. I am now excited about the Thrive Time show, where people can tune in Monday through Friday, 5 to 7, right here on Talk Radio 1170. Yes. And they can get practical business tips on how to start or grow a business. That’s what I’m excited about, and that’s what I’m doing right now. And you know what? It’s Black Friday, and I hope the thing that we’re selling yeah, I hope they’re out there buying it Oh, I’m saying see I’m gonna say this there’s many people out there who are out there busy selling Yeah, there’s people out there who are buying buying people are buying what you’re selling at the end of the month though You’re just doing some yelling. Let’s repeat people are buying what you’re selling, but at the end of the month You’re doing some yelling what’s happening is is you’re there’s a music in business. It’s almost like a symphony. You’ve got the sales guys, they’re rowing in that direction, you’ve got the marketing guys. But then the accounting, you go down to that accounting department, which, oh by the way, as an entrepreneur, you’re usually in charge of when you first get started. You’re in charge of that department too, by the way. Yes, yes. So you go down there and this is what you hear. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Here we go. Oh say can you see… Oh here we go Carl Lewis. And the rockets red glare… Uh oh. Uh oh. That’s what you go down to the accounting department, that’s what you feel like is happening down there. Yeah, it’s a great song, I mean it’s the great song, it’s the national anthem, but it’s just being sang the wrong way. And you’re going, that’s not how it should go. Yeah, many of you feel like that. You’re going This is not how the accounting should go. No, I’m tired of it. I got to fix it And so if that’s you you want to fix your accounting systems. Well, then today’s show is for you So core task number four you have a system in place to make sure that your investors are paid on time Z you got to make sure your investors are paid on time any startups out there bringing some venture capital. They’ve got some partners. Why do you have to pay the partners on time? Why can’t you pay the partners later and not even pay them at all? Yeah, why? I’m not going to pay you this month. Because they’ll have legal recourses on you and they are usually, if someone has money and they loan the money to you, then they have means and they are accounting that money. That’s usually the way it works. Well, that’s just you talking about money and people with money. Unless, of course, you find a good old boy that just won the lottery. You found Billy that just won the lottery ticket. He’s like, I just won $100 million, and I want to give you some. Well, Z, what about the entrepreneurs out there listening? Because I see it a lot. It’s the entrepreneurs out there who are, we’ll call it, get-rich-quick entrepreneurs. What they want to do is they want to get you to invest in their business, and then they want to get rich immediately as soon as the business doesn’t hit immediately. Once the business has the first sign of struggle, they skip town. That’s right. They’re gone-zo. Gone-zo. Just for the entrepreneurs listening right now, because there’s somebody listening right now. You’re actually in the car with somebody who’s done this. You’re in the car with someone right now who literally has taken money from an investor or from a customer. You brought in that money into your bank account, and you’ve chosen to use the money for something un… It wasn’t intended for that. Why in a city like Tulsa, such a small city, or any city really, why do you just have to honor your commitments and not do that kind of jackassery? Why do you have to do it? Well it takes me back to the farm. This is my segment tonight. I love to do it. Yee-haw! A little farm logic. Yeah. And of course, I love to use my favorite farm animal, the pig. And I was saying, when my, the book I’m writing currently, The Business Pig, one of the chapters deals with, big pig eats first at the trough. Big pig eats first at the trough? What does that mean? I don’t, I don’t know what that means. What on earth does that mean? Are you talking about pigs and troughs and food and food and you’re investor the person that put the money up They’re the big pig They’re the big pain you got to make sure like this court test number four says that they get paid back their money Otherwise it does not go well You’re listening to the thrash on show on talk radio 11 I think a lot of people are getting this twisted though like it’s a cold Keith sweat song twisted It’s not good people are gonna people people are listening to this and what they do is they go, I’m going to pay myself back first and then the investors second. Why is that wrong? What’s wrong with that? Well, it depends on the deal you have technically, but first in, first out usually is the way most deals are structured. What that means is that the person that put the money in is expecting to get his money out on a timely deal. That’s why so many businesses fail, I think, is because they’re undercapitalized. People are not using the money wisely. They’re opening businesses right from day one. They have to pay a house payment, two car payments, private school payment, and you know, hey, we like to eat out a lot. I’m going to tell you what, the reason why. My wife’s not that good a cook, so we like to, you know, stake down. I’m going to say this because I always want to be honest with you. We have to eat out. I mean, we eat out a lot. And we’ve got to do that. And then, like, we got the NFL package, but the team I like, you know, they were technically black. What is it called, Z, where you can’t see the team? Blackout? Blackout, yes. I got tragedy, so I had to get the NFL super ticket, whatever that was. And so now, you know, there’s a lot of expenses. You’ve got to understand my needs. I’ve got some basic needs. I’ve got my needs. That’s right. I’ve got to, you know, it’s my needs. And that’s why we talk about delaying gratification. That’s why we talk about, you know, saving for a rainy day. That’s why we talk about building your war chest and making sure you have enough money before you start the business. Start small. And if you do borrow money from someone and make a deal with them, do the honorable thing and make sure you repay it on time and that you have a checklist to make sure that you’re doing that. In other words, that’s not something you go, oh, I think I sent Billy his check last month. I think I did. You sent Billy his check? I think Billy got his check. Billy? Well, if he did not, I mean, you know, he’s rich. Billy, why are you chasing me down, Billy? I’m sorry. He’s got plenty of money. I don’t need a double check to see if he got his check. Yeah. Yeah. Now, see, court test number five, a system must be in place to verify that all incoming deposits are placed in the company bank account. Now here’s the deal. Oh, oh, oh. Achoo, go on, day, our checklist manifesto hero. He says, we know the patterns. We see the cost. It’s time to try something else. Try a checklist. But I don’t want to use a checklist. I’m super smart. It’s so restrictive. It’s all in my mind. It’s so restrictive. It takes away my creativity. I pay people more by feel, bro. I look around the office and I’m going to, oh yeah, duck, duck, gray duck. Pay the gray duck. Pay the gray duck. Yeah, but no, seriously. If you’re listening right now and you’re screwing this up if you’re forgetting these these I mean, it’s not like Rocket science here. We’re not talking about major We’re not we’re not talking about having a major Okay, you know like a triple bypass here what we’re talking about is just simple Moves that have to be done over and over and over again And you’ve got to verify the money you put in the account actually gets it to the account Z Oh, this is the one. This is the one. Here we go. This is the one, guys. You’ve got, I’ll tell you what, you’re thinking, I want to start a business. We’re going to start a little business. And then we start the business and we make a thing. We sell that thing. We make some money. We’re excited. Now we make more things. We’re now going to hire some people. Hmm. Well, they’ll have the same passion and trustworthiness that I have, won’t they? Absolutely, because everyone trusts everyone. Yeah, aren’t you supposed to? We’re all about culture. Our product is culture. Yes, and plus I hired them from an establishment. Craigslist. Everybody has a Craigslist. Or yeah, they said they were a member of some church so therefore they must be trustworthy. And I’m not knocking on any of that, but I’m just telling you what, people are people. And if someone is having a tough month personally, and I’ve seen it time and time again. They’re having a tough month and if you think they’re going to let their cell phone get turned off or if they’re going to slip a little bit of extra out of that little out of your cash machine, cash register and put it in their pocket and look both ways. So one of the things that I really recommend and they’re inexpensive now. I mean they’re like nothing. I mean they’re almost like free. It’s like free cameras. You just get like a thousand billion cameras and you let those things DVR tape for a long time. I have a camera store I want to share. So this year I walk in and we had some headphones that were stolen. Some nice headphones. So I walk up to the young man, who by the way I saw the video of him taking the headphones. So I said hey, I was watching the videotape last night and I couldn’t get it to play. I’m going to download it and figure it out, but somebody has taken the headphones. Do you know who it would be? When you watch somebody’s face and they know that you might or might not have seen the footage, it could have been like a Hollywood movie, just the inner dialogue back and forth. He’s going, I bet you he hasn’t seen it. He’s kind of going, now what would you have seen on the footage? What camera angle works? I can help you find that footage. I’m telling you, cameras set everybody free. It’s all about transparency. Oh, it’s just so true. Which is why we have a camera in the box that rocks for the show. That’s right. On Facebook Live right now. On Facebook Live. We’ve got a camera right here to make sure that we are in fact here. You can watch us to see if we steal anything off this table. No, yeah, I’m sorry that I stole your David head from your desk and moved it to my head. Oh, that was on my desk. Yeah. I can’t trust you. I noticed that you stole the horse head that’s yours that I thought was mine and put it on your desk. Because it’s mine. Because it is yours. Okay. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back. Oklahoma, welcome back. Tulsa, welcome back. This is the show where we give you all the editorial and all the facts about how to start and grow a business. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA. That’s the Small Business Administration Entrepreneur of the Year. And I am here. I am joined today. I mean, I’m telling you what, it’s like a bouquet of humanity over there. It’s Dr. Robert Zellner. Sir, how are you? Hey, Thrivers, I’m doing great. Happy Black Friday. I hope you got all the great deals that you spent the night in that tent for last night for. You’re full of turkey. You took a pumpkin pie up there. You put your little pup ten up. You’ve set up right next to the Walmart. You’ve got your little heater. You’ve got your little thing. You’re sitting there eating pumpkin pie. You’re joking with the people that are behind you in line going, ha! Ha! And they’re acting like they’re trying to be nice to you, but as soon as those doors opened, they shoved you down. They ran over you. They take your pie. I mean, it’s crazy. Years ago for Elmo, people were beating each other up for Elmo. Oh yeah. That was a move. That was a move. Now Z, we’re talking about these accounting systems to help you get your numbers right. Help you get those of the accounting. A lot of you, see, entrepreneurs, a lot of people want to talk about how to grow a business, how to sell some stuff, how to market. That’s exciting topics. How do you market? How do you sell? Z, I can’t tell you how many sales seminars there are. Sell, sell, sell. Well, I tell you what, the yesterday show, while we were eating, you know, Shep didn’t bring us any pie. He did not bring us any pie. He would pie us on Thanksgiving. But we were just hammered with turkey from earlier in the day. But yesterday’s show, if you missed it, you might have been busy, like, you know, doing the family thing, maybe eating Thanksgiving dinner, I mean, that kind of thing. But if you missed the show, it was a show on sales, how to get your sales up, and go to thrivetimeshow.com and stream that thing as many times as you want, take notes, and just own that. It was a beautiful show. It’s equal time here on Thrive. We’re talking about how to sell some stuff, which is fun, and account for stuff. Yeah, which is necessary. Now, we’re making it fun. I’m going to tell you what, because core task number six, you want to have a system in place to verify your weekly account balance. Now, I’m going to tell you, I call this a system. Z, you remember back in the 80s? Z, back in the 80s when you have a boom box and a bunch of dudes, you’d be going out to play basketball. There’d be some attractive lady. She’s got the quad skates on. You know the skates with the wheels and the four wheels? She got the Daisy Dukes. She’s out there with a denim shirt on there. It’s like tied. She would tie the shirt so it showed just a little bit of the tummy action. Midriff, yes. And then there’d be a guy who was the coolest man you’ve ever met. Oh yeah. And he would have these Air Jordans. Oh, oh, oh. Remember that? And so she’s out there skating and you homies are about ready to play. And he had this song playing. Do you remember this song here? I love it. And maybe I grew up in the wrong part of the country. You’re talking about this one? Oh yeah. So you got that system going. Now Thrivers, we’re going to teach you how to have a system. When you have a system, people start to gather. They start to go, oh my gosh, is all that bass located in that guy’s face? And he’s holding that boombox right by his ear. He’s got so many of those triple D batteries in there. He’s just… Thrivers, we’re going to help you make a system that’s going to take your accounting to the next level. Z, are you ready for this? Dude, I can hardly wait. This is the stuff that’s not real exciting, but it’s so necessary. And those of you out there getting ready to start a business or you’ve got a business, you want to grow it, take it to the next level, these accounting core tasks we’re talking about are so important. So you got to verify here, you got to have a weekly system to verify your account balance. Your account balance. Now, I mean, I- Have you ever had one where you didn’t, did you ever have a business where you didn’t do that? No, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can say this. One of the things that I have just a huge pet peeve on is I hate it when anything is set up auto draft out of my bank account. It freaks me out. I’m like, not going to do it. Yeah, exactly. You know what? I actually take it to the next level. In most of my businesses, we do a daily accounting, daily. Daily. Daily is part of their checklist in the mornings that they do. A lot of them will then get that to me. Yeah, and I’m just telling you, Thrivers, you have to obsess about this. And again, if you want to start or grow a business, the great thing about it is you potentially can have financial freedom and time freedom. The problem with it is that when you have freedom, it also comes great responsibility. And I’m going to give this notable quotable. This just in from Atul Gawande, the author of the checklist manifesto. He’s also a surgeon, a leading surgeon, and he is a professor at the Harvard Medical School. He says this, we are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. I’m going to repeat that again. We are built for novelty and excitement, not for careful attention to detail. Discipline is something we have to work at. Oh, oh, Billy. He’s just doing a drag. He’s so negative, that Atul. I mean, Z, I want to ask you this. Seriously, we’ve talked about this, and I know I’m kind of a cyborg. I’m kind of a Captain Intensity. You’ve been working with me on the 5Fs. We have faith, family, finance, fitness, friendships, and Z has said, why don’t you sprinkle in some fun? Yeah, give me a little super move number six there. I think a lot of entrepreneurs, now I’m not going to say all entrepreneurs, I think a lot of entrepreneurs start a business because they think it’s going to be fun. Yeah, fun. Doing my passion. And for me, I don’t know what it is. I think I’m going to start a business because I think it’s going to require me to be… Maniacal. Maniacal and focused and intense. I don’t know what the deal is. But the other day I was watching the Bill Belichick interview. Did you see the interview he did? I don’t know. They were talking to him about the swag. Did you see this? No, I missed. Unfortunately, I missed it. Dude, you’ve got to troll my Facebook and watch this. It’s so good. OK. The reporter goes, Coach, do you feel like the team needs to bring a little more swag into the… And he said swag. And Belichick just looks at him like he’s never heard the word swag. Now, if you don’t know who Belichick is, he’s wearing a cut-off… You’ve got to see, it’s a cut-off hoodie. Oh, yeah. He just shows his arms. He hasn’t worked out in like 20 years, just studying playbooks. And he’s got this nasty sweatshirt on and he goes, I don’t know what that is. I feel like if we win games and show up and win a lot of games, which we do, then that’s what we need to do. What is this swag you’re referencing? And he just keeps beating, because they’re talking about, you know, and all I’m saying is there’s a lot of entrepreneurs that tend to operate on more of the swag side. They’re more into that energy and that excitement and not thinking about the diligent details. You’re listening to the Thrash Time Show on Talk Radio 117. So coach the thrivers up there, Z. Someone listening right now who is pumped up. They’ve got a business where they’re selling stuff. Maybe they’ve got a snow cone stand or a car lot somewhere. They’ve got a new business. They’re selling cell phones. They’re doing something where they’re selling a lot of stuff. And they are pumped and people are like, oh my gosh, you’re awesome. You’re the man. And meanwhile, you know, and they know and we all know that they’re not checking their account balances. They’re not being detailed. What advice would you have for them? Well, I tell you what, that takes me back to, you know, that that makes me want to do. I don’t know what that makes you want to do. That makes me want to preach. That makes me want to preach. Go ahead. I’ll tell you what. All right. Something I used to teach my kids. Tell us what you used to teach your kids. I used to tell them. What did you tell them? I used to tell them all the time. What did you tell your kids all the time? Work first. Work first. Then play. Then play. And that’s going to make for a great day. That’s going to make for a great day. And I tell you what, if you’re too busy having fun and not taking care of the fiscal responsibility of the office, guess what? What? Well, you’re probably going to lose your office. Oh! Or big chunks of money that should be in your bank account will be in somebody else’s bank account. And you could be listening to this sound clip. First off, I am 35 years old. I am divorced and I live in a van down by the river. That’s what they could be saying. Yeah, I mean, you know, a van down by the river, it’s a fine van. Yeah, beautiful. And we, you know, our office is by the river, so what’s wrong with by the river? No, nothing wrong with the river. We’re on the left bank of the beautiful Arkansas River. If you’re going to live in a van, live in the van by that river because it won’t be swept away. It won’t, yes. Beachfront property, basically, the Arkansas River. I mean, come on. Well, I mean, we’re trying, we’re having a little fun here about it, but it’s this very serious topic, and that is shrinkage happens. Your money, if you don’t watch over it diligently, and I love the way you said paranoidly. You’ve got to be paranoid. You’ve got to be paranoid. If you don’t do that, it will walk away. It will, every time. Yeah, and the first time, I tell you what, the first time a business bounces a check, you know, there’s some businesses out there, you bounce one check, you’re dead. Like in my auto auction business, you know, when we first got started, there was a lot of money floating, there was a lot of cash moving around, I mean, there was a lot of, you know, when you’re selling four or five hundred cars, you know, and each car is $8,000 to $10,000, that’s a lot of money exchanging hands and going back and forth. And the kiss of death of an auto auction is you bounce one check, one check, and it spreads like wildfire and nobody will show up. So you’ve got to be paranoially diligent on tracking your money. You’ve got to do it because if you don’t do it, Thrivers, nobody else is going to do it for you. You absolutely have to be obsessed with tracking your numbers. Oh, that’s a knowledge bomb right there. You’ve got to be obsessed. And the only thing about being obsessed is if you don’t block out time to be obsessed, you’re never going to do it. You’ve got to block out that time to be obsessed. You can’t just, it can’t be a thing where you go, I’m motivated, I’m going to do this. I’m asking you when specifically, put it in your calendar, when are you going to look at your numbers? You’ve got to block out of time, Thrivers. Core task number seven. You must have a system in place to verify the accuracy of your profit and loss statement. Accuracy. Accuracy. Without an intentional focus on accuracy, you’re going to have jackassery. Why is that? Why does it have to be that way? I just feel like on the planet Earth what’s happening is that if left to default, anything over time corrodes, breaks down, drifts, stops working, weeds grow in the garden, etc. You’ve got to put in that diligent effort to maintain something. And maintaining something requires you to be accurate. I think as most humans, we think in terms of hand grenades, like big ideas. We don’t think in terms of accurate, like rifle, surgical. We don’t do it. There was a lot of very descriptive images you just rolled through there that really I think were apropos. That is that people say, why does that have to be? Well, that’s just the laws of nature. It will degenerate if left unattended. And Thrivers, I’m telling you this because Dr. Z and I care so much. We didn’t build this show to sit there and say, you guys are all not making good decisions. We know everything. You don’t know anything. No, we’re saying this. We’ve gone through the minefield of entrepreneurship. We’ve run through there. We’ve lost a leg. We’ve been injured in battle. We made it through, though, and we’re here to teach you. We’re saying, hey, the mines are over here. The mines are over there. The mines are everywhere. Watch out. Thrive Time Show. All right, Thrive Nation, welcome back to the Thrive Time Show. During your Thrive Time Home, from buying every gift that your family and friends needed and they didn’t need. Some of you are driving home right now with four to five meat logs. You’re driving home right now, and you’ve got those. A meat log? What is that? Every year I used to buy these for my dad for Christmas. You go there into like Walgreens or Sam’s Club or Walmart. One of those places with a wall in the name. And you’ll see this massive sausage that no person should eat. It’s like a huge, it’s like a foot long, a foot and a half long, just sausage, summer sausage, and you just buy that for the person you care about and you get that jelly, that jelly in the cane, you know, you get the cane. Have you not bought any of that yet today? I’m sorry, I’ve been, you know, I’ve been getting ready for the show. All I’m saying is I have registered. A lot of times people go, did you register for the wedding? Where did you register? Did you guys, you’re a great couple, where did you register? No one ever asks me, hey, where did you register? And I’m telling you, I went over there to Walmart and I went boop, and I registered for my Christmas gifts. And one of the things that I want is I want the Christmas jellies in a cane. I want the cane shaped in that they taste better when they’re in the cane. You know what? That’s probably scientific. And I want six meatlogs. That’s all I’m asking. That’s all you’re asking for. That’s fair. That’s fair. Now, Thrivers, we’re talking about the exciting topic of how to get your accounting in order, how to get those finances in order. And I’m telling you what, Thrivers, we’re bringing some fun to it. We’re bringing some entertainment. We call this edutainment, Z. It’s entertainment and education combined, Thrivers. Unbelievable. My name is Clay Clark. I’m the former SBA Entrepreneur of the Year. And here with me today, broadcasting from the box that rocks, the thrive15.com world headquarters is Dr. Robert Zaholner. Zahelner. Zaholny. I’ve been called a lot worse than that. Dr. Robert Zahilner. The O’s not pronounced, Clay. You know that. You’re just being silly now. Sorry, I just wanted to try all the different pronunciations possible to get it incorrect. My favorite one that someone called me one time was Zoelland Jimer. I’m like, what? Zoelland Jimer. Oh, Zoelland Jimer. Well, come to it. It’s good to see you. Hi, nice to see you. No, but seriously, so core task number seven, you have to have a system in place to verify the accuracy of your profit and loss statement. We talked about that. Now we’re moving on to core task number eight in honor of Tony Romo. We’re number eight. Yes. When he’s on the sidelines, as he said, we’re in a rate or do you change it? No, he’s number nine. He’s number nine. Yeah. Sam Bradford’s number eight. Really? Yeah. So Bromo’s nine. Yeah. Yeah. It was eight. That’s who it was. Yeah. Yeah. That’s why Sam Bradford chose it because eight men was his when it was I stand corrected. Unbelievable. Wow. Okay, so number 8, the Ocho, not in honor of Tony Romo, it’s the number before Tony Romo. It says, a system in place for cross-referencing your weekly budget against your weekly expenses. Oh, that assumes you’ve got a budget to begin with, right? Okay, so here’s where I want to get into this a little bit, okay? So you budgeted, this happened about four years ago, this one almost made me shoot somebody but I realized it was illegal and I was going, well, it’s probably not worth it. But here’s the thing is, we have a budget for water for the office. For water, okay. And coffees. Oh yeah. And the little cups that you put the coffee in, the Keurig cups, you know, you got the water, the coffee cups. Yeah, that’s the coffee, yeah. So you got the whole thing. So we got these waters. You know, you go into, it’s called Buy 5, they’re called Buy Drinks. I think it’s like a flavored water. Maybe it’s called Buy 5 or something. Have you ever seen these? No, I don’t think I have. If you go to like the store, the convenience store, you go in there and you say, hey, I’m trying to spend as close to five bucks as possible for one small drink. Oh, yeah. Can you show me where that is? They go, oh, it’s over here. Oh, yeah, here it is. So, one young lady in the office who was on a diet, she decided it would be a good move for the health of the company. The health of the company? She’s just concerned about the health of the co-workers. I’m not kidding. This is what she said. To help everybody have less sick days, she’s going to replace the water with the Bi-5. Why wouldn’t she? So my wife is looking at the numbers and we’re going, hey, we’re dropping like $250 on XYZ and not $50. So then, Z, there is toilet paper that you can get that is soft, it’s nice. We won’t get into all the details, but there’s that nice toilet paper. Yeah, there’s expensive. Yeah, it multiplies. Then there’s that next level where it’s like, I mean, you’re taking like, what’s an expensive animal, Z? What’s an expensive animal? You’re listening to the Thrush Time Show on Talk Radio 1170. Well an expensive animal would be a high-end thoroughbred racehorse, I know, for example. So it’s like rare hair from a thoroughbred racehorse, weaving that into a toilet paper, and you can buy that stuff. And it’s woven in with threads of gold. Oh, yeah. It’s this toilet paper, I’m not kidding. You’ve seen it before. It’s like seven to eight times more than other stuff. And this continues, the paper towels. Oh, we’ve got to get the best. We’ve got to get the best. Our team, she says, our team deserves the best. Now here’s where it gets me. The ink cartridges. Okay. Now when you buy a Brother printer, a standard Brother printer, that thing’s going to be about $275, $300. You can buy that at Office Depot. Yep. A Brother black and white laser printer. Yep. Yep. But the ink for that thing is like maybe $200. So the printer itself is $275. But the ink is like $200. Just give me this thing. So this person decides to pre-order. Now you know they change model numbers all the time. They’re not going to make the same printer for the next 20 years. Oh no, they’ve got to change it very frequently. They want to do it because once you have the cartridge to the old printer, you’ve got to just go buy the new printer. You get the cartridge that isn’t good anymore, you’ve got to buy some more cartridges. That’s the move. That’s the move. So this person, I’m not exaggerating, I literally, and this is how I caught the whole thing. It was like the fifth or sixth of the month. I notice a guy with a dolly bringing in, buy five, and then I notice a guy with a dolly bringing in ink cartridges. I’m not talking about four or five, but I’m talking about like 45. Like cases? Cases. Oh wow, okay. So I pull the guy, hey homie, homie, where are you from? He goes, oh I’m here with the supply delivery company, such and such thought it would, you know, we deliver supplies. I said, how much are you getting paid to deliver? He said, I don’t know, but we charge a premium to have it delivered and it’s just something we do. So I talked to the person, I said, why are you having it delivered? They said, well, because I wanted to save time, I wanted to be more, you know, want to make sure I’m not wasting my time. So who decided on these items? Well, I met with them and they thought this was the premium stuff and they were a premium brand and so I wanted to, did you pre, how many, I’m not exaggerating, how many did you pre-buy? And this person goes, well, it’s like if you bought like 60, then you’re able to get like 10% off. I’m like 60? That’s enough ink for like at least 60 weeks. Yeah. And just the thought process of when people are spending your money, Zee. Oh, that’s different, isn’t it? It’s so fun. Why is it so fun? People love to spend my money. They do. They love to spend it. And they always have such a great reason for spending it. Like you said, I mean, don’t you want your employees to be healthy? Don’t you want the best toilet paper possible? Don’t you think that we deserve, and that when we have high-end clients and they see these paper towels and they know we went to the extra effort to get those? Don’t you think that’s important? I guess I do think that’s important. We should operate at a deficit in order to let people know we care about the cleanliness of the… By the way, let’s not get any, any… Let’s not scrimp. Let’s get the premium ultra-Keurig cups. The ones where it’s like the coffee where Mugwai, and he’s out there in Columbia or Chile, he’s raising the coffee beans, but he’s loving on each bean. It’s like handcrafted, handmade, hand-packed into the Keurig cup. Oh yeah. With his hands. Hey, you need to make a living too. I don’t know why you’re hating on me. What was his name? And they got a little sticker on the side that says like, all of our farmers are paid, you know, 80 grand a year. You know what I mean? It’s all this. It’s all this. I’m just telling you, Thrivers. None live in poverty and they all hand-select the beans and love them. Thrivers, I’m just telling you, if you’re in a boat right now, a business boat, and you’ve got a leak. Be careful, because once you get a little leak in that boat, it starts filling up there. The boat starts filling up with a little bit of water. Pretty soon, if you’re not bailing, next thing you know, you’re starting to sink. Unless the boat’s in this Arkansas River. Yeah, with the water in it. If it’s in the Arkansas River, you get a leak in that boat, you’re going to discover pretty soon, you’re looking down and you’re like, is that some dirt? That’s some dirt. Yeah, so, Thrivers, stay tuned. We’re talking about accounting on the thrive time show Hello thrive nation and Oklahomies. Welcome back to the box that rocks We’re broadcasting here the thrive time show from that audio dojo of mojo within the thrive 15 calm world Headquarters located on the left coast of the Arkansas River in beautiful Jinx, America We’re dr. Robert Zellner and I come together on a daily basis to bring you that entrepreneurial education that you really can’t find out there. You just can’t find it. It’s business school without the BS. BS as in Bachelor of Science? Well that’s one. You cannot get your Bachelor of Science while listening to this show. You can’t. It’s without that. We’re not going to give that to you. But we’re going to give you practical steps, action items that you can say, I can do that. I can do that. And you’re telling me guys, if I do that, it’s going to be better. Yes. Verified. It’s a thing. It’s a thing. And we’re moving on here right now, Thrivers. We are moving on to core task number nine. Now this is in honor of Tony Romo, who you mentioned, you said, hey, core task number eight can’t be named after Romo. That is Troy Aikman. It’s number nine, Math Man. Right. Number nine. So this is the number that Tony Romo is wearing right now. Is he ever going to play again? Is he going to be a full-time clipboard holder? I don’t know why people think that’s such a bad deal. You paid me millions of dollars. I’ll wear a baseball cap, a headset, and hold a clipboard. In fact, if I just had a clipboard, I guess I’d get millions of dollars here. Because I need a baseball cap. I’ve got a headset on. We’ve just got to hook that up for you. I’ll call Tony and say, Tony, do you want to do a radio show? And I’ll come down there and I’ll walk the sideline and cheer on the boys. It would be the perfect switch. Less injuries for him. Less injuries for him. Because I mean, you know, this Box of the Rocks is a, we already know it’s a pretty safe and secure location. Absolutely. And now we’ve got these new pads we’re standing on here. I don’t know what you call these. Ergonomical. They’re, what are they called? They’re safety first pads. They’re, well, and they’re also for your lumbar support. Someone’s out there going, I know the name of them. I can’t even. I’m standing on a kind of a cushy pad right now that’s helping me just feel better about life. Nathan, what are these things called? Anti-fatigue. Anti-fatigue pad. Thank you. Anti-fatigue pad. Nice. Nathan, our producer, he’s so smart. Now, core task number nine, a system must be in place for managing your potential risk and insurance needs. Z, why do you have to do that? Oh, you don’t. You don’t. You don’t have to. You can scratch nine off. Forget Tony Romo. You’re on the bench. You’re not playing Dax the New. Dax the New Tony. Just forget about it. Well, I’ll tell you what. Then I’m going to go get a new perm. Just forget about it. You don’t even need it. This has got to be… Insurance is like, ugh. It’s just, I hate insurance. I hate it. You don’t need to get on insurance because what you do is when you get that extra money that you would be spending on that insurance, you can get on out there to the state fair and you can get yourself a deep fried whatever and you sit down and next thing you know you get yourself that new perm on that mullet and there’s a lot of things you can do with that money, Z. I know, I know, and my insurance agent’s out there right now listening to the show going, Z, shut your mouth! You love insurance! I’m like, no, I don’t! It’s the best. I look at it as a necessary evil. But you gotta have it. You gotta have it. Is it not a little bit of a racket though? Is it not a little bit of a racket? Oh, it is, but it’s a racket that you know, it’s just you gotta do. You gotta have insurance. You gotta have it, because thrivers would say, well, you’d rather have a bad day than a bad life. Oh, wow. I’m just telling you, and insurance is just a piece of paper and a promise. But at the end of the day, you’re buying peace of mind. And so, the insurance guys that I love, I love Farmers Insurance over there. I love these guys. It’s 392-4000. It’s 918-392-4000, Farmers Insurance. And why do you love them so much? Well, one is I’ve actually been training their salespeople for like nine years. And so, Kurt Fryer over there. No way. Yeah, and I work with these guys. And here’s a disturbing statistic, and I don’t want to get the actual, I’ll just give you kind of a general stat here. In Oklahoma, roughly a quarter of the people on the road don’t have car insurance. So you hit somebody, and they hit you, and they just choose not to have it. You could have uninsured motorists as an add-on to your deal. That’s right. And it took it up more Oklahoma when the tornado came through and devastated that community and just destroyed it. Unfortunately, this just in Thrivers, a little less than a quarter of the people weren’t fully insured. Meaning when their house was destroyed, they didn’t have the money needed to build it back. That’s why you want to go ahead and pay a little extra for that insurance so you can have a bad day and not a bad life. These are just moves. These are just moves. See, these are just moves. See, we have more moves than a U-Haul truck. Are you feeling me? I’m feeling you. I like U-Haul trucks because they put like a state on there, you know? And so it’s kind of fun to go, I wonder if that’s… They got Michigan on that truck. I wonder if it actually started in Michigan or if they just put random Michigan on there. You know what I’m talking about? Is there actually a U-Haul… Is there actually people in Delaware? Because I’m behind the Delaware truck. I’m behind… Is that a state? I mean, seriously, have you ever met somebody from Delaware? No, I know nobody from Delaware, but I do know that most S-Corps and C-Corps are formed up in Delaware. This just in. This just in. Now, Thrivers, this just in from our home office, I have a notable quotable for you. Just ticking boxes is not the ultimate goal here. Embracing a culture of teamwork and discipline is. Atul Gawande is talking about checklists, and he’s going, hey, listen, you can’t just check the box and go, yep, I have insurance, yep, I’ve got the risk taken care of. You’ve got to think about it as a kind of a team. Your insurance guy is sort of a team almost, and you’ve got to make sure that you allow him to fully protect you so you can get out there and engage in that risk that you love called entrepreneurship. Now this move, core task number 10. You must have a system in place for cash flow management. Z, cash flow management because when the river runs out of water, it stops flowing, Z. If you run out of cash flow, you end up on that dirt right there on the left coast of the river. You’re out there hanging out in a right there in that dirt crevasse next to the Arkansas River there by the Jiggs Riverwalk right now where it’s not raining enough. Well you know what would be a beautiful thing Clay? What would be a beautiful thing? Here’s the thing you’re listening out there. You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to save this beautiful thing moment for when we come back. I’m just going to tease everybody a little bit. I’ve got a beautiful little super move moment that I’m going to tease you with and kind of like your dream lover. Oh, well, when you come back, I’m going to I’m going to pick it up from there and I’m going to talk about it. This was Mariah Carey back before she got scary. Yes. Before she hooked up with Jermaine Dupri and when that whole rap phase. Oh, yeah. So getting a little crazy and calling herself Mimi. This was back in the day when her voice was just the voice of choice. She would just say, hey, let me give me the mic. Let me sing. I’m going to wow you. Drivers, stay tuned for Dr. Z’s beautiful super move. Hello Thrive Nation. Welcome back to the Thrive Time Show, your audio dojo of entrepreneurial mojo. It’s Tulsa’s only local business radio show on Talk Radio 1170, where we join you every day from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. If you’re just joining us, if you’re just joining us right now, this just in. We are talking today about the accounting super moves, or the 12 core tasks of your accounting and finance team systems. If you’re watching on Facebook Live right now, and I know you are, you shouldn’t be watching on Facebook Live while you’re driving, Z. You shouldn’t, technically. You should be. Unless you’re the passenger and you’re streaming it live. Then watch that live. On your iPad. Hook that up to a flat screen. Watch it. Make the driver watch it, too. If you’re driving, don’t be watching. Eyes on the road. I’d do them 10 out of 2. Okay, now, but seriously, Z, before we left, we were talking about these accounting super moves and then these moves you’ve got to do to get ahead of your accounting. And you said you’ve got a beautiful move. I’m talking about cash flow. Well, I’m just telling you out there, here’s the thing about it is this, is that it would be wonderful, it would be magical, it would be a special day if everybody that came in to get your thing came in and paid you in cash that day in full, took the Dilly McBob, the thing, and left. And that’s what, if you’re a rapper, that’s how it goes. If you’re a rapper, everyone pays in cash all the time. It’s all gold watches. Nothing to worry about, man. No need to worry about it. My accountant handles that. But what happens is they don’t. And we start a small business, people want to come in, why not they open an account. You just go for it and they don’t pay you. Which is, you know, bill me repeatedly and, you know, chase me around the park. I hate that. I hate that. But people fall into it because they go, oh, they’re willing to, you know, spend a lot of money with me if I just give them credit. Yeah. If I just extend payment plans to them. Show me the money! Show me the money. And so what happens, a lot of people get trapped in that. And then what happens is their cash flow suffers because they’ve got a lot of money that’s supposed to come in, accounts receivable AR is high. I got a lot of money that’s going to be coming in. I tell you what I’m going to make you do, you can’t refuse. You give me your thing and I’m going to come back with some money one of these days. Just remind me over and over and over. I’ll tell you what, I’m going to set up an account with you. And then when I… You send me a bill and then eventually, one day, I may pay such bill. So I have… And until then, you’ll know I’m happy because I got the thing. I got my glasses, see, at the $99 special. Yeah. And I came in with Luigi and Mario and Uncle Sam’s Lucy. We come in there. I’m bringing a lot of business. We’re bringing a lot of business. And I come in there, I buy 27 spectacles for my face. And I get it all. Now you want me to pay? What is this? Disrespect? Another thing I got roped into was this barter company. You see, here’s how this deal works. Here’s all the companies that participate. And what’s going to happen is they can all come in here and tag your stuff, I mean get your stuff, right? And they get your thing. They get all the things they want. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to have credit in this barter bank of world, and any time you want to go into one of their places and use that money, that barter money, you can do that and it’s a beautiful system. It’s a beautiful system. And I’d go, and then I’d tell them, I’d say, you know what, that sounds like a good system. I’ve got my own bartering company. And he looks at me and goes, uh, excuse me? I don’t know about it. I said, yeah, it’s a bartering company. It’s really cool. What happens is you come into my place of business and you give me cash and then I take that cash and I go into the businesses I want to go into and I buy stuff in there and we barter vis-a-vis cash. I have a story about this because this happened. I get out to a wedding and I get out to the wedding and this father of the bride, he turns to me, I’ll never forget, I go to collect payment and he tells me, he says, I’m going to go ahead and get you paid here. Give me just a second. I’m not making this up. We did thousands of weddings. This kind of stuff would happen. Not all the time, but very rarely. He goes out to his truck. He comes back with, if you’re watching on Facebook Live, it’s a six foot wide table I’m broadcasting from. He brings back a six foot, like a pallet of batteries. Like, like, like, like, like the small, like the AAAs, AAs. No way, okay. I swear to you. Okay. And he says, if you’re not networking, you’re not working. I go, what? And I go, what? What, what? And he tells me, he says, he’s a member of this local barter group. Oh yeah. And he thought that I was too. Oh. So finally I’m like, frick. So he writes me a check from this barter group. So my wife and I, in lieu of having all these freaking batteries, we now have a check for this stupid… You might have showed the batteries, I don’t know. If you go back and do it again, huh? They’re all like these generic off-brands. So then it’s like my second year in business, we have no cash. So now my wife and I, I’m like, oh, we’re going to go and use this. So we flip through this crappy book of crappy businesses. And my wife ends up special ordering a couch from some crappy business. Oh yeah. And when that couch shows up, it’s the greeniest, nastiest, it’s supposed to be leather, it looks like pleather. Oh yeah, oh yeah. It’s just sick. It’s the boom. And I went in and set that thing on fire. I hated it. Don’t fall prey to it. And listen, hold your guns. You’ve worked hard to make your thing. You’ve worked hard to provide your service. You’ve got a passion about it. You’re doing it with excellence. Don’t give it away. And when someone says they’re not going to pay you today, just point them down the road that way. I ended up using the red number. That rhymed, by the way. Very, very nice. I ended up using the remainder of my trade out cash to go on a timeshare. Oh, gosh. It just keeps getting better. In Destin, Florida. But the application fee or whatever it was is like more than the typical house to stay at. So the whole thing was not good thrivers. Don’t do that Okay, so the core task number 11 a system must be in place for tax filing and planning I’m not gonna be labor this because you and I are not accountants, but get an accountant Yes, I tell you what taxes are no joke taxes are no joke. No joke to certainties You’re gonna pay taxes and you’re gonna you’re gonna die and and you’ve got you can’t wait to like April 13th and wandering some dude’s office with a box of receipts and go uh hey bro um I think a couple days I need to you know take care of something I was going to see if you guys would do a last-minute Texas I have got a various receipts various things that I’ve collected from up there from all the years an interesting George Interesting George Washington coin in limited edition. You can’t do that, right? You can’t. You got to make a plan. You got to plan, plan, plan early. Meet with the guys, you know, and then, and then get them, get us, you know, if you’re waiting until April to do your taxes, you’ve probably missed so many opportunities for deductions and so many opportunities to try to beat that. Cause it’s a gray zone, folks. It’s a gray zone. I have about 30,000 in taxes you say that I owe, but $27,000 could be deducted because I technically use my car for dating and I’m doing that speed dating thing, a lot of dating, I’ve got a dating site I’m part of. Can I write that off, Z? Is that possible? Yeah, I’m not in a tax account and I don’t know, but I know somebody who does. I know a guy who knows a guy. You know? Boom. Boom. I know a guy who knows a guy. So take it serious, set it up, plan for it, and don’t be last minute going, oh! Okay, one more tip on this though. So stressful. So many thrivers out there are going to get their taxes done by a guy. A dude. You see a Noah guy and he says, I know a guy. And you say, is he an accountant? Well, he’s a guy. I mean, he’s helped me out for years. It’s like you go in there, pretty soon you get your numbers and you come out and you’re like, boom, you feel free. Yeah. You know, like, is he a mystic? Is he a yoga instructor? I’m going to tell you what, no questions. He might not be certified the way they want you to be but he will get you with a tax Numbers that you want. There you go drivers. You gotta be careful. You got to be careful because it’s no it’s no joke And when you go from a w-2 Debbie for employee This is some W. Yeah, you got the w-2s get that news like you or you go to 1099 the contractors are different You right, but when you go from you know being a you know, they take out all your, they take out everything out of your check automatically and they do all that for you and then you just kind of follow a simple form, to owning a business, it’s a whole different animal. And you have a lot of tax advantages to owning the business, I’m telling you. And take advantage of it. If you don’t take advantage of them, then you don’t have, that’s just silly. Not smart. Now Thrivers, this is just in from our home office. Core task number 12, final core task, you must have a system in place to communicate with investors to keep them updated. You’ve got to keep everyone updated, your whole team. If your father-in-law’s put money in your business, if your mother-in-law’s put money in your business, if your wife’s put money in your business, if someone you know has put money in your business, if the bank has put money in your business, you’ve got to communicate, keep them updated about what’s going on, because lack of communication, Z, does not make financial relationships get better. You’ve got to communicate. You’ve got to communicate and you might say, what’s an uncle? If it’s a bank, they’re gonna force you to do it. They’re gonna make you do it. They’re gonna be on you and say, hey, we need P&L statements, we need, you know, you need cash flow statements, we need your business, we need your stuff, you know. And so, banks and financial institutions are gonna make you do it. But you know what, take the high road and if it’s an uncle or if it’s a friend, still sit down with them with the same urgency and the same diligence and talk to them about where the money is and how the business is doing, because that’s how a serious business person handles it. Now Thrivers, this just in, okay? If you’re listening right now and you go, okay, I want to start a business, I want to grow a business, according to Forbes, 57% of you want to do this. Here’s the deal. You’ve got three options tonight. We’ve got three options for you, and I’m encouraging right now on this incredible Black Friday, I want you to take action on one of these three things, okay? Action item number one, book a Thrive15.com workshop. I guarantee you it is the world’s best business workshop, and we have never, and I repeat, never turned anybody away because they cannot afford it. We’ve got unbelievable scholarship programs. We can help you. Just go to ThriveTimeShow.com, check it out, email us, we’ll get you in. Second move, maybe look at business coaching. We have one-on-one coaching available. It’s not for everybody, but it is something that can help you. And Z, we have started the world’s best online business school. It’s thrive15.com. Just $19 a month. It’s a Netflix business school. You can get on there and binge watch any topic you want. Email us at info at thrive15.com, and we will answer your questions. And this just in, Thrivers. As always, 3, 2, 1, boom! JT, do you know what time it is? 410. It’s TiVo time in Tulsa, Russia, baby. Tim TiVo is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 27 and 28. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old, but I’ve never had the two-time Heisman Award winning Tim Tebow come present. And a lot of people, you know, if I follow Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field, and off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out, because I don’t know. Well, I’m just saying, Tim Tebow’s going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Also this is the first Thrive Time Show event that we’ve had where we’re going to have a man who has built a $100 million net worth. Wow. Who’ll be presenting. Now we’ve had a couple presenters that have had a billion dollar net worth in some like a real estate sort of things. Yeah. But this is the first time we’ve had a guy who’s built a service business and he’s built over a hundred million dollar net worth in the service business. It’s the yacht driving multi-state living guru of franchising. Peter Taunton will be in the house. This is the founder of snap fitness the guy behind nine round boxing He’s gonna be here in Tulsa, Russell, Tulsa, Russell, Oklahoma, June 27th and 28th JT Why should everybody want to hear what Peter Taughton has to say? Oh cuz he’s incredible. He’s just a fountain of knowledge. He is awesome He’s inspired me listening to him talk and not only that he also has he practices what he teaches So he’s a real teacher. He’s not a fake teacher like business school teachers. So you got to come learn from him. Also, let me tell you this, folks. I don’t get this wrong, because if I get it wrong, someone’s going to say, you screwed that up, buddy. So Michael Levine, this is Michael Levine. He’s going to be coming. He said, who’s Michael Levine? I don’t get this wrong. This is the PR consultant of choice for Michael Jackson, for Prince, for Nike, for Charlton Heston, for Nancy Kerrigan, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestselling authors he’s represented, including pretty much everybody you know who’s been a super celebrity. This is Michael Levine, a good friend of mine. He’s going to come and talk to you about personal branding and the mindset needed to be super successful. The lineup will continue to grow. We have hit Christian reporting artist Colton Dixon in the house. Now people say, Colton Dixon’s in the house? Yes, Colton Dixon’s in the house, though. If you like Top 40 Christian music, Fulton Dixon’s going to be in the house performing. The lineup will continue to grow each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com, you click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it and I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s exactly how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, when’s it going to be? June 27th and 28th. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where’s it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell, sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office, and so it’s going to be packed. So when? June 27th to 28th. Who? You! You’re going to come! Who? You! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at Thrivetimeshow.com, and again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford, and we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical. It’s actionable. And it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com again that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello I’m Michael Levine and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California where I have represented over the last 35 years 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies and I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation. Really life-changing. And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. James, did I tell you my good friend John Lee Dumas is also joining us at the in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. That Tim Tebow and that Michael Levine will be at the… have I told you this? You have not told me that. He’s coming all the way from Puerto Rico. This is John Lee Dumas, the host of the chart-topping EOFire.com podcast. He’s absolutely a living legend. This guy started a podcast after wrapping up his service in the United States military and he started recording this podcast daily in his home to the point where he started interviewing big-time folks like Gary Vaynerchuk, like Tony Robbins, and he just kept interviewing bigger and bigger names, putting up shows day after day, and now he is the legendary host of the EO Fire podcast, and he’s traveling all the way from Puerto Rico to Tulsa, Oklahoma to attend the in-person June 27th and 28th live time show, two-day interactive business workshop. If you’re out there today, folks, if you’ve ever wanted to grow a podcast, a broadcast, you want to improve your marketing, if you’ve ever wanted to improve your marketing, your branding, if you’ve ever wanted to increase your sales, you want to come to the two-day interactive June 27th and 28th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop featuring Tim Tebow, Michael Levine, John Lee Dumas, and countless big-time, super successful entrepreneurs. It’s going to be life-changing. Get your tickets right now at thrivetimeshow.com. James, what website is that? Thrivetimeshow.com James, one more time for the sports enthusiasts. Thrivetimeshow.com We played with B because it could get dangerous. See these people I ride with. This moment we own it. Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13 point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. When we get into the specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two day, 15 hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the 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, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert Zellner and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research, you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever, and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money So if you’re out there today, and you want to attend our in-person two-day interactive business workshop All you got to do is go to thrifttimeshow.com to request those tickets, and if you can’t afford $250 We have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you. I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York Octa non verba Watch what a person does not what they say. Good morning, good morning, good morning. Harvard Kiyosaki University Radio Show. Today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix, Arizona, not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And I have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend, Eric Trump, but we’re also talking about money, bricks, and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour. So Clay Clark is a very intelligent man, and there’s so many ways we could take this thing. But I thought since you and Eric are close, Trump, what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? First of all, I have to honor you, sir. I wanna show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorne, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just want to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. You know, more than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. So that’s why I congratulate you on becoming. Because as you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, too, or bad influencers. Yeah. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much and thanks for reading my books. Yeah. That’s the greatest thrill for me today. Not a thrill, but recognition is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy in Kings Point in New York, octa non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say. Hey, I’m Ryan Wimpey. I’m originally from Tulsa, born and raised here. I went to a small private liberal arts college and got a degree in business, and I didn’t learn anything like they’re teaching here. I didn’t learn linear workflows. I learned stuff that I’m not using and I haven’t been using for the last nine years. So what they’re teaching here is actually way better than what I got at business school. And I went what was actually ranked as a very good business school. The linear workflow, the linear workflow for us in getting everything out on paper and documented is really important. I think we have workflows that are kind of all over the place. Having linear workflow and seeing that mapped out on multiple different boards is pretty awesome. That’s really helpful for me. The atmosphere here is awesome. I definitely just stared at the walls figuring out how to make my facility look like this place. This place rocks. It’s invigorating. The walls are super, it’s just very cool. The atmosphere is cool. The people are nice. It’s a pretty cool place to be. Very good learning atmosphere. I literally want to model it and steal everything that’s here at this facility and basically create it just on our business side. Once I saw what they were doing, I knew I had to get here at the conference. This is probably the best conference or seminar I’ve ever been to in over 30 years of business. You’re not bored. You’re awake, alive the whole time. It’s not pushy. They don’t try to sell you a bunch of things. I’m looking to learn how to just get control of my life, my schedule, and just get control of the business. Planning your time, breaking it all down, making time for the ethics in your life, and just really implementing it and sticking with the program. It’s really lively, he’s pretty friendly, helpful, and very welcoming. I attended a conference a couple months back, and it was really the best business conference I’ve ever attended. At the workshop I learned a lot about time management, really prioritizing what’s the most important. The biggest takeaways are, you know, you want to take a step-by-step approach to your business. Whether it’s marketing, you know, what are those three marketing tools that you want to use, to human resources. Some of the most successful people and successful businesses in this town, their owners were here today because they wanted to know more from Clay, and I found that to be kind of fascinating. The most valuable thing that I’ve learned is diligence. That businesses don’t change overnight. It takes time and effort and you’ve got to go through the ups and downs of getting it to where you want to go. He actually gives you the road map out. I was stuck, didn’t know what to do and he gave me the road map out step by step. We’ve set up systems in the business that make my life much easier, allow me some time freedom. Here you can ask any question you want, they guarantee it will be answered. This conference motivates me and also gives me a lot of knowledge and tools. It’s up to you to do it. Everybody can do these things. There’s stuff that everybody knows, but if you don’t do it, nobody else can do it for you. I can see the marketing working, and it’s just an approach that makes sense. Probably the most notable thing is just the income increase that we’ve had. Everyone’s super fun and super motivating. I’ve been here before, but I’m back again because it motivated me. Your competition’s going to come eventually or try to pick up these tactics. So you better, if you don’t, somebody else will. I’m Rachel with Tip Top K9, and we just want to give a huge thank you to Clay and Vanessa Clark. Hey, guys. I’m Ryan with Tip Top K9. Just want to say a big thank you to Thrive 15. Thank you to Make Your Life Epic. We love you guys, we appreciate you, and really just appreciate how far you’ve taken us. This is our old house, right? This is where we used to live two years ago. This is our old neighborhood. See? This is life, right? So this is my old van and our old school marketing and this is our old team and by team I mean it’s me and another guy. This is our new house with our new neighborhood. This is our new van with our new marketing and this is our new team. We went from 4 to 14 and I took this beautiful dodo. We worked with several different business coaches in the past and they were all about helping Ryan sell better and just teaching sales, which is awesome, but Ryan is a really great salesman. So we didn’t need that. We needed somebody to help us get everything that was in his head out into systems, into manuals and scripts and actually build a team. So now that we have systems in place, we’ve gone from one to 10 locations in only a year. In October 2016, we grossed 13 grand for the whole month. Right now, it’s 2018, the month of October. It’s only the 22nd. We’ve already grossed a little over 50 grand for the whole month, and we still have time to go. We’re just thankful for you, thankful for Thrive and your mentorship, and we’re really thankful that you guys have helped us to grow a business that we run now instead of the business running us. Just thank you, thank you, thank you, times a thousand. So we really just want to thank you, Clay, and thank you, Vanessa, for everything you’ve done, everything you’ve helped us with. We love you guys. If you decide to not attend the Thrive Time workshop, you’re missing out on a great opportunity. The atmosphere of Clay’s office is very lively. You can feel the energy as soon as you walk through the door. And it really got me and my team very excited. If you decide not to come, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business. Bottom line. Love the environment. I love the way that Clay presents and teaches. It’s a way that not only allows me to comprehend what’s going on, but he explains it in a way to where it just makes sense. The SEO optimization, branding, marketing. I’ve learned more in the last two days than I have the entire four years of college. What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned in your four years of college? The most valuable thing that I’ve learned, marketing is key, marketing is everything. Making sure that you’re branded accurately and clearly. How to grow a business using Google reviews and then just how to optimize our name through our website also. Helpful with a lot of marketing, search engine optimization, helping us really rank high in Google. The first thing I needed to learn was how to build my foundation, how to systemize everything and optimize everything, build my SEO. How to become more organized, more efficient. How to make sure the business is really there to serve me as opposed to me constantly being there for the business. New ways of advertising my business as well as recruiting new employees. Group interviews, number one. Before we felt like we were held hostage by our employees. Group In use has completely eliminated that because you’re able to really find the people that would really be the best fit. Hands on how to hire people, how to deal with human resources, a lot about marketing and overall just how to structure the business, how it works for me and also then how that can translate into working better for my clients. The most valuable thing I’ve learned here is time management. I like the one hour of doing your business. It’s real critical if I’m going to grow and change. Play really teaches you how to navigate through those things and not only find freedom, but find your purpose in your business and find the purposes for all those other people that directly affect your business as well. Everybody. Everybody. Everyone. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. Everyone needs to attend the conference because you get an opportunity to see that it’s real. that it’s real.