Clay Clark | Now Hiring | How to Hire Quality Employees On the Current Planet Earth + A Look Inside the Mind of One of Oklahoma’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs, Doctor Robert Zoellner of Z66AA.com, DrZoellner.com, BankRegent.com, Etc.

Audio Transcription

Steve? Yes? Thanks for coming in today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I appreciate you applying for the job. Always. When’s the earliest you could start, Tyler? Kyler. Mrs. Anderson? You can call me Marlene. Okay, Marlene, we appreciate you applying for the job. Thank you. I appreciate being here. Let’s just dive right in. Boom! Go! What’s your availability like? I’m boycotting daylight savings time, so I’ll either be an hour early or an hour late, depending on the seasons. Tell me a little about yourself. My mom said I have to get a job, so that’s why I’m here, because she wants me to get a job. Why did you leave your last job? Of course, Harry, he was, he was, I just felt like he was looking at me in a particular way. Of course, he was blind, so I don’t know why I felt that. Why did you leave your last job, Steve? Fired. Next question. So what do you think you bring to the table? I can read people’s energies. Let me read your energy real quick. Oh. You’re a coyote. Congratulations. I don’t run errands and I don’t answer the phone. You know what I do? I look hot. 24, hot. Whatever you need, I can do it. Janitor, CEO, cook, I can do it all and I have done it all and I will do it all. Okay, so you do have experience in all of those areas. No, but I just believe I can do it. So availability, you know, that’s kind of a week to week thing for me. You know, I really just kind of like, we’ll see. So what do you consider your weaknesses? Chocolate, candy, Snickers, Reese’s Pieces. Okay. Um, Becky, I think we’re done here. Do I get the job? Calling all artists. I’m sorry, I’m not sure if I can do this. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Calling all artists, we must rise at the break of midday. Let us go and wander downtown, There is much to do, many seeds to plant. We are farmers, not of corn or maize. What we plant are the seeds of artistry. And we will not rest until our seed is spread throughout the world. We are artists, and we are really important. We will not be labeled, for we are individuals united together in our own group called creatives. We reject the mainstream. We join the millions who don their scarves in defiance of conformity. Our clothes reflect our uniqueness. That’s why we all look the same. We are rebels. We cannot be bound by the shackles of time management. Together we rise up against the tyranny of responsibility and productivity. We must be free. Free to knit things that no one wants. Free to take pictures of whatever we might be eating at the moment. Calling all artists. Let us carry forth the flag of artsy stuff. Together we’ll do photo shoots in abandoned warehouses. We’ll run with flares in the middle of nowhere. We’ll play musical instruments in the woods. Oh, creatives! Oh, artisans! Oh, makers of all things handmade! Let us run toward the movement! Bring your obscure music! Bring your fair trade coffee! Bring your 1880s facial hair! Calling all artists join the movement be the movement have a movement On today’s show, Claire Yinger, the business coach who works at the Leadership Initiative with Mr. Clay Stairs joins the Thrive Time Show to ask Dr. Z about what an ideal day looks like for him. His thoughts on life balance. How to know whether you are a bad manager or whether you just have bad employees. How to hold your employees accountable. Delegation 101 and much much more. You have questions? America’s number one business coach has answers. It’s your broda from Minnesota. Here’s another edition of Ask Clay Anything on the Thrive Time Business Coach Radio Show. Yes, yes, and yes. And then another yes. I’ve got an issue with the intro. I’ve got an issue with the intro. Hey, by the way, I miss you and your issues. You’ve been gone a lot recently. Yeah. And I’ve been here slaving away by the river. We evacuate, we bring the stuff back in the whole time and I just missed you. Because you have that unique ability to, you know, it’s like there’s a scab forming and you pull it off. Yeah, quickly though. And I missed that. Well, and here we go. This scab is going to get ready, set, ah, there we go. The intro talks about my broda from Minnesota. You know what? I think that’s a little bit of a misnomer. You spent a hot minute of your life up in Minnesota. What percentage of your life? You’re 37, 38? How old are you right now? 39. Okay, I missed it by a year. I’m 38. I’ve mentally anticipated 39. I’m 38. I’m 39 in November. You’re 38. Okay, 38. Thank you. How many years of those 38 did you live in Minnesota? I was 12 in Oklahoma. Then I moved to Minnesota. Then I came back and I was 18. So, okay, so six years. Yeah, it was the wilderness years. It was bad. It’s not quite one-sixth of your life you spent there, right? Because six times six would be 36, so 38, so not quite one-sixth. I’ve always been an Oklahomie at the core. I know. I am from Minnesota I think that that came back from I think I think you just use that because it rhymes with bro Minnesota broda from Minnesota. I think you I think you relied because the Minnesota was Scheme broke home is easy Domas and comas and just it could be hot I Understand that but I think I think you’re just being a little disingenuous by talking about being a product for Minnesota. If you’re out there and you are someone who is offended by today’s content, I encourage you to go tase yourself, because we’ve got to move on. We’ve got to move on, because we have a survivor. She works with Mr. Clay Stairs, a great guy. Let me tell you, I have this person entered into our lives here. Clay Stairs has been a long-term client. Great guy. He’s the former school teacher turned millionaire guy, you know, claystairs.com, great guy. And Claystairs, he says, I’m thinking about hiring said person. I said, oh, really? Because the first hire is Sean. And Sean is a great guy, very diligent guy. And I’m going, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Because, you know, Sean set a pretty high watermark. You know, Sean was like the great flood of Tulsa from 86. He was a high watermark. And he says, I’ve known this lady for a long time. Met her at Shepherds Fold Camp. She served as a counselor there at the Metro Christian. Nice lady. I doubt it. I doubt it. It sounds too good to be true. We met her and the team likes her. She’s a great lady. She’s been a great coach, great consultant. And now she’s here on the mic. Claire, welcome onto the show. Hello, hello, hello. All right, Claire Yanger, what questions do you have for Dr. Zellner? Oh, I came so ready and so prepared. Here we go. My questions for you. I’m a little scared. So I kind of actually first have a personal question for you. Okay, lay it on me. A real day in the life of Dr. Zellner, what is your actual ideal day? Waking up, going to the airport and asking myself where I want to go today and then making sure I pack the appropriate clothes or make sure I have a credit card to get there and that no I’m teasing Um, my perfect day is a lot of people ask me what I do and I tell them I sound like the vaudeville act Are you familiar with vaudeville? I’m gonna go with no And there was there was an act which Go something like this You have a stick and on top of the stick you have a plate. And what you do is you spin said stick. And it makes the plate spin and it sits there on top of it. It’s like a miracle. It’s like a physics miracle. And then you go and you get up another stick. You put a plate on it. No, get out of here. It’s like Festivus. You spin it. And pretty soon you’ve got like 12 sticks with plates on the stage spinning. And you stand back and what do you do? Do you run to the plate that’s spinning really well? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you find the one that’s wobbling the most and what do you do? You go and you high tail it over there, Claire, you high tail it. You know what that means? Is there a noise for that? Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. You’re sprinting over. Boom. Oh, and you spin that stick and you get that plate to where it’s back on level ground and spinning again, okay? Yes. And that’s basically what I do. I own multiple businesses and every day there’s a business out there that the plate’s wobbling just a little bit more than the other. Just a little bit. Just a little bit more. Now, I have scheduled things in that, vendors and reps and new business ideas and what I’m working on. So, like, I’m going to open up a new business, I’ve got to meet with the architects and the contractors and the landlords and the future employees. There’s a lot of busy work and starting a new business, which I’m in the midst of right now, and there’s also the constant of balancing the plates with the sticks. My perfect day is all the plates are spinning really well How often do you have a crisis? a crisis Often do you have? Stuff I need to deal with personally every day often Do you have a crisis that would make the average small business owner cry, but for you because of your high watermark? You know I was every week probably once it’s probably once a week Yeah back in the day. You know and I use that analogy before. Once the water mark gets up so high, anything lower than that, you’re like, that’s no big deal. We dealt with it when it was up here. It’s just kind of like our man cave, your man cave. It was at three feet of water in it. It’s kind of crazy. Yeah. So now anything less than that, you’re like, yeah, it’s no big deal. So I think to answer your question, my perfect day is when all the plates are doing well and I can actually get done my to-do list that I need to get done. I don’t have to put anything on hold because I’m having to deal with something I didn’t even know was going to be coming up this morning. So I think for me that’s clear when things kind of running the way it’s supposed to the way you assume it’s going to run when everybody this could sound crazy clear but when everybody’s actually doing the job I’m paying them to do. Are you saying that we’ll try to make people that you are paying to do their job. Are you talking to me. That’s what I mean. Sounds like a lot. I know it does. It sounds like I’m being an ogre. I’m being an ogre. Basically I should paint myself green and put on about a hundred pounds. Does that answer your question? That does answer my question, which actually leads me into my next question. Talking about how to manage. Okay, so this is coming from a client that one of our coaches works with who’s down in Norman. And talking about how to manage the work-life balance. When you’re working about 80 hours a week, and this is coming from someone who wants to, who they do, they deliver an A plus product, but they have a hard time of letting go of wanting to deliver a B plus product to have an A plus life. So how is it that you, Dr. Zellner, what would your advice be about how to do that work-life balance when you’re working 80 hours a week? I have a quick insert I want to, editorial. Insert, away. When Dr. Z was seeing patients, he was just phasing out of doing it. The time that my wife started working for you in 99, I think you were in there, like each location maybe one day a week, but you were managing it, you know, very. Correct. But you were in there once a week and each one maybe seeing occasional patients just to keep your finger on the pulse. And you were building up guys like Dr. Boatwright, really good people that could be on your team for over a decade. But you were funny. And people used to talk about how funny you were. I used to hear stories about your ridiculous, you know, iChart things you would do and the funny stories and the segues and the way you would greet people. And you got it down to a show. You’ve got to be yourself. I default to humor. I love humor. I default to humor. Humor kind of breaks a lot of tension. A lot of people come in the doctor’s office and it’s their stress, their what is my prescription, they’re nervous, what’s happening here, my vision is so important to me. Right. Is it getting worse? Am I going to go blind? You have a great team now, but when you left, it was like a comedy show meets optometry. Correct. And when you left and the other guys you hired before you built that team you have now, when they were good, they were competent, they were confident, but they weren’t funny. And people, there’s one lady who pulled you aside and said, Hey, I’m really frustrated. I came here to meet Dr. Zellner. Remember that? And this lady said that she wanted to, she was super happy with Dr. Zellner and didn’t want to see you. Do you remember that? She wanted to see Dr. Zellner. She didn’t want to see you. Well, they called me down and said, there’s a Zellner only in room two. So I’m like, okay, well, it’s a zoner only I’m here. I’ll go down and see him. Right. So I grabbed the chart and that’s back when we actually had paper charts. It’s very old, long ago. You may not, you may not know what paper is. You got kids. I mean, I was born in the eighties. So yeah, I got it. Oh, you do remember paper. Wow. Crazy. Hello. So I was, so I’m flipping through the chart and as I’m noticing something through the chart, it’s the last doctor that’s our was Dr. Boatwright, Dr. Boatwright, Dr. Boatwright. So I’m getting down about her fourth visit, you know, it’s kind of a thick, thick phone. Now I’m walking the room and, and I’m didn’t think I’d introduce myself, but I’m before I introduced myself, she said, Oh no, no, no, no, no. And I just stopped my track. She goes, I’m sorry, but I, this is going to sound, maybe I don’t know how you’re going to take this, but I wanted to see Dr. Zoner and I requested him. I said, well, I’ll go get him. So I walked out of the room, put the chart back in, switched it over to boat ride only. So anyway, it was funny because boat ride would always go, stop at McDonald’s on the way to work every morning. And we always give them scrubs. So on the left side of the scrubs said my logo, Dr. Zonin and Associates. On the right side of the scrubs, it had their name, Dr. Boat Ride. Ron C. Boat Ride. And I’ve got eight doctors that work for me now, and they’re all great people. My daughter’s one of them, in fact. She’s very funny. Very funny. Anyway, so he goes to the drive-thru every morning to get his biscuit and whatever from McDonald’s, right? McGriddle. Yeah, McGriddle, whatever. Yeah, McRib if they’re in season. I mean, that’s a big deal, right? That is a very big deal. Thank you. So he goes through, so towards the person at the window is his left side and they see the logo, which happens to be my name, Dr. Robert Zellner and Associates. So every time he comes to the drive-thru, the lady says, Dr. Zellner, you’re back again. How are you doing? You want your same? Here’s your same thing. So good to see you. And first he’d say, no, I’m not Dr. Zellner. I’m Dr. Bowright. He said that. I said, I don’t know how many times I said it. And finally he was like, thank you. Okay. You just accepted it. So they’ve all learned to channel just a little bit of Dr. Zellner. So when you were delegating off to people that at first weren’t quite up to your standard yet because you hadn’t trained them yet, you hadn’t trained to that level yet. You hadn’t built that A player team you have now. You know, when you had to go down a little bit in that quality during those years, how did you deal with it emotionally? Well, I think the thing is, to get back to your question, Cliff, you always want to make sure, and this is very important, listen to this. You’ve got ears to listen, listen to this. This is going to be hard, but I’m telling you what, for the long term benefit of your your financial banking account, your heritage that you leave your grandchildren, you want this. You always want to make sure you’re doing whatever you can to put out the A-plus product. When you say to yourself, I’m going to devalue my goods and services so that I can X, Y, Z on the personal side of life, you’re really missing the boat on your business. You have to make sure your business is A plus and running well and doing whatever you can to do that. Now what happens is clear is that, what I see done wrong, it’s not the amount of time people are spending with their personal life, i.e. their spouse, i.e. their children, i.e. their siblings, their parents, whoever is pulling on them, it’s not the amount of time they’re spending with them but the quality of time anymore. In other words, a guy spends 10 hours at work, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, work’s going great. Now he pops home, it’s about dinner time, right? He pops in for dinner, but at the dinner table he’s got his laptop up because he’s expecting an email from a vendor that could come that night. Right, right. He has his phone sitting up on the table because if there’s an emergency at the shop, he’s getting a phone call, right? Yes, he is. And he’s over here on this, and now he thought, you know what, she’s bringing out dessert right now, I’m going to Google my competitors website. I haven’t checked on them in a while. I’m going to do that. And all the while, his two children are at the table talking about the soccer game that they have this Saturday, and he’s not even listening to them. And I think that’s the thing that I find so much is that what I tell people is this, is that they go, how do I know when to go home? Because I love working. My business is rocking. I’m doing good. I know it’s my future. It’s got to have my attention right now.” And I said, you have to do one thing. Listen. Listen to your spouse. Listen to your children. And whenever you get that call of, are you still my dad? Or what do you look like? Or you’ve had the call. I’ve had the call. And I’ll say this, if you’re out there listening, just examples. You know, the McDonald’s brothers, people don’t know their names, but they actually served every burger for years. And then the idea of scaling caused them to make certain compromises. So the totality of all the parts allowed the quality to stay high, but they couldn’t personally serve burgers to that many people. So some said it’s not the same as when they used to make the burgers. Some said. But Billion said, it’s still pretty good. It’s still pretty good, yeah. Yeah. And so it’s not that you’re openly trying to devalue your quality. It’s just it’s saying like the elephant in the room, I used to answer all the phones when we first opened. And it’s not that like I want our calls to be bad. We have a great team now, but I can only answer the phone so many times. So in a way, your ability to serve more people goes up, which I think is an A plus. But yeah, it might not be the same jokes as Dr. Zellner, and you just got to get to a place where you’re okay with it. It may not be an A+, to be honest, but it may be a solid A. It may be an A. But it’s unsustainable for me to see every patient that’s come in the door. It’s unsustainable for Clay to answer every phone call that comes in. Although he tried. Day one, you can. Although he tried. Day one, you can. But it’s unsustainable. And so you have to train up people and get them as close to your DNA as possible, put as much in as you can, because nobody will care as much as you do about your business. And so, you know, you just have to get as close as you can and then let them let them run with it and know that. So when did you realize that you were ready to let them run with it? Oh, goodness. Pretty I mean, pretty early. I mean, you you give up little pieces of it pretty early. I think that’s the thing that some people do. They hang on to it because they do it. Well, they know it do well. They they know they do it like clay. He know, you know, I promise you this. Nobody answered the phone. Nobody answered the phone better than he did at Elephant in the Room. I promise you that. I had some pretty funny material. You can put up a hundred phone answers and I would put my money on this show. It’s his business. He wrote the script. He gets it and he knows what he’s doing. And so, that’s the kind of guy that’s almost impossible to clone and yet you try to clone him and you clone him by just like you used to do with your DJs. Here’s the script, copy it, repeat it, copy it, repeat it. Here’s the playlist, plug it in. Train, role play, train, role play, over and over. Over and over and over and over. Call, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. Hey, can I get a, you just role play and you put people in those scenarios. And so what happens is by default they get pretty good. Maybe they don’t have quite the enthusiasm, maybe they don’t have quite the, you know, whatever the hip. I find over time they might actually get better because that’s all they’re focused on is that thing. You might be right. So first you kind of go down in quality, but then over time they can surpass you. It happens a lot. Claire, what other questions do you have for the great, super humble Dr. Robert Zellner? So I have a question about management. And this is from a contractor down in Alabama. Fireball! Alabama. Fireball. Okay, so the question is, is how do you decipher if it’s your poor management or you have poor employees? It’s always a little bit of both. No matter how great a manager you are, you’re always going to have a little bit of yourself in there that doesn’t need to be in there. And it’s always a little bit of both. I don’t care how great a person you are, you’re always going to be infallible. You’re never going to be perfect. Absolutely. And whenever you’re dealing with another human being, you’re going to find out that they’re not perfect. But I’m telling you what, if it’s not working out, they go and you don’t go. I got a funny story for you about how you… These are kind of a checklist of things we need to do to make sure that you are a good manager. Okay? Yeah. And then it’s a funny Dr. Zellner story that I’ve never talked to you about. Oh my. Please share. So one, you need to have a checklist for everything possible. Not to the level of ridiculousness, but you want to have a checklist for everything. Get everything out of your head and get the expectations in writing. That would be step one. Okay. If you don’t have that, you are a poor manager. If you’re just running around giving people verbal traditions, I mean, the Bible’s written down. That way it’s clear if you’re in violation of the Ten Commandments or not. I mean, don’t run around with having a verbal Z, you know that tribal knowledge crap, that’s ridiculous. Yeah, or assuming that people can read your mind or it’s common sense. And two, don’t be the person who doesn’t, to be a great manager, again, one, have the checklist. Two, always show up. Like, don’t be the manager that misses work all the time. You know, Z, the guy that’s just flaky and unreliable. That’s good. That’s an issue. And three is never stop recruiting because you’re gonna end up, if you stop recruiting, you’re gonna end up like, just accepting the people that are around. So that would be kind of my checklist. If you’re a good manager, if you have the checklist, if you never stop recruiting, and if you do what you say you’re going to do. That’s like my big three. The thing about it that gets kind of frustrating is that when you see a manager that is trying to be friends and not a boss. There we go. And that’s a tough thing because everybody wants to be liked as a human. I mean, we like the default to, you know, hey, you like me, I like you. Let’s go do lunch together. Oh my gosh. What’s your Facebook account? Because I want to be friends with you. Everybody wants to be friends and even parents out there today, they want to be friends. Kids need parents. Employees need bosses. Preach it. And so a manager has to understand that they’re a boss and that they’re held at a higher level. And when you look out there and you see a manager that’s not living up to their expectations, they’re not living up to their potential, that aren’t doing what you’re paying them to do, and they’re out there trying to be buddy buddies with everybody and not trying to make the hard decisions, you’ve got to have a real deep talk with yourself. Is that my guy or my girl going forward? So here’s the story we’ve not talked about yet. Uh oh. Should we give a story time? Well this is… This just in? My wife worked for you back in the day, and some of the friends you went to college with worked there too. And everyone thought this was going to be the hot job. Dr. Z pays well, he’s a great guy, he provides insurance. This is going to be awesome. They thought it was going to be a hot job. But what ended up happening was, it turns out you have a nomenclature system. Back in the day when there was paper. So if Claire came in to get her eye exam, or I came in, you would have it sorted. How was it sorted? How were you supposed to do it? Alphabetical. Oh, see that idea! That idea! It’s crazy. There’s 26 letters that actually come in a pattern, an order. You’re supposed to actually do that. It’s crazy. And there was somebody that I knew, we’ll just keep it, I can’t, we’ll clarify the gender or anything, it could be transgender, I don’t know. Somebody. Somebody. This person though would just play the game of like, let’s not do it alphabetically. Now see, what would happen if everyone on your team occasionally saves things, puts things, medical records, etc. in the wrong place consistently, what would happen? People would go crazy. It would work. We would spend hours trying to find this truth. My understanding is you quit occasional explosions around 98, 99. When was the last time you had a good, like, are you kidding me? When was the last time? Good old fashioned, take someone out back and just take them to the woodshed. The word that I was told was, he stopped firing off the cannon at a certain age. When would that be, H.B.? I ran out of gunpowder probably in the late 90s. I mean, I’d blown through it. But I mean, there was a few people that were around then, and they’re like… I mean, you got a cannon, but you got no cannonballs and powder. You’re just, what’s the point? But you know what I mean. You made a change, right? Well, you know, you have to. I mean, I think that as you mature in life, you realize that throwing an absolute fit is not necessarily… But there might have been a time earlier on where you may have… Oh, I think you get, yeah, early on, you know, you’re a tad bit more emotionally charged, you’re younger, you’ve got, your juices are flowing as we used to say, Claire. Real passionate. Real passionate about that thing, and then you realize, you know, hey, it’s going to be okay. So, this person put the thing in the wrong place. All the time. And apparently, a person who was managing the business, who took your spot, was like, let me tell you what, if Dr. Z would have seen this back in the day, let me tell you what had happened. And it became this big, like, epic journey. It was like we’re talking about like the Odysseus and the Iliad. It was like a big thing, you know. And so I’m picking my wife up and this person taking them home, and they were like scared about what you used to do or what you would have done or what. And then they were scared of the way that she spoke and the way she talked. And my wife was all about high and tight, put stuff in the right place. This person was like, and then she raised her voice and she was getting aggressive and she was just intimidation. And I’m like, so did you put it in the wrong place? Well, yeah, but I’m just saying is, but that’s you could, if you didn’t have a, a agreed upon nomenclature system, an organizational system, a checklist, then you couldn’t be upset really because there would be no expectation. Right. You’re right. And the thing about it is management’s difficult. True. Management is difficult. The hardest part. You know, because you’re not the owner. And so, you know, you’re charged with taking this person’s basically child and raising it when they come in and check in on you every now and then. Oh yeah. And it’s a challenging thing to be in management. And so, you know, because you’re judged upon how good the people underneath you are doing and how well you manage them. And it’s a tough deal to inspire people, you know, because there’s always the stick or the carrot and… You’ve got to have both though. You’ve got to have both and how to motivate, black hat, white hat, when to write someone up, when not to write them, when to be the good cop, when to be the bad cop. Sometimes you have to, a lot of times I’ll have to know I have to be nice to someone on a Thursday because I got to go off on Monday. That happened as recently as a couple of weeks ago. They were really in my doghouse and I’m going, I got to lay it down on Monday. I had to be nice ramping up on Wednesday, got to get into that nice, you know, Thursday nice, Friday nice, I mean, the management is tough. I think one of the keys is that when you get a manager on board and you’re going that direction, is to have them physically be around you at first as much as possible. I love the way Clay brings somebody in there, they’re shadowing and they’re around him and what that really does is saying, hey, I really want you to see it. Now in my business, they have a saying and it’s WWZD, what would Z do in that situation? And I’ve taught them enough, I’ve been around them enough, I’ve poured enough of myself into them that for the most part, I would say 99% of the time, they get it right. And I don’t have to be there because I’ve been there enough with them and they’ve followed me enough, they’ve seen what I do, they’ve heard me. I put on speakerphone when a patient calls in all upset and they’re around there listening and I handle it the way I do and they’re going, oh, that’s how you handle an upset patient. I’ll get it, you know. And so they learn by you doing. You don’t want to just hire one and say, you know, I’m, hey, I’m headed to Bermuda. I’ll see you in six weeks, you know, and take off. I feel like bad employees train your new employees. Oh, that’s the worst. So you never stop training. You never stop training and you always want to spend time with those managers. You want to make sure people come through those managers. They have problems and you really want to honor them and give them the authority. But you know, like I tell them all the time, I’ll go up to a manager all the time and say, is that employee over there doing the wrong thing? Yeah, I’m not gonna fire them, I’m gonna fire you. Yeah. Because it’s a reflection of you. And just the other day, Clare, you know, I was asking Zee, I said, hey, Zee, tough situation here. I feel like I’m handling it good now, I’m not freaking out. Let me tell you the situation, and you just, as a manager, you have to be the mentor that people can go to. And the moment that your people quit asking those questions It means you’re not a good enough of a manager They don’t come to you, but that would be now you have we have time for two more clear questions I’ll have on the show two more questions two more clear questions. Thank you. I’m time clear questions of the day Okay, so when it comes to finances, so when you first started your optometry clinic, being your own boss, how involved were you with your finances and did you handle that or did you hand that off to someone else? Why or why not? I handled it myself. It was very important. First of all, I wasn’t that busy, so I could handle it. I made all the deposits. I got time. I had one customer this month. I had a whole 20. That’s huge. I fill out the deposits for myself. No, I did it for a while. I did it probably for about six months, myself personally. It was the craziest thing. I actually had a CPA come in. He was a patient, became a patient. He goes, hey, do you have a CPA or account? I go, no, why the heck do I need one of those? I was laughing, going, I knew I did. Eventually, I was going to get one. I got time right now. I don’t need that. I don’t. I got plenty of time on my hands. And we actually started getting a little bit busier. You know, you start doing a little advertising, start taking care of people. They, you know, get down the street. They’re not complete idiots. They think you’re funny. They want to see the show. They want to see the show. You know, I have puppets and, you know, all kinds of, a pony that we’re bringing on occasion. Really? This is amazing. Do we have video of this? No, of course not. I could be, I could be a little disingenuous on the pony part. But I didn’t want to have a pony walk to the office at certain times. I would not be mad. Thank you. You’re welcome. But he gave me a say, hey, let me be your CPA. And so we negotiated a deal. We got it down pretty good. You won’t believe this. This is 27, 26 years ago. Yeah. He was my CPA for $75 a month. I can say that. I paid 550 a month per storefront. This is today’s dollars. This is back in the day. For 26 years you paid that? No, no, no. I said that’s what I started at 26 years ago. I’ve been in business now 27. But anyway, whenever you don’t have the time to do it or you don’t want to do it or you’re not good at doing it, then you hire that. And you never delegated knowing the numbers. You delegated someone doing the entering of the data, the bookkeeping, the paying of the checks. Correct. This is a good clarification. But you never delegated knowing the numbers. You delegated someone doing the entering of the data, the bookkeeping, the paying of the checks. Correct. This is a good clarification. But you never delegated knowing the numbers. You delegated someone doing the entering of the data, the bookkeeping, the paying of the checks. Correct. This is a good clarification. But you never delegated knowing the numbers. You delegated someone doing the entering of the data, the bookkeeping, the paying of the checks. That’s a big clarification. But you never said abdicate. Hey, you go run my finances. You always looked at it. And you were aware this is how much is in my bank account. My office still texts me daily numbers. I mean, I still get a daily touch on every day on numbers, on my businesses, what they’re doing. And this is from your accountant? No, this is from my staff. And then I meet with my accounting team once a month, go over numbers just last week. He always knows how much is there, how much money is there. You have to know it. It’s your accounting. Don’t don’t overspread talking about depreciation. I’m not talking about write offs. No, I’m not talking about the strategy. I’m talking about you have to know how much cash is in that bank every day. It’s the scoreboard. You know, yeah, exactly. And not how much should be in there, but how much is in there. What is your next question? We have time for one more question. If you’re if you’re sneaking, you can sneak in a couple. So my next question has to do with, well this is another finance question, from a doctor down in Hotlanta, aka Atlanta. Okay, so what does an accountant need to actually do for you? Question of, do they do your taxes? Do they do your payroll? Do they handle your insurance, what would you say that your accountant needs to actually be doing for you? I’m going to go first and let Z pile on and one up me here. One, your accountant has to make sure that strategically you are paying the amount of taxes you owe. Not less than you owe or more than you owe. And that turns out to be tricky. A lot of accountants want to make sure you pay no taxes to help you out, but then they’re not the ones held accountable if you’re getting busted for not paying taxes. Your accountant should make sure you’re paying enough taxes, the right amount, not too much, not too little, no editorial, just this is how much you owe. That’s one. Two, an effective accountant should make sure that you’re looking for the, they’re not loopholes in a bad way, looking for the specific deductions that our Internal Revenue Service has created on after Congress has voted on to stimulate the economy. There are certain, see, there are certain tax credits, things that are out there that are designed to get businesses to move to certain cities, to open new offices, to buy real estate, and your accountant should make sure you’re using all the tools. Or to hire certain people, I mean there’s all kinds of stuff. They need to make sure they’re on top of that. And three, they’ve got to make sure that the numbers are accurate. That is my opinion of what they should be doing. Turns out I see a lot of accountants who are really aggressive with their strategy, putting entrepreneurs in a bad spot, and then four years later when they’re not your accountant anymore you owe a ton of money that’s not good. I see a lot of accountants not being proactive with their clients not saying hey here are by the way if you’re going to interview four people right now just so you know there is a tax credit right now if you hire four people in this city as opposed to this one you can benefit or they’re not there’s no strategy going on see I just see a lot of accountants reacting to you and saying oh by the way you owe back taxes file an extension. I just, that’s what, an accountant should help you be proactive, but they are not responsible for you collecting money from your clients, setting your prices, that’s not what they do, they shouldn’t, you can’t delegate any math to an accountant. I mean, Z, you can’t take the entire math part of your business and say, Mr. Accountant, could you set my prices? Right. Mr. Accountant, should I set myself, how much should I pay myself? The accountant is not that. Z, I’ll go back to you. Well, I think there’s two levels of accounting, and when I think about it, I think about my internal people that are on my staff. I’ve got a CPA, almost a CPA, and two other accountants, I would say. So I have an internal team now that does my profit and loss statements, that monitors the day-to-day that I meet with on a monthly basis, if not more often, and we talk about strategies. We talk about how the business are doing. We talk about, Hey, what’s this cost and what’s that cost me? Do an analysis of this. What’s my, you know, cause those, those prices keep creeping up. You know what I mean? I set the price for a pair of glasses, a pair of frames and that price, I mean, I said five years ago and now guess what? It’s twice as much. I’m still selling for what I’m selling for. So they can help pull invoices. I put them on different assignments. I put them on different things internally to look at. And they do help me with, hey, can we save money on a certain insurance? Can we, you know, call Geico in 15 minutes? That’s your employees, though, full-time staff. Yeah, this is my accounting team that works for me. You pay a salary. They’re W-2 that they work for me. Then I have an outside firm that is CPA. We hand them all of our stuff at the end of the year, and he helps you with that deep thinking. He’s like the deep sea fisherman. He’s the one that says, hey, listen, we may need some tax credits this year. I know of some tax credits that we can get that are being offered in Oklahoma. They’re legal, yes, or they’re right, they’re wrong. You can debate that all day, but they’re out there, they’re available, and it’s something that I can get my hands on for X amount of dollars, and it helps defer taxes, or it helps minimize my tax liability. And so he’s a guy that I meet with, not every month, but he’s a guy that I meet with a couple times a year for the long-term strategic, and he’s the one that puts his stamp on our tax returns every year and kind of helps that and makes sure that we’re being as aggressive as we can without raising too many red flags. That’s kind of the game. It’s kind of like what raises a red flag, what doesn’t? What’s the gray zone? Where do we feel comfortable? And you have to be able to find someone at that level that is aggressive enough for you That’s not too aggressive or not aggressive enough. And so, you know, that’s a kind of a personal thing And so you you shop those and you meet with those and I was gonna say how would you go about? Finding the right accountant for you and or CPA Well, I think what you do is you get three or four maybe areas that are on the gray for your business and you say Hey, listen, I like to have 15, 30 minutes every time I’m looking for a new CPA. And they’ll line up, trust me, they’ll line up, oh, new account, a new account, sure, you know. And so they will show up and you can ask them a few tough questions and see what they think about it. Meet with three. Yeah. Always three. Always meet with three. I’m just telling you, you’ve got to meet with a minimum of three because your best friend from high school, your best buddy from college, they might not be that great at their job even though they are a CPA. True. Right, exactly. I think we have time for one more sneak attack question. Why not? Sneaky, sneaky. Okay, so this has to do with systems and processes. Oh, God. My favorite. So, what is the most efficient way to make systems and processes? It sounds crazy, but what you do is you just get a big whiteboard or a big something to write on. And you literally grab your core couple, three people that are closest to you in the business that are high ranking the business. In other words, if you have like two VPs or you’ve had the president of the company, you have a manager that runs a big area, you get a couple, three people, not too many, in that room with you. And you get a black erasable felt pen. Adjusted this today for the real estate business. And you’ve got an eraser in your left hand and you literally start writing down. What’s step one in our process of checking in a patient? Just happened today. Just with the real estate business I work with, Sam Adams Realty, we had a newer real estate agent who was representing a buyer. So not my agent, but representing a buyer. And their buyer wanted to buy the house. So they made the check out to Sam Adams. Well, you gotta make the check out to the title company, to the closing company, because it goes into escrow. And escrow is a third-party account. It doesn’t go into my account. Not yet. It just goes into a holding account to confirm the deal. We’ve agreed on the price. Money’s clear. We set a closing date. It’s good to go. And they wrote the check to me and not to the closing company. Well, I thought to myself, I don’t know why they wrote a check to our company. I asked our agent, did you tell them to write it to us? She said, no. I said, okay. Has this happened before? She said, yeah, it’s one of their times someone did that. I said, okay, well, we need to just move forward. We need to have a checklist for confirming a deal. So step one. Because you saw where the problem was and you’re like, oh, we want to know what to do. And we whiteboarded it out. We moved it around a bunch and we thought this step goes first, this goes second. And whiteboard’s so great. You move it around. And Andrew, put a link on how to make a whiteboard for under $100. Because you can spend like $1,000 on a huge whiteboard, or you can make one for like $80 by buying a thing called Showerboard. And I’m the Showerboard King. No one has more Showerboard than me. It’s a great tool. It’s very effective. Do you showerboard in your shower? Do I use shower? No, I put carpet in there. Oh, that’s it. You’re all about comfort in the shower. I get it now. That’s your time off. That’s your time off. Smells like a wet cat. Oh yeah. That’s the best smell ever. Good times. Good times. Does that answer your question? Well, so, but this brings up a good question. So when it comes to making your systems and processes, where do you start? Where do you begin? So you just said that you guys were talking about real estate. I write on the board. I have to get a white board out. I wrote on there today the issue. Because it came out of a conversation? Yeah, I just, any time you hold people accountable to a certain standard and the standard is not met, I always ask them, what’s the issue? And they say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. And I say, well, it’s the system. it came out of a conversation. Yeah, I just, anytime you hold people accountable to a certain standard and the standard is not met, I always ask, how could I answer this question one time so I don’t have to answer it a thousand times again? That’s good. And then I write it down and I’m going, how does, how did an agent think, if you’re a real estate agent, you need to know about escrow, you have to go to class for this, and they should know that they write, but obviously people don’t know. Right, because you as the owner, you know. Yeah, and I just, in photography, we used to have people that would just go to a wedding and take just bizarre photos, and I’m going, how could one possibly think that that’s the photo the bride wanted? No. So I made a checklist of images that the photographer had to get of the bride. You know, because we had a photographer one time, I remember this, it was the first kiss, the bride is looking at the groom, you know, first kiss, and then she took a photo of like the mom’s reaction and didn’t get their first kiss and didn’t get the groom seeing the bride for the first time you always want to get the shot of the bride seeing the groom for the first time that’s the money shot the backup shot is the grooms and she didn’t get any of this stuff and she like lives in this esoteric world of of hipsterism oh yeah when he’s kissing her she took a picture of their feet that’s that’s the move right Andrew’s seen this we had one photographer who literally asked the bride you know he says he says to the bride can I see your wedding ring? She says yeah. He goes, let me get an awesome photo. Andrew was with this guy. He takes the ring, puts it on the limb of a tree that’s dangling over a cliff where if the ring were to fall off of the tree, they would lose the ring forever. And he’s like, put it right here. Kind of a little bit of wind going. Let me get the photo. Everyone’s like, are you kidding me? So you end up putting it on a checklist so when you train people you say, a deep rule, a deep thought here guys. Anything we can do that would ruin the bride’s dress or ring cannot happen. Cannot happen. Because we’ve had photographers who are like, why don’t you guys hold up the wine glasses like you’re really excited but not too excited so it doesn’t spill on your dress and it spilled on her dress. Oh yeah. Like the whole thing. And I’m going You cannot have that I think you’re questioning it. Maybe just don’t yeah, but this common sense is not common So you got to put on check? Any other question for dr. Zellner the Zolhan are you? We have one more okay Okay, so this has to do with management again. So when we’re talking about doing constructive criticism and also keeping your team motivated, what are your easy how-to’s? What would your suggestion be for a small business owner who’s frustrated but wants to motivate to see things happen? You always want to finish every spank with a pat. Kick and hug. Or some would say kick and hug. Kick and uh… Hero sandwich. Carrot and a stick. Or… yeah, you wanna… Hero sandwich. You got the bread, you got the meat, and the bread. So it’s soft, hard, intense, soft. The sandwich technology is where we lost me there. I’m gluten free, so that’s… Me too! You’re trying to kill me now? No, we can do gluten free bread. Oh, there are options. You’re so smart. There’s gluten free pizza. I know I just had some today. Angelina’s. Oh, it’s so good. Yeah, it’s good. It’s Che. It’s Che. So the question is, how do you manage people consistently? How do you do the kick of the hug, the Darth Vader? Yeah, it’s a black hat, white hat. So here’s the deal is that when someone screws up, you got to talk about it and nobody wants to hear about how they screwed up. And people get embarrassed, they want to make excuses, they want to crawl under a rock, they want to, for heaven’s sakes, not be told in front of anybody else they screwed up, right? Go on Facebook, write about it. Go on Facebook. I’ve seen that move a lot recently. Get the plane to pull the banner, you know, Billy screwed up yesterday as you’re doing your company picnic. Everybody’s on the beach. I find that the literal mistakes are very easy to correct. If someone misspells something, they missave something, they mistype something. The ones that are hard, and it’s about a third of the issues, are the more nefarious ones where they intentionally didn’t do something, and they mask it with the three excuses that humanity has come up with. I forgot. I forgot. I forgot. There was a miscommunication. I wasn’t sure what to do. Or there was an emotional, like, I was sick. My dog died last night. You care more about my babies or my checklist? Yeah. This is weird. Those are the three every time. The three every time. Those are the hardest ones to deal with. Those are the hardest ones to deal with. But the key is that you need to be… A good parent knows when to discipline. A good parent knows when to reward. A good parent knows when to say yes. A good parent knows when to say no. So as an owner of the business, what you have to do is you have to look at it and take a deep breath. And when a manager or an employee does something wrong, you have to come in and correct them. And the more you can do that in love and not anger, and I know that’s easy to say, so sometimes you may have to do the old count to 10 before you say anything or go in the room and kick your dog or something. Whoa! Sorry, PETA, that we do not promote the kicking of dogs. You’re referring to a stuffed animal. A stuffed animal. In the shape of a dog. Not really a dog. Thank you SPCA. We’re really going to bring it in. You were reading a cue card that Andrew left for you. Gary. I know. You’re just reading the cue card. Andrew! Peter, when you raid the facility, his name’s A-N-D-Y-P-E-T-A. You made my wife cry right there. When you said kick the dog, immediately there’s tears. My point is get your act together, then talk to them. But then I think it’s also, the more difficult the conversation is for obvious reasons, like Clay was saying, some of the easy stuff is easy. So you say, come into my office, my son. You’ve done a really great job of copying this verse. But verse has an S and not a C in it. I should write that down, down, down, down. Down is an M and M, right? An M, an M or an N, is an M and M. Just stop, you’re hurting my, you’re hurting my ears right now, son. You’re hurting my ears. So what we’re gonna do now, do you see this stick over here? That’s right. Put out your hand. I’m going to flog your hand now. Twelve times. Ahh! Thank you. I have another. Shunda There’s a certain amount of tough love that you have to do Pussyfoot around it you have to be to the point Here’s what I expect if you didn’t know that and they’re gonna they’re gonna try to drop on those three excuses on you or they Just may man up and say you know what you’re right. I’m sorry I’ll do better next time and rock on with it, but I think sometimes the more that some people handle criticism better than others. Some people handle correction better than others. Some, you can just see it destroying them. You can see it just deflating them. You can see it really zapping the life out of them. If you’re paying attention, you can see it. And never criticize something that they can’t control, by the way. That’s a bad boss. I see people go, hey, Mark, your haircut sucks. Well, they can’t control that. No, but I’m saying, it’s the shape of his head. Okay, that’s a thing. I’m serious. I see people like criticizing people like, hey, I hate your laugh. Well, they can’t fix that. They can’t fix that. You want to criticize people, they can’t fix. You don’t make it personal. It’s a good job doing the job. Don’t do that. Come on. But then, the more that you see them kind of shrinking, then when you’re done with that, then you have to give them a little positive mojo. You got to give them a little love. You mean you don’t like when I blow into this container? I really like it when you make a deep sound of a… You don’t like when I do that? I do like it actually. Oh really? I thought you said… I’ll just go back to doing it then. There you go. I’m your newest employee. You should get the whole show. You’ve got to give them a little love. You’ve got to maybe tell them some things they did right. You’ve got to give them a win of the week. You’ve got to give them something that encourages them and edifies them and pumps them and builds them up because you’re a coach. And a coach is a difficult thing. You’ve got to correct the play they did wrong. Correct. Also, though, keeping them in the game, keeping their mind focused and letting them know the game’s not over. Game’s not over, Billy. We still need you. Come on, Billy. Still need you. Stay in there. I need my guy. Come on, Bill. Come on, Bill. You’re my guy for a reason, Billy. And I need you over here. You’re doing great in this area, this area, this area, this area. Keep up the good work. Thank you. Let’s just make a little minor correction over here and let’s rock on with it, okay, Billy? And rock on with it. That’s good. Are you mad? The kick and hug. Okay. The spanking. The spanking. What did I say? Spank? Mine was slapping a pat. Mine was slapping a pat. Slapping a pat. That’s what he said. He taught me the slapping a maim method. For years I was doing it. He said, no, I meant kick and hug. I’m like, oh, I meant slapping and maiming people. That’s why it always gets weird. You know, I kill his occasional. He pushes the ball off to the right. You’ll never, you’ll give up the game. Well, Z, I think it’s now time to end the show with a boom. Are you psychologically ready? You know what? I’m a little spent. I feel a little spent. Are you ready? I feel Claire came in hot. I am prepared. Okay, now without any further ado, 3, 2, 1, boom! 3, 2, 1, boom! Boom! Broadcasting live from the center of the universe, presenting the world’s only business school without the BS, with optometrist and entrepreneur Dr. Robert Stelner and USSBA Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark. Get ready to enter the Thrive Time Show on your podcast download. Now see, the podcast edition gives us the ability to go maybe more intensely, maybe more in depth. We can be more pragmatic because we don’t have to adhere to the rules of a radio show. You know what it’s like? Sorry to cut you off. What’s it like? It’s kind of like, I’m going to get crazy, going commando. That’s what podcasts are like. Are you going commando? No, I’m not, but yeah, this is like a going commando version of a radio show. I appreciate that analogy and I rebuke the visuals that came to my mind. And so Z, the question that we get asked from a lot of entrepreneurs as it relates to human resources, HR 101, is how do you find good people? And then they kind of get into that mindset of like, there’s not enough good people out there, so I’m not going to recruit right now. I’m not going to expand because there’s not enough good people. And I would just tell every entrepreneur listening, nothing works unless your people do. Nothing works at all unless your people do. So here are the steps for finding the good people. I want to get Z’s take on this, because these are like the man cave sessions. If you were sitting with Dr. Z in the man cave, which very few people get the pleasure of doing, the privilege of doing, this is the real and raw stuff he would say. So here we go. Never stop posting for available jobs on Craigslist, Indeed, recruiting at restaurants. You just never stop recruiting. Never! But Z, most people stop recruiting once they feel like they have a good team, and then somebody quits, and now they’re screwed again. It’s a cycle of up and down, up and down. We’re so successful, we’re going to be great, we have a great team. Oh, they’re moving. Oh, she got pregnant. Oh, she quit. Now, everything’s falling apart, I have to do everything myself. Z, help us stop the jackassery of always being overstaffed, understaffed. Back in the day, and what I tell, and what I train now my people that do the hiring, you know, I only hire at certain levels now, but back when I was doing all the hiring, I, every time I talked to someone, I interviewed them for a job. That was my mindset. Every time I talked to someone. Anybody. Anybody. Yes. Doing anything. Parking my car. Serving me a hamburger. Anybody. Because you know that ultimately you can hire character and train skill. You know this as an optometrist. You can train. Patients. Every eye exam I turned into an interview. Every one. Every one. I was sizing them up. Every single one. I hired a couple of great early on. I got some of my best employees because they’d come in and they were patients of mine But there’s people who will say it’s time to stop Advertising because we’re already fully staffed already have a full staff. Why should I advertise? Why should I interview? Why should I do interviews this week when in fact I you know already have the people I need Why should I even go through the process of doing interviews and posting for jobs and already have all the people I need Z Because those people are going to, on their time schedule, leave you when it’s best for them. And you don’t have any idea when that’s going to be. Now Ryan here with Tip Top K9 is building a great organization. Just in the past week they opened up a location in Owasso and in Boise, Idaho and in Twin Falls. So you went from one location to four. Can you, for anybody listening to this podcast, can you explain what will happen if you don’t do a job post, or if you don’t do job posts every week and interview every week? What will eventually happen? Because you’ve been a business owner for over a decade. Right. What will happen? Well, your guy and then your backup guy will both no-call, no-show, and not show up, and you will not have anyone. Has that happened to you before? It does. It did happen. And then we had a group interview, and so I had actually three people waiting. So my first two did no call, no show. We fired them on the spot, and then I had a third guy. Can you explain to me the worst moment in your HR career where you had people that you thought you could count on, and they just started leveraging with you, saying, if I start using their leverage, realize that you don’t have a backup plan going. Well, I need to be paid more, or I may quit, or they just didn’t show up. Or what’s the worst HR nightmare that you’ve ever experienced as a result of not recruiting every week previous to knowing this information? Well, before I did that, we had a guy and he didn’t want to follow all the systems. And he was one of our top guys. And at the time, I did not have a replacement. See shock. Yeah. Shock con. OK. So that sucks. Right. So then what am I supposed to do? Be like, OK, I’m going to do all my job and do that to do his job completely. He didn’t want to follow the systems right and have a backup plan right. Chuck where do people get stuck here man you see it every day as a business coach I want to help heal somebody. There’s somebody out there right now I could I can just feel it there’s somebody listening to this show right now. There’s somebody out there listening to this. You know but my industry it’s different. I don’t need to recruit every week. It’s harder in my industry. I have a higher optometrist. He couldn’t possibly understand the profundity of my job. The key thing of what you just said is the two words, every week. Every week. You have to keep that interview going every week. If there’s a unicorn employee out there, somebody who’s an A player, you better be hiring that week that their boss fires them for whatever, has to lay them off, or that they’re fed up with that person and they quit. If they decide to do that on the three weeks out of the month that you’re not interviewing people, you’re going to miss out on that person. So you have to do it every single week. Now, Joel David, a good friend of mine, he’s a jeweler in town. Every once in a while, he has somebody and he doesn’t need another hire right now. Or I have somebody that is a good fit, but I don’t need a hire right now. And guess what I do? I refer a good person to my friend because I know that my good friends are also looking to hire people of character and trained skill. Now, see, the power of doing a group interview at the same time every week is if you do meet somebody at a restaurant, you can always say, hey, Wednesday at 5, we’re interviewing. Oh, absolutely. And I always like stealing employees. Oh. I do. The pirate. I like sniping them. You know, do you ever go snipe hunting? Snipe hunting? Yeah. I need to take you snipe hunting. You go deep in the woods. Is that a North Korean move? It’s an elusive bird called snipe. They taste delicious. They taste like swine. And you have beaters and then you have catchers. You drive the snipe into the nets. But I like the word sniping. You drive the snipe into the nets? Into the catchers. So you’d go out there and you’d set up and then I would drive the snipe towards you. I want to read the definition of a snipe here. Okay. It’s a wading bird of marshes and wet meadows with brown camouflaged plumage, a long straight bill, and typically a drumming display flight. Okay. Well, there you go. So I guess when I fly, I have a drumming display. Or the word snipe means to shoot at someone from a hiding place, especially accurately and at long range. That’s the way you’re describing it. Exactly. Well, and then we do that to our competitors too, right? We snipe them. Sometimes you can find great people that are unemployed, but I have found over the years, I find more great people that are actually employed. Check it out. This is what Reid Hoffman talks about this. Reid Hoffman talks about this. There’s a Tim Ferriss podcast recently where he talked with Mr. Metcalfe, famous from Metcalfe’s law for creating the Ethernet, not the Internet, but the Ethernet. And he talks about hiring today. It’s not hiring, it’s recruiting. Hiring is where somebody is just coming to you going, I just need a job, please, for the love of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you’re going to grow a big company, you’ve got to recruit, baby. Yes. You’ve got to recruit top talent. One of my moves that I did is I was open seven days a week, and that’s hard to find people that won’t work on weekends. So I would go where people are working on weekends. I’d go to the mall, they have later hours, and they work seven days a week there. Of course, their schedules go back and forth. They don’t work seven days in the week, but somebody has to work the Saturdays and Sundays. So I would go to the mall and just go store to store and just see what happens. Are you serious? You used to do this? Absolutely. Store to store. I’d go sometimes early in the day, because a lot of times you catch the full timers. They’re the nine to fivers, and then the kids come in in the afternoons and come, you know, work for him, like 1-to-9 or something like that, you know. So I would go in. I would just walk in the store and see what happens. And if they were sharp and they were on their game and they approached me and they greeted me well and they were, you know, I felt like I’d watch them a little bit. You’re used to working on nights and the weekends. Bingo. And so then I could- Bingo. Bingo. Oh. So I would evaluate them on my 5 As quickly, you know, as much as I could. I hired several great people out of the mall. Now what are you looking for when you hire great people? That’s the next question I get asked. What are you looking for? Well Jack Welch wrote the book called Winning, which is the number one management book in the history of the planet. And he identifies the four E’s. Don’t overcomplicate this Holmes. There’s just four E’s or you have Dr. Z’s five A’s. Either way I’m going to give them to you. Here are the E’s from Mr. Jack Welch. And then we’ll go with Dr. Z’s A’s, okay? So here are the E’s from Jack Welch. One, you look at people with good energy. If somebody’s not energetic and they yawn all the time, he is not curious about what makes them yawn, nor is he going to sit around and motivate them to stop yawning. If you’re that kind of an a-hole that you yawn during an interview, you’re not going to get a job. When I say a-hole, I mean an amazing whole person who doesn’t deserve a job for Mr. Jack. Of course that’s what you mean. Two, edge. Will this person make the tough call when they have all the facts? People who say, well I don’t want to throw somebody under the bus, but I think someone is stealing. If they even have that mindset, if you work for a company, the company is the boss, and if you are working for the company, you are on the boss, and the wheels of the bus go round and round, even though idiots get in the way. Third, execute. You’ve got to get your job done. You can have a great attitude. You can be on fire. But if you can’t code and your job is to code, then you’re going to make the code explode. If your job is to sell and you can’t sell, then you… So you’ve got to find people that can get the job done. And the final is energized. This is a rare bird, but somebody who cares about pumping up the people around them. This is the Ray Lewis office linebacker. This is the Tim Tebow effect. This is Joe Montana. This is people who can motivate the people around them and make them better. That’s tough. That’s rare. Hard to find the four Es. Sometimes you settle for three. Sometimes you settle for two. But in a perfect world, I realize we don’t live in a perfect world, you want to get the four Es. But Dr. Z thought about this. He’s a small business owner, been a small business owner for years, and he thought about his As and he wrote them down. He documented them. These are the five As from Dr. Z. Dr. Z, hit it! Well, the first one’s appearance. I mean, that’s self-evident. Are they well-dressed? Do they look like they’ve slept in their clothes for three days? You’d be surprised how many people go to an interview or you see them at work and you go, Oh my God. And you’re not going to try to fix somebody who dresses like that. You’re just done. Yeah, I’m just, I’m out, you know. Attitude. How is their attitude? I mean, do they have a great attitude? Are they a negative person? Are they a positive person? I want to surround myself and have my employees be positive people. I don’t want the glass to be half full. Somebody’s listening going, though, but I want to find somebody and fix them. Well then, God bless you. God bless you. Have fun. God will probably bless you because you will not get any blessings on Earth. Because a fine career is a life coaching. Hopefully you get those in Heaven. But there’s on Earth. You can take them to church, but don’t hire them, right? Yes. Get them out of your office. Another one is attendance. Are they showing up? It’s hard to do your job if you’re not there. I can’t be here today because my car won’t start. You’d be surprised. Clay you’d be surprised and Chuck, you guys would be surprised at how many people want money but they don’t want to have to show up and work. It’s amazing. Well I want to come to work but the problem is I have to get my cell phone reset up there. The fourth A is accuracy. Can they do their job? Are they accurate? I mean, when we have a lot of our problems go back to sloppiness and inaccuracy of text. And so if you’re not accurate, it can cause a domino effect of problems that just, I don’t want to do it. I forgot to write down, have you heard about it? I forgot to write down, I forgot to write down what they said. Well, that was a plus and I put a minus. I forgot to put in the right credit card number. And then the fifth thing is above and beyond. And this is really what separates your B. With your B, players are probably about your 80% of your employees. You know that A percentile, kind of bell curve in the middle right there? This is what separates and lets them be an A player. When they go above and beyond, when they’re doing more than what you’re paying them to do, that’s a mindset that just separates them. And if you can’t get at least two or three out of these five out of me, then that puts them as a C category, and we try to replace them as quick as possible. And if you’re never done recruiting, you can be selective. This is how this works. Now, the next move is, once you find someone that you like, this is my move, I like to have them shadow me for an hour or two. I’m not legalistic. I want you to shadow me just for an hour, maybe two, or somebody I respect because I want to see if you are the real deal. So many people say, oh man, I’m awesome at sales. I say, here’s the deal. Great, come on in tomorrow. Let’s do some sales, baby. Hey, I’m great at coding. Cool, let’s have you sit down and do some coding. Let’s code at Amabay. I’m awesome at cutting hair. Cool, let’s do a demo haircut. Cut my mop. Let’s do this thing. Somebody says, oh, but I don’t typically cut under pressure. I typically don’t do sale. I mean, right now? I mean, I typically code better when I’m alone. I typically dunk the basketball better when people aren’t watching. It’s just my style. So this is what happens. If you can’t embrace these rules, Sam Walton says this, there’s only one boss, the customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else. So I know Ryan at Tip Top is fastidious about his quality. But have you ever had a customer say back in the day, 10 years ago, 8 years ago, that they weren’t happy with the quality and they went to somebody else. Has this ever happened? I know for me it’s happened in my life. Has it ever happened for you? Yeah. And when it happens, do they go, well, is the person who failed to deliver a good person? Because if they are a good person and they’re going through something in their personal life, that’s cool. Or do they just move on? They tend to just move on. Yes, because the customer does not care about your virtuous worldview to keep people around and to coach them and to matriculate them into becoming perfect people they say hey You know what that person is going through something. I care not I just wanted your Starbucks to be open on time, so I’ll go on down the road to another coffee place That’s how that works So what happens is Jack Welch says one thing you could do to let the whole team know What’s acceptable or not is you can fire somebody publicly which is one of my favorite things to do So what you’ll do is Jack Welch calls it the public hanging. He says public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab about the culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name them for you. It’s just cultural. People just don’t want to do it. Jack Welch. I’ll give you an example. I had a door back in the day at the Thrive offices at the Riverwalk. I said, here’s the deal guys, I don’t want you going out that door because if you go out that door, what’s going to happen is you’re going to leave it unlocked and something’s going to get broken into. We’ve had this discussion. Don’t do it again. The next person that does, I want to be clear, if you do it again, one, that’s not even a main entrance or exit. That’s you being squirrely. If you go out the door again, I’m going to fire you. We had a key team member decided just to do it, just to see what would happen. I watched them do it on purpose. And so I just said a group meeting everybody was there. I said, Hey everybody, this person, we’ve known him for a couple years. They’re fired. Bye bye. And everyone’s like, they’ve been here for two years. And they’re fired. And the fire. And then what happens is all of a sudden people quit going out that door. And I could do that, because we’re never done interviewing. But if I hadn’t done that, one day I would come to work, the door would be unlocked and I would be robbed. I have been robbed in the past in businesses where people have broken in and stole our things. And Z, not locking the door is a big deal? Not locking the door is a very big deal. I just had one of my business just this week try to get broke into. Really? Yeah, but they weren’t successful. Did your moat get them or the lava? No, the alligators. The gators. Did you get them on camera? Yeah, no, they got impaled on the spikes outside the store. They got hot-tard. Hot-tard. One of our clients got broken into this week, and it was like during the middle of the day, and they asked one of the salespeople to see the ring. So she showed the guy the ring, and he just grabbed it out of her hand and took off. Crystal clear camera, midday, busted. Busted. Awesome. What do people think? I mean, the cameras are everywhere. I mean, it’s kind of like, really? So the moral of the story is, how do you find good people? Never stop recruiting ever. Never, ever. See, never, never, ever, ever. When? Never. Oh, ever. Then once you have really good people, if you find a person, you keep a letter grade next to the name of each and every team member. Markham is a B or C. The A’s are your top 10 percent. The B’s are the middle and the C’s are the bottom 10. Well, what if they know that I’m ranking them? What if my own employees know that I do this show and they listen to it because they do? Then they would need to know right now, Mr. Employee Listing, Mrs. Employee Listing, are you an A, a B, or a C? Because if I find an A, I’m going to first go, you know what, I have an A and I’ve got a C. It’s an easy call. Easy call. Sometimes it’s a less easy call, but I’ll do it too. I have a B. I say, this is a good B. I’ve talked to them numerous times about what they could do to become an A. They’ve chosen not to become an A, so I’ve decided to fire them today. Bingo. And you know what? I went through seasons where we would have the busy times and the slow times. We’d get to the slow times, I would ask my managers, call them in and say, hey, who’s your worst employee? Who is it? And they would, they’ve learned, they better have an answer, and they do now. And that’s how you fire them like what really yes impruning I know it sounds mean but you know what it’s the man cave session it’s the man cave session and the man cave sessions we just say how it is and raw more like a mean cave session chop you know what on the next man cave session we’re gonna be talking about time management 101 and freeing up your time to work on stuff that actually matters we like to end the show with a three and a two and a one and a boom. So Zing are you ready? Oh absolutely. Chep are you ready? I’m ready. Ryan are you emotionally ready? Okay without any further ado, three, two, one, boom! JT do you know what time it is? Um, 410. It’s it’s Tebow time in Tulsa, Roseland baby! Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma during the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive Business Growth Workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old and a lot of people you know have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now the big question is JT, how does he do it? Hmm well they’re gonna have to come and find out, because I don’t know. I’m just saying, Tim Tebow is going to teach us how he organizes his day, how he organizes his life, how he’s proactive with his faith, his family, his finances. He’s going to walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym, into business. It is going to be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia. Folks, I’m telling you, if you want to learn branding, you want to learn marketing, you want to learn search engine optimization, you want to learn social media marketing, that’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. The top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events, is you can pay $250 for a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. Yes, we’ve designed these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th thrive time show business workshop everything that you need to succeed Will be taught at the two-day interactive thrive time show business workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes And then we open it up for a question and answer session. So that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15 minute question and answer session. It’s interactive, it’s two days, it’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005 and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who have been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at Thrivetimeshow.com, you’re going to see thousands of people just like you who have been able to go from just surviving to thriving. Each and every day we’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know what I do. How does it work? You just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to Thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the Business Conferences button, and you click on the Request Tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. You started out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that. Did not get an inheritance from parents or anything like that. I had to work for it. And I am super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton. I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. I suppose it’s Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show in Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re gonna come. I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com and again you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford and we do have some select VIP tickets which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things and those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop over 20 hours a business training. We’re gonna give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s Tebow time right here in Tulsa, Russelam. Get those tickets today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s Thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years, 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful, sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine, I’ll see you in Tulsa. Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops are the world’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshops because we teach you what you need to know to grow. You can learn the proven 13-point business system that Dr. Zellner and I have used over and over to start and grow successful companies. 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 gonna be the best business workshop ever, and we’re gonna give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you, and we’re excited to see you. And now you may be thinking, what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets. And if you can’t afford two hundred fifty dollars we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you i learned at the academy at king’s point in new york octagon verb watch what a person does not what they say good morning good morning good morning harvard kiosk at the rich dad radio show today i’m broadcasting from phoenix arizona not scottsdale arizona the close but the 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. And so 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. What’s the- Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. 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. I just want to take a moment to tell you thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you thank you sir for changing my life. 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. So 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, changing my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, Kings Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.